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Taking It to the Streets Taking It to the Streets Public Theologies of Activism and Resistance Edited by Jennifer Baldwin LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-4985-9010-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-9012-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-9011-2 (electronic) TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Contents Preface: Vulnerability, Righteous Anger, and Protest: Forming Public Theologies of Activism and Resistance vii Jennifer Baldwin I: Forming Action 1 1 Feel Awful? How to Identify Trump’s Politics of Abuse and Subvert It 3 Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite 2 A Womanist Perspective on the Election of Donald Trump: What Pastors Are Called to Do 15 Linda E. Thomas 3 Warriors of Compassion: Coordinates on the Compass of Compassion-Based Activism 25 Frank Rogers 4 Disrupting the Public Square: Prophetic Pastoral Care and Witness in Times of Trauma 43 Michelle A. Walsh 5 Protest and Resistance as the Liturgy of the People 59 Jennifer Baldwin II: Cultural Resourcing for Activism 73 6 “Because I’m Your Mother, That’s Why”: Scientific Authority and the March for Science 75 Lisa Stenmark v vi Contents 7 Black Theology and Hip-Hop Theology: Theologies of Activism and Resistance 87 Willie Hudson 8 “Saint Hillary,” On Unserious Activism 101 Tony Hoshaw 9 Love Trumps Hate: Images of Political Love from Pussyhat Makers 115 Donna Bowman 10 Achieving Reproductive Justice: Theology and Activism 129 Thia Cooper III: Militarism and Resistance to State Violence 147 11 Why Resistance Fails? 149 Olli-Pekka Vainio 12 Homeland Theology?: Decolonizing Christianity and the Task of Public Theology 163 Hille Haker 13 Political Theology in the Trump Era: Sacrificial Frameworks in the US “Neoliberal Disimagination Machine” 179 Kelly Denton-Borhaug 14 A Spirituality of Activism: The Chicago Air and Water Show 197 Robert Bossie Index 207 About the Contributors 209 Preface Vulnerability, Righteous Anger, and Protest: Forming Public Theologies of Activism and Resistance Jennifer Baldwin MEETING VULNERABILITY If I were asked to encapsulate my understanding of the intentions and values of Jesus of Nazareth, I would point to the teaching in Matthew 25:31–46. In these verses, Jesus identifies those who have fulfilled the vision of God and those who have impeded the health of God’s community. Those who are invited to rejoice with God are the ones who provided food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to the stranger, clothing to those in need, health care to sick, and companionship to those imprisoned. When the people asked when they had provided these forms of care to the King, he replied “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”1 Likewise, to those who neglected the hungry and thirsty ones, the stranger, the ones in need of material support, the ill or imprisoned, the King rebukes and casts away. At the very heart of Jesus’s narrative stands, in concrete terms, the com- mandment to love your neighbor as yourself. While these visions of need and either provision or neglect are essentially timeless, they do strike particular resonance in our current political climate as legislation is passed to reduce funding of services like Meals on Wheels, pipeline construction threatens the water supplies of Indigenous communities and Flint continues to go years with toxic water, asylum seekers are arrested and their children foundational- ly traumatized by family separation, minimum wage stagnation makes it nearly impossible to meet basic material needs even while working full time, vii viii Preface accessibility to functional and affordable health care is stripped away, and the prison industrial complex in the United States houses a greater percent- age of the national population than any other country while also requiring persons to potentially risk their lives (in the case of prisoners fighting wild- fires in California) for $1 a day. If our “Christian” nation were to face the King in Jesus’s tale, there is no doubt that we would fail the task of caring for the least of these! As we reflect and subsequently act on our response-ability as people who claim to take the words, actions, and intentions of Jesus seriously, we ulti- mately must contend with how we offer care toward the most vulnerable people and populations in our midst. Unfortunately, the notion of vulnerabil- ity as an invocation for care and source of empathy is nearly antithetical to many of our formative national narratives including the “self-made man,” “tough and independent cowboy conquering the wild west,” the near frenzy of the USA as #1, or the assumption that the leader of the United States will remain the “leader of the free world” by default. When national pride is centered on wealth, military power, and/or domination of others across con- texts, the vulnerable ones must be cast aside or annihilated in order to pre- serve the appearance being the best. Unfortunately in an effort to preserve national pride, we forfeit many of the foundational components of a healthy and prosperous society. Prosperity cannot be limited to the wealth of those who make the rules or are most visible in our media-driven society; true prosperity includes a sustainable, healthful life in which all of the basic needs of life are adequately met and many of the joys of life are accessible—this is the true measure of life, liberty, and pursuit of fulfillment/happiness. This is the vision Jesus offers in Matthew 25. EMBRACING JUST ANGER The ways in which we, as individuals and as a society, offer or neglect care to persons in their particular form of vulnerability reflect our core commit- ments, character, and innate sense of justice. Justice is primarily the desire for opportunity equality, liberation, and right relationship. When we notice the victimization of the vulnerable or unjust uses of power and influence toward our self or others, we, rightly, experience the sensations and affect of anger. Anger is a primary emotion and like all emotions has an essential survival function. Sadness facilitates the formation of empathy and drawing in social support. Disgust keeps us at a safe distance from objects that can spread disease. Fear helps us stay appropriately alert to danger. Interest draws us toward novelty to increase our resources for life. Surprise readies our attention and body for response. Joy generates connections, play, and exploration. While all emotions have a survival benefit (especially when in Preface ix balance and fluid adaptability with other emotions according to the present situation), historically and popularly the emotion of anger consistently gets a bad rap. We are often told that anger is destructive, necessarily unproductive, and frequently dangerous and this is accurate when the seeds of anger are suppressed, dismissed, or exiled and grow into the explosion of violence and rage. Anger is to be exiled and avoided at all costs in a civil society. Anger, like other emotions, can be problematic when overly denied (apathy) or overly expressed (violence, rage, etc.); however, it does not have to be ex- pressed through violence, rage, or destruction. In its purest manifestation, anger is the acknowledgment of injustice and the motivation toward correc- tive action. Anger is that small voice inside that says “this isn’t right, this isn’t ok” and provides us with the motivation and energy to make changes. Anger as a balanced and attended to motivation for change toward greater justice in our lives, society, relationships, and the world is a good and pro- ductive thing. It fuels us to gather together in one voice and proclaim “Enough!” Anger that finds expression in corporate movements for change can be highly productive—even transformative. Anger focused on justice and nonviolent behavioral strategies is our primary resource for opposing systems that fuel injustice, oppression, and the perpetuation of intergenera- tional and communal trauma. It is the resource of collective power for those in society who are often excluded from institutionalized structures of social influence and agency. Birthed from suffering, protective anger for justice can be life-affirming, life-granting, and aimed toward the hope of a healthy and resilient society. COMPASSION, MOBILIZATION, AND RESISTANCE Anger is an affective indicator of injustice Where there is a visceral aware- ness of injustice, there is suffering, sorrow, and/or pain. Awareness of and compassion toward vulnerability and suffering are the twin roots of just anger and right resistance. Compassion is what keeps anger focused toward justice reclamation and away from dissolution into traumatic rage. Addition- ally, compassion motivates action by those with less social vulnerability “on behalf of” those who are more socially vulnerable. The mobilization of resis- tance movements in the immediate aftermath of the “travel ban” in January 2017 and the explosion of actions in response to family separation in the summer of 2018 are two clear instances of the combination of vulnerability, agency, compassion, just anger, and mobilization by persons with skills well suited to meet the need caused by injustice.

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