Renee Good and Minnesota ICE with Eric Elkin | Episode 264

Church, and Maine, a podcast for people interested in the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. You're actually getting this episode a bit late. Normally, new episodes go up on Fridays. This is going up, you should be hearing it, on Saturday. The reason being is that I had a podcast already, well, not already, but was getting it ready. And then the death of Renee Goode by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent happened on Wednesday here in Minneapolis. And so I felt like there needed to be an episode to talk about that. And so that's why this is coming late. And I wanted to have someone that I could kind of discuss issues and talk about this, and so I really could think of no one other than Eric Elkin. Eric Elkin is an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor, and he serves as lead pastor at Advent United Methodist Church in Eagan, Minnesota, which is a suburb just south of Minneapolis. And so normally we actually meet maybe once a month to kind of talk about things and talk about basically what you hear on this podcast, faith, politics, and culture. And so I thought it would be a good thing to talk to him in an episode. And so you will hear that. And then right after that, I will be sharing my own two cents on what has been going on. So without further ado, let's go into that conversation that I had on Friday with Eric Elkin. So we kind of were talking beforehand, but yeah, thank you for joining me. I think what we want to do is kind of keep going where we were just talking about is part of the reason I wanted to do this is because I need to talk about this and seeing what I've been seeing. And you've actually, we're actually at the kind of scene of where all this happened. There was a big clergy gathering on Thursday. We're recording this on Friday. To kind of get some of your overall viewpoints. And I think maybe the good point to start is you were just talking a little bit about one of the things that you were noticing from one of the videos on Portland and what you were seeing. Could you kind of highlight that again? So, you know, when the shooting happened, someone in the congregation had sent me a video, and it was, like, immediate. You know, it was somebody, a student of theirs had sent me this, and it was really hard to tell who shot and where it shot. And really, from that angle, in that immediate video. You know, the woman drove off, and you couldn't tell who was sitting where and standing where. And so then, and yeah, the biggest one in that first video is you could not see the shooting. You heard the shots. You heard a drive over. So then I tend to trust Reuters. Um i think it's a a middle ground or at least a fact-based um um news source and so then uh when i was at and i saw a bunch of different videos but then i saw one on reuters where um it was at the the south end of the street so the if you think about the video that you watch she she drives when she drives away she drives down the south end of the street okay and and so this video was taken um you know before it was like you could see what you didn't realize in the shorter video is that um they were going to do a sting operation on that street i assume from the video because there was not just one vehicle or two vehicles it was like several vehicles coming down there and these suvs big suvs come and they kind of block off the road on the south end and so then And you can see her kind of turn her vehicle away. And, um, and, and, and this is my reading into the situation. Um, and, and I have been in situations like I've been walking down, uh, fifth Avenue in, in New York city and find myself in the middle of a sting operation. You always think how you're going to respond in that is so easy. And it's not, you know, like we were walking down, it's a sunny afternoon you're thinking no big deal and all of a sudden there are eight people around you that whip out guns and are pointing those guns all over everywhere and and you don't know what to do i mean you do not know how when something like that comes and that's that's happened several times so i can when i read this there's just no way you can sit there and think of anybody um being purposeful in that situation um and so then when you look at that video, um you see pretty clearly i mean it was it was almost i mean i don't know how the vehicle could have run over that that ice agent there's no i mean you'd have to have you know that crab steering that would just go sideways. And even then, just take all that bias out of there. He pointed a gun that could not have been more than three to four feet from her head and shot three times. And I look at that and I don't care what your political position is. I don't care what candidate you like in this country in this country. For most of our history, if you shot an unarmed woman at point-blank range there, that was an act of cowardice. You know, and I mean, that was the thing. Like, go back to the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. You know, the initial reports is General Westmoreland did the same thing that Trump did. Oh, this was an act of heroism. But then you go back and read what he wrote in his journal when he learned of how. He said that was just this act of absolute cowardice. I mean, to do that, it just stuns me that we can't see that. And we're sitting here trying to praise somebody as a hero and a defender that shot up unearned woman at three feet, four feet, point blank. Like, not just once, three times, you know? And so, and even if she was thinking ahead of time, and this was an act of aggression that she was trying to, you know, you still saw somebody at three feet, didn't it? And the rules that those guys are supposed to follow is you're not supposed to shoot a car, shoot it in a moving car, and they're not supposed to shoot at a car to prevent it from moving. Not even from a tire, not a tire and not anything in that situation. So when we were talking about it before... Um, you know, when we were leaning about that, you know, one of the other things that's just so hard about it is so many of these guys are just being, the ICE agents are being rushed through their training. And, um, and not only being rushed through their training, um, what is the, the, where they're based out of is over by Fort Snelling, right? Well, there's people that are just following them, you know, and yelling at them the whole time from the time they leave the building, which, you know, you sit there and you go, that is not, that just adds volatility and everything to that situation. So there's like, you know, and so many, and everybody's had their right and, and, and, and they're not wrong. Yeah, but everybody's wrong. I think one of the things that has really, well, I mean, a lot about this has bothered me is the administration didn't immediately say, well, we need to do an investigation. We will work with local authorities. We're going to try to find what's going on. It really just went to what was the official narrative. She was a bad person. She was trying to run down this agent of the law, and that's the end of the story. And, you know, to add insult to injury, our Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is for folks outside of Minnesota, the kind of RFBI is being blocked from joining the investigation. And to me, that just means it's not going to be an investigation. It's going to be a whitewash. is going to be a way of painting themselves in the best light and painting her in the most darkest light. There's no accountability. It's just accountability, you know. They are the law this is the part that this is where um um some so the people that support the president think that this you know is this is a a left conspiracy to blame him for things but he's he has demonstrated this his whole entire life i mean this is the kind of he's a reactionary he's a loud mouth he shoots off his mouth without thinking and and he just creates chaos whenever what and every single thing he does it and that was we were in we were living in new york city, um when um the the central park five happened you know and he took out the full page ad and and and wanting the death penalty for these five kids and and it and it came out that the five kids had absolutely nothing to do with it, that they got framed by the police officers. And when they came back to him and said, I mean, these kids are innocent and you wanted the death penalty. Do you take that words back at all? Oh, no. They had to be doing something wrong because they were there in the park at night. And you're just like, and this has just been his entire, entire life. And my context with talking about President Trump is going to the conflict of interest. I mean, he's the elected president. We have to, we elected him. And you can't choose to not follow the president that's elected. That doesn't mean you don't hold him accountable. But the thing is, is my I've been telling people lately is, you know, everybody thought Bernie Madoff, you know, was a master investor until they were bankrupt. And with Trump, you are putting a lot of trust in someone who has been found to be fraudulent his entire life, long, long before he ever became president, long before he even thought about becoming president. And in the first election, I always sit there and I think about when Mondale, the only state that he won was Minnesota, where he was from. You know and uh the funniest thing when trump got elected in 2016 the only place that he didn't win, was where he was from like queens like queens 80 percent of people did not vote for trump in his own neighborhood that he grew up in and and 75 percent of the people in new york didn't vote for him you know and uh and just like there was a reason i mean he was the king in new york and he He took everybody to the cleaners. There's two things that you can count on with Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, and you get mad at me about it or not. He is going to take your money, and he's going to lose what money he takes. Just been his whole life, whole life, you know. But I think the thing being at the site—, um now i'm trying to remember where we were i was just like watching that video you like i said you can tell that they they just swept in there and that's that when they're going to do a stinging operation that's what it happens that's not anything sinister when you're doing that you know you you can think about the way you do things i mean there is a way to uh arrest people and that, is good and there's a way that causes a reaction you know the good thing that was at the site or should um, The good thing, well, the one thing is that just. It was really hard to realize that this, that place where she got shot is where the kids get on the bus to go to school. That's, I mean, and it's, it is sitting there thinking for all the adults in the room, the actions that you're taking, you're not thinking about the impact on the children. You know, you're not even, you know, you are not encouraging someone to trust police officers. You're placing all kinds of undue anxiety and fear in kids and children. And children and it just and we have a number of kids in our congregation that are just going through this trauma right now and um and it and it doesn't have to be and and and, have people have shown me things where um ice is uh well they did it at roosevelt high school didn't they they yeah i was going to talk about a little bit about that more because this is not what's happening is not just a one-off this is a whole operation that's happening throughout the twin cities this this is um the thing is is like in the in the national media they're like well they're going out there and they're arresting people and you are getting in the way and it's like um we have somebody that teaches kindergarten in the south minneapolis area and she's talked about that while she's teaching her class, ice trucks are going by driving over the grass and driving within 10 feet of the building by the windows where all the kids are in it. And doing this on a regular basis. And it's just, why? Why? If you've wanted to arrest somebody, you've got addresses, you know where to find people, you know this is not that hard. Why do you need to circle? Yesterday, my niece, she runs or works in a preschool, and they were in lockdown because ICE was going to storm into the preschool and take the kids' teachers out of the preschool. Like, you do not have to be Columbo to figure out where these people live. I mean, you just don't. Why do you have to do this in front of children? You know, the other day, a man in my congregation who is a Vietnam veteran pilot who worked for the government, who is a lifetime military. He was a fighter pilot. He worked with Tom Cruise on teaching him how to fly the plane for Top Gun, and top-level guy. He came in to church, and he was just distraught. His neighbor, they're two Russian immigrants that have been there for 10 to 15 years in their neighborhood. Both the mother and the father of this house, they work in a group home with, I'm assuming, mentally handicapped adults. And on that really, really cold morning, the dad goes out to start up the car and warm it up. And Ice comes and grabs him and throws him off to a prison somewhere. And the wife didn't even know he was gone. They came in and just took them, and they have a lawyer, and they are here in this country because of asylum. And this is where I have the problem is, how many conversations and dealings have there been to establish asylum for people? And it's been a debated thing between both parties and presidents and leadership. But Trump just signs a paper and says, no more asylum. and so like if you're here in this country and you've been here for 10 years it's it's a that's a maddening thing about this whole thing is it's just there's random and this is not just this is not just trump it has been in every administration what is considered legal keeps on getting changed, so how do you have how do people how do people stay here legally if you were always changing what that means you know and um and and i'll but here that that family was with children is just. Traumatized and it's like you don't even know where your your husband is and you're like this is not what we do in the united states isn't i mean and this is not um yeah yeah so that was a And the nice thing about being at the site yesterday is it was faith at its best. You know, there was some things that... Very few things that I wouldn't agree with, but there were some just very good comments and thoughtful comments coming out from rabbis, from the imam. Imam had some wonderful things to say. Catholic priests got up there. And that's one of the hard things for me is growing up in a Catholic-dominated area that the Catholic Church was always for the workers, for the lower class, for the poor. You know, and I mean, this is not, when we were living in Brooklyn was when there was another surge in immigration. And the Catholic Church in New York, you can go back and watch Law and Order episodes, that this is the early Law and Order episodes where the Catholic Church is a sanctuary and they have people from, you know, Central America living in the church because the police couldn't come into the church and get them. You know, so it's like, but to see the Catholic Church, you know, somebody's, you know, this is what Jesus wants and everybody, you know, you're like, that was not the, so to hear the Catholic priest just talk about, you know, framed up about we were a congregation that was started by Irish and German immigrants. And now my parish is made up of Central American and Latino immigrants. And it was across, it was evangelical, it was Baptist, it was Lutheran, it was Methodist, it was just across within Christianity. Everybody was coming together to just say, no, we don't do this. In our common faith tradition, you know, and I would sit there and say from those representatives of children of Abraham that, you know, we don't behave this way. We don't do this. One of the things that I've been dealing with this past week and hearing some of this and sensing. Last weekend, Daniel and I went to a chicken chain, Pollo Campero. They have one in West St. Paul. On Robert Street. Yeah. And we used to go to that one. They finally opened a second location near our house in Brooklyn Center. And when we've gone there in the past, it would be filled with families all eating, and usually large families, because it would bring out this, you know, big chunks of, you know, plates of chicken and everything. And we went in there on a Saturday, and there was no one there. And actually, we went there, we tried to go there yesterday, and their dining room was closed. It's just takeout only. Because they're feared. No one's coming because they're fearful, and the workers now are fearful. And I think what has made me, and then you hear all these stories about the, there are several school districts throughout the Twin Cities that are closed right now. And I think the thing that has been challenging for me this week is that I've long believed that our country is a good nation. Not perfect, not great, but good. Thank you. I'm having trouble believing that this week. I mean, I really do. And I don't know anymore if we're a good nation. I even sometimes wonder, are we still a democracy? And a few months ago, I would have never said that. I worry about a leadership that I think is rather racist. And again, a few months ago, I would not have said that. There is just something, and I will use this word, I don't use it lightly, evil about this administration. I do not think that it is from God, I think it is something that is evil, it's working in the power of the evil one. And that's something that I've just been dealing with this week and in that there, in my discussions with my husband, just kind of an anger and, dare I say, a rage. And here again, you know, the problem with the left is the left is always my entire life. Every Republican president has been compared to Hitler. Yeah, I know. And they just become white noise. And it's just like, and I got somebody mad at me when George W., and they compared him, and I'm like, George W. Bush has not slaughtered 7 million Jews, okay? Don't call him that just because you don't like his policies, you know? And they got really mad at me. But in this situation, my wife's family comes from a Mennonite background, and Catherine the Great is kind of the patron saint of the Mennonites because she brought them into Ukraine out of being persecuted in Germany and Holland and was there to teach Russians how to farm. And they just had so much prosperity under her. And then when the regime change came, it was Alexander III that kind of started to persecute him again, so they fled to the United States. So we got really into Russian history, and we got down this rabbit hole. We read a couple books on Catherine the Great, and then that spinned off to looking at Stalinism. And from where I was looking at this, it was Stalin. Stalin is kind of tactics. It's getting people, you know, Stalin's tactic were to get people, to turn people against each other. He ruled by chaos. And so you got people telling on each other and turning on each other. And you got them working against them so you could do whatever you want, you know. And then you kind of did the secret police kind of stuff. And there was just no prosperity. I was listening to a podcast yesterday, I've actually really liked Anthony Scaramucci's take on things just because he's coming from a right perspective, a financial perspective. And his take yesterday was, that's the one I can buy. He's running it like Don Corleone. Exactly, yeah. That's what it is. It's mafia-style leadership. He is he is um you know like you know you're you're stealing oil and everybody's happy because it's two dollars and 38 cents a gallon for gas but you're like yeah but you're you're stealing it you know and and i just i want to figure out how i can steal gas too you know it's just like, it'll be really good on my economy but uh um you know and and how you intimidate people and you blackmail people and you know, you know and I just oh my gosh this whole thing in Venezuela is just gonna be um, I don't know. And the damage that's being done. And I think, you know, I sit there and I think about, like, how do you, I don't know, there's just a part of me on this week, I'm like going, I just don't even know I want to be a pastor anymore. Just like, how do you speak to people when they just, on both sides, just love their anger so much, you know? And it's been the first four years were like this. You skated through and the Biden era just, I was still tense during the Biden era with things. And then I would just ratchet it up to extremes. And it's like, I just don't know. And I do. I was telling Lindsey yesterday that I think we need to do, confession uh and forgiveness tomorrow and just here we you know we have not um we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves you know um i've sinned against you and thought word indeed by what i've done and by what i have left undone you know um i've not loved you with my whole heart i've not loved my neighbors as myself. And it's just this, you know, this, there's just anger at each other that just, it just never wins. Hating your neighbor, just nothing ever good comes of that, you know, and it's, and that's the one that you get into these volatile situations and you think that just being calm and passive is, is, is weakness. Well, you know, just like the people that are hounding the ICE agents wherever they go They are just turning up the heat on these things, And then the ICE agents that aren't being properly trained Or following their own policies and their own procedures You know, like the guy that did the shooting It's just like, you know, he's a 10-year veteran He knows you don't shoot at a moving vehicle He knows that. But I think there's a culture within ICE now that almost prizes this kind of intimidation and fear. And so it just makes it playing loose. And there's this, you know, I've been saying this for a very long time. That the whole time I was running a camp as a camp director I wanted I just sat there and tried to work with with uh specifically young men that were talking about going to education trying to get them into elementary schools. You know, because there's just no male elementary school teachers. There are very, very few. And young children, young boys specifically, are not learning how to be male. You know, and, you know, being a rough house and punching and telling fart jokes is part of being a little boy for most men. You know, it's just like don't, you know, and but that's, you know, teaching how to be. Male with that with that that doesn't you don't have to hate people or beat people up and you can still be um um on the mail but we're just in this kind of hyper male movement of um, you know uh. That's that's pseudo you know i just just like great you got a lot of guns you got um you you're you're all jacked up on steroids and you got ripping muscles and i i i don't i don't know what you do with all that stuff you know and and uh um you know and nobody ever shoots criminals. They never do they shoot their sadly they shoot themselves they shoot their family they shoot their spouse they shoot um friends they they commit suicide with these guns they don't they don't shoot criminals and it doesn't mean take every every gun away but it's just like just come on start talking about what you use guns for you don't and again i've i've lived in dangerous dangerous neighborhoods and i've never felt the need to have a gun you know um just sad i don't know and and and the and the thing is is like you can you can get down into specifics on so many things but ultimately it's just this it's just this um there's just this anger hatred of each other that's that is that at the core of it and it's like even even when you talk about um um guns really you know just even though i want gun laws and restrictions on that, it's not that alone is not going to solve the problem you know i mean if you cannot. If you can't, Find yourself in a place of absolute horror of children walking into elementary schools and shooting. You just have no soul. I just, I don't, I, I, I can't, I can't conceive of anybody not being horrified by that. You know, I just can't. I was kind of thinking, again, going back to the event yesterday, it was just very nice to see, of a wide variety of people and from all the faith leaders of really speaking of, hey, we need to invest in each other. We need to be part of that, our neighborhood, our neighbor. And that was really good to hear. We have to stop hating people. You know, and be okay if they have viewpoints that are different than us. I can't, I'm in this journey of trying to figure out how do I, How do I love, this is my big thing, background. Everybody's like, you need a loving neighbor as yourself. My mature side after these many years as being a pastor is to go, you know what, we don't really love ourselves all that much. And we take out a lot of damage on each other. It doesn't have to necessarily be suicide. We don't live as we are. We struggle with how we love each other. So when you're in that kind of environment, you tend to – it gives you a lot of freedom on how you, you know, to – if you're going to define love by how you love yourself, it gives you a lot of freedom to be angry at other people. But the thing is that always for me is that when I talk to people, Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. But he also said, you know, love your enemy and the love as I have loved, right? So there's these three degrees of getting down in there, what it means to love. And I've been trying to figure out how do I be an advocate for justice and without hating my neighbor or even encouraging that hatred or even ratcheting up the intensity. And I tend to go back to the civil rights movement, which a lot of people go back to, but I think some people forget what the nonviolent movement was about. You know, Martin Luther King, when he was walking in March and was getting dogs sicked on him and clubs and hoses, they didn't back down and they didn't turn around and say, hey, let's kick the crap out of them because they kicked the crap out of us. Nonviolence was nonviolence. They walked into that. And there is a thing with Christianity that we are pacifists. We need to be pacifist, and that doesn't mean to be passive, you know. But I've been trying to wrestle with, I have friends from, that I've been friends with for a while that are just, it used to be I could stomach our political difference, but they're just bigots, you know. And they're making fun of human suffering. And I just, I can't be a part of that conversation. I just cannot, I don't want to be, yeah. So then what do you do with that? I mean, you were just talking about loving. I'm coming to you. You're supposed to tell me. Come on now. But, you know, we're calling about loving our enemies, But I think that the thing about this week that I've also kind of come to is how hard and challenging that is. Because I think we want to think our enemies are…. Nice people but our enemies are our enemies they're not nice people they're bad people in some cases sometimes they're horrible people well what does that mean then and i would sit there and say when you when we start throwing out about horrible people evil people that's a very small percentage most people like we you you know you know you have the the extremes on either end but most people are in the middle. And so you want to move people from the middle to a more calm spot. But when I sit down, I think agape and our love for each other. You know, that love doesn't mean you need to hold hands and walk down the street together. And sometimes that love is not hating. And so the perspective that I've been taking is I'm just not, I'm not even going to engage in conversation. I have been thinking a couple of things. There's somebody i know that lives in north dakota that every day in facebook puts something out about governor walls and and i'm just like um he's not your governor yeah why do you care why do you why do you even care and don't is is this don't do you have anything good going on in your life that you could maybe share something that's positive in your life then every day obsessing on on on walls and i don't understand what his decisions have how they influence your life you know there's a part of me like with that but i've also just said come to a point of saying i'm just i'm i'm not i'm not engaging those people in conversations and and uh and and if and if people call that i just i've had some people call and leave messages with that i'm just not returning their phone call because I'm always like, I can't, I can't take your hatred. I like you. You're a good friend, but I just can't take that, that hatred. And I can't, even if you're, you know, joking around, I just can't take that kind of jokes. There's just too many people in my congregation world that are, that are not doing well because of this, you know, and I always think about one, one of the things that I always share was like, I thought it was the greatest lesson I ever learned. Maybe not the greatest, but it was up there. When I was in college and really wanted nothing to do with Christian faith whatsoever, and it was the big year that I kind of started to understand my identity in faith, it was the beginning of the USA Today. It had just come out as a newspaper, and I liked it because I was in northern Minnesota, and they always had articles. They would have by nation, you know, you would have stories from Ohio in there, you know, or a little excerpt from Ohio. And so you could find out stuff that were going on at home there. So I liked that newspaper when it came out. And there was a newspaper machine on campus. And one of my professors put 50 cents in, opened it up, took out a paper. And as he had that open, I said, I talked to him, hey, wait a minute. And I took a second paper out. Okay. And he just looked at me and he smiled and he closed the door he took 50 cents out of his pocket he put it in the machine he opened the door he closed it again and he smiled at me and walked away and I never felt more like shit in my entire life and I was like he did not need to yell scream give me a lecture and matter of fact if you had given me a lecture I would just blown him off but that simple silent act just I remember I mean that was a huge turning point in my life that one little thing I just go. Not only am i better than that i've been taught better than that you know that that is not me and i'm like going i've i've never stolen anything ever since then you know just never you know and i would you know and and i sit there and i think about that with, my friends i just um of letting them know i i i can't be engaged with these conversations with I just can't, you know, and I think you're headed to destruction. Not, you know, eternally, just I don't know how we ever as a nation come back from this president. I don't know. Well, that's the question that I have. Well, there are two questions I have. One is, since the past year, I've been asking myself the question, will we be okay as a nation? A year ago, I would have said, we will muddle through. I'm not so certain now. And so, my question to you is, do we get past this? I i think um i think something good can come of this i do and i think there is a um there is um, there is possibly a um you know you sit there and think of all the great advancements forward, come because of major conflicts like my my big thing i always tell people is you know um And when Germany was losing the war in World War II, it could never have been darker than that day. You know, we never really look at what happened to Germany after they lost and how much violence went on there. But eventually, Germany becomes a great nation and a great, solid economy. And they don't need to go to war to do it. a lot of good things, but you're going to have to come to Jesus moment. And sometimes I feel like some of the things that are frustrating people have been frustrating people for a really long time. And we always kind of gravitate to the quick solution, and then we find out the quick solution is actually worse. And then we have to sit down, and I hope, And I still believe that at some point, it's just Donald Trump destroys everything he touches. So it's not any kind of great prediction, you know. And I don't think people realize how, I mean, I don't know this. I don't have proof of this. But I keep on hearing financial people that are Republican and conservative by nature that are saying he's just robbing money like crazy. He's just gaining personal wealth like crazy. And um but at some point it's going to break down and i think and it's going to when it breaks down so much of it's going to be broken that we we really stood still do have, a framework um like it i keep on getting reminded by people in the legal community that you know justice through the law is the slowest to come you know like we wanted a an immediate thing um but i i do think something better comes i do um the other question i have is especially for those of us who are living here in the Twin Cities, but probably in other cities, because I have long said that this is a test bed. How does the church respond? You know, my big thing is people have gotten mad at me when I said this, have said this. And I believe I'm right. But I believe I'm right about most things, so that's not a shocking thing right there. But I know this. For so long in the church, we have been trying to attract people by style of music or programs or connections or relationships or something. Trying to entertain people and attract people through an entertaining option. I've never liked that. You know, the thing that was transformational for me was I was placed in a position where I saw the truth of the gospel and that it's lived out in daily life. And that I don't pray because that's what Christians do. I pray because it's spiritual health to me. I read scripture, like reading scripture instead of going through and trying to find out, hey, what does God think about this or what does God think? To be reading scripture, I understand that God's speaking to me through these words. I mean, this is what we did in the How to Read class on Tuesday night is just sit there and go. When you read the first moment of creation, God speaks, creates life, and creates life out of nothing. And so God's voice and spirit speaks words that create life out of nothing. So as you read that Bible, expect to see that God's going to be speaking to you through his spirit and reading the scripture. And then turning and taking, connecting the first chapter of Genesis to the first chapter of John and saying, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. And we understand in Jesus is this whole manifestation of the Word, but it's still the same thing. It is these words where we encounter God. And this week was just a... I mean, you sit there and think of what we went through, and I do the pray as you go as my morning devotion, and I love it. I love the, it's not a half hour of silence, it's 12 minutes of reflection on a word, and it points me in the right direction. It was like a home run this week. You know, it was just a home run. It was just like speaking to us all, most of everything was coming out of 1 John. You know, if you don't have love, you don't have God. And there was a line in there that I wrote down out of 1 John, I think it was chapter 3, and it's like, if you have anger, you have no eternal life. Okay? And you might tend to read that and think eternal life, well, when I get to heaven, I won't have heaven. But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying eternal life. like when you're caught up in anger you cannot see tomorrow you cannot see hope you cannot see anything you will be perpetually in this pool of hatred that will just it'll be like quicksand or a tide that will pull you out into deeper deeper water um that um but but love is different from That love just breaks that cycle, and it's not eternal life when someday down the end of the road, when I die, I'll get eternal life. No, no, right now, you experience never-ending, overflowing life. You know, and so, again, another source of hope in the midst of this situation is I do not just through faith. Not just through scripture and the historical Jesus movement, but throughout time. You know, Christians, yeah, they've screwed up and done bad things, but they have done an immense number of good. You know, they have, you know, fed people, you know, and clothed people. And, you know, like you talk about, you know, people are, immigrants are afraid to leave their house. And there's people that I know that are, the men in the house have not left the house in a month and a half. And that's just not good for them psychologically. But I think the open door food shelf is, their participation is down by 50%, I think at least. Because people are afraid to come out and get food. But there's churches that are responding by coordinating workers to take the food to people. And I'd much rather be... I'd much rather be wrong about Trump and feeding people than right and negligent. Yeah, I think that's my – so I think the thing when you talk about the church, I think we need to lean into what is authentic in our faith. And there's a church movement on social media. I'm only on Facebook because I don't want to be involved in anything more than that. I just can't stand it. I'm really struggling with it because his mother's not been doing well. And has been asking for prayers for his mother and talking about the faith that he learned from his mother, you know, but he is just celebrating ice in the face of this death. And I'm just like, here, you want me to pray for your mother and you're cheering the death of someone else's mother. I mean, what Jesus are you following right now? And the ironic thing, it's just like not, People should know their history. So he's got a crusader in the Knights Templar uniform and a sword and saying, it's time to sharpen your sword because the battle with evil is real. You know, you're like going, you know, the Knights Templar tried to violently take back land that they thought was theirs, and they got slaughtered. And when they got done being slaughtered in jerusalem they went back to europe and the kings and princes executed them and took all their money so you might want a different load, a different mascot for your sharpening your storage things you know um but it's like this we in our with a salad bar jesus. You know, we take out the parts we want, we build our own salad. Well, we're shaping who we want God to be for us, not letting God shape us and who God desires us to be. And God desires us to be for our well-being, not for God's well-being. And I think it's one of the things that is hard to do. And, you know, and I think that's, I don't know if it's going to be effective, but I think that's where it needs to be. And I think that, I do think Martin Luther King was effective in his mission. It cost him his life and didn't get everything that he wanted. But boy, you look at, you know, what, 60 years after his death or 50 years after his death, there are some amazing things going on. You know, it was one of the things, it was really a funny thing that I was thinking about having grown up on the east side of Cleveland and really shaped by race issues. When I was always disappointed in Michael Jordan when, oh, my gosh, what was the guy's name in North Carolina that was a senator forever? Jesse Helms. Jesse Helms, yeah. That he never came out and spoke and challenged Jesse Helms on some of his views. Right? I was always kind of disappointed that he never did anything. And his response, well, you know, a lot of Republicans buy shoes. So I'm not going to speak out against him. And now you look back at that. And because Jordan took that stance, Um, he has given, what is that called, uh, um, long-term wealth to how many young athletes, generational wealth that they can pass on to the next generation. You know, I mean, he's, he's more responsible for great contracts for people than anybody. It's one of the lasting enduring things he has and now these these uh um athletes have power voice and strength through through uh economics you know and i'm like going yeah there was there was something about playing the long game there back then you know that it was he he was he was right not to be reactionary to this thing um i mean that he and again um he probably knew it back then he has an infinitely more influence over the world than jesse helms ever did. Right yeah i mean this is one of the cultural icons that he hasn't touched a basketball in 30 years or 20 you know 25 years and and uh he's still an icon for so many people across the globe you know yeah well eric thank you for this conversation this has been helpful and um hopefully we can have you back on to chat a little bit more sometime yeah that'd be good it was fun. So, I hope that you enjoyed that conversation with Eric. And now I wanted to share a little bit of my view on the week's happenings. So, this week, actually on the 6th of January, Amy Grant, the well-known gospel contemporary Christian singer, released a new song. This is coming, hopefully, the first song of a new album. She hasn't released an album of new material really since 2012. Um, and that song is called six of January. Um, she did not write this song. Uh, actually a friend of hers wrote this song, but it was interesting in some of the interviews I heard about it, about the song and how she was explaining it. And she talked about the fact of sitting with unrest. And it really as she has even said spoke to the times that we're in and i feel like the last few days since the killing of renee good i've been sitting with unrest. Um just kind of feeling an uneasy feeling and a frustrating feeling and maybe even a sense of anger. You know, for a long time, I've always had a belief in America as a good nation, not a great nation, not a perfect nation. Being African-American, having a dad that grew up in Jim Crow, Louisiana, I know all the dark sides of this nation. But I was always taught and really I've always believed in America that is good, that at least tries to do the right thing. It doesn't always, but I think it tries. That has been severely challenged for me this week. The twin cities where i live and i have made my home here for almost 30 years now, is a metro area of about three and a half million people it's about the 16th largest metro area in the country and it feels right now like we're under siege on the same day that um renee good was mowed down. Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis was the scene of another ice raid. And that basically caused the Minneapolis public schools to suspend classes on Thursday and Friday. And actually, they've gone a little bit farther than that. They have decided that if people want to have the option of being remote when schools open back up on January 12th, they can do so until February 12th. Because there are a lot of people and kids and families right now that are afraid of sending their child to school. And there were other districts around the metro area that have been closed as well for the same reasons. In some cases, ICE agents showed up at school districts. There have been reports of ICE stopping, and even videos, actually, of ICE stopping at Targets throughout the metro area, and Walmarts, and Hy-Vees, which is one of our local grocery store chains. There's even a video I saw where you could see them taking away two Target employees, at a Richfield Target, which is, again, a suburb of Minneapolis. This is all part of a surge of nearly 2,000 ICE and other Homeland Security enforcement that have come to Minnesota. And part of this is dealing with immigration, supposedly, and part of it is dealing with some of the fraud investigations that you have heard about. Now of course some of this is about supposedly about trying to deal with illegal immigration, and i'm someone that believes that we should have actually good immigration reform and i'm not opposed to immigration enforcement. But this last week has taught me this isn't about immigration. This is personal. Our president, Donald Trump, really wants to punish Minnesota. This all began actually about a month ago when he, in the midst of the whole fraud investigation, which is legitimate and has, there has been a lot of legal actions being taken. Calling the entire Somali population here garbage. And that began kind of the raids, but they have stepped up this week. And everywhere you go, you hear reports of ICE agents in different parts of the city, in different other suburbs. They've actually even gone to other parts of Minnesota, such as Rochester and Duluth. As I said, this is personal. This is Donald Trump doing whatever he needs to do to punish this state. A year ago, I would have laughed at those saying that this is the dawn of authoritarianism. I didn't think that Donald Trump was a great leader, and I thought he was rather corrupt, but I didn't think that this was authoritarianism. I'm not shrugging this off anymore. A year ago, I would have said that a lot of his movement and his people, both in and out of office, laugh at the thing of them being racist, but I'm not laughing at that anymore either. What we're seeing here really is authoritarianism as i said it feels as if minneapolis, saint paul and probably the entire state feels as if it's under siege by our own government. The president the vice president the leader of homeland security christy noem and others really want to punish this state. And the way that the ICE agents acted on Wednesday, I agree with Eric when he says that it was cowardly. And we know that there won't be any real investigation of how this happened and how to prevent things because they have made sure that the FBI, and the FBI alone will be the one that will do the investigation, that the state will have no part in that. We know that this will be whitewashed. There is already a narrative that Renee Goode was a domestic terrorist. When I talked to Quincy Worthington, who is a pastor in Chicago, I interviewed him late last year about the protests that were taking place there. I remember him saying that what was happening in Chicago was going to come to other cities next. And here we are. I believe, actually, that Minnesota, the Twin Cities, is a testbed. For other places. I think that other cities are next. Whether it's Denver or Detroit or Indianapolis or St. Louis or Boston, this is coming your way. People need to prepare for it. This is a dark time. This is not good. We are, as Americans, in a bad place. So where is the gospel hope? Because this is a Christian podcast, and I believe in the good news. So where is the good news? Drew mcintyre someone that i've known now for probably about a decade or more he's a united methodist minister in north carolina and i interviewed him last year as well and he wrote an article that i will put in the show notes and it starts off with someone asking a question to the great missiologist Leslie Newbigin about whether or not he was an optimist or pessimist, especially about the future. Newbigin replied, I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. That is our hope. We hope in the unexpected. The resurrection is hope. It is a belief that any evil, any sin in the world, does not have the last word. Jesus, in his death on the cross, and in his resurrection, defeated death. And so we believe that the powers powers that oppress powers that divide powers that hate don't last they will ultimately fail. That is the hope that I believe that everyone needs to have now. We must have hope that the powers that are trying to rule, that are trying to crush, don't have the last say. And they will ultimately be defeated. As I prepare for this weekend, I'm preaching both at my own church, and we share space with the Lutheran congregation, and I will be preaching there as well. One of the passages that I will be preaching from is the lectionary text, the gospel, which is from Matthew 3, 13-17. It's the baptism of Jesus. And that's always kind of a weird story, because why did Jesus need to be baptized? In fact, that was the question that John the Baptist, his cousin, asked, because John the Baptist kind of knew Jesus was perfect. He didn't sin. So, why did he need it? Jesus' answer is that this is to fulfill all righteousness. In his baptism, what Jesus did was to identify with us, to identify with a humanity that is imperfect and sinful. And he didn't stay far off. He joined us. He became one of us. And I think that that is a powerful reminder that God is with us, that God is Emmanuel. And that is also our hope, that we are not alone in what we face, that we are not alone in this dark time, that God is with us, that God is for us. And that is what we have at this time. Some people will say that it's not much, but I believe that it's everything. I believe that it can overturn the powers that oppress and, I want to leave you with a song that I hope we'll be singing on Sunday, the chorus. It's a song written by Marty Haugen, healer of our every ill. Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow. Give us peace beyond our fear and hope beyond our sorrow. That is what we need to look forward to. Even though the days are challenging, it doesn't seem like everything is ever going to change. It will. Because those powers that oppress right now are defeated. So if you want to learn more about this podcast, listen to past episodes or donate. Check us out at churchinmaine.org. You can also visit churchinmaine.substack.com to read related articles. Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app. And I hope that wherever you listen, if it's like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, that you will leave a review. When you do that, that actually helps others find this podcast. There are links in the show notes to make a donation or to have this podcast sent straight to your inbox when a new episode becomes available. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. I say this all the time, but it's important. Thanks so much for listening. Take care, everyone. Godspeed and I will see you very soon.