Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Canada's Shadow Army - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey responds to Adnan Kahn's article, "Why Canada’s special forces ‘shadow army’ is still fighting ISIS" (Macleans, May 11, 2021). 

Wayne:

In short, Canada’s Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) is a bunch of trained hitmen. There is no declared war Canada is in¹. Testimonials are ubiquitous that intelligence gathered by CSOR and others by its very nature is often faulty, frequently manipulated, at best uncertain, at worst an invitation to open slaughter of innocents–not unlike drone warfare.

CSOR serves as judge, jury, and executioner against an “enemy” that appears and disappears and reappears like the smile of the Cheshire Cat. When the enemy is fluid, it is really invariably open season, with no one on-site to hold the killers accountable. Neither a positive code of morality nor ethics guides the killers. In the words of Nick Turse‘s arresting title, it is a policy given to permitting CSOR operatives and their ilk and partners to Kill Anything That Moves.

The Spec Ops Magazine has delightful titles like: ‘Official longest confirmed sniper kill.” How stirring a thing to know! How proud one feels of these Canadian homegrown assassins. What a wonderful skill set to return to Canada with! And “heroes” such as “American Sniper” Chris Kyle are tragically sick role models–Kyle himself a victim of an assassin . . . Little wonder that so many upon return home continue “open season” on their domestic enemies. After all, it really isn’t “murder,” just “poaching out of season” . . .

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And Justice for All - the Work and Works of Wayne Northey - by Brad Jersak

Wayne Northey is among Canada's foremost activists and authors in the fields of restorative justice, prison reform, and international peacemaking. I first met Wayne in the early nineties when he was preparing me for an MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) observers trip to Haiti and Jamaica. His orientation to issues of Western political, economic, and military interference in Central and South America was a much-needed wake-up call for those who, like me, were raised on the "noble lie" of John Wayne world-police colonialism. 

Wayne's work included a long stint with M2W2, a ministry that creates one-on-one connections between incarcerated prisoners and caring folks on the outside. It's just one example of where he faithfully put his word to flesh on the ground, even while also continuing to do the historical and theoretical research required to bring a wise word to practitioners.

I speak in the past tense above, not because Wayne has departed, but because in his retirement (so-called), his focus has shifted to his written works. In addition to regular blog editorials and a magnificent novel, Chrysalis Crucible, Wayne is rolling out a substantive multi-volume series, Justice that Transforms, his collected and ongoing works specific to Restorative Justice. 

Wayne has regularly contributed to the Clarion Journal since its inception in 2003 but now also hosts his own blog at https://waynenorthey.com/category/blog/. Truth be told, I (Brad) cannot keep up with the opportunity to repost that Wayne offers, but we do our best to drive traffic to his powerful site. As an unwavering conscience, he can't be cubbyholed anywhere on the culture wars spectrum, whether politically or ideologically. This means on any given week, he could be holding feet from the left or right to the fire. Last week, he had both Donald Trump and Joe Biden in his sights, offering fact-checked examples of each leader's engagement in deception and violence across the globe. After all, Wayne is non-partisan in his revulsion over drone warfare--he doesn't care if a bomb is painted red or blue, or fired by an elephant or a donkey. And he says so.

To play catch-up, the following are direct links to some of his recent pieces, often editorial responses to the work of other journalists, excellent book reviews, and a lot of cross-referenced clicks for those who are ready for the deep dive. Enjoy:

Joe Biden’s War Powers: An examination of the president’s 50-year record on U.S. militarism, the CIA, and executive power.

Empire Politician: A Half-Century of Joe Biden’s Stances on War, Militarism, and the CIA.

Prolonged solitary confinement is torture. It’s time for all states to ban it.

Almost Everything Biden Said About Ending the Afghanistan War Was a Lie.

Out of Sight / Out of Mind. 

Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

Tribes Want Medals Awarded for Wounded Knee Massacre Rescinded

Saving the salmon and Beauty: why the Gitanyow are creating a new Indigenous Protected Area; why Beauty Will Save the World

What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism: Exit polls suggest a legacy of white supremacy is still dividing the country. 

Hundreds gather to protest 13-year-old’s killing following release of body cam footage.

Everyone Belongs to God: Discovering the Hidden Christ. 

The Ongoing Terror of Drone Attacks - Wayne Northey

Credit: Flickr|CSIS Poni

Wayne Northey: The use of drones–as with any aerial bombing–invariably murders civilians, often in vast numbers. Two classic studies of aerial warfare by Tami Davis Biddle are: (2019) Air Power and Warfare: A Century of Theory and History, and (2004) Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945.

With reference to drone warfare, the author in the first-mentioned book cites Professor Rosa Brooks:

Professor Rosa Brooks explained, “to go after an ever-lengthening list of bad actors, many of whom appear to have only tenuous links to al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, and many of whom arguably pose no imminent threat to the United States.”¹ This warning came in Brooks’ testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in the spring of 2013.

Ms. Biddle writes further:

The work is carried out quietly and off the front pages of newspapers. This means that it has little immediate political cost. Thus, the strikes can have the appeal of a silver bullet — a low-cost, almost magical way to dispatch enemies. However, dangers lurk in this seductive appeal. One first-order question is simply about due process of law. The target of an RPA strike has no opportunity to face the charges against them or argue a case before a court. Who ought to have the authority to be judge, jury, and executioner (all three) in these cases? Using RPAs for the targeted killing of enemies concentrates vast power in a few hands — and this sets up a situation that can be quite readily abused if it is not overseen and monitored for compliance with domestic and international law. There is also a concern about mission creep. How high on the enemy leadership chain need one be to qualify for an RPA strike? What evidence must that person reveal of intent to do harm? How imminent and clear must that threat be?

Many critics of RPAs during the Obama years saw their use as evidence of American high-handedness and arrogance — evidence that Americans do not feel themselves to be bound by any rules or constraints in their international behavior. They perceived an American President using RPAs rather like a self-proclaimed Zeus, hurling thunderbolts from the sky. (Institute, Strategic Studies; War College Press, U.S. Army. Air Power and Warfare: A Century of Theory and History (pp. 58-59). Kindle Edition; emphasis added.)

The reality is, “Good Guys” snipers trained in Canada, the U.S., and other Western nations, hurl their smaller, equally deadly, thunderbolts across vast distances through the use of a scope, thereby raising the identical question: Who ought to have the authority to be judge, jury, and executioner (all three) in these cases? Combine these murderous atrocities with treacherous (or just plain faulty) intelligence, and no telling how many rival warlords, warlord enemies, and hated persons at the local level are murdered through Western “intelligence” gathering. Whole wedding parties, etc., have been slaughtered through this callous calculus.

Who is to know who and how many fell victim to wanton slaughter in Afghanistan, Syria, etc., –by the “Good Guys”?

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Protesting a 13-year-old’s Killing - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: A man in our Home Improvement Group once challenged us all: “Just try spending one day in my skin!” In 1959, a white Texan journalist, John Howard Griffin, did precisely that: for 420 days.

The 1961 book Black Like Me and the 1964 film of the same title tell the story.

We have close relatives in our family who spend all their days in such skins.

I have other close relatives who dismiss any such sensitivity as so-much-liberal/progressive-self-flagellating-unfounded-such-is-life-nonsense. . . Sigh. . . 

They could benefit from joining our Home Improvement Group. In it, we challenge men to discover or turn up the dial on empathy and compassion.  The former is of Greek etymology, meaning “in suffering (with).” The latter is from the Latin: “suffering with.” How their English use is distinguished in our presentation: one is passive; the other takes action. The former sees the pain of another; the latter moves if possible to alleviate it. Both have their legitimate place.

If you want to help others be happy, practice compassion.

If you want to be happy, practice compassion.—Dalai Lama

Bluntly: to go through life lacking empathy and not showing compassion misses out on the peace, the joy, the freedom, the sheer abundant life¹–and indeed at times the pain!–of what it means to be fully/fulfilled/full-throttle human. In short, one lives a stunted human existence.

For a grand portrait of what abundant life looks like in one instance, see: Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine, by noted Canadian poets Susan McCaslin and J S Porter.

That Adam Toledo was at the age of 13 denied discovering such a life through yet another wanton act of murderous police brutality is utterly execrable.

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Diane Tramutola-Lawson ’60 and CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) - Wayne Northey

WN: Diane is one of the amazing volunteers in charge of Colorado CURE.

Please enjoy this brief interview: 

My wife and I have had the good fortune of being members, and I represent Canadian CURE. It has chapters in most American states, and internationally, especially in Africa.

The CURE Founders–Charlie and Pauline Sullivan–mentioned by Diane are truly amazing and selfless! Charlie travels to all the International Conferences, so my partner Esther and I have gotten to know him fairly well. I first met Charlie at a Conference in Toronto about 25 years ago. He always sent me their newsletter, and there was invariably a handwritten note.

Here is Charlie introducing CURE in 2009:

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Restorative Justice: Peacemaking Not Warmaking - Wayne Northey

PLEASE NOTE: Below are excerpts of my paper for the above-noted Journal. At the very end of this post, one may click on the highlighted text, and read the full article in PDF. And of course one may also read it on the Journal’s website. Sign-up is free.

I chose to add “Notes:” at the end of each excerpt, that match those in the excerpt.

I chose also not to make clickable the numerous books and articles cited.

I chose finally to include all the References at the end of this post.

excerpts:

NOTE: Appreciation goes to Dr. Brad Jersak, friend, encourager, mentor. In October 2020 at his invitation a Q & A format was adopted for a presentation on what most commonly is known as “Restorative Justice.”[1] What follows is a reworking of that material and addition of new. I decided to retain the Q & A format.

 Wayne, you claim that the modern nation-state is closer in origin to what was dramatized by Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather: namely the modern Western nation-state originated and operates on similar principles to a criminal protection racket. Historian/theologian William Cavanaugh states:

The main difference between Uncle Sam and the Godfather is that the latter did not enjoy the peace of mind afforded by official government sanction.[2]

 I understand you to mean: the State vis à vis external enemies—of whatever in-the-moment flavour—and in its exercise of population control (that is control of its domestic enemies—criminals).

Yes. One could get at this in several ways, of which I’ll give three pointers:. . .

The Kenarchy Journal - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: It is exciting to introduce The Kenarchy Journal!

Roger Mitchell, the editor and founder, created the neologism, "kenarchy," explaining:

Kenarchy is a newly constructed word signifying an innovative, inclusive reconfiguration of Jesus’ politics of love. It is derived from ken(osis): emptying out sovereign power and replacing it with a love measured by readiness to die for the other, even one’s enemy, and archy: a way of ordering or relating in social space. It has been articulated over the last 15 years by a growing network of theologians and activists around original work begun with and on behalf of them by political theologian Roger Haydon Mitchell. (See Discovering Kenarchy: Contemporary Resources for the Politics of Love. Roger Haydon Mitchell and Julie Tomlin Arram eds. Wipf & Stock, 2014). While based unapologetically in the Jesus story as found in the four gospels of the Christian scriptures, and drawing on the theology of trinity and incarnation, it configures an inclusive politics of love as a gift to people of all faiths and none.

While kenarchy is a gift for everybody, those of us who configure the politics of love in these terms are strongly motivated to do so in a way that deeply penetrates existing socially constructed mind-sets. This is why we combine applied academic research and writing together with grassroots social, economic and political activism. Kenarchy developed initially as a form of political theology and we make no apology for that, but it now embraces a wide and interdisciplinary perspective relevant to the politics and theology of love. The purpose of this Journal is to advance the applied research, and as such, it is an academic journal. It also includes an online forum that we very much hope will provide the opportunity for both thinkers and activists to engage with the applied research material.

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Cornel West, Whiteness & Wall Street - by Wayne Northey

Cornel West - photo by Gage Skidmore

I first became involved with men in prison in 1974, at a time the first prison I visited (Oakalla Prison, Burnaby BC, Canada) still operated under a military regimen with many ex-military hired as guards; with an ex-air force serviceman as chaplain who liked telling stories of his martial arts prowess; and a shadowy group operated a kangaroo court to discipline those not/too-lightly punished by their superiors–“kangaroos” who too told stories of bravado and revenge. . . Like when four guards extracted a prisoner from the “hole” because he’d thrown a bucket of urine at one of them, and proceeded to beat the living sh*t out of him. . .

A fellow seminarian at the time, whom I had helped get his first job at Oakalla as a guard, as a newbie was summoned one night to keep watch in case the “IC”–in charge of the prison that night–might suddenly appear down the hall. . . When I suggested my friend should report the incident to his superiors who might care(?), he wouldn’t/didn’t. . .

During the next few months, I watched my friend turn, until for all intents he stopped being my friend; and started before that telling his own stories of how good it now was to know the guards always had his back. . . Until he told me after getting married that he dreaded having a son, for fear the son would one day find his way to prison. Until the marriage fell apart after the birth of a daughter. . . Until he changed his career, moved to Ontario, to one helping, not harming, others as an ambulance driver. . .  Until. . . I don’t know. I sadly never heard from him again. . .

In the 40 subsequent years of prison visitation (and still gratefully engaged with many “returned citizens”), of hearing thousands of times the clanging doors shut and the multiplied voices and testimonials of their keep; after a career retirement following 16 years as Executive Director of the same prison visitation/Restorative Justice Program that took me first to jail; I could still largely only imagine myself into the experience of being a prisoner. . .

So much less, can I imagine myself into the experience of being Black/minority ethnic in a white supremacist world. . .

All I can do for starters is (try at least to) listen. . . Still. . .

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Houses of Hate - Wayne Northey

"Dangerous, racist and falling apart. By nearly every metric, the nation’s penal system is not just failing, it’s making things worse."

By Justin Ling February 28, 2021

Photo: Medium security range at Stony Mountain Institution in Stony Mountain, Manitoba (Correctional Services Canada/Flickr)

Wayne Northey: The article highlighted above does not sugar-coat the reality: Canadian prisons (and for that matter most around the world) are indeed “Houses of hate.”

Senator Kim Pate as mentioned in the article has been a leading voice for prison reform in Canada. There have been many before her: women such as Agnes MacPhailalmost a century ago; more recently Claire Culhane¹ and Ruth Morris, another intrepid abolitionist. (There is more about the latter two in the paper mentioned below.)

But meaningful “reform” beyond mere window-dressing, like a desert mirage, seems simply never to arrive . . . Anywhere!

What rather is needed is prison abolition, as I delineate in this paper: Restorative Justice: Peacemaking Not Warmaking; Transformative Justice: Penal Abolitionism Not Prison Reform, written for The Kenarchy Journal, an exciting venture launched in 2019, highlighting a “politics of love,” and:

Promoting overall wellbeing by

• Instating women
• Prioritising children
• Advocating for the poor
• Welcoming strangers
• Reintegrating humanity and the environment
• Restoring justice to prisoners
• Healing the sick

The paper above is due for inclusion this year in the spring edition.

On prison abolition I write in part (highlighting theological aspects):

In light of this brief consideration of the unmitigated failure of prison, Lee Griffith, adduced above begins his study, The Fall of the Prison: Biblical Perspectives on Prison Abolition with:

The gospel is profoundly scandalous, and until we hear at least a whisper of its scandal, we risk not hearing any part of it.

Doubtless part of the scandal is Christian believers must be significantly at odds with centuries-long Western Criminal Justice convention.²

…

But I shall move on to his understanding of New Testament prison and justice. In biblical “principalities and powers” language, prison is ever associated with the power of death. He writes:

As such, the problem is not that prisons have failed to forestall violent criminality and violent rampages; the problem is that prisons are identical in spirit to the violence and murder that they pretend to combat . . . Whenever we cage people, we are in reality fuelling and participating in the same spirit we claim to renounce.³

Therefore, when Jesus announced in Luke 4⁴ “freedom to the prisoners,” it broadcasts a renunciation of . . . the power of death, and it therefore points toward the resurrection itself.⁵

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Circles of Support and Accountability - Wayne Northey

I have had the good fortune of working with CoSA one way or another since its inception in 1994. You may read about the beginnings here.

I served since inception as well on the Board of CoSA Canada for two 3-year terms, taking a mandated break this year. I am currently working with others to develop a two-track–one academic, one non–academic curriculum that may be widely used by CoSAs, and by academic institutions.

Needless to say, I believe in Restorative Justice and CoSA!

The local program was begun under the BC Restorative Justice Program I directed for 16 years–until retirement; and I was variously a volunteer Board member, staff member, and volunteer from 1974 to 2014. Two pages on the site besides many Blog posts are: Restorative Justice and a book series I am publishing, Justice That Transforms–Book Series–First 3 Volumes Fall 2018.

In retirement, I continue–some with Esther, my wife–volunteering with several RJ programs, some national, others international. All very meaningful.

And I continue volunteering with the local program: CoSA-Vancouver/Fraser Valley (CoSA-VFV). I serve on a committee and soon will join a third Circle. This too is very meaningful. It feels simply, as in all the above, a privilege. Please click on the highlighted text to learn much about our local Program, to meet our highly capable and experienced Director, Maureen Donegan, including in the following video:

 

The Incomparable David Cayley - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: Introduction

Below is a clickable list of many of David Cayley’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) about 50-minute-long podcasts. They were presented between 1980 and 2012, the latter date when he retired.

Who is David Cayley? To quote theologian Brad Jersak, Clarion Journal‘s curator: I think he’s truly among Canada’s greatest thinkers. Few who know his work would take issue with Brad’s assessment.

And to cite the Wikipedia article:

David Cayley is a Toronto-based Canadian writer and broadcaster, who is known for documenting the philosophy of prominent thinkers of the 20th century—Ivan Illich, Northrop Frye, George Grant, and Rene Girard. His work has been broadcast on CBC Radio One’s programme Ideas.

An expanded list of Cayley’s Works is to be found on his website here. The list includes the podcasts itemized, but is not clickable. I will encourage David, whom I’ve happily known since the early 1990s, to make everything clickable.

David possesses a rare ability to make some of the most convoluted yet brilliant thinkers understandable! He does that invariably with all whom he interviews. His mellifluous tones and straightforward arrangement of interview material on his broadcasts beguiles a “Renaissance Man” at work. (He would likely not accept such a view–then point to any number of whom he thinks are/were such.)

He has just published a massive 560-page volume: Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. (And right now (February 2021), Penn State University Press is offering a 30% discount.) David by the way has interviewed and written about Illich over many years.¹

Indeed: every person or subject Cayley turns broadcast/written attention to is elevated for all willing to be taken on a grand “intellectual journey.” But he is a broadcaster, not an academic of the sort who writes mainly for his/her own peers or in his/her circumscribed field. His range of inquiry is astounding. For instance:

• His 24 hours of broadcasts on How To Think About Science, is fascinating throughout. (Yes, I listened to them all.) You may also read his subsequent book: Ideas on the Nature of Science.
• His final two 12-part broadcast series, planned initially as one unit, “The Myth of the Secular (2012) CBC Radio; and “After Atheism: New Perspectives on God and Religion” (2014) CBC Radio (also on his website), present some fascinating perspectives by leading thinkers. (Yes, I listened to them all too.)
• In my area of career interest, he did a 10-part series: Prison and Its Alternatives. It too developed into a book: The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives. (Yes, I also listened to them all.) A Canadian criminologist at the time, noted for her Restorative Justice work, Liz Elliott, told me there was nothing finer in the Restorative Justice Field. I agreed. (And no doubt something akin could be said of his work in many fields he probed.)

All Cayley’s books had their genesis in his broadcasts. His latest on Illich is only in part an exception.

Cayley comes out of the Anglican tradition. I told him a few times over the years that he should be awarded an honorary Doctorate of Theology. He always laughed, and said that would indeed have made his parents happy . . . Then it happened in 2010, when he received an Honorary Doctorate in Sacred Letters from Thornloe University, an Anglican Church of Canada affiliated institution.

Finally, go also for sure to his website, where you may browse and linger to your heart’s content! It is introduced by him thus:

For more than thirty years (1980-2012) I made radio documentaries for CBC Radio’s Ideas series. The most recent of the more than 250 programmes remain available on the Ideas website, but the rest languish unknown, unheard and inaccessible in the CBC Archives.  Because the means are now available to keep these public broadcasts in circulation, I have developed this site in order to share this work with students, scholars and interested members of the public. From time to time I will post and introduce a new series until all this work is archived and available.

The podcast index lists the interviewees in every programme on the site. Links will connect you to the series that remain available from Ideas. Under Works you can find a catalogue of my books, articles and lectures, along with a complete and chronological inventory of my broadcasting work since 1980.

The Blog presents current reviews, lectures, and other occasional writings. The Transcripts page has transcriptions of most of the series I’ve posted. The CBC began making and selling transcripts of Ideas series in 1982 and gradually phased out this business after 2006, so there are some series from before and after these dates that are unavailable.  There are also a few that I have only in hard copy.  I will scan these and add them, as time allows.

Everything below is clickable. Enjoy your foraging and ruminating. A nurturing feast wherever you turn!

Reckoning with the Toxicity of Christian Nationalism - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: The article highlighted below is very disturbing for followers of the one Mark Lewis Taylor dubs The Executed God (book review here, with the subtitle: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America).

I stand in perpetual amazement at how the New Testament Jesus is read to be the Ultimate Violent Crusader, or in a particularly odious depiction by a U.S. military chaplain: Jesus Was an Airborne Ranger: Find Your Purpose Following the Warrior Christ. Yikes! I think I’ll take a pass . . .

I shall cite from a paper (here) you may read fully as well. It is yet another illustration of the tragedy this highlighted article describes–in addition to toxic Christian nationalism.

In 1986 I was invited to a public forum on Capital Punishment at Fraser Valley College (since University of the Fraser Valley), to give a Christian view of the death penalty. I spoke against it. It was to be voted on the next year in Parliament, and Prime Minister Mulroney had freed MPs to vote their conscience.

When the question time came, a man stood up right away with a question for Mr. Northey. He began by quoting Matt. 23:23 in the KJV: “… ye… have omitted the weightier matters of the law, JUDGMENT!!!” He thundered out that last word with all the gusto he could muster–reminiscent of preachers who come to a point in their sermon notes where is inserted: “Weak point. Thump pulpit loudly now!”

Then he proceeded with a diatribe against me and my kind for having neglected the law precisely in this way in my opposing the death penalty. If “Christian expletive” is not an oxymoron, he unleashed precisely that kind of violent vituperative invective upon me and my ilk for the next several minutes. His strongest accusation was that I was not, as I had claimed, an evangelical, rather a Liberal of the worst kind, who could not see or accept the plain teaching of Scripture. He proceeded to call down judgment upon me, and issued a warning of dire consequences for the safety of our nation if Canada continued in its lawlessness by refusing to reinstate the death penalty.

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JESUS WAS A VICTIM OF EMPIRE... Wayne Northey

JESUS WAS A VICTIM OF EMPIRE.
ACKNOWLEDGING THIS SHOULD TRANSFORM CHRISTIANITY.

Christianity would be transformed the world over, should the ultimacy of this realization take hold. But history shows that we keep losing our way–and far worse! So we ever must keep rediscovering Jesus over against Empire for the very first time!

American Empire is of course prime exemplar of this kind of brutal Empire: extension since its founding in fact of the brutal British Empire, especially in its twin original sins of slavery and indigenous genocide. American Empire has always and supremely been about “plundering, butchering, and stealing”, “the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation (Novelist J.M. Coetzee in Waiting for the Barbarians (1980, p. 133))”, leaving “desolation”, “destruction and misery and death” in its wake (while calling it “peace and freedom”–Roman historian Tacitus). America has ever been in a voracious bid for domination of others (since World War II worldwide), in order to extract maximum wealth from all peoples and the Planet.

We first-world non-Americans, such as in Canada, through our multiple military alliances and multitudinous economic intertwinings, are no less complicit and therefore guilty. Nick Turse’s 2009 publication, The Complex: How the Military Invades our Everyday Lives while focussing on America, is no less the case for all in the West. And of course, as in Nigeria discussed in the article highlighted, a similar complex is ubiquitous in nation-states and international systems of all kinds.

Our call is to practice insurrection against Empire in all its avaricious, brutal, and horribly destructive ways. (No small order is of course hopeless understatement!)

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Exit Polls, Evangelicalism & White Supremacy - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey response to Robert P. Jones, "What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism," Broadview 11-12-20.

Exit polls suggest a legacy of white supremacy is still dividing the country.

Beyond tragic, this means four-fifths of American white evangelical Christians subscribe to “heresy” (an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth–Merriam-Webster). And this not limited to America! And many religious white non-evangelicals (Catholics, mainline Protestants, other faith members, etc.) also are 'heretics' in this way!

“Heresy” means in Greek (amongst variants) “a self-chosen opinion” (Strong’s). And if chosen, as with all opinions, it can be unchosen. This is what metanoia entails: “change of mind, repentance” (Strong’s).

Please see the author’s book highlighted below. Please see too my book review of Kristin Kobes du Maz’: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

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Krisin Kobes Du Mez, "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation" - review by Wayne Northey

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages

This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book.

In an interview with Religion & Politics, the author discusses how she came to its writing:

Yes! Since about 2010, I had been giving talks on evangelicalism and masculinity and had been approached by publishers, but there were two things at that point that made me a little hesitant to dive into a book project. For one, the things that I was uncovering were very depressing. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to live with that for the years that I knew it would take to write a book. For another, I wasn’t sure at first how mainstream it all was. As a Christian myself, I wanted to be careful about shining a bright light on this dark underbelly of American Christianity if it was merely a fringe phenomenon . . . However, just before the [2016] election, things clicked for me. The Access Hollywood tape came out, white evangelical elites continued to defend Trump, his support among white evangelical voters remained strong, and I thought, “Ugh, I think I know what’s going to happen and I think I know why.” That’s when I pulled some of that old research and wrote [a paper] “Donald Trump and Militant Evangelical Masculinity.”

And then the book was published in 2020.

The words “dark underbelly” and “Ugh” hardly begin to express the blatant evil majority American White evangelicalism has embraced during the past 50 years that the author uncovers.

This reviewer was 22 years of age 50 years ago, and had been raised in a (“quintessential fundamentalist”—historian Ernest Sandeen in The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism) sect known as Plymouth or Christian Brethren. Two years later, under the auspices of a mission arm of said group—Literature Crusades (now International Teams)—I embarked with 12 late-teens-and-20-somethings on a two-year evangelistic gig to West Berlin, Germany. That experience was to change the direction of my life ever after.

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For the PDF of the above, click on: Jesus and John Wayne.

Restorative Justice: Peacemaking, NOT War-making - Wayne Northey (interview host: Brad Jersak)

IRPJ.org (Institute for Religion, Peace & Justice) presents an interview with Wayne Northey (host: Brad Jersak) highlighting the contrast between Western criminal justice as retributive pain-delivery and the inclusive, restorative, community justice that more effectively serves offenders, those they've harmed and the communities in which they live.

Transcript: Download IRPJ Q&A with Wayne Northey

RJWorld eConference Farewell - with Wayne Northey et al

For those interested in the RJWorld eConference noted in two pages on my website, here, and here (one I did with Robbie Robidoux, another I did with David Milgaard) there is some other great material updated on each page. There is also an inspiring 19-minute farewell video from 11 of us presenters that you may view immediately below.

In all, there were:

• over 100 presenters from about 25 countries
• over 700 registrants (and access to the above presentations available to countless others)
• over 50 countries represented.

This was the first ever (COVID-induced) RJWorld eConference. It will not be the last. It was in a word, outstanding!

There is a website that now is up for the next six months containing all the video presentations. It is passphrase-protected. If you would like access, please let me know. I cannot promise access, but I can inquire into about how to gain it.

Take heart from the video!

Wayne Northey

On Michael Grunwald's article "He's destroyed conservatism" - Wayne Northey's response

Wayne Northey reflects on Michael Grunwald's Poltico article "He's destroyed conservatism: The Republican Case against Trump's GOP."

Wayne Northey: The article speaks for itself. As I write, I am reading: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes du Mez.

When I think that in excess of 80% of American White Evangelicals stillsupport Trump–arguably the most immoral, narcissistic, corrupt, lying President in history (Trump ever brags about his superior . . . well everything, so he’ll no doubt own any noun following “the most” 🙂 ), and claim that his is the way of Jesus, God’s man for this hour, God’s chosen vessel, on and on ad nauseum, the nausea does make one want to throw up–for a long time, multitudes of times . . . 

As one looks above at one such instance of oh so pious and holy Religious/Alt Right (deplorable) supporters praying over the President, my mind fills with images: images of children ripped from their families some never to be reunited; of DHS and other elite trained thugs creating violent mayhem in the streets against protesters; of support of brutal Philippine dictator Duterte found guilty of war crimes, and Trump as full accomplice found likewise to be a war criminal according to a ruling from the International Peoples’ Tribunal on the Philippines; etc., etc., etc., one at once wants to scream bloody murder (literally!), cry out in righteous fury, and call the God-Damned (for so they all are in their unwavering blind-leaders-of-the-blind support of Trump!) religious leaders such as sickeningly pictured here, and multiplied millions more . . .  every epithet in the book–finishing off with “war criminals and blasphemers all”. Blasphemers for their gargantuan sin of taking God’s name–endlessly!– in vain vis à vis Trump; their idolization of the military and of preemptive militarism; their total embrace of an abusive masculinity and attendant ruthlessness, etc., etc., etc.  . . .  (See on some of this Chapter 7 of du Mez’ book, “The Greatest American Hero”, pp. 118ff.)

There’s that old politician saying: “The voters/[White Evangelicals] have spoken, the bastards.”—Stuart Stevens

What one wants to do . . . I want to do . . . is scream from the housetops to White Evangelical America: Your “god” is an all-consuming Moloch who represents everything contrary to the Way of Jesus; to the “better way”  of Paul; to the bar-none central organizing theme of peace and peacemaking in the New Testament! . . .  (See on this last (my book review of) Willard Swartley’s magisterial Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics, Willard M. Swartley, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.)

If I had majority White America alone to go on (and much of similar ilk in Canada), then theologian Walter Wink is searingly right in declaring: “against which the revolt of atheism is pure religion!” God bless this vision of America?! Not on your (eternal) life! Hell, even hell frozen over, is the most blessed choice  . . .

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2020 RJWorld eConference: Robbie Robidoux and Wayne Northey

After my friend Robbie Robidoux watched David Milgaard and me on a Zoom presentation for this Conference, we decided to do one together as well!

Robbie has a riveting story to tell. We discuss as well the criminal justice system as a scapegoat mechanism in light of his story; in light too of René Girard‘s scapegoating theory, and application of Girard’s theory in this publication by my friend and Girardian scholar, Professor Vern Redekop: Scapegoats, the Bible, and Criminal Justice: Interacting with René Girard.

The Conference is an event for workers, volunteers, and those interested anywhere in the Restorative/Transformative Justice/Justice fields. It draws presenters from all over the world.

For general information please click on: RJWorld eConference

The video to be presented at the Conference may be shown now, but one must sign up for the Conference by August 22, 2020, at $50USD/person, to view our webpage. Now for the video, done over Zoom:

Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance - Wayne Northey

Photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead, they bankrupt us, economically and spiritually.” (Photo: Courtesy of Rev. John Dear)

Wayne Northey: This piece is profoundly humbling–and moving. In George Yancy: To Be Black in the US Is to Have a Knee Against Your Neck Each Day, Dr.  Yancy challenges us Whites who claim solidarity with Blacks/People of Colour, “ . . . then I would ask that they show me their scars . . .”

John Dear in this piece displays his scars from a decades-long fight against the building and possession of nuclear weapons–enough weapons to destroy the Planet 20 times over! Let that sink in! Let that sink in! . . .

These multiplied thousands of missiles from hell hold the entire world hostage, and as Rev. Dear indicates, place the entire Planet on Death Row. Obscene! Unconscionable! This beyond-ultimate-evil-premeditated-brutal-Obliteration of all Life thereby thrusting such planning into a whole other dimension of human imagining . . . into a twilight zone of  massive-death-dealing aspiration that the likes of a Stalin, a Hitler, a Pol Pot, a Mussolini, and all mass murderers of all time combined . . .  could only have longed for . . . only in their wildest dreams could have enacted . . .

On my HOME page you will find what follows (and much more) in the context of the Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire:

In short, any number of nuclear war planners in Washington contemplated striking 295 Soviet cities, with an estimated death toll total of 115 million, and another 107 million dead in Red China, besides millions more in Soviet satellite countries (The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, John W. Dower, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017; page 37. See also my post on this here; pp. 28 & 29). In some circles, as a kind of sick dark humour, the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki due to “only” 200,000 dead, came to be called “firecracker nukes (ibid, page 29).” (This is not to mention the millions killed since World War II with related devastation in at least 37 countries around the world, or the millions murdered through US proxy wars, CIA covert operations the world over, surrogate terror exported to countries throughout Central and South America for more than a century, and other parts of the world, etc., etc., etc… (See ibid, throughout the book.)^[1]

And these “noble” American nuclear strategists holding up of course America as bastion of freedom and democracy throughout the world, blithely contemplated over many decades mass murder on a scale that all previous mass murderers combined in the history of the world could only dream of! And serious contemplation of first-strike deployment was given repeated consideration: Public as well as confidential proposals to launch a “preventive” or “pre-emptive” strike against the Soviet Union were not uncommon before the Soviets developed a serious retaliatory capability — including for instance General Douglas MacArthur. The American public likewise supported this in general (ibid, page 41).

This is America — Leader of the Free World?! Vocabulary for such monstrous evil mindsets utterly fails! Yet every US Administration since Truman authorized the first atomic bombs dropped (which phenomenon he, a Baptist Sunday School teacher, declared to be “the greatest event in human history” — and not the Resurrection?! — one massively death-dealing, the other universally life-giving), along with thousands of strategists, day-in, day-out, went off to work with this kind of obscene potential horror, like “visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads”. How delightfully American (Empire)!^[2]

And Hitler and Stalin are considered “maniacal” in their mass murders?! By the above dark-humour standard, they were only “firecracker despots” compared to a long line of US Presidents. What then are all these upstanding Americans — right up to the present, with possibly a genuinely deranged current President seemingly itching to “nuke” some nation such as North Korea — if not mad monsters? And the overwhelming monstrosity of America the Ultimate Evil Empire only increases exponentially when one reads noted historian Alfred McCoy’s description of what is being developed by said American Empire.

A paper that I wrote years ago, Christianity and the Subversion of Just About Everything!, in relation to this, with an introduction and excerpt, may be accessed here. I explain in introducing it that today, were I writing the paper, the overall positing of “Just About Everything!” would mean Empire. The Judeo-Christian Story is nothing if not one long Counter-Narrative to Empire!There is an expanding scholarship that underscores this, links to several instances of which are on the HOME page, and also mentioned on the page introducing the paper above. Amen! Thy Kingdom Come! Maranatha! (Come, O Lord).

Please also see the post on U.S. biological warfare: Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act by Nicholson Baker. And Trump blames the Chinese for producing biological weapons!

Again: thousands of Americans every day are caught up in the Maniacal Suicidal Madness: calmly working towards the Earth’s Demise as nonchalantly as planning a road trip . . . Who like Nazi concentration camp guards return home from work , hug their kids, and go off with their wives to take in a Beethoven Concert…

All Americans, and of course the entire Western world are accessories and beneficiaries, if not direct cheerleaders.  Ghastly! Murderous! Horror-filled! Morality from Hell!  . . .^[3]

Further, as the Japanese were targeted as the Ultimate Collective Scapegoat in the West on August 6 & 7, 1945, so ever since, the entire world became the potential Ultimate Scapegoat on Planet Death Row! These insights arise from the amazing work of anthropologist and literary critic René Girard.^[4]

But we are so inured to the obscene presence of nuclear weapons in the world that we blithely shut it all out as we go about our daily lives. Yet Dear writes:

That’s why I say, the existence of nuclear weapons is far beyond any philosophical questions of goodness or morality. For years, I’ve been saying: nuclear weapons are bad for New Mexico and the world, bad for our health, bad for the economy, bad for children, bad for our security, bad for the environment, but also bad for our souls! Ultimately, their existence is a religious issue, a spiritual issue. It says we really worship the false “god of war,” as Hitler called him, not the living God of peace. These weapons say, “We will wipe out in 15 minutes what it took you 15 billion years to create.” The only humane, sane, moral, and therefore religious, holy stand to take is to publicly oppose them, resist them, denounce them and work for their abolition.

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