Pulse Issue No.1

APRIL 2024

ISSUE 1

QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK

SHARED GRIEF, BITTER HOPE, AND A GOD WHO WEEPS

FILM REVIEW OF DOLORES POCKET ALLY

ACTION CALL: RESIST THE LIE

h e P u l s e

TImmigrantsAreLessLikelytoCommitCrimes thanU.S.-bornAmericans,StudiesFind.

The claim that immigration brings on a crime wave can be traced back to the first immigrants who arrived in the U.S. Ever since the 1980s and '90s, this false narrative saw a resurgence.

During the current presidential campaign, the vitriol has been intense. Just in the last few months, former President Donald Trump has spoken of immigrants as criminals and mentally ill people who are "poisoning the blood of our country."

Florida Gov (and former presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis said migrants suspected of carrying drugs across the border should be shot, without specifying how drug smugglers could be told apart from other migrants

However, research indicates that immigrants commit less crimes than U S -born people Much of the available data focuses on incarceration rates because that's where immigration status is recorded Some of the most extensive research comes from Stanford University. Economist Ran Abramitzky found that since the 1960s, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U S -born people

There is also state-level research, that shows similar results: researchers at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, looked into Texas in 2019. They found that undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime

Beyond incarceration rates, research also shows that there is no correlation between undocumented people and a rise in crime Recent investigations by The New York Times and The Marshall Project found that between 2007 and 2016, there was no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in violent or property crime in those communities

DidAttila theHun swingby foravisit whileI wasn’t looking?

My guess is that Trump’s rants about migrant crime aren’t purely strategic He has a history of being obsessed with alleged crimes by dark-skinned people, going all the way back to his demand, after the arrests of the Central Park Five, who were eventually exonerated, to reinstate the death penalty And his claims about the dangers posed by migrants are so extreme that they may well be self-defeating.

The other day, for example, he declared, “I will stop the killing, I will stop the bloodshed, I will end the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country.” Which towns and cities, exactly, have been sacked and plundered? Did Attila the Hun swing by for a visit while I wasn’t looking?

Yes, figuring out how best to secure our borders is a real issue, but the data just doesn’t show that there’s a crisis of migrant crime.

FREEDOM MONUMENT SCULPTURE PARK

Overlooking the Alabama River, Freedom Monument Sculpture Park honors the lives and memories of the 10 million Black people who were enslaved in America and celebrates their courage and resilience

The Park opened on March 27

HUMAN PICTURES

BRYAN G STEVENSON

THE “NATURE OF WOMEN”

Thatvoicehadbeenwithme, whispering,wondering,worrying.

From the moment I had first understood that my brother Richard was a boy and I was a girl, I had wanted to exchange his future for mine My future was motherhood; his, fatherhood They sounded similar but they were not. To be one was to be a decider. To preside. To call the family to order. To be the other was to be among those called.

I knew my yearning was unnatural This knowledge, like so much of my self-knowledge, had come to me in the voice of the people I knew, people I loved. All through the years that voice had been with me, whispering, wondering, worrying. That I was not right. That my dreams were perversions That voice had many timbres, many tones Sometimes it was my father’s voice; more often it was my own

I carried the books to my room and read through the night. I loved the fiery pages of Mary Wollstonecraft, but there was a single line written by John Stuart Mill that, when I read it, moved the world: “It is a subject on which nothing final can be known ” The subject Mill had in mind was the nature of women Mill claimed that women have been coaxed, cajoled, shoved and squashed into a series of feminine contortions for so many centuries, that it is now quite impossible to define their natural abilities or aspirations

Blood rushed to my brain; I felt an animating surge of adrenaline, of possibility, of a frontier being pushed outward. Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman

Excerpted from Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (2020), p 259

Go to Health

Shared Grief, Bitter Hope, and a God Who Weeps

BY BRANDON SHIN

“Now when Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died ’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved in spirit and greatly distressed He asked, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They replied, ‘Lord, come and see. ’ Jesus wept. Thus the people who had come to mourn said, ‘Look how much he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘This is the man who caused the blind man to see! Couldn’t he have done something to keep Lazarus from dying?’

–John 11:32-37, NET

The rain poured softly against the darkened windows of the hospital room, a droning undertone interrupted only by intermittent beeps of the monitor and enhanced by palpable, inappropriate silence

“Call it ”

Sometimes, it feels as if the rare rainfall that adorns my perpetually dry patch of South California comes only when someone dies That day, it was a 35-year-old woman brought to the emergency room via ambulance after placing the barrel of her pistol under her chin and pulling the trigger Our team worked more than an hour trying to salvage the physical and emotional remnants that she left behind

I remember when I first entered medical school, I expressed frustration about the state of the world, and someone, well-intentioned but smug, replied, “If you ask God why He allows suffering in this world, He might ask you the same thing.” I understand that this idea is often leveraged to induce motivation to propose that we are God’s hands and feet to serve our community.

However, I cannot help but feel mocked by the picture it portrays, one of God sitting idly in heaven, placing the responsibility of caring for others solely on our moderately effective and desperately striving human shoulders In this picture God muses, pompous in righteousness and grandiosity, “If people want things done, they should do it. Why do they expect me to help?”

I do expect God to help because despite my best efforts I am not an all-powerful being. Regardless of how many ribs I crack during compressions or how many tears I shed when a father begs for his child’s life, I cannot return the dead to the living. Thus, I often want to say to God, “I’m doing my best, but only because You won’t ” I sit with this burden, and amid the grief, weeping, anger, and frustration I witness, I often find it difficult to untangle the bitterness of my patients toward their situation from my own toward God.

Like my forefathers enshrined in Lamentations, Jeremiah, the Psalms, and John 11, I weep and cry out to God Sometimes I lash out, believing that

Couldn’t he have done something?

my frustration with God and my sense of God’s inaction will be enough to propel me toward a greater understanding of justice. While this righteous indignation is at times enough to motivate me, it also leads me to a never-ending search for control I find myself believing that if this control can guarantee one more variable or learn about one more condition, then perhaps we too can raise Lazarus from the dead

Seeking solace

As you may already be aware, we cannot And so, as a thirdyear student, not even halfway through the journey of his training, I sometimes find myself exhausted, wondering how my seasoned superiors find such depth of spirit Many of them greet their patients with prayer, thanking God for the opportunity to enter their care and join them on the path life has created. My colleagues express gratitude for the privilege of meeting patients on the worst day of their lives There is often laughter in these rooms despite debilitating diagnoses, and a profound peace from which I try to learn.

These mentors and experiences have taught me to find solace in the small wins and the benign everyday happenings

Sometimes, I do get to tell families that their grandad is awake and waiting for them, a mother that her baby can go home tomorrow, or a worried friend that we do have answers for their questions. Other times, this success takes the shape of knowledge the patient knows exactly how much time is left. These patients often thank me, stating, “Now I can focus on what’s really important.”

I try to reflect on these instances of beauty when things don’t go well, when the joy of these spaces makes way for grief In those moments, I often recall the despair of Christ at the end of His life and how He and countless others throughout history pondered the questions I ask Perhaps the questioning is itself the point The sharing of tears and sorrows serves to deepen our human bonds in ways that joy cannot. Thus, in response to the overarching question of “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” I still don’t know Maybe the only thing God can do is cry too.

Brandon Shin is a third-year medical student, part-time cellist, and amateur writer.

InSpire

Action is what separates a belief from an opinion.

A NEW BIRTH

Ask the pain what it’s come to deliver, something new wants to be born.

Elizabeth Lesser

IMPRINTED

I realize now that to believe in pluralism means I need the courage to act on it. Action is what separates a belief from an opinion. Beliefs are imprinted through actions. In the words of the American poet Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s business; we each other’s harvest; we are each other’s magnitude and bond”

Eboo Patel

AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE

At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include than included for who I exclude.

Rev Eston Williams

MOVE BEYOND

Culture matters Policy matters more, but culture matters I want more people watching ‘The 1619 Project’ documentary series on Hulu and perhaps fewer watching Tyler Perry movies The Republicans who are trying to ban books and classes that center systemic racism understand this. I think it’s critical in media and cultural spaces to move beyond ‘diversity’ (we have a movie starring a Black woman) and ‘wokeness’ (the characters in our movie say ‘Black Lives Matter’) to ‘anti-racism’ (our documentary series explains how police departments reject reforms that will make their policies less discriminatory).

Perry Bacon, Jr. in “Fact or ‘American Fiction’? Three columnists on the best-picture nominee,” The Washington Post, March 8, 2024

WINNING ENTRY

Years ago, as a young editor, I participated in a global seminar for editors of Adventist publications. A large, global group gathered at Glacier View Ranch in the Colorado mountains. One workshop challenged us to write our best title for an Adventist Review lead article 50 years in the future The winning entry? “President of General Conference Gives Birth to Daughter in African Hospital”

Reinder Bruinsma, “10 Hopes for the Church of Tomorrow,” Spectrum website, March 12, 2024

ENDOWMENT

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use

Galileo Galilei

InSpire

JUST BALANCE

Social ethics must never be substituted for personal ethics

Crusading can easily become a dodge for facing up to one’s lack of personal morality. By the same token, even if I am a model of personal righteousness, that does not excuse my participation in social evil The man who is faithful to his wife while he exercises bigotry toward his neighbor is no better than the adulterer who strives for social justice What God requires is justice both personal and social.

R C Sproul

THE MARK OF THE BEST

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”

There is no other commandment greater than these.

Jesus, in Mark 12:30-31

PEACE NARRATIVE

God is not the author of confusion but of peace 1 Corinthians 14:33

Wesimply needthat wildcountry availableto us,evenifwe never domorethan drivetoits edge andlookin.

Wallace Stegner

LET IT GO

God cares more about our future than God cares about our past Susan Doenim

Ralph Waldo Emerson ETERNAL

LIVING

Of what use is immortality to a man who has not learned to live half an hour?

TRUTH IS TOLD

Life isn’t a popularity contest I really don’t care what people say about me and believe me, they’ve said plenty. For me, it’s about trying to do the right thing even when nobody else is looking I believe that worrying about problems plaguing our planet without taking steps to confront them is absolutely irrelevant Words are easy Truth is told in the actions we take

Jody Williams, founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines

A ship in harbor is safe but that is not what ships are built for John A Shedd SAFETY PIN

It might not feel like news to many of us, b now we have research that demonstrates what we have suspected: Most Adventist pastors do not consider working for justice a high-priority role of the church.

Should NOT be a purpose or goal of the Church; 1

I feel neutral about this as a purpose or goal of the Church; 2

An important purpose/goal of the Church, but not one of the top two; 3

The research was released by the General Conference’s Office of Archives, Statistics and Research in February. Compiled by researchers at Avondale University in Australia, the study reported on a survey of 12,760 Adventist pastors more than 40% of those across the 13 divisions of the worldwide church

One of top two or three purposes/goals of the Church (use this in only 2 or 3 answers). 4.

What did the survey show? Of the 14 options, here were the last-place responses:

12. Reduce poverty, disease and ignorance

13. Teach an ethical viewpoint

14. Advocate for Justice in society

It’s disheartening and it dishonors the God we claim to serve and the people we say God created (see Proverbs 14:31)

Whatwerethebottom, last-placeresponses?

The research has been reported in Adventist Review The telling question is Question 75, the responses to which are compiled on pages 132–4 of the report:

Participants were provided the following instructions: “Many suggestions are made about things that the Seventh-day Adventist Church should be doing,

These three together at the bottom of the list of priorities of the church? Really? That’s not how I read the Bible Some 2,103 verses about one in 15 verses across the Bible seem like they urge a higher priority for a concern for doing righteousness in the world

Biblical priorities

Is advocating for justice less important than providing “a meaningful worship service”? Consider Amos 5:23, 24: “Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of

righteous living” (NLT) Yet in the pastors’ responses the disparity seems stark between the spiritual and the practically spiritual.

Of course, there will be some who respond to such a critique by asking which of the worthy priorities should be “downgraded” if we elevate advocacy for justice. (And I understand that in completing a survey, a respondent was asked to choose only a couple options ) But the figures that represent those pastors who were adamant that the church “should NOT be” focused on such ministry the largest number of pastors said no to advocacy for justice highlights a level of antipathy and obliviousness.

Isaiah 1:17 comes to mind “Learn to do good Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows” and it seems we must begin with our pastors, as well perhaps as continuing to do this work despite our pastors. But it might also help to grow a more wholistic understanding of the ministry to which the church is called How can sharing “the message and teachings of Jesus” miss “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice” (Matthew 5:6)?

Can “discipling followers of Jesus” ignore the wholistic ministry that Jesus undertook and commissioned His disciples to continue? And does a genuine “biblical viewpoint” skip over those 2,103 commands to “do justice” and care for the poor?

Doesa“biblicalviewpoint” skip those2,103commands?

While perhaps not unexpected among those of us who have been talking about and working on these issues within the church and beyond, to see this in print and borne out by such broad research is sobering One important step toward changing the world might well be changing the church

—Started by Adventist Peace Fellowship Peace,

We invite our fellow church pastors, leaders, and members to join us in this statement of apology and to express it in the life and mission of our church. We also invite pastors and local church leaders to share this statement in their church, read it in a worship service, vote it at a church board meeting, or share it as part of a website, newsletter, or bulletin.

Dear LGBTQ+ friends and family (Sign this petition)

Nathan Brown is a book editor for Signs Publishing in Warburton, Australia

HEART AND MIND

Communicating Clear-Eyed Hope

I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also —1 Corinthians 14:15, RSV

“Why is 1844 so central to you?” I asked the Adventist millennial.

He looked me square in the eyes. “Because 1844 tells me that my church started out with a mistake, so we always ought to be humble ”

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is often wrong about the end times. We have cried “Wolf!” when a labradoodle appeared on the horizon We have focused on trivial pursuits We have not read the room

Instead, we watch as our church organization repetitively strums the same maddening chords: hand out millions of copies of The Great Controversy, preach the three angels, and herald and review doctrinal boilerplate Too often official Adventist media are bland and timid, stepping back while timely and consequential matters get buried.

For example, last week on Easter morning, U S presidential candidate Donald J Trump, convicted fraud and rapist and a serial liar, posted more than 70 times on social media,

attacking opponents and announcing himself as “The Chosen One.” On Resurrection morning. Are we to keep silent about such brazen, antiChristian behavior? Where is the integrity the courage and honesty in that approach? What are the real-life effects of our silence?

Motive, tone, and timing matter. That’s why Proverbs 27:14 rings true and hilarious even today: “Whoever blesses a neighbor with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing ”

Communication vehicles especially depend on motive, tone, and timing. It may have been, possibly, at one time, in a few circumstances, that handing out copies of The Great Controversy (GC) by the buggyload was a winsome gesture. Not today. I do note that one of my gifted friends can make remarkable spiritual contacts going door to door, but he could accomplish the same by giving out grocery vouchers

The average reader in today’s digital

culture is impatient “In the most recent (2022) edition, Litmus found people spent just nine seconds, on average, looking at an email. The researchers found that 30% of emails, on average, are looked at for less than two seconds, 41% are looked at for between two and eight seconds, and only 29% are looked at for more than eight seconds.” (Sorry for the ponderous length of the preceding sentence. Are you still here?)

To expect modern people, especially younger people, to wade hip-deep through 466 dense GC pages (Streams of Light International edition) never mind any objectionable content is a fantasy Copies become distributed “as the leaves of autumn” when they are gathered and dumped into a bin Readers never reach the concluding paragraph, one of the most sublime in all literature, particularly the sentence, “One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation ”

One pulse Nice idea

Pulse distinctives

That’s why Pulse needs to be different. Speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) Fresh, accessible, and fearless In touch (literally, though hyperlinks) with today’s

culture More advocacy than accusation Staying unashamedly Jesus-centered.

Pulse will quickly and fairly identify problems and point toward plausible solutions. Complaining is not enough In the face of entrenched and brutish decisions, we provide defiant optimism and hope. Hope that someone is listening. Hope that church communities will address reality in redemptive, creative ways. Hope that together we can achieve something better Hope that the moral arc of the universe ultimately does bend toward justice Hope that freedom and stunning love are found in closely following Jesus.

Jesus modeled this clear-eyed hope. He courageously decried the hard-hearted hypocrisy of His day, speaking truth to the power brokers He stood up for the marginalized, praised and included the outcast and foreigner, guarded the children, empowered the humble and poor. He overturned tables and turned hearts He was street savvy and theologically astute So are His followers

JustLove Collective is an inclusive movement. Our two principal aims are uniting kindred spirits and inspiring positive action. In a climate of violence and despair, we elevate peacemaking and hope A rising tide lifts all boats

Climb aboard. We’re setting sail.

CORRECT THELABEL

ADVOCATING FOR JUSTICE IS NOT A LEFTIST OR POLITICAL THING TO DO. IT IS A JESUS-FOLLOWING THING TO DO.

Pastor Moe Stiles, JustLove Collective organizing team member She recently graduated with a Master of Human Rights (Congratulations, Moe!)

Chris Blake is the April editor of Pulse Pulse is published digitally on the seventh day of each month

WHO WE ARE

Pulse is the monthly digital magazine of JustLove Collective

This month’s editor is Chris Blake Design is by Jeffers Media

Unless indicated otherwise, all Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version

CHRIS BLAKE

Former editor of Insight, winner of numerous national awards for writing and editing, professor emeritus of Union College, author of many books and more than 250 articles

NATHAN BROWN

Former editor of Record and Signs of the Times (Australian edition), now book editor at Signs Publishing Company, just outside Melbourne Has written or been editing author of 20 books

STEPHEN CHAVEZ

Retired after 26 years as an editor for Adventist Review, served a two-year term as president of Associated Church Press, North America’s oldest religious press association, now Director of Church Relations at SDA Kinship International

KAYLA GOODMAN

Second-year seminarian at Andrews University, employed by the writers institute, wrote for the Youth and Young Adults Symposium

SAM GUNGALOO

Pastor of Eastside SDA Fellowship and chaplain at a Youth Detention Center in Washington He is originally from England and runs the JustLove Collective website

STEFANI LEEPER

Former staff writer at Adventist Today, now web manager at Center for Creative Ministry

EMILY KUCHURIVSKI

JustLove Collective social media manager, Student Chaplain for Spiritual Life at La Sierra University.

COURTNEY RAY, MDIV, PHD

Ordained minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and a clinical neuropsychologist Regular contributor to Spectrum website and president of the Society for Black Neuropsychology

BRANDON SHIN

Medical student at Loma Linda University, prior editor for Andrews University's The Student Paper.

ALANNAH TJHATRA

(she/her) has a passion for creative writing She graduated from Andrews University and currently attends medical school in Southern California

InterAct

Economic Inequality

Equal Pay Day symbolizes how many extra months into a year are required for women to earn as much as men earned in the previous year. In 2024 that day is:

A February 2

B March 12

C May 12

D July 4

The average woman, working full-time, has to work two and a half months more than the average man to earn what he did the previous year Another way of looking at it: for every dollar earned by men, women earn 84 cents

The answer is B

Crime and Punishment

Which country has the highest number of prisoners per capita?

A Cuba

In 2023 the average unemployment rate in the United States was 3.6 %. For African Americans the unemployment rate was:

A 5 5%

B 5 0%

C 4 5%

D 3 4%

In general, people of color in the U S have higher rates of unemployment than do white people For African Americans that amounts to an increase of almost 2 % Those results could be related to geography or lack of opportunities, including training The answer is A

Which country has the highest number of prisoners?

A. Brazil

B. China

C. United States

B El Salvador

C. Rwanda

D. United States

Of the 10 countries with the highest per capita rates of incarceration, the United States comes in sixth. The answer with twice the rate of the U.S. is El Salvador, B.

D. Russia

China’s population is 4.17 times higher than that of the United States. Yet the United States imprisons 1,767,000 individuals to China’s 1,690,000. The reasons for the United States’ high rate of incarceration are many and complicated Among them are poverty, lack of education, family breakdown, systemic racism, inadequate legal representation, and the “tough on crime” mentality Opportunities for Christians to “proclaim freedom for the prisoners” (Luke 4:18) are abundant The answer is C, the United States

Care for the Planet

The Biden Administration announced higher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks manufactured in the United States. The agency responsible for Implementation and regulation of the policy is:

A Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

B National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA)

C. California Air Resources Board (CARB)

D. All of the above

Although the California Air Resources Board is a state agency, as a state, California has been in the vanguard to taking initiatives to combat climate change Many of its initiatives have influenced other states and the federal government to institute similar policies The answer is D

Spain plans to ban short-haul domestic flights if comparable rail travel is available. Flights less than how long would no longer be allowed:

A 60 minutes

B 90 minutes

C 120 minutes

D 150 minutes

Exceptions would be allowed for flights to hub airports and links to international routes The answer is D, 150 minutes (two and a half hours)

CRAFTING A FEAR CULTURE

Faith required an ever-present sense of threat.

A militant evangelical masculinity went hand in hand with a culture of fear, but it wasn’t always apparent which came first. During the Cold War, the communist menace seemed to require a militant response But when the threat had been vanquished, conservative evangelicals promptly declared a new war a culture war demanding a similar militancy

In 2001, when terrorists struck the United States, evangelicals again had an actual battle to fight

Yet even then, evangelical militancy was fueled by fraudulent tales of the Islamic threat, tales that were promoted by evangelicals themselves.

Evangelicals learned to be afraid

Evangelical militancy cannot be seen simply as a response to fearful times; for conservative white evangelicals, a militant faith required an ever-present sense of threat. . .

Generations of evangelicals learned to be afraid of communists, feminists, liberals, secular humanists, “the homosexuals,” the United Nations, the government, Muslims, and immigrants and they were primed to respond to those fears by looking to a strong man to rescue them from danger, a man who embodied a God-given, testosterone-driven masculinity. As Robert Jeffress so eloquently expressed in the months before the 2016 election, “I want the meanest, toughest, son-of-ayou-know-what I can find in that role, and I think that’s where many evangelicals are ”

Excerpted from Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2020), pp 12-14

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. ”

SinclairLewis(1935)

Pocket Ally

I keep my allyship partially tucked in my pocket.

Here for anyone who needs it, and ignored at best by the righteously intolerant.

It shines so much brighter here in the dark.

Marcia Nordmeyer (she/her) lives in Lincoln, Nebraska She is employed in the Union College (soon to be Union Adventist University) library Living in a red state, she and her friends enjoy the many opportunities to advocate for marginalized populations Marcia is happily married to Jeremy. They are parents to two kids who are encouraged to read banned books.

PULSE ORIGINALS

TheSeismograph

In the centre of the exhibit, nestled behind a lineup of glowing plastic planets: a calibrated spool sits crisscrossed by inky red thread In 1906, San Francisco was struck so powerfully that the city was almost entirely destroyed Tonight, we don’t dwell on that.

give us, O Lord, the desire to love justly. teach us to recognize you in the cries in the pains in the hopes in the smiles in the laughter in it all

beckoning us forward, into scandalous love

deliver us from our apathy and ignorance may we learn how to in every moment do what Love requires give us, O Lord, the desire to love justly. aliturgyforjustlove

The sign tells us to jump, so we do

We jump, and jump once more leap like toads catching flies

Suddenly we are six again, and forget that the world is vast

Forget our insignificance

Only stomp against the solid floor, hoping to make an earthquake We watch the needle scribble out our small movements, and laugh in delight

Alannah Tjhatra (she/her) has a passion for creative writing. She graduated from Andrews University and currently attends medical school in Southern California

JustOne

The unpayable debt that I owe to [C S Lewis] was not influence but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience Only from him did I ever get the idea that my “stuff” could be more than a private hobby.

J R R Tolkien Not a Pulse original, but an original

Emily Kuchurivski is the social media manager for JustLove Collective and the Student Chaplain for Spiritual Life at La Sierra University

JustSmile

The Art of Insults

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. . . For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others You blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”

Matthew 23:15, 23, 24

“You are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and all kinds of filth.”

Matthew 23:27

“Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.”

Matthew 6:5

“He couldn’t see a belt without hitting below it”

Margot Asquith (on David Lloyd George)

“As just and merciful as Nero and as good a Christian as Mohammed.”

John Wesley (on Elizabeth I)

“He has a set of interested parasites about him, who flatter him until he does not know himself.”

Andrew Johnson (on James K Polk)

“Incompetent both by his ignorance and by the fury of his passions.”

John Quincy Adams (on Andrew Jackson)

“A study of the presidency from Washington to Grant is sufficient to disprove Darwin”

Henry Adams, US historian

“His argument is as thin as the soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.”

Abraham Lincoln (on Stephen A. Douglas)

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”

John Bright (on Benjamin Disraeli)

“A politician of monumental littleness”

Theodore Roosevelt (on John Tyler)

Jesus reserves His choicest criticisms for corrupt and craven religious leaders and politicians. We can imagine the wide-eyed commoners in the crowd inwardly cheering: Go, Jesus!

Then Jesus concludes with a loving lament. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (Matthew 23:37) Elsewhere He admonishes listeners to “judge not”

Paul in Romans 12 instructs disciples to “outdo one another in showing honor” and to “bless those who persecute you” “So far as it depends on you,” he urges, “live peaceably with all”

It’s a curious balance one that tests us daily The One who is ultimate love, who is “gentle and lowly of heart,” supplies blistering rebukes and scathing assessments Jesus is irreducible.

In Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults (2004), Robert Schnakenberg offers a compilation of hundreds of tart and entertaining denunciations, mostly of politicians.

Not that we, as followers of the Teacher, ought to employ these today. No. Well. Really. Of course not.

Just smile.

“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of dogs barking through endless nights It is so bad a sort of grandeur creeps into it It drags itself out of the dark abyss of pish and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.”

H L Mencken (on Warren G Harding)

“Calvin Coolidge didn’t say much, and when he did, he didn’t say much”

Will Rogers

“He wouldn’t commit himself to the time of day from a hat full of watches.”

Westbrook Pegler (on Herbert Hoover)

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend if you have one ”

George Bernard Shaw, in a letter to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second if there is one ”

Winston Churchill, in reply

“Much of what Mr. Wallace calls his global thinking is, no matter how you slice it, still Globaloney.”

Clare Booth Luce (on Henry Wallace )

“His skin is a millionth of an inch thick.”

Barry Goldwater (on Lyndon B Johnson)

“He bleeds people He draws every drop of blood and then drops them off a cliff. He’ll blame any person he can put his foot on. ”

Martha Mitchell (on Richard M Nixon)

“She probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus”

Jonathan Aitken (on Margaret Thatcher)

“A cruel man with a steady smile.”

Ralph Nader (on Ronald Reagan)

“He was born with a silver foot in his mouth”

Ann Richards (on George H W Bush)

“He’s so vain he’d take his own hand in marriage.”

Greg Knight (on Tony Blair)

“When I was president, I said I was a Ford, not a Lincoln. Well, what we have now is a convertible Dodge.”

Gerald Ford (on Bill Clinton)

“I feel certain that he would not recognize a generous impulse if he met it on the street.”

William Howard Taft (on Woodrow Wilson)

Still Singing for Freedom

U2 at The Sphere Review

In the week that I turned 50, I had the opportunity to mark the milestone by seeing U2 perform at The Sphere in Las Vegas It was an incredible show, combining the best in art and science, turning the space just off the infamous Strip into a cathedral and sending us back into the world to take better care of it and of each other They concluded their residency of 40 shows with singing “40” their long-time favorite show closer based on Psalm 40 leaving the crowd singing together, “How long? How long to sing this song?”

U2 have been a formative part of my life, faith, and activism for the past 35 years, after being introduced to them by a traveling preacher who visited my public high school

My first big concert experience was their Zoo TV tour in 1993, so to revisit aspects of this in the new show was superb and just the right amount of nostalgia and inspiration for a milestone birthday.

The sound quality and visuals on the 5-acre screen at The Sphere were fantastic. Any photos or video you have seen from these shows at the new purpose-built Sphere simply don’t do justice to the magnificence of the show, the technical quality of the production, and the goodness of the experience that U2 and their many collaborators created

However, among the highlights of the final show was a song without the overwhelming graphics and not one of U2’s well-worn

Still Singing for FreedomU2atTheSphere

catalogue of hits, but a collaboration with Neil Finn of Crowded House who had sent a recording of his adapted vocals to “Don’t Dream It’s Over ” In a beautifully poignant moment, Bono, The Edge, and a backing choir of 16,500 of us shared this song as a tribute to Yulia Navalnaya, wife of the recently murdered Russian opposition leader, who has now taken up the fight against Putin

A choir of 16,500 sang a tribute to Yulia Navalnaya.

Introducing the song, Bono asked his audience to be part of the recording, but also invited them to be part of this collective act of advocacy and solidarity: “Neither party has

spoken to our record labels, so this might be the only recording that ever exists, so please take out your phones and send it to whoever loves freedom that you know and maybe send it to some who don’t. There’s a few of them around.”

Having scraped together various flight credits and frequent flyer points to be there, I counted it a privilege to be part of a crowd from all over the world who sang together for the shared experience of what these songs have meant in our lives But we were also singing together for more justice, freedom, beauty, and goodness in our world

Review and photos by Nathan Brown Nathan is a book editor in Warburton, Australia

Telling Her Story

Dolores (2017) 96 minutes

Documentary (98% positive on Rotten Tomatoes)

Rent/buy on Vudu, Prime Video, or Apple TV

Executive producer: Carlos Santana

Writer and director: Peter Bratt; co-writer Jessica Congdon

Wholives,whodies, whotellsyourstory?

—Hamilton:AnAmericanMusical

Almost everybody knows about Rosa Parks. Virtually no one knows about Dolores Huerta Her story as a civil rights activist is no less important but it has long been smothered, distorted, and ignored. Using archival footage and baked with a vibrant jazz and salsa soundtrack that pulses with life, Dolores tells the compelling story of a visionary still living and active who started the civil rights movement for migrant farm workers This movement was the first to combine women’s equity, workers’ rights, and environmental justice.

Dolores opens with ten Steadicam shots of her walking down hallways of conferences and speaking engagements. All the shots are from behind, where Huerta moved continually behind the scenes, behind the headlines, behind the progress

In 1965, working with renowned Cesar Chavez, she helped form United Farm Workers to be the first farmworkers’ union For the next decade, from strikes to marches to boycotts to voter registrations to contract negotiations, she built coalitions, knocking down false divisions

The struggle

It wasn’t so long ago. Clouds of toxic pesticides were sprayed on workers as they worked in the fields Workers watched their skin bubbling and later died. They lived in essentially slave quarters. Their children contracted deformities, missing arms and legs The union worked to gain drinking water and toilets at the workplace, a paid vacation, and an insurance plan. (You know, a job.) In their struggle for a life of freedom, many workers were arrested and brutalized Some were killed

unless you live like them.” Echoing their nonviolent ethos, she remarked, “Hatred and racism are extensions of violence ” She battled gender bias, racial bias, class bias, and nearly died after a San Francisco police beating, one that brought to her family relational healing

Dolores is no hagiography She was married twice and had 11 children, often leaving them behind One child sadly observes, “The movement became her most important child ” In highlighting her flaws and triumphs, the film serves as a corrective to American history textbooks or as Dolores Huerta frames the choice, “the memory that emancipates or the memory that enslaves.” Today, she remains a Latina non-entertainer role model alongside Ellen Ochoa, Sonia Sotomayor, and others

Where did Barack Obama’s famous rallying call “¡Sí, se puede!” (“Yes, we can!”) begin? Dolores Huerta eventually gets props and a laugh from Obama at a White House ceremony. After receiving grant money, she started the Dolores C Huerta Foundation: “Catalyzing Grassroots Movements and Driving Equitable Change ”

Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Dolores Huerta learned from the approaches of Jesus of Nazareth and Mahatma Gandhi “You can’t influence people,” she declared,

All successful activists are flawed and attacked Still, they persist.

Jesus promises that His loving, flawed, joyful followers will be persecuted The waters ahead may be murky and laced with hidden obstacles. We will appear overwhelmed and underappreciated Opponents will misinterpret and malign

Still, we persist

When he was 13, Chris Blake worked in the fields picking grapes He lasted one day

Dolores Huerta

QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK

WhenwetalkedaboutLGBTpeople,thenuancevanished.

When someone starts reading the whole Bible, it raises a lot of questions We encounter slavery, genocide, violent tribalism, sexual assault, and all manner of challenging topics and moral problems

Serious students of Scripture are aware of this

So, what do we do? Too often, we just ignore these texts. But my [Andrews University] seminary professors weren’t content with that approach. We learned to read the Bible better We learned to understand the intent of Scripture and the movement of God to a better world We learned to read the Bible not as detached verses recruited for proof-texting but as a cogent whole I learned these things in seminary from

the professors I was now questioning for not fully applying these principles

When we talked about slavery, the nuance was deep and the contextualization careful and thorough When we talked about genocide in the Old Testament, the moral questions were complex and the textual detail intricate. Motivations, meaning, the movement of Scripture, the character of God, and ultimately the primacy of love and justice took center stage

Yet when we talked about gay, bisexual, and transgender people, the nuance vanished Instead, we spoke starkly, almost mathematically, about laws and behaviors stripped of cultural meaning That it was

consistently forbidden was enough.

There were questions we failed to ask or only brushed over. What was happening then that demanded a restriction?

Who are gay, bisexual, and transgender Adventists now?

What did the author want us to take away from the text, and how does that apply today?

How did these laws reflect the character of God and the loving intent of Scripture? Questions about context, intent, and application were scarcely imagined

Excerpted from The Bible and LGBTQ Adventists: A Theological Conversation About SameSex Marriage, Gender, and Identity by Alicia Johnston (2022), p 24

Alternative Aid to Gaza Will Fail

Airdrops and sea routes are no alternative to aid delivery by land: Organizations on the ground in Gaza are calling on governments to prioritize a cease-fire and ground-based humanitarian aid

That's the only way to meet the unprecedented need as Gaza faces famine and disease. Airdrops can’t provide the volume of aid that can be transported by land. The U.S. and other governments cannot hide behind these alternatives to create the illusion that they are doing enough to save lives

American Friends Service Committee, March 13, 2024

ACTION CALL

What Can We Do?

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Gaza. Sudan. Ukraine. Haiti. Authoritarian regimes taking over. Media bias. Global climate change After three years of drought, 23 million people across parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia face severe hunger. Do their lives matter less than the 2.5 million in Gaza?

The paralysis of analysis can set in. It’s all too much So I will do nothing (Sigh )

At Pulse, our position is clear: Action creates hope While we cannot solve everything, we can do something. We can’t change the world, but we can change our world the people we see and touch, and through organizations that see and touch for us It helps infinitely to focus specifically

Below are some ways to focus efforts on the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. We maintain that none of these efforts in any way excuses or legitimizes the horrible and brutal actions of Hamas on October 7 Pulse condemns those actions unequivocally Moreover, the only way forward toward lasting peace is through an Arab coalition and a two-state solution, as convoluted as that seems

Whilewecannotsolve everything,wecandosomething.

In addition, something must be done to stop the carnage and starvation of children and women and all civilians in Gaza now The bombing must stop The aid must flow These two avenues listed underneath move the needle toward healing. Understanding that life is complicated, please pray about your response We’re here with you Stay active and hopeful

Resume U.S. funding for lifesaving Palestinian aid: Palestinians in Gaza are facing starvation, disease, and ongoing military attacks. The entire population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid But the U S has suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the main provider of aid in Gaza, and the FY24 budget has made that cut permanent through this year Tell Congress to restore funding for Palestinian aid today. See also Six Ways You Can Support Palestinians in Gaza American Friends Service Committee

Support the humanitarian efforts of Red Letter

Christians. Red Letter

Christians is based on the words of Jesus (often printed in red in the Bible) and is “dedicated to culture change and shifting the narrative around faith and politics. RLC focuses on civic engagement, direct action, and movement building through storytelling and social justice ”

ACTION CALL

Resist the Lie

Just watching and doing nothing promotes racism. Toni Morrison’s novel Sula portrays several characters who watch terrible things We learn as the story unfolds that the problem with just watching is that it indicts the watchers too.

The watchers are not merely complacent, but complicit; like Paul watching the stoning of Stephen or churchgoers watching a lynching. Watching makes horror into a spectacle No, we are challenged to act, not watch

Adventists who embrace present truth must vote for policies of equality at all levels of government. This is true even and especially when such policies threaten our own power and privilege.

Present truth advocates promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our workplaces and local congregations We can do this better! Not just because a government might mandate it, but because it is our moral mandate. Consider who should be at the top of waiting lists for job opportunities, school placements,

scholarships, and internships.

Present truthers stand up for the marginalized in neighborhood organizations and affiliations They act on behalf of those who miss opportunities due to policies of exclusion.

Presenttruthers standupforthe marginalized.

Consider who should be at the top of waiting lists for job opportunities, school placements, scholarships, and internships

Present truthers stand up for the marginalized in neighborhood organizations and affiliations. They act on behalf of those who miss opportunities due to policies of exclusion

Be brave in taking action

Explore which agencies and organizations in your community are committed to achieving justice and equity

For readers in the United States, this might mean registering with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) It might mean contributing to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) or supporting the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) Seek out those who are active in your community and become involved Be actively antiracist.

Refuse to re-tweet a lie. Delete any apps that degrade people by making their bodies commodities Reconsider watching TV programs and films that assume or promote a hierarchy of humanity. Do not promote racist language and content by downloading music with such lyrics Determine to be a person of truth-telling in all your interactions.

Allow your imagination to be stirred and transformed by visions of a just world Can we imagine communities that tell the truth and love enough to be just?

Imagining is the first step to making it so

Excerpted from “I Can’t Breathe: Adventism’s Present Truth” by Kendra Haloviak Valentine in A House on Fire: How Adventist Faith Responds to Race and Racism (2022), pp 124-125

when, when, exactly, exactly, didyou didyou choose choose ttobe obe heterosexual? heterosexual?

Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International sdakinship.org

Not Afraid

p e c i a l M u s i c

One of the reasons I’m a Christian is that this faith liberates me from the fear of death. In doing so, it delves into one of the deepest receptacles of human fear, looks it in the eye, and declares, “I am not afraid ”

SI am not afraid to name the things that are bringing death to the people I love and call it wrong

I am not afraid to say that the church has stifled holy imagination for the sake of the preservation of its own comfort., justice and welcome.

Many have not declared hope and possibility, justice and welcome.

I am not afraid to say that many in the church have been agents of death for many women, for queer and trans people, for people of color, for immigrants and refugees, for disabled people, for all manner of minority, for so many who live at the intersections of these identities. Many in the church have not proclaimed good news They have not declared hope and possibility, justice and welcome

I am not afraid to say that many parts of the church have been far more concerned with their own comfort than they have been with the flourishing of others

I am not afraid to say that many segments of the church have invested in power worldly power, partisan power, compromise-ridden and deal-driven power, in a bid to sustain the status quo

I am not afraid to say that many of us have seen past the grand facades and hoary rituals of the church, finding an emptiness, a void, that might as well be death

Maybe the church in the U S is already dead. But the fear of death is the province of those who do not believe in resurrection. Aren’t Christians supposed to be living testimony to the miracle of the resurrection?

So we don’t conclude the narrative of the dead or dying church in the graveyard We look for its resurrection and for its redemption

Excerpted from Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans with Jeff Chu (2022), pp 101-102 Rachel died at age 37 following an allergic reaction to medication for an infection Her fearless words and courageous example live on

And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.

—Hebrews 2:15

May the church be resurrected to the way of humility.

May the church be resurrected to the way of curiosity.

May the church be resurrected to the way of mercy.

May the church be resurrected to the way of service.

May the church be resurrected to the way of wholeness.

May the church be resurrected to the way of the cross.

May the church be resurrected like Jesus.

May the church be resurrected by love.

INSPIRATION

COLLECTIVE

A House on Fire: This Adventist Peace Fellowship podcast series is based on the excellent book on race and racism

Adventist Voices: Weekly podcast and companion to Spectrum designed to foster community through conversation

Red Letter Christian Podcast: Christian commentary on the way of Jesus in the world today

Adventist Pilgrimage: A lively monthly podcast focusing on the academic side of Adventist history

Just Talking: A weekly YouTube show by Renewed Heart Ministries talking about the gospel lectionary reading

Just Liberty: A fresh, balanced take on religious liberty where justice and liberty meet

Gratitude

As we launch, we are particularly grateful for every contribution to JustLove Collective. Donations are tax-deductible. Though we are a global movement of volunteers, we do need to pay for expenses related to this magazine and to the Summit For more information, please see our website at justlovecollective org PARTNER $10,000 ADVOCATE $5000 CONTRIBUTOR $1000 SUPPORTER $500