PULSE Issue No.4

A COLLABORATION OF ADVENTIST ACTIVISTS

JULY 2024 ISSUE 4

MARKING CIVIL RIGHTS ANNIVERSARIES THE BIG MAD GOOD NEWS FOR QUEER PEOPLE (AND OTHERS) SOMEONE IN THE CROWD

Action Creates Hope

CONTENTS 1-2

FEATURE

3-4

REVIEW

5

INTERACT

6

INSPIRE

why civil rights anniversaries should matter to christians

the big mad /\ camp meeting dreaming

"border security's" hidden agenda

justice for all

7

WHO WE ARE this month's contributors

8-9

FEATURE

13

POETRY

14

FEATURE

the gospel's good news for queer people

someone in the crowd

slavery logic

Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

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WHY CIVIL RIGHTS ANNIVERSARIES SHOULD MATTER TO CHRISTIANS Our collective history is more important than ever.

One of the high-water marks of this seminal period of activism was the “Freedom Summer of 1964,” which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. During that historic summer, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. That same summer, civil rights organizations mounted a massive campaign to register Black American voters in the state of Mississippi, shining a spotlight on the violent oppression against Black suffrage. We're also celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling against public school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education.

But you don’t have to be a civil rights history nerd to understand why these milestones matter today: In case you haven’t noticed, we’re currently in the midst of a major backlash against racial justice, including many of the rights and freedoms that inspired civil rights leaders.

These include book bans, assaults on DEI programs, the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action programs in higher education, and forestalled efforts to transform our justice system and end racialized police violence. These courageous actions taken by our predecessors aren’t just a milestone to celebrate with a nice speech and a historical plaque; these actions reverberate through time, offering us inspiration and resilience for the unfinished cause of freedom and justice.

The work of bringing about God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” is not a straight line.

So rewind to 1954. . . . That summer, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools

was unconstitutional. When the ruling was issued, southern states quickly declared their intention to defy it through organized “massive resistance” that engaged multiple tactics to forestall school integration, in some cases for decades. Many white Christians joined these efforts, and some private Christian schools were started as what historians call “segregation academies,” schools intended to remove white children from integrated public schools.

Today, we know all too well that the fight for equitable education for Black Americans remains what NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson described recently as “an uphill battle.” Two recent examples of this battle include the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to effectively end affirmative action and ongoing efforts to erase Black history in schools. . . . They’re part of a predictable backlash that followed greater awareness and support for racial justice in 2020.

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While overt racial segregation remains illegal as a matter of law, the reality of systemic racism means that inequities—from wealth to employment to housing to the criminal justice system—are woven throughout our society, resulting in de facto segregation in many communities. Recent research from Stanford and the University of Southern California shows that racial segregation has increased 64 percent since 1988 in the country’s 100 largest school districts. . . .

Sixty years ago, in the summer of 1964, a multiracial team of volunteers from across the country went to Mississippi to directly challenge the apparatus of Jim Crow that was still very much intact, court decisions like Brown notwithstanding. Over the course of that summer, volunteers and Black residents registered voters and empowered Black students through “Freedom Schools” that taught Black history and civic and economic empowerment. The resistance from local residents was intense and in many cases violent: Eighty volunteers were beaten, 37 churches were bombed or burned, and at least seven people were murdered. The violence meted out on Freedom Summer volunteers and Black Mississippi residents alike increased political pressure on Congress and President Johnson, galvanizing political pressure behind the later passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. . . .

When I think about all three of these watershed moments— Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, and the Freedom Summer—I’m struck by the deep role that faith played. Alongside people of conscience and other faith traditions, many of those within the Civil Rights Movement committed themselves to many years of action precisely because of how they understood their Christian faith.

Many of those within the Civil Rights Movement committed themselves to years of action precisely because of how they understood their Christian faith.

When Jesus preached his first major sermon in Luke 4:1619, he read the passage from Isaiah 61 that proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” It’s a proclamation that explains the fundamentally liberatory character of God and God’s promises. Through this proclamation, we can see our own nation’s struggle to uphold equal rights for all as achieving the liberation that God so

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clearly wants for all God’s people. . . .

How do we then understand the setbacks that we’ve also seen in the intervening decades, from the backsliding to the painfully unfinished work of achieving an equitable and just multiracial society? The answer is both simpler and less satisfying than we might wish: the work of bringing about God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” is not a straight line, and it won’t be finished until Jesus returns. But as Paul memorably instructed the Galatians, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (6:9). These watershed anniversaries are inspirational reminders that never growing weary of doing good and pushing tirelessly for justice can in fact move mountains and change history. Now it is our turn to keep pushing.

—Rev. Adam Russell Taylor is president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Follow him on X @revadamtaylor. This piece is adapted from an article that appeared at bit.ly/pulseCivilRightsAnniversaries, June 13, 2024

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White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, Penguin Random House, 321 pages, 2024, $32, hardcover.

Worth Reading

Ahhh, the Midwest. Rolling prairies, big skies, mini metropolises-es, fresh air; I do love it here, truly.

Living in a “big city” in Nebraska, I describe it

however, aren’t giving them substantive solutions.

For example, authoritative voices are telling my community’s farmers that they

as a purple dot in a red state, politically

need to be SO ANGRY at the Democratic

speaking. Ah, diversity! But there are some

party while simultaneously taking billions

things I could understand better. The anger.

from corporate factory farms like ConAgra,

What are we so angry about? Was our beloved

which is running family farms out of business

Cornhusker football team disrespected? No,

and destroying their livelihoods. “The glaring

they’re just . . . on an improvement movement,

disconnect between the economic realities

that’s it. Is it the actual corn? Are the beef cattle

that farmers openly concede and their

in a mood? Or do we just have a beef with the

electoral behavior is perhaps the most

world in general?

puzzling feature of contemporary rural

Fortunately, I work in a magnificent library and I found a convenient title at the perfect time,

politics.”

We’re left with the reality of having a

because that is the magic of libraries. Tom

demographic—Angry Rural White—that

Schaller and Paul Waldman’s White Rural Rage:

cannot be ignored. We can’t keep name-

The Threat to American Democracy helped

calling as we roll our eyes and continue to

connect the dots. They write, “Unfortunately,

use them as punching bags on late-night TV.

rural White Americans are told daily by the people they trust that what they really need is

I won’t pretend to have all the answers,

more rage and resentment. They‘re told that

but my gut tells me the right thing to do lies

their fellow Americans who live in suburbs and

somewhere between listening, empathy, and

cities look at them with disdain and that the

a mutual improvement movement.

answer is to look back with their own brand of belligerent contempt.” And guns, I add. No, they won’t give those up.

Schaller and Waldman point out that many of my neighbors are told, in the most authoritative tones, that they NEED to be angry—at everything. The same authoritative voices,

—Marcia Nordmeyer lives and works in Lincoln, Nebraska. Union Adventist University employs her, and she can be found in the library. Marcia is happily married to Jeremy. They are parents to two kids who are encouraged to read banned books.

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Great presentations: just a click away.

Every summer I replay great memories from all the years I spent at camp meetings listening to inspiring speakers, renewing my spirit while enjoying veggie burgers and corn dogs, and chatting with other mamas. Every once in a while, I catch myself designing my dream camp meeting. It would include such events as worship-dancing-with-thestars, open mic night, senior Olympics, and, of course, inspiring speakers.

In my “fantasy camp meeting” I would definitely ask Justin Lee to be a keynote speaker, who, according to Wikipedia, is “an American author, speaker, YouTuber, and LGBT Christian activist known for his focus on building bridges between groups who disagree.”

I found out about him through SDAkinship.org

website, after clicking “resources”. (By the way—this tab is full of great, wellorganized information). When I saw the title of his sermon, “A Balm for Exhausted LGBTQ Christians,” I had to watch it.

This is the burning question I have as a “mama bear” for my LGBTQ friends: “What keeps you going?” “Aren’t you exhausted?”

Justin Lee elegantly and humorously addressed “soul exhaustion” in a 54-minute talk he gave at The Reformation Project.

He addresses shame versus conviction head-on. “This shame that many of us have struggled with in our lives is, I think, a result of having grown up hearing so many negative messages about who we are from the same people who gave us the positive messages about who Jesus is.

It’s very hard to disentangle those two.”

Many of Lee’s points still marinate in my head. He talks about the polarized world we live in, and how “truth is lost among the noise.” He observed, “forgiveness is one of the hardest teachings in Christianity.” He beautifully brings us home to where we belong—at the feet of Jesus, who said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened” (Matt. 11:28). Lee challenges us “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8, NIV).

Anyone wanting a spa experience for the soul, check out youtube.com/watch? v=UmYiUjUb0BE or visit GeekyJustin.com.

—Eileen Gemmell, married to Dave, is a mother to three children and grandmother to one. She is active in SDA Kinship’s Region Two.

InterAct

Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

“BORDER SECURITY’S” HIDDEN AGENDA Immigration and “border security” have received a lot of press in most industrialized countries over the last couple years. What most don’t understand is that heartache and tragedy are often the primary reasons that people are forced to leave their homes in search of better lives elsewhere.

No Other Choice For example, many people displaced by war never leave their home countries, but are forced to seek shelter elsewhere. Which of the following countries has the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

A. C.

Colombia Syria

B. Democratic Republic of Congo D. Ukraine

Pro-democracy protests in Syria have led to a 12-year civil war that’s left more than half a million people dead and countless cities and villages largely destroyed. More than 680,000 people have been forced to relocate.

Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine has seen the deadliest war on European soil in more than 70 years.

Nearly 600,000 people have been forced to move. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, in a civil war lasting more than 30 years, has seen nearly 570,000 IDPs. Civil unrest In Colombia, largely because of drug cartels has led to more than 470,000 people displaced. bit.ly/PluseNoOtherChoice. The answer is C.

Welcome Home Which country is the most immigrant friendly?

A. C.

Canada New Zealand

B. D.

Germany United Kingdom

With an immigrant population of 1.5 million, Canada’s universities, low crime rates, and quality of life make it one of the most immigrant friendly countries in the world. bit.ly/PulseWelcomeHome1 Rounding out the list is Germany (immigrant population 15.8 million), New Zealand (195,200), and the United Kingdom (7 million). The answer is A.

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Welcome Home Over the last 30 years, the number of international migrants has increased in all parts of the world. That increase has been seen most in Europe and Asia. As of 2020, from which countries come the largest number of immigrants?

A. C.

China Mexico

B. India D. Russian Federation

India claims the title of with the most people relocating elsewhere. Mexico is the second largest country of origin, followed by the Russian Federation. bit.ly/PulseWelcomeHome2 The answer is B.

Yearning to Breathe Free The largest migration corridors tend to be from developing countries to those with larger economies. Which country is the top destination for those hoping to improve their quality of life?

A. C.

France Saudi Arabia

B. Germany D. United States

Since 1970, the number of foreign-born people living in the United States has more than quadrupled, from less than 12 million in 1970, to nearly 50 million in 2019. Germany, the second top destination, has seen an increase from 8.9 million in 2000 to 16 million in 2020. bit.ly/PulseWelcomeHome2 The answer is D. While it’s true that people migrating to more affluent countries seek better education and economic living conditions for themselves and their families, many are desperate to find relief from war, religious and ethnic persecution, and threats of domestic violence.

While it’s popular among some to see immigration as an existential threat, God reminded the Israelites: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 19:34, NIV).

—Stephen Chavez

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InSpire JUSTICE FOR ALL If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody.

—Madeleine L’Engle

IMMORAL PRESERVATION

THROUGH IT ALL . . .

I have tried to make it clear

been wildly, despairingly,

that it is wrong to use immoral

acutely miserable, racked with

means to attain moral ends.

sorrow, but through it all I still

But now I must affirm that it is

know quite certainly that just

just as wrong, or even more

to be alive is a grand thing.

so, to use moral means to

I like living. I have sometimes

—Agatha Christie

preserve immoral ends.

—Martin Luther King Jr.

FABRIC One can achieve everything in solitude except character.

—Stendhal

DISMISSAL BELL CONNECTION I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very

The first resistance to social change is to say it’s not necessary.

—Gloria Steinem

different from my own.

FIGHTING FIRE

—Audre Lorde

Be careful when you fight a

—Compiled by Chris Blake

dragon lest you become a dragon.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

NO SUBSTITUTIONS

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

—Augustine

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WHO WE ARE Pulse is the monthly digital magazine of JustLove Collective.

This month's issue is sponsored by SDA Kinship International, edited by Stephen Chavez and designed by Jeffers Media Unless indicated otherwise, all Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version.

CHRIS BLAKE

ANDREW PAUL HANSON

Former editor of Insight, professor emeritus, author of many books and hundreds of articles.

Now retired, Hanson was a professor of education at Chico State University for 30 years. He and his wife, Claudia, have three children and three grandchildren.

STEPHEN CHAVEZ Retired after a career as a parish pastor, then as a staff member of Adventist Review. He is director of Church Relations for Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International.

ADAM RUSSELL TAYLOR President of Sojourners, a social justice organization, and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community.

MARCIA NORDMEYER Lives and works in Lincoln, Nebraska.

And can be found in the library of Union Adventist University. She is happily married to Jeremy. They are parents to two kids who are encouraged to read banned books.

EILEEN GEMMELL Married to Dave, is a mother to three children and grandmother to one.

She is active in Kinship’s Region Two.

KATHERINE PATER

A Presbyterian pastor and writer who lives in Westchester County, New York.

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Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

It’s not only for those who are marginalized.

In Acts 8, we read about Philip baptizing an Ethiopian eunuch. Dictionaries define a eunuch as a man who has been castrated, especially (in

from a place called Kush that today is part of South Sudan. . . .

And as if all that wasn’t enough, he was also

the past) one employed to guard women’s living

religiously different. It unclear why someone

areas. . . .

from ancient Sudan would travel so far—and

I won’t impose my 21st-century language or conceptions on this person, and say that he was

cross the imposing Saharan desert—to worship in Jerusalem. . . .

trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming, or queer, but it’s clear that he did not conform to the social understanding of gender binaries or

Those Deemed ‘Other’ So, one of the first stories of a singular

sex in the ancient Greco-Roman or Jewish

person being baptized by an early disciple is

world. . . .

this person who is marked by as many kinds of human differences as the ancient Christian community could classify, someone whose

This story is an invitation to see everyone with God’s radical openness and love.

gender, sex, ethnicity, place of origin, and spiritual identity was undeniably “other.” . . .

But it’s important to remember that we—the queer, the binary-breakers—have always been here. God’s radical grace went out of its way through Philip to welcome us from the

He was also from one of the farthest-off

beginning, without conditions.

places early Christian disciples had heard of.

The text says that an angel of the Lord called

The Ethiopian in this text is likely not from the

Philip to “a desert place” where Philip meets the

Ethiopia we know today, and was instead likely

eunuch. The eunuch is reading the words

Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

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of the prophet Isaiah and invites Philip to explain

Jewish and Greco-Roman life Paul was

the text. After hearing “the good news about

something of an insider. And this insider also

Jesus,” the eunuch asks to be baptized—and

has a holy moment—one that changes him

Philip agrees.

forever.

Notice that Philip did not conclude that this person was worthy of baptism and inclusion because Philip examined all the texts that

The Expansive Openness of the Early Church That is the real scandal of the gospel. It isn’t

have to do with gender non-conforming people,

just good news for oppressed people in need of

or eunuchs, or LGBTQ+ people. Philip just met

liberation or those who are poor in need of

the eunuch as he was, full of genuine curiosity

solidarity. It’s not just for Ethiopian eunuchs, and

about Jesus and scripture.

outsiders. It’s also good news for insiders,

In fact, the earliest versions of this text do

sinners, and religious people who’ve gotten it

not even include the exchange in verse 37, the

wrong—which is actually all of us sometimes.

confession of faith in which Philip tells the

The good news is that Jesus comes for those

eunuch, “If you believe with all your heart, you

people, too. . . .

may” be baptized. . . . In the earliest versions of

The point of the gospel isn’t that outsiders

this story, when the man asked to be baptized,

win and insiders lose. It’s not that the oppressed

Philip just did it.

win and oppressors lose. It’s not that lovers win

Good News Gets Better I could just stop here. . . . I could just say, “This is why queerness, why sexual and gender diversity has always been part of the church.”

That this text calls us to fight gender and sexual discrimination in the church and society– spaces that have violently tried to . . . legislate away these kinds of differences.

I could remind us that more than 510 antitrans bills were introduced in the U.S. last year and that this conversation is still very relevant.

Lives may depend on how we read this text, because hateful legislation is proven to have real-life consequences.

and haters lose—it’s a dissolution of those categories. Everyone in. No one out. No exceptions. . . .

For those of us who struggle with questions of human difference in the church—race, gender, sexual identity, or nationality—this story is an invitation to see everyone with the radical openness and love that God views people.

For those of us who still live under threat, whose identities mean that we are still being persecuted or excluded, still seen as less than human by real people who have real power over us, the message is that God will indeed hold these people and powers accountable. God wants to do so not by defeating them or excluding them, but by converting them. . . .

The good news requires all of us to change.

The good news requires all of us to change.

To die to ourselves. To step into that water and rise again, if we have not done so. That’s what we’re all invited to. No exceptions.

But while the story of Philip and the eunuch is where Acts 8 ends, the next chapter begins with “meanwhile.” Which means that our story isn’t quite over.

While Philip is baptizing a eunuch, someone else . . . was experiencing his own conversion along a different road. Unlike the eunuch, in

—Katherine Pater is a Presbyterian pastor and writer who lives in Westchester County, New York. This piece is adapted from bit.ly/PulseTheGospel, June 6, 2024.

Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

If you think you don’t know anyone who is LGBT ... think again Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International sdakinship.org

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Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

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INSPIRATIONCOLLECTIVE

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

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

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

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

Renewed Heart Ministries talks about the intersection of Jesus, faith, and social justice today

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

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What have you watched, read, listened to or otherwise engaged with that changed your mind, gave new insights, told a good story or again inspired you for the work of justice? Write a review of 300 to 399 words and send it to Pulse to share with our JLC community.

Send your submissions to admin@justlovecollective.org

Pulse / JustLove Collective / July 2024 / Issue 4

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When you asked as you were dying, Father forgive them, they know not what they do, While you were taunted by passers-by and chief priests and scribes and elders and even a bandit crucified with you, someone in the crowd was listening and was forgiven.

When you cried out as you were dying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

While they ridiculed you and called you a madman, “For did he not say, ‘I am God’s son?’” someone in the crowd knew the difference between a desperate cry for help and a declaration of abandonment.

When you said as you were dying, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, While the cynical commented “He put his trust in God; now let God rescue him if he wants him,” someone in the crowd understood that Jesus’ trust was not misplaced.

When you spoke as you were dying, hanging there under that cruel sign, JESUS—KING OF THE JEWS, I am thirsty, Someone in the crowd put a sponge soaked in sour wine on a hyssop stick and held it up to your mouth.

When you knew as you were dying that you had finished the course, that you had kept the faith, it wasn’t only the centurion who struggled to understand what it meant when you whispered, It is fulfilled, It is finished, Someone in every second of every minute of every hour of every year of every century since that day has loved God because you loved us. Someone has always understood the ironic, terrible, glorious, eternal truth spoken by those who mocked you, He saved others; himself he could not save.

—Andrew Paul Hanson, now retired, was a professor of education at Chico State University for 30 years. He and his wife, Claudia, have three children and three grandchildren.

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If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A.?

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly?— You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.

—Abraham Lincoln

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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

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