Meditation FAP Council 31 March 2025
Now that we are halfway through the Passion season, I invite us to be inspired and join our reflections on the basis of this verse from the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 - New American Standard Bible, adapted)
We will talk about the burdens of today's world, about historical misunderstandings, about the Council of Nicaea, but also about the clouds of unexpected witnesses who help us to persevere.
I have chosen this first verse of chapter 12 of the Epistle to the Hebrews as a starting point because it is the theme that the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) has chosen for its next General Council in October this year in Thailand: ‘persevere in your witness’. In view of the main political events in our world in recent months, it seemed to me that the WCRC had grasped something important about finding the right response to all these events. The reference to the great cloud of witnesses around us is a valuable reminder, because these witnesses are generally much more directly exposed than we are to the tragedies and heartbreaks of this world. For us at the FAP, it is important to always bear in mind that we are linked to a cloud, that our Franco-Swiss context is a very small stone in the Christian mosaic. Our perseverance is useful to that of others.
This leads me to share with you some reading material that I have been doing recently and which both substantiates and expresses the essence of the reaction that I propose.
The first comes from the WCRC. I invite you to read or at least browse the Handbook it has published on its website in preparation for this Assembly, which brings together seven relatively brief and pointed, and therefore controversial, texts that express the pain of this world but also of the Church, which is at once witness, victim and sometimes accomplice of these divisions. At the end of its last physical meeting in May 2024 in the United States, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a few months before the US presidential election, the WCRC Executive Committee had issued a troubled and troubling message, an extract of which is given here
We, the Executive Committee of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, find ourselvesreturned to Calvin University,…and into a U.S. reality which is troubling. Christian nationalism, rising authoritarianism, and the scourge of racism are tearing at the very core of this nation. Deeply intertwined with each other, these three matters must be confronted with honesty and openness, a willingness to accept their hard truths and challenges. The U.S. strain of Christian nationalism is particularly virulent as it includes the supreme confidence that God is on the side of the U.S., that their “battles” are one. Authoritarian impulses bleed from this belief, with an unholy goal of restricting participation to the “chosen” few. Racism runs deeply throughout U.S. society, the unresolved repercussions of slavery and segregation most prominent, but the discrimination of all black and brown bodies who find themselves in the country or at its border must not be neglected. The unresolved legacy and impact of the colonial project as it relates to Indigenous peoples continues to be a stain on many of our communities as does the lack of intention to engage in meaningful dialogue. This is a wound desperately in need of healing.
Now more than ever, we need perseverance to continue healing the wounds in the new context in which we are. Just one example among hundreds of possible ones: here in Switzerland, one of our long-standing partners, HEKS, lost 7.5 million dollars in one day that it had been entrusted by USAID for its programs in Ukraine, Congo and Ethiopia. It had to lay off 100 employees in these countries.
What has been happening in the world recently should make us think about our relationship with those in power. In the blog of Graham Tomlin, Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and former Bishop of Kensington, I recently read the following:
After years of polarised politics, nepotism from previous rulers and disputed claims to power, an unpredictable and egotistical leader believes that God had saved him to make the nation great again. He is acclaimed as the most powerful leader in the world and instantly surprises everyone by issuing a raft of disruptive new measures to radically change the way society functions and announces that he is going to target anti-Christian bias in society.
Sounds familiar?
No, it’s not Donald Trump. It is the fourth century ruler of the Roman empire – Constantine the Great. And the parallels are striking.
Constantine, the son of a Roman general and a Balkan barmaid, was the first Christian Roman emperor. Before then, all emperors were pagans, worshipping the Greek and Roman gods. In the early 300s AD, …after years of political infighting within the empire, Constantine marched on the capital and defeated his enemy Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge outside Rome. Just before the battle, Constantine had a dream in which he saw a sign of something that looked like a cross in the sky, with the tagline “in this sign, conquer”. From that time onwards, he believed that God had chosen him for this direct purpose – to bring peace to the empire by conquering its enemies, internal and external, under the banner of Christianity.
After his accession Constantine, like Trump, introduced new economic policies to reverse rampant inflation, restructured government, and strengthened military capacity to deter the empire’s enemies. He also started to give privileges to the … Christians. Paganism,…was increasingly relegated to second place. Churches were granted land on which to build new edifices, and gatherings of Christian leaders became commonplace, some of which he presided over, such as the Council of Nicaea which took place in 325 AD,…Crucifixion was abolished as a form of execution. Sunday became a weekly holiday, pagan practices were outlawed in public. .Was he a genuine Christian, wanting to advance the faith by giving the church a good run at converting the empire?... Certainly, at the time, many Christians were delighted, enjoying their new privileges and access to the imperial court like wide-eyed pastors invited to the White House. Eusebius, the great historian of the early church wrote: “in every city the victorious emperor published decrees full of humanity and laws that gave proof of munificence and true piety. All tyranny had been purged away.” It could be the voice of a Southern Baptist.
Yet on the other hand, Constantine was irascible, unpredictable and vindictive. He had his second wife, three brothers-in-law, his eldest son and his father-in-law executed. ...Was he cynically using the growing cultural force of Christianity to bring unity to a divided and fragmenting empire? Some historians suggest that …. Constantine was exactly the kind of military messiah that first century Jews had expected, yet one totally different from the crucified rabbi from Nazareth. He certainly promoted the Christian faith … Yet, there is little mention of Jesus in Constantine’s religion. He sometimes seems to have thought of himself as the Saviour of the Church rather than Christ, with the watershed of history not in the first century with the … the Resurrection of Jesus, but in the fourth century with his own victory over Maxentius.…. The Christian church was originally a counter-cultural movement, offering a radical new vision of life, …centered on the crucified Jesus. After Constantine, Christianity became centered on a majestic ruler of the heavens and the earth. Christ the Pantokrator, the image of Christ in glory … replaced images of Christ on the cross. This was, they suggest, not Constantine being formed into the image of Christ, but Christ being conformed to the image of Constantine.
There are of course other elements to be emphasized in commemorating this first Council, but it is striking to see it coincides with the rise to power of a pseudo-Christian ideology such as that of Donald Trump.
The churches in the USA are distraught because they too are deeply divided, even the most progressive ones. Some have taken the new administration to court for violating laws and agreements regarding church-run migrant accommodation programs. On 6 March, representatives of all the churches and religions in the USA came to protest outside the Supreme Court building.
Resistance, resilience and perseverance.
Another strong gesture of hope and perseverance was given to me in January from a region and a church that one would not have expected. Strangely, this message went almost unnoticed and did not cause any waves, at least as far as I know. It is a statement entitled ‘Remaining faithful to Christ and the Gospel’, published on 7 January, Christmas Day in Russia, by a group of theologians and lay people from the Russian Orthodox Church[2].
"An appeal launched by clergymen and laymen of the Russian Orthodox Church who, while remaining in Russia, refuse to take part in the war.
This profession of faith was written by churchmen, clerics and laymen, most of whom live in Russia, who felt obliged to renounce any reference to their authorship. Anyone who shares the theses contained in this document and is prepared to pass them on to others, whether orally or in writing, publicly or privately, may consider themselves to be participating in this act of confession. The phenomena to which these theses refer have long been gaining momentum in our Church. The silence of the clergy can be perceived as approval or acceptance, and therefore we have no right to remain silent. "We, clergy and laity, children of the Russian Orthodox Church... believe and confess that we are all called, whatever the earthly circumstances and the demands of the holders of earthly power, to bear witness before the world to the teaching of Jesus Christ and to always reject what is incompatible with the Gospel. No earthly objective or value can be placed by Christians above or in place of the truth revealed in the teaching, life and person of Jesus Christ.
This is followed by a series of eight statements on fundamental elements of the Christian faith, updated in the context of the war against Ukraine, in which this group dismantles and challenges the religious justification of the war against Ukraine, which can be read and heard in Russia, in the Russian Orthodox Church in particular[3].
And then, a few days ago, there was also this video of Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington, which was all the rage during the church service on the day of D. Trump's inauguration: she says this:
"Hello friends, this is Bishop Mariann. I have been away from social media for a while, but I wanted to reach out to you again to say thank you...I believe that there is a spirit in this country of love and goodness that is larger than all of us. And that it is a time to rally around one another, to lift one another up, and to hold on to what is good for us and what is good for our country. I believe we can do this.
We must remember that we are never alone. If one of us falters, there are hundreds of others who remain standing. And sometimes, we support those who cannot do it themselves."
To conclude, this Coldplay song , or rather this prayer:
We pray (2024)
I pray that I don't give up, pray that I do my best
Pray that I can lift up, pray my brother is blessed
Praying for enough, pray Virgilio wins
Pray I judge nobody and forgive me my sins
I pray we make it, pray my friend will pull through
Pray as I take it unto others, I do
Praying on your love, we pray with every breath
Though I'm in the valley of the shadow of death
And so we pray
For someone to come and show me the way
And so we pray
For some shelter and some records to play
And so we pray
We'll be singing ‘Baraye’
Pray that we make it to the end of the day
And so we pray
I know somewhere that Heaven is waitin'
And so we pray
I know somewhere there's something amazin'
And so we pray
I know somewhere we'll feel no pain
Until we make it to the end of the day
I pray that love will shelter us from our fears
Oh, I pray you trust to let me wipe off your tears
Confront all the pain that we felt inside
With all the cards we been dealt in life
Pray I speak my truth and keep my sisters alive
So for the ones who parted seas (Ah, yeah)
For the ones who's followin' dreams (Ah, yeah)
For the ones who knocked down doors (Ah, yeah)
And allowed us to pass down keys (Ah, yeah)
Pray that we speak with a tongue that is honest
And that we understand how to be modest
Pray when she looks at herself in the mirror
She sees a queen, she sees a goddess
And so we pray
For someone to come and show me the way
And so we pray
For some shelter and some records to play
And so we pray
We'll be singin‘ “Baraye”
Pray that we make it to the end of the day
And so we pray
I know somewhere that Heaven is waitin’
And so we pray
I know somewhere there's something amazin'
And so we pray
I know somewhere we'll feel no pain
Until we make it to the end of the day
On my knees, I pray, as I sleep and wake
‘Cause inside my head is a frightening place
Keep a smiling face, only by His grace
’Cause love's more than I can take, hey
And so we pray
For someone to come and show me the way
And so we pray
For some shelter and some records to play
And so we pray
We'll be singin' “Baraye”
Till nobody's in need and everybody can say (Oh)
La-la-la, la-la, la-la (La-la)
La-la-la, la-la, la-la I know somewhere that Heaven is waitin‘, is waitin’
La-la-la, la-la, la-la I know somewhere there's something amazin‘, something amazin’
La-la-la, la-la, la-la Until we feel no pain
La-la-la, la-la, we pray, we pray, we pray
[1] https://www.seenandunseen.com/trump-new-constantine-hes-no-saviour
[2] https://noek.info/hintergrund/3646-christus-und-dem-evangelium-treu-bleiben
[3] 1. ON GOD: On the commandment ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain’, in which there is a sharp rebuke of ‘not only politicians and journalists, but also ministers of the church who use the name of God in their rhetoric, unhesitatingly commanding God . . . which of the earthly rulers He should support.
2. ON THE REIGN OF GOD: On the inadmissibility of confusing what is ‘God's’ with what is ‘Caesar's’, as well as on the inadmissibility of transforming the Church into an instrument of the holders of power on earth.
3) ON HUMAN DIGNITY: On the so-called ‘heresy of the cult of man’ and the inadmissibility of using man as a consumable material, where it is recalled that "neither the Holy Scriptures nor the Creed tell us that God became man for the greatness or the salvation of a nation, a State or a party... but ... for the love of man.
4) ON THE EQUALITY OF PEOPLES BEFORE GOD and the inadmissibility of national self-glorification
5) ON LIFE ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENTS OF CHRIST and its replacement by the ‘struggle for traditional values’.
6) ON CHRISTIAN LOVE OF NEIGHBOUR and its replacement by the preaching of violence and ‘holy war’.
7) ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST: On the ‘verticality of power’ and the neglect of the synodal principle, the distortion of the life of the Church.
8) ON THE SERVICE OF RECONCILIATION, the true social and political mission of the Church, where reference is made to the core of the social doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted by the Synod of Bishops in 2000: "The Orthodox Church fulfils its mission of reconciliation between hostile nations and their representatives. Consequently, it does not take sides in inter-ethnic conflicts, except in cases of open aggression or injustice on the part of one of the parties’ (II.4). ’In the face of political differences, contradictions and struggles, the Church preaches peace and cooperation between people who adhere to different political views. It also tolerates different political convictions within the episcopate, the clergy and the laity, with the exception of those that clearly lead to acts contrary to the doctrine of the orthodox faith and the moral standards of ecclesiastical tradition’ (V.2).