Hey church, saying genocide is bad shouldn’t be that hard.

Perhaps at the heart of those failures was the fact that the Churches, especially in Nazi Germany, sought to act, as institutions tend to do, in their own best interests — narrowly defined, short-sighted interests. There was little desire on the part of the Churches for self-sacrifice or heroism, and much emphasis on “pragmatic” and “strategic” measures that would supposedly protect these institutions’ autonomy in the Third Reich. Public institutional circumspection carried to the point of near numbness; an acute lack of insight: these are the aspects of the Churches’ behavior during the Nazi era that are so damning in retrospect.

[I]t has become abundantly clear that [the Churches’] failure to respond to the horrid events…was not due to ignorance; they knew what was happening. Ultimately, the Churches’ lapses during the Nazi era were lapses of vision and determination. — The Role of Churches in Nazi Germany

Hey Lutherans —

The amount of times I have said or typed the phrase, “Saying genocide is bad and we should be against it shouldn’t be that hard,” to colleagues has me thinking a lot about the history of our church and our complicity in atrocities. And, well, we’re doing it again.

We have issued apology after apology: in 1993 we (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) apologized for Martin Luther’s antisemitism , the way it contributed to the rise of the Third Reich and the holocaust, and the lack of action by our sibling-ancestors in the German Church. We have apologized for our belief in and support of the Doctrine of Discovery and the genocide against indigenous people all around the world that resulted. We have apologized to people of African descent for our “historical complicity in slavery and its enduring legacy of racism…” We have social statements on all of these apologies, including the requisite period of study and learning, and it appears as though we haven’t learned a damned thing.

Since January, there have been 426 anti-LGBTQ bills introduces in legislatures across the country, with 15 states having introduced ten or more bills. Examples include:

· denying medical care to transgender individuals

· removing children from households that either have a transgender parent or parents that are supporting their childs healthcare

· Including material on transgender people in the definition of pornography, functionally making it illegal for a transgender person to be within certain distances of schools, in many places essentially making it illegal for transgender people to live in their current home.

These bills are part of a massive national effort that is well-coordinated and well-funded.

In early March, Michael Knowles, writer for The Daily Wire said the following at CPAC, ““If [transgenderism] is false, then for the good of society, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology.” This is a call for genocide, and Knowles was far from the only speaker at CPAC to make similar calls. Each of the speakers who called for some kind of violence against transgender people is a person who has a national platform.

Recently a prominent TikToker with 4 million followers went after a gender non-binary TikToker, manipulating clips of them to make it appear to her followers that they were intentionally grooming children, resulting in death threats against them and other trans and gender non-binary creators. This grooming accusation and death threats are by no means limited to TikTok. Recently, trans friends of mine were in the local paper and the comments section was littered with people calling them groomers. Trans and non-binary people across the country are reporting a rapid increase in harassment and death threats.

Finally, Nazi’s, literal Nazis, showed up at a Drag Queen Story Hour at a park in Wadsworth, Ohio. They spent four hours shouting racial slurs at the attendees along with chants of, “Sieg!” “Hiel” and other white supremacist slogans. This should all horrify everyone when it is solely about transgender and gender non-binary people, but the stakes are high for all of us. This is one example of many that the anti-trans movement is a part of a larger white supremacy ecosystem. The anti-transgender campaign is one piece of a larger puzzle; transgender and non-binary people are easy to target because they are a relatively small part of the population, a lot of people don’t know any trans people (so far as they know anyway), and the wider acceptance of transgender people is a fairly recent development in society. This anti-trans campaign is a recruiting moment for white supremacists now, as it was in 1930’s Germany. And it’s working.

In line with the actions (or lack thereof) and attitude of the German protestant churches in the 1930’s and 40’s, much of our church leadership (from Presiding bishop to rostered leaders) is acting in what they see as the churches or their own best interests — narrowly defined and short-term, lacking in vision and determination, as cited by the ADL. As a church, we are so afraid of conflict, so afraid of losing members, so afraid of another schism, we remain largely silent as the transgender community is attacked on every front. Not only is this a sign the church does not care enough about the transgender community to act in solidarity with them (much less be inclusive of them) — it is a sign that we still don’t understand what happened in Germany or what is happening here in the United States.

This church that so loudly proclaims “All Are Welcome” should be standing up for transgender people because they are beloved children of God. If it cannot do that, however, the church needs to realize that, in this moment, not standing up for transgender people, not proclaiming their belovedness, not standing against the many forms of violence being inflicted against transgender and gender non-binary people throughout the United States, is allowing white supremacy, Nazi-ism, and fascism to barrel down the path to victory. White supremacists across the country are using these (coordinated and well funded) anti-trans campaigns as both a rallying cry and a recruitment tool. Our silence in this moment is going to lead to a genocide that won’t stop at transgender people. History shows us this movement will only grow and expand, insistent on controlling or destroying anyone who is not white, able-bodied, conservative, Christian, straight, and fits into the mold society has created for their gender assigned at birth.

White Supremacy is about controlling bodies — bodies they can’t control, they will annihilate.

Far too many people, both within the church and outside of it, think this is mere hysteria or leftist nonsense. But we are too far down the paths of the steps to totalitarianism, fascism, AND genocide for us to not take these actions seriously (see end of post for steps to fascism). There multiple lists for steps to genocide and totalitarianism and we are pretty far gone according to every single one. And yet, the ELCA and its leaders cling to the belief that it can’t happen here, prioritizing fears of declining membership and conflict over our national descent into fascism. We cling to our current relative comfort over the discomfort that comes from staking out a position on the side of justice — a strange thing for a people who are so in love with the phrase, “Here I stand, I shall do no other.”

I have no doubt that many of these same leaders imagine they would have aligned themselves with Bonhoeffer or, at least, Neimoller, facing down death to fight facism. They imagine themselves marching on the Pettis bridge, risking police beatings, preaching with the fire of the Holy Spirit about the need for the passage of the Civil Rights Act in defiance of their own whiteness.

What you are doing now is exactly what you would have done then.

I am not without sympathy for my colleagues whose family depends on their income and they fear being fired if they speak out. Facing possible unemployment in a society with little social safety net is scary. Loudly taking positions in the name of love and justice can make you undesirable for future calls. But a lot of our LGTBQIA+ & Black, Indigenous & People of Color & disabled colleagues cant get calls not because of some stance they have taken, but because of who we are. We are lucky to fear losing our jobs for speaking out. Our queer colleagues, friends, neighbors and members are afraid for their lives. As are Jewish people, disabled people, Black, Indigenous and People of Color, a whole lot of women, and all of the people with identities that have historically been in the crosshairs of fascism and white supremacy.

I must ask you, fellow leaders in the ELCA, where is the line? At what point are you willing to stand against genocide and fascism? At what point will standing up for trans lives, black lives, native lives, immigrant lives, disabled lives become more than a thought experiment? Need you be reminded that if you stand up for Black lives, Native lives, and immigrant lives, you should also be standing up for trans lives because the trans people in each of those communities are the most in danger of violence? Are we so afraid of losing members that we wish to repeat our historic mistakes? Would we rather survive our calls, or survive as a church, only to stand aside as a genocide begins, so that we are making more apologies in 100 years?

Do we not trust God enough to act according to the ways we have been called to act, believing that following the way of Christ will be its own reward? Where is our vision for a church reborn out of the ashes of the old? Is not the call of Christ one that leads to the cross — or do we just say those words but not believe them?

Sunday after Sunday we read words in scripture that call us to care for the stranger, to tear down unjust structures, to love one another with the same ferocity that God loves us — a love that led Jesus to the cross.

Are we willing to take the time to craft sermons that talk about transgender people as beloved children of God? Can we take some adult class time to teach some inclusive theology? Are we willing to write newsletter pieces or letters to our people that confront and correct the narrative that trans people are predators? Can we, at the least, say in a public forum that the rhetoric and laws that threaten the lives of transgender people are harmful and anti-gospel (or hell, even anti-liberty)?

Speaking out will cause conflict (aversion to which appears to be in our DNA), but let’s face it, so does changing the carpet or talking about canceling that sparsely attended service, might as well make it about something that matters. Taking a stance may cause loss of jobs, it may cause a full schism. But we are at a point in our history as a denomination and a nation where we must ask which side are you on and what are you willing to risk to prevent genocide.

Which side are you on?

10 Steps to Fascism from Toni Morrison:

1. Construct an internal enemy, as both focus and diversion.
2. Isolate and demonize that enemy by unleashing and protecting the utterance of overt and coded name-calling and verbal abuse. Employ ad hominem attacks as legitimate charges against that enemy.
3. Enlist and create sources and distributors of information who are willing to reinforce the demonizing process because it is profitable, because it grants power and because it works.
4. Palisade all art forms; monitor, discredit or expel those that challenge or destabilize processes of demonization and deification.
5. Subvert and malign all representatives of and sympathizers with this constructed enemy.
6. Solicit, from among the enemy, collaborators who agree with and can sanitize the dispossession process.
7. Pathologize the enemy in scholarly and popular mediums; recycle, for example, scientific racism and the myths of racial superiority in order to naturalize the pathology.
8. Criminalize the enemy. Then prepare, budget for and rationalize the building of holding arenas for the enemy-especially its males and absolutely its children.
9. Reward mindlessness and apathy with monumentalized entertainments and with little pleasures, tiny seductions, a few minutes on television, a few lines in the press, a little pseudo-success, the illusion of power and influence, a little fun, a little style, a little consequence.
10. Maintain, at all costs, silence.

And 14 steps from Umberto Eco:

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7. The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”