After Trump removed a key restriction on where ICE agents can make arrests, the Quakers are fighting back.
The Quakers are suing Trump’s Department of Homeland Security for allowing ICE raids in places of worship.
The lawsuit, filed in Maryland on Monday by multiple different Quaker groups from across the country, states that “the very threat of [immigration] enforcement deters congregants from attending services, especially members of immigrant communities,” and notes that the raids infringe on religious freedom.
“A week ago today, President Trump swore an oath to defend the Constitution and yet today religious institutions that have existed since the 1600s in our country are having to go to court to challenge what is a violation of every individual’s constitutional right to worship and associate freely,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the Quaker groups in court. “The troubling nature of the policy goes beyond just houses of worship with sanctuary programs—it is that ICE could enter religious and sacred spaces whenever it wants.” (snip-MORE)
I think we need a category for “Resources.” Anyway, our friend and fellow blogger Annie Asks You gave a couple of resources for us to pass along and use to help our neighbors, earlier in a comment on another blog. I put together a Substack about it, so here it is. It’s short.
These sites have information people need so they are prepared in case authorities believe they have reason to question or detain you. The sites are run by experts, with clear advice for preparation and dealing with authorities. -A.
ICE and CBP might not respect our rights, but they cannot take away our POWER. Use these resources to learn about your rights and express them in case you have an encounter with an immigration official. (snip)
Jan 15, 2025 This Know Your Rights resource provides general information on what to do if you are stopped, arrested, or detained by immigration or other law enforcement. Originally published in December 2015. (snip)
Rare because I rarely post such. Pastor Bolz-Weber says all this so well, and it is what I learned when I was young and growing up; what I work to apply in my own (and in no one else’s) life. I’m not proselytizing or trying to “draw anyone in.” This helps to explain why and how I feel as I do about justice and peace, and love and understanding and all that, including hope and light. Enjoy with a mind that can absorb without feeling there’s gonna be a “come forward” moment, because there’s not one. (Other than to Christians who feel as we do, but wonder about Zionism and Nationalism being as bad as they are.)
This morning I had a quick breakfast with another Lutheran pastor. This of course is not terribly remarkable in the scheme of things, except for the fact that the breakfast took place in the Kingdom of Jordan, a few feet away from the Dead Sea and my colleague had to cut the breakfast short so he could return home to his family, but he was anxious about all the military check point between here and there.
“How far of a drive is it” I asked.
“If I had a car and could drive straight there, about an hour. But my hope is that it will only take 8 hours.” He accepted that he may in fact not even make it home at all tonight.
Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Lutheran Pastor who lives and serves a church in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Christians have been here since the day the Spirit blew through them on the day of Pentecost, so Munther and my other Palestinian Christian friends can get slightly annoyed when well meaning Christians from the West ask “when did your family convert?”.
Um, over 2,000 years ago?
Munther and I are in Jordan right now for a conference – 60 academics and church leaders from 17 countries gathered over the last several days for a consultation on Christian Zionism (belief that Jewish people have a “divine right” to the land here – using a few verses in a 4,000 year old text to have authority over foreign policy and global political realities of today), and the impact of that on Christians in the Middle East; a few days together in a majority Muslim country, across the Dead Sea from the State of Israel to talk about Christian folks’ business: how do the theological beliefs of one group of Christians impact the lives of another group of Christians halfway across the planet?
Many of us grew up with some form of Christian Zionism, I know I did. Perhaps it stemmed from a desire to be faithful to what we have been told, or a desire to help usher in the second coming of Christ (ala The Late Great Planet Earth) so he can come back and destroy the world and take us up to heaven (described this week as science fiction theology), or a desire to assuage the guilt left over from the unspeakable atrocities and genocide of the holocaust.
It will take me time to metabolize what I heard over the last few days. Christian Zionism is widespread, and far reaching in it’s impact, and I am committed to try and maintain the humility it takes as a US citizen and a Christian to consider people like Munther and my friend Mitri Raheb as reliable narrators of the impact on the ground in Palestine.
Palestinian Christians should be listened to by us, their siblings in Christ.
Munther Isaac appeared in ‘Til Kingdom Come (2020), an Israeli documentary about American Christian support for Israel.[20] In the film he explains his view to pastor William Bingham that Christian Zionism contributes to the oppression of Palestinians. After their conversation, Bingham calls Isaac an anti-semite and says that Palestinians do not exist. – Wikipedia
This morning before Munther left to make his way home, he told me a story of a family in his church. For over 150 years they have rightfully owned and inhabited their land outside Bethlehem – a beautiful parcel dotted with olive trees, often hundreds of years old themselves.
Israeli settlers (whose actions are deemed illegal by the UN Security Council) who for years have been attempting to take this family’s land, confronted them at their gate recently, demanding the family leave. The family showed them their ownership documents – dating back from Ottoman rule, then Jordanian rule through to Israeli rule. The settlers angrily lifted up their Bible and said “We have documents too. God gave us this land!”
As I mentioned, I am overwhelmed by all I heard this week and will try and write more later for those who are interested, but for now I wanted to report how one word stood out for me in a particular way during the conference, and that word is: heresy.
19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defined heresy as, “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence“
So perhaps that is the correct word for when, with all the trappings of Christianity behind us, we who seek to justify or maintain our dominance over another group of people use the Bible to prove that our domination`is not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but is, indeed, part of “God’s plan”. Because there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor, blessed are the meek, etc…).
Is it not heresy when slavery is established as “God’s will”; when the subordination of women is established as “God’s will”; when discrimination against queer folks is established as “God’s will”, when the taking of one people’s land by another people is established as “God’s will” (hello, manifest destiny), when the executive VP of the National Rifle Association claims that the right to buy an assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God”? When a self-justifying message is heretically delivered in God’s name it brings with it a poison that infects the deepest parts of us and when the poison spreads, so does the violence.
When you can say that God Almighty is co-signing on your dominance over another group of God’s children, then every means is justified, right to the end. Every inch of land stolen, every suicide bombing enacted, every act of violence committed, every weapon used, every checkpoint and illegal detention, every child who dies, every tower that falls to the ground – all of it covered under some sort of bullshit spiritual umbrella policy. There are no means that need justifying if we claim God as our patron and guide.
And I imagine God is just about sick to death of it.
As I claimed in my book about sexual shame and religion, we should never be more loyal to a doctrine or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming people we re-think those teachings. Amen?
Speaking up for Palestinians often comes at a cost. Those of you who have done it know. I also know, but am frankly too tired to care right now. So, if based on my recounting of the stories of my friends and colleagues, anyone is moved to called me anti-semitic, please open up the notes app on your phone and feel free to write it there but I will delete your unfounded accusations if you leave them here.
My apologies for the edge in my writing voice. We are all exhausted and as my friend Jodi just texted me, “this month has been two years long already.”
Thank you for reading. I am genuinely sending my love. Please pray this ceasefire holds. And for those waiting on the side of a road right now to return to the rubble of their homes. And for the hostages and prisoners who were released yesterday. I cannot imagine the trauma.
Today’s speeches were delivered from behind bulletproof glass. Meanwhile, Trump just gave violent anti-abortion zealots free rein to blockade clinics and probably much worse.
The proposed school is being defended by the governor and state attorney general.
In 2022, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt declared, “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus. Father, we can do nothing apart from you. We don’t battle against flesh and blood but against principalities and darkness.”
During his 2018 inauguration, Stitt pledged that his primary mission would be to “bring people to Jesus.”
Stitt last appeared here in November 2024 when he warned that “Satan is trying to take over my state” because a pagan woman gave the invocation at Tulsa’s city council meeting.
In June 2024, Still signed a bill allowing public school students to leave campus three times a week for “religious instruction.”
I want to thank Ten Bears who also had this in his post. I am not sure if I can find it again but I will put a link below to his main channel if I can find the specific post. I also had it in my list to post but as he got it done first I wanted to give him credit along with Joe My God.
When people tell / prove to you who they are believe them the first time. Republicans are totally in to gaslighting, changing reality from what is real and happened to what will help keep them in power, and they feel keeping the power of their seats in congress / their job is worth more than the people of this country or protecting the country. They are out for themselves and what they can milk from the job for their family wealth. For the republicans and some democrats it has long stopped being about leading the country to a better place, to securing the needs of the people, providing for the good of the people as the constitution requires of them. They see being elected as a golden ticket to wealth and power. So if being a Nazi is the way to that they will do it, if agreeing with the demented mentally deficient convicted felon in all his absurd whims is how they need to keep that golden ticket they will do it no matter who it hurts or the consequences. Hugs.
The Tennessee Federation of Republican Women is coming under fire for providing parents a reading list for children that cites Adolf Hitler as an example of leadership. “Hitler and all intelligent leaders throughout history have understood that the way to change a country was through the training of its youth, to get them while they are young,” the group’s reading list says.
The list is titled “Growing American Patriots Through Literacy” and posted on the group’s website. “How do we make the changes necessary?” the reading list says, just before the Hitler quote. “Proverbs 22:6 teaches us that if ‘we train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.’” The books suggested include “Camilla Can Vote” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn and “A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing Americans” by Lynne Cheney.
Read the full article. The group’s president, Sharon Boreing [photo above], is not returning calls from reporters.
The Tennessee Federation of Republican Women is coming under fire for providing parents a reading list for children that cites Adolf Hitler as an example of leadership. https://t.co/QsRL8NCZ0k
Last night I had gone to bed earlier than Ron, my husband as is normal. I slept on my side of the bed and Tupac slept on Ron’s side against Ron’s pillows. We have two small car type pillows and we normally put one down against Ron’s pillows with a towel over them for Tupac to lay on. He sometimes has incontinence of his bladder and at the end of the time length of his drops he tends to get drips from his anus. We are not sure if he just gets into something outside that causes it or it is his drops preventing it as Ron is not great at keeping track of the drops or his spotting.
So when Ron came to bed he started to pull back his blanket and sheets only to realize Tupac had urinated a lot. Again not his fault, he does this when deep asleep sometimes. He is old and badly injured on his lower back end. We think he got hit by a golf cart because he is terrified by them. So Ron and I changed the bed at 10 pm last night.
Ron has gone out to visit with a nurse he worked with and I started washing the sheet and blankets from last night. As I lifted the bedding up to put it in the washer the smell and sight of a pee soaked circle right in my face triggered first one and then more memories. I lost track of time, I was that boy having been peed on while on my mat in the hallway, I was the boy so proud of his first bed to be forced to beg to drink a teen male’s urine rather than have it on my first bed at age 8 … only to have them do it to me anyway. To have to kneel or stand as the males peed on my pants or in them knowing I would be given public punishment by the adopting parents for peeing myself. Forced to accept them doing to me something I had no way to stop, too small and too weak to stop to do anything, and then suffering the public punishment in front of them as they laughed and mocked me with the approval of the adopting parents.
I went to the bathroom next to the washer / dryer and threw up in the toilet. Once done with that I just sat there on the floor and cried. A damned 62 year old man, once a decorated enlisted military man who served in two branches of the service, sitting on the bathroom floor with my back to the sink cabinet sobbing for remembered past pains, hurts, and emotions I can never seem to make stay away but resurface again and again and again into eternity. They tear at me, destroy me it seems like every time.
Finally I was able to calm down. Ron was gone so I had to deal with no support. Yes I could have called Randy but I did not have my phone and even the thought to find it was something I couldn’t manage. Damn even as I try to type this I keep breaking out in tears. I sometimes wonder if the living abusers ever feel bad over what they did to me? But I know not, they were too well schooled and inducted into hate by their parents. So I finished putting stuff in the laundry, kept drying my eyes and blowing my nose.
When I got back to my Pink Palace office … which I will be leaving soon for a grand better brighter room, I took the dry up nasal spray and sat down to write this. I struggled as always … should I burden my friends with it … Well they did not do this it is not their fault. Hey they are really good people I shouldn’t throw this dirt on them and soil them with my own past it is not their fault!
These people don’t deserve to have these thoughts in their head like you do, give them a fuck break from your whining you piece of damaged shit the voice of my adoptive father screams in my head! It rings so loud along with the other names called me. The worst were when he was angry or during the abuse. But his general feeling about me he beat into me. Now I am so tired. I want to quit. I want it all to end. I want to give up.
But there is joy in my life I force myself to remember. I have my wonderful husband of nearly 35 year. I have a home, and enough income to survive. I have good things in my life. But they only cover the screams of the abused child I was, even raped after I came home from the military by them until I was able to escape to my own home and then to the safety of Ron’s protection from them.
Thank you for letting me write this. As always it is a horrible fight to do it, it is like being abused all over again to describe it. But the process of doing that, of voicing the hurt makes is so much less, drives it back into the holes it hides into. I need to write to get it out of me. I am so grateful there are people who understand this and willing to listen as I do, taking unto themselves their own memories my writing may trigger. I am so sorry I might do that to others, to hurt them. But it is the only way I know to get some relief myself. So I thank you all greatly. Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 