What a week! Wednesday, early morning, I reluctantly prise my eyelids open to peak at the headlines on my phone. Aghast, I bury my head in my pillow and want to go back to sleep—for the next four years.
But hibernation is not an option.
- Not for anyone concerned about the future of Ukraine, or of NATO.
- Not for those worried about sustainability, the environment and ongoing climate disasters such as Spain is still cleaning up after.
- Not for the most vulnerable, the poor with little access to healthcare, and migrants who have risked life and limb to eke a better future for their families.
- Not for the women who feel threatened by alpha-male behavior endorsed at the top level of power.
- Not for those perturbed by the increasing gap between the rich and powerful and the poor and weak.
- Not for those disturbed by growing autocracy in formerly stable but increasingly dysfunctional democracies.
For most Europeans, and many others around the world, it is incomprehensible that Americans could allow a foul-mouthed demagogue, a convicted felon, a macho-bully surrounded by sycophants’ a second term in the White House. For most European Christians, it is doubly incomprehensible that many American Christians seem to believe that same man to be God’s chosen deliverer, a modern King Cyrus, anointed to make America great again, to reclaim the so-called seven mountains of influence in society for Jesus!
So how do we process this and come to grips with the new reality and make sense of our world?
A friend sent me a link to a very helpful discussion between three American Christian journalists, Curtis Chang, David French and Russell Moore, processing together the election results and their ramifications. Chang described his own emotions as moving from initial anxiety through to avoidance, then anger, followed by anguish and settling on alienation—from his own nation and from fellow believers. He then quoted the familiar exchange from Tolkien’s Lord of the rings...
“'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'”
Moore and French offer insights into the narratives informing American voters, reminding us that we all view reality through different lenses according to our presuppositions. Older readers may remember that illustration of a woman Stephen Covey made famous in his book, The 7 habits of highly effective people. Some will swear black and blue that the picture shows a beautiful young woman wearing a choker around her neck. Others can only see an old hag with a big bent nose. Yet it is the same picture they are viewing.
So too we join up the dots of life around us to create our own narratives, to explain the realities that we perceive. How we perceived the presidential candidates depended on the sources we deemed the most reliable.
As if on cue, a book I had ordered arrived in the post just as I was wrestling with these questions, "Jesus and the Powers" by Tom Wright and Michael Bird, subtitled "Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies." Very timely and insightful, and worth reading and discussing with others.
Thursday
From our apartment in the center of Amsterdam we watched in apprehension as a phalanx of police vehicles converged with flashing lights on the central station, herding into the metro what we later understood to be Israeli football fans in town for the Europa League match against Ajax. Live television showed a simultaneous pro-Palestinian demonstration 600 meters (656 yards) away on the Dam Square. The police action was to ensure the two parties were kept apart.
Friday
Now the morning news was filled with international condemnation of attacks in Amsterdam on Israeli fans after the match the evening before. Executed by small mobile gangs of pro-Palestinian supporters on motor scooters avoiding the large police squads on foot ill-equipped to prevent the violence. While inexcusable, these acts were laden by the violence currently being perpetrated on both sides in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon. The attackers saw themselves wreaking vengeance on Israel Defense Force soldiers out of uniform—as all young Israelis have to serve in the army—thus on those implicated in the killing of over 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Their narrative, right or wrong, was their justification for their actions.
Saturday
The Schuman Talk we publish each month was sent out at 6pm on Saturday. This edition was with the co-author of the book: "Through my enemy’s eyes". Lisa Loden, a messianic believer, has been engaged in reconciliation dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians in recent decades. She writes that learning about the other party’s narrative is a starting point for reconciliation. At the highlighted link you can read Lisa’s poem "Under the Shadow of Death".
Saturday was also November 9—the anniversary of Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass", when violent Nazi mobs viciously attacked the Jews and Jewish communities of Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. This week’s events make the Shuman Talk discussions highly topical. Lisa and I explore bridging the narrative gaps in our world today. You are welcome to tune into the discussion here.
Originally published by Weekly Word. Republished with permission.
Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies. They moved to Amsterdam in December 2017 after living in the Dutch countryside for over 40 years engaged with the YWAM Heidebeek training centre. Romkje was founder of YWAM The Netherlands and chaired the national board until 2013. Jeff was YWAM Europe director for 20 years, until 2009. Jeff chaired the annual Hope for Europe Round Table until 2015, while Romkje chaired the Women in Leadership network until recently. Jeff is author of Living as People of Hope, Deeply Rooted and other titles, and also writes weekly word, a weekly column on issues relating to Europe.
Weekly Word is an initiative of The Schuman Centre for European Studies. Jeff Fountain is a New Zealander holding a Dutch passport, is currently the director of the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu), and lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Jeff graduated with a history degree from the University of Auckland (1972) and worked as a journalist on the New Zealand Herald (1972-3), and as travelling secretary for Tertiary Student Christian Fellowship (TSCF) (1973). He has lived in the Netherlands since 1975, and has travelled and spoken in almost every European country. For twenty years following the fall of communism, he was the European director for the international and interdenominational mission organisation, Youth With A Mission. He was chairman of the international, trans-denominational movement, Hope for Europe, for which he organised two pan-European congresses in Budapest in 2002 and 2011. In 2010, he established the Schuman Centre for European Studies (www.schumancentre.eu) to promote biblical perspectives on Europe’s past, present and future, to encourage effective engagement in issues facing Europe today.
