Tag Archives: Stalin

A New Focus for My Essays: Letters from Exile

July 27th, 2025 |

Hello friends! It has been months since I have posted. This pause was deliberate. I wanted to let some time go by and see the consequences of the 2024 elections (It is plural because Americans elected thousands of public servants, not just a President) in the USA and some of the international leadership decisions in various places of conflict and change.

During this time, I have been busy editing and writing books, speaking and advising at several churches, and teaching my seminary students. I am very encouraged by the efforts of many, seeing communities flourish spiritually and socially, and my students from around the world are always an inspiration.

I am a co-author with Assemblies of God USA General Superintendent Doug Clay of a new book available in August 2025 entitled, 13: Leadership is More than Luck. We find life and leadership wisdom from each of the 13 General Superintendents that have led our Fellowship since 1914. We explore the historical and spiritual context of their time in office and find timeless wisdom from their ministries. This is not a sanitized hagiography that avoids the challenges of the day. These are real and remarkable leaders that can help us be more effective in our service to the Lord. Please take a look!

Starting with this essay, I will begin a long-running series I am calling, Letters from Exile. I am choosing this theme so that I can encourage discernment and thoughtfulness among my readers. Christians are always dual citizens of the kingdom of God and their particular location. Christianity, while influential in Americana and Western history, is a global faith that originated at the crossroads of the continents and now extends to all nations. I do appreciate the USA and the aspirational principles of our founders and framers. At the same time, no empire or nation will be perfect until the Day of the Lord.

In 1976, during the Bicentennial celebrations, I declared myself an exile. I could not agree with some of the conservative voices declaring the United States a chosen nation favored by God. I also vehemently dissented from voices on the Left that made America the moral equivalent of Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao Zedong’s China. Reading the Bible carefully, I discovered that God’s people – from the Jews in exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC to all Christians across time and place – are called to flourish in in the places they are living, bringing spiritual and social good (Jeremiah 29; Philippians 2:12-16).

I do think the USA has been a force for good in history, as well as falling short of her ideals again and again. Our First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution, is unprecedented in history for the freedoms it espouses, especially the first sentence declaring complete freedom of conscience and religion. American ideals in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Federalist Papers were subverted by our nation’s original sin: permitting the chattel slavery of African Americans. We did fight a Civil War to end slavery de jure (by law); however, it took another century to end unequal rights for Black Americans both de jure and de facto (the Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws of 1964 and 1965). We are still in need of greater reconciliation and redemption that ends racial tensions and opens doors for all to flourish.

Throughout our history we have been both hospitable and hostile to immigrants. While Ellis Island welcomed millions from the 1870s to 1914, Chinese Exclusion Acts were closing doors on immigration and severely restricting freedom for those in the USA. In the 1920s to 1940s, the USA closed its doors to Jews fleeing the antisemitism of Nazi Germany and other nations. We also opened the doors again after World War Two and supported the birth of the modern nation of Israel in the shadow of the Shoah.

Our nation, like each person we meet, is both beautiful and broken, with signs of grace and personal and systemic sins. In forthcoming essays, we will explore how to think deeply and act decisively in an age of outrage and reaction, ideological entrapment and social media anarchy.

I look forward to sharing ideas that may help us all become more thoughtful. We can be kind without compromise, tolerant without losing clarity, and hopeful in the midst of the helplessness so many feel. Thank you for your prayers, responses, and the seen and unseen good each of you bring to our world each day.

Share

Totalitarians Unite: August 22-23, 1939 and 2021: Will Democracies Capitulate or Find Courage?

August 25th, 2021 |

The triumph of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a devastating blow to US prestige and the cause of pluralistic liberty everywhere. Afghan history reveals a region that is a collection of tribes and utterly unconquerable by outside forces. From Alexander the Great three centuries before Christ, to a variety of empires, this inhospitable and divided land will not subject herself to colonialism, communism, or western democratization.

US/Allied policy for nearly two decades has wavered between simply rooting out terrorist dens and trying to instill some cohesive and democratic regimes. The former would have been a wise policy, with a strong Allied base and less occupying influence. All this is now water under the bridge. What is instructive are the implications of this current moment for the future of freedom and the historical connections that should inform the responses of nations and peoples that love liberty.

The Taliban are presently supported by a variety of jihadist networks, Islamic states, and totalitarian regimes such as China. Even though China is persecuting Islamic groups in its own nation, she has vested economic interests in ousting western nations and being in position to mine the resources of Afghanistan. What we have is a pragmatic alliance of two totalitarian systems that equally hate the USA and her allies.

The 1939 Connection

On August 22-23, 1939, the world was stunned as the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact and trade agreement. These mortal enemies suddenly were friends. Communist parties around the world were told overnight not to disparage Germany. Of course, for both Hitler and Stalin, this was a marriage of momentary convenience, until each had sufficient forces to oppose the other. The secret protocols of the agreement divided Poland between the two empires, gave the Soviets free reign in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, with Germany also willing to let the USSR wage war against the stubborn Finnish nation. Hitler was given freedom for his eventual invasions of the West.

The significance of the moment for today must be clearly seen, with no illusions: jihadists are happy to unite with other groups that desire the demise of democratic and pluralistic nations. Each totalitarian group thinks they will eventually triumph, while the immediate impact is harm to liberty. Hitler and Stalin hated the democracies and they united for their dictatorial ends. The various forces of jihadism are willing to work with Marxists to undermine the West.

Here are the signs of 1939 in 2022:

  • The irrational hatred and delegitimizing of the State of Israel and the enormous rise in antisemitism around the world. Jewish heritage and a democratic Israel stand in the way of the “long march of Marxism” (Os Guinness) and Jihadist goals, just as both Hitler and Stalin saw the Jews as the impediment to their utopias. 
  • Among many Marxists in the West, there is an unwillingness to criticize the Islamist oppression of minorities and women while projecting Nazi and Taliban identities on conservative political parties in Western democracies. This includes castigating any African-American or Hispanic-Latino conservatives, and refusing to listen to serious empirical and historical arguments that do not fit “the narrative.”
  • Utter disregard for the suffering of Cubans and Venezuelans while keeping an open border with Mexico reflects the political strategies of those aiming for a one-party state in the USA.
  • The refusal of the current administration to see global situations clearly and work in concert with democratic allies.
  • Fueling greater divides among cultural and economic groups.

Our response to this serious moment must not be ideological polarization or personal insults, but affirmation of core principles that cultivate the character and community ethos needed for a more loving and just world. In next week’s essay, I will propose new ways forward that refuse to look to political leaders as messiahs and empowers caring people for participation in community flourishing.

We can learn from history and forge a fresh future without the subversions of totalitarian ideologies and regimes. The choice is ours: fear or faith, capitulation or courage.

Share