One Blood Coalition

I recently participated in a contemplative prayer and discernment retreat in Cullman, Alabama. The purpose of this retreat was simple yet profound: to seek God’s guidance in the face of the crises confronting our nation. But guidance for what, exactly? The first part of this post is sort of introduction to set the context of the retreat.

First, I had to recognize that we were gathering as a prophetic community. Prophets speak truth to power. Rarely are prophets found comfortably settled in the synagogues or temples; instead, they often stand outside, calling both priests and prophets alike to account when they have grown silent in the face of idolatry and injustice. When corruption and oppression settled into Israel’s temple, it revealed that the nation itself was sick. The temple set the moral compass for Israel—either directing the people due north in faithfulness, or else leading them upside down without realizing it.

Today, in the United States, we find ourselves in a similar condition—riddled with idolatry and burdened by social injustice. Our current leadership insists that America is facing a “communist revolution,” portraying the working class and the poor as enemies bent on destruction. Yet, more persuasively, what we are witnessing is not communism but corporate fascism—oligarchs disguising their own economic domination under the language of Marxism. These elites have dismantled factories, replaced them with a fragile high-tech service economy, and bound us to debt and dollar monopolies enforced worldwide.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans have been persuaded that riots, a pandemic, the 2020 election, educational reforms, and wars abroad are evidence of a communist insurrection. In reality, a powerful union of corporations and politicians is orchestrating fear, nostalgia, and disinformation as tools of control. Books like Unhumans: Communist Revolutions and How to Crush Them—endorsed by rising political figures—lay out strategies that accuse the poor and marginalized of revolution, while actually plotting their further dismantling and destruction. In such a context, every accusation becomes a confession.For us as Christians, this reality demands discernment. Retreat is not an escape but a space to hear God’s call more clearly. In these times, we are called to stand with, and even as, the powerless. Jesus not only stood beside the poor—He became poor, dying as the powerless at the hands of the powerful. Our community gathered in Cullman to ask: what does it mean to bear faithful witness in this moment, to stand on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves?

Beneath the political rhetoric, another deeper anxiety is at work: the fear of white decline. Birth rates among white Americans have fallen, and many white supremacists fear the reality of becoming a minority alongside Black, Brown, and immigrant communities. Demographic shifts—such as projections that the Democratic Republic of Congo will surpass 400 million people by the end of the century—remind us that global power is shifting. For those clinging to white dominance, such changes feel like a threat rather than an opportunity for shared flourishing.

This fear is compounded by America’s unresolved history—slavery, convict leasing, lynching, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration. White supremacists imagine that if people of color gain sustained political power, they will retaliate for generations of injustice. Into this fear stepped Donald Trump in 2016, offering a nostalgic promise to “Make America Great Again.” Like Hitler in 1930s Germany, Trump used nostalgia to transform despair into rage, igniting a movement willing to follow him blindly, even at the cost of truth and democracy. His defeat in 2020 did not end this movement but deepened its resolve, turning fear and resentment into a dangerous longing for authoritarian rule. Oligarchs have capitalized on these anxieties. Facing shrinking profits and volatile global markets, they craft sweeping narratives to distract the public and consolidate power. Nostalgia becomes a tool to blind even faithful Christians—giving them ears that do not hear and eyes that do not see. Marxism, communism, “cultural revolutions”—all become smoke screens for the same old project: protecting the wealth of the few by exploiting the grievances of the many. History shows us that elites, from Lenin to our own modern corporate class, have often cloaked their interests in ideological rhetoric while dismantling the poor and powerless.

In such a time, God calls us to retreat—not to hide, but to discern. Retreat is the training ground for resistance, a place where the Spirit clarifies the difference between illusion and truth. As a prophetic community, we are summoned to stand with those who cannot protect themselves, to bear witness to Christ who died not simply for the powerless but as the powerless. Our calling is clear: to resist idolatry, confront injustice, and proclaim the gospel that sets captives free.

I recently participated in a contemplative prayer and discernment retreat in Cullman, AL. The purpose of this retreat was to seek God’s guidance. But for what? Well, first I had see that we were a prophetic community. Prophets tell the truth to power. One does not often see the prophets (if ever) in the synagogues. Often time they are speaking truth to other prophets and priests who are not speaking. When idolatry and social injustice settled into the temple, it meant that the nation was sick. The Temple set the tone for spiritual leadership. This is where the moral bearing was set. Thus Israel was morally set due north or found herself flying upside down without even knowing based upon the leadership in the Temple.HERE IS THE REFLECTION I WROTE AFTER THE RETREAT

The problem is a virus—a parasitic bug in the mind. It infects the collective consciousness of humanity. We all suffer from a kind of spiritual psychosis. At the core of this brilliant but destructive force is a sinister lie: it convinces us that we are free of it, even as it quietly leads us toward destruction.

Its slow advance is no mercy; it is strategy. It must preserve the host long enough to sustain its corruption. This virulent force is adaptive—it morphs to survive, to deceive, to dominate. Sex, money, and power are its tools—its instruments of seduction and control in a deranged quest to usurp the throne of God Himself, the source of the holiest fire.

But in the end, it will be consumed by the very fire it seeks to claim. These deceivers—the virus and its manifestations—will burn in the hearts, minds, and bodies of humankind until the end of time, or until they are incinerated by the purifying fire of God’s holiness.

The only way to accelerate their destruction is to expose them. That is half the battle. They are embedded deep within the human psyche—and if anyone believes they are immune, then the virus is likely already at work.For me, this contemplative retreat illuminated several critical truths.

First, I became more aware of the evil still at work within my own mind and heart—and how, at times, I collaborate with it. Subtly. Quietly. Often through the ways I help keep it hidden.

Second, being part of a discerning and deeply committed community helped me reconcile spiritual opposites. This should not have been surprising—God is not constrained by contradiction. Jesus is fully God and fully man. God, by nature, cannot be a man. And yet, God became a man.

One particularly challenging tension that took root in me during our time in Cullman was the urgent need for the white church—particularly those aligned with white Christian nationalism—to repent. And yet, equally present was a sincere, loving call to journey alongside these brothers and sisters as the eyes of their hearts are opened to truth.

Immediately upon returning, I began engaging with my coworkers using hypothetical scenarios—ones that helped them imagine the consequences of authoritarianism, the disenfranchisement of the powerless, and the spiritual blindness that so often accompanies privilege and power.

I posed this question to them: If I called you blind, would you be offended—if it were a diagnosis rather than a slur?Cullman empowered me to think creatively and compassionately about how to speak truth in love to people I care deeply about—people who, in many cases, are blind to the spiritual, political, and social dangers that surround us.

Finally, and perhaps most profoundly, I walked away knowing I am not alone. The Holy Spirit has begun weaving a fabric of deep, spiritual brotherhood—a community of men who walk with me in prayer and presence, even from afar.

This truth bore immediate fruit. Upon my return, our community was shaken: a seventh-grade African-American boy was held at gunpoint by a 16-year-old white teenager. The young victim was forced to do jumping jacks, repeatedly called the N-word, and pistol-whipped. Adding further insult to the wound, the sheriff’s department charged the perpetrator with only a misdemeanor.

In the wake of this trauma, I was able to turn to the Cullman brothers for support, wisdom, and courage. Their presence reminded me that community, healing, and resistance are not theoretical—they are happening here, now, in Lowndes County.

I am being called to participate in the healing of Jesus Christ in this place—to bring truth to power, to confront injustice, and to walk with others into the light of liberation. We established that our hearts have been taken up into the fire of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He has taken our hearts, pulled them out, set them aflame with the hottest fire of heaven, and placed them back in. And, it will burn us completely up without being consumed—only we will spread His fire all over the places where he has placed us to live.