The Spirit and The Streets

As a theologian and organizer who has studied history, I offer you these lessons not as distant academic theories, but as survival strategies for the spirit and the streets. You are facing a moment where the ground is shifting, where an authoritarian shadow looms, attempting to reshape reality into something rigid and exclusionary.

​We look to the saints of the past for wisdom, as they often have the wisdom to show us the way. They had to figure out how to be faithful, active, and relevant in a society undergoing radical, often polarizing transformation. They refused to disappear. They refused to be irrelevant.

​Here are four real lessons for us, here and now, on how to organize and keep the faith under a regime that demands our submission.

​1. Reclaim the "Theology of the Way"

​The first temptation under an authoritarian regime is to retreat. It is easy to lock the doors of our sanctuaries (or our homes), protect our own circles, and practice what theologians call a "theology from the balcony", watching history pass by from a safe distance.

​The Lesson: You must reject the "bunker mentality". In the caribbean experience, when the revolution began, many churches retreated, trying to preserve their old identity and privileges. They became "docetic", a theological term for a spirit that refuses to touch the ground. They became "disincarnate" ghosts.

​Real Tip: Do not withdraw from the public square. If your local school board, city council, or community organization is being taken over by authoritarian voices, your absence is their victory. You must be "incarnated" in the reality of your neighborhood. Show up. To be "spiritual" in this moment is to be intensely material: feeding the hungry, protecting the vulnerable, and being visible.

​2. Identify and Smash the "Idols" of the Regime

​Authoritarianism always sets up idols, false gods that it demands we worship. In our context, these idols might be "Nationalism," "Wealth," "Security," or "The Leader."

Our tradition teaches that the church’s prophetic mission is iconoclastic, it exists to smash idols. Prophetic voices have argued that the true enemy of faith is idolatry (worshipping the wrong things).

​Real Tip: Conduct a "de-ideologization" of your own community. Ask difficult questions: Which class interests does our current version of patriotism serve?. Are we defending "freedom" or are we defending "privilege"?

​Real Tip: Call out the "Practical Atheism" of the regime. There is also "philosophical atheism" (ideas in your head), but the real danger is the "atheism of injustice", the practical denial of God by denying life to the poor. When the regime cuts healthcare or criminalizes the poor, name that as the true godlessness.

​3. Work is Spiritual: Build Alternative Communities of Survival

​In the face of a system that may alienate or exploit, we must recover the sacredness of our labor and our economy. Work not as a way to make a wage for a boss, but as the human way to cooperate with God in creating a new society.

​The Lesson: We must shift from an "I" mentality to a "We" mentality. The "Our Father" prayer asks for "our daily bread," not "my daily bread".

​Real Tip: Build mutual aid networks. If the state abandons the poor, we must organize the distribution of goods so that "each person will receive the equitable share that belongs to each". Organize cooperatives. Share resources. When you create a community garden, a bail fund, or a childcare collective, you are not just "helping out", you are engaging in a spiritual act of resistance that denies the regime's power to starve you out.

​4. The Ecumenism of the Trenches

​One of the most difficult lessons from our forbears experience is the need for Christians to work alongside those they had previously viewed as enemies to build the common good.

You will find people in the streets who do not share your faith, your background, or your exact political language. But if they are fighting for the humanization of the vulnerable, they are your allies.

​Real Tip: Do not demand theological purity before you offer solidarity. They found that God often speaks through movements outside the church to call the church to repentance. Listen to the secular activists, the young organizers, the "radicals." They may be the ones smashing the idols you were too polite to touch.

​A Final Charge

​The experience of our forbears in faith teaches us that history is not fixed. It is fluid. We are "co-creators" of the future. Do not succumb to the paralysis of fear. The most dangerous thing to an authoritarian regime is a people who have organized their hope into concrete action.

​Go and Be Faithful.



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