Awake to Threats; Opposed to Fascism

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted October 15, 2025

Communications these days are filled with code words and abbreviations. For instance the simple verb “woke” now means being aware, alert, and educated, especially about issues of justice, equality before the law, and civil and human rights. ANTIFA is simply an abbreviation of “anti-fascist,” coined by persons who actively protest against the increasingly dangerous fascist trends in our government.

Sadly, the current administration uses both of these terms as pejoratives. In doing so they clearly expose their own opposition to justice, democracy, and the rule of law. They seem to want a compliant population, unaware of and indifferent to the dangers of authoritarianism.

Noted German theologian Dorothee Sölle (1929 – 2003) spent a number of years in the U.S. lecturing, leading workshops, and teaching at Union Theological Seminary. She often warned about the signs of what she termed Christofascism – a narrow, rigid pseudo-Christian dogma mixed with authoritarian politics – that she saw in our country.

In 1991 I was privileged to attend a weekend workshop/retreat with Dr. Sölle. Her presentation was a faith-filled and eye-opening urgent warning. I was awakened to threats to our Constitutional republic about which I had until then been unaware. In subsequent years those threats have grown tremendously into the present reality.

As a consequence of her urging and others I stand firmly against the cruelty, lawlessness, and corruption of the current regime. If that means they consider me to be an “enemy,” so be it. I invite others who care about our nation’s well-being to join me.

Resisting Hate

The recent invasion of Charlottesville, Virginia, by Neo-Nazis, KKK members, and other white supremacists, and the various response tactics by counter-protesters, have been the subject of intense examination in the days following.  This conversation is difficult and necessary.  Especially for those who espouse non-violence as the only moral response to hatred and injustice, serious questions have been raised and must at least be examined, if not answered.

My first thought was of the similarities between the current debate over tactics and the tensions of the Civil Rights era, exemplified by the competing views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.  Both were sons of Baptist ministers, but their life paths took very different directions.  King was relatively sheltered from the worst abuses of racial segregation.  He had opportunity for education and became a minister himself.  Malcolm’s father moved the family from Nebraska to Michigan because of threats from the KKK, but their new home was burned and his father brutally murdered by whites.  During a stint in jail Malcolm was converted to Islam and became a leader in the Black Muslim faith, then later turned to traditional Sunni Islam.