Where is God?

Hint: Not on the side of power

I’m not sure what kind of year you’ve had but if it’s been anything like mine, you’re absolutely justified in asking where God is in this season of Advent.

There’s a lot to be discouraged by this Advent & Christmas season - multiple global conflicts, a terrorist attack in Israel, an ethnic genocide in Gaza, rising inflation, growing income inequality, etc.

So…where is God when our world goes to shit?

I recently came across multiple news reports of Palestinian Christians canceling Christmas festivities in Bethlehem (today, in modern day Palestine) because of the Israeli government’s bombing of Gaza that has resulted in the death of around 20,000 Palestinian children around this Advent & Christmas season.

Let that sink in for a moment. No Christmas in Bethlehem this year because of a genocide in the Holy Land.

This Advent & Christmas season in Bethlehem is not much unlike the Advent & Christmas season in Bethlehem 2000+ years ago - when another oppressive ruler (Herod) ordered the indiscriminate genocide of every boy under the age of 2 in Bethlehem and its vicinity.

Do you know where God was back then? With a colonized Jewish family living under occupation who had to flee as refugees to Egypt. Not with their colonizers & oppressors who sought to destroy them.

Do you know where God was back then? With a teenage girl who had a surprise, unplanned pregnancy. Not with the high ranking male temple priest (Zechariah) with privilege.

Do you know where God was back then? With a colonized & occupied community with unfulfilled dreams and hopes. Not with their imperial oppressors who preferred that these occupied subjects stay under their boot.

Or in the words of Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Pastor and Liberation Theologian:

“Where is God in war? God is under the rubble.”

One of the things that Liberation Theology (theology from people on the margins who experience the beauty of God through Jesus in the midst of their physical oppression) has taught me in my pursuit of justice as an advocacy & church mobilization leader is God’s preferential option for people in poverty & oppression.

Make no mistake: God stands on the side of people in oppression. And if the oppressed and the oppressor ever switch sides, God also switches sides to stand with the newly oppressed people. Always.

Now, this doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love people with wealth and power. What this does however mean is that God always stands with victims of injustice & oppression - because they have no one else on their side.

“Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.”

- Ecclesiastes 4:1

Many years ago, I worked for politicians in power in the U.S. South. Many of these politicians claimed to be Bible-believing Christians who frequently made policy decisions that benefitted others with wealth & power - often while cutting social safety nets for people in poverty and communities of colour. Or while making policy decisions that were bad for the environment (like getting rid of taxpayer incentives for electric vehicles). Or while expanding gun rights in the midst of rising school shooting deaths across the US.

As a political operative in the Georgia Legislative Assembly, I helped pass many of these laws. Heck - as a policy communications operative & consultant, I helped these elected officials stay in power by packaging and selling these horrible policies to the media, their voters and the general public.

As a Christian working in politics, I thought I’d find God in the halls of power. Instead, I lost my way along with other self-professing Christians and only found Mammon (greed, wealth & power).

I got pretty good at what I did and soon had enough political connections & skills to cash in as a political consultant & lobbyist. I was a hired political mercenary who agnostically crafted and sold whatever narrative my highest bidding clients wanted me to sell.

I made way more money than I knew what to do with as a 23 year old making six figures a year with growing access to wealth, privilege & power. Mammon corrupted my body. And it corrupted my soul.

Now sure, there were some lines that I wouldn’t cross. For example - I was one of the few vocal Never Trump Republican party leaders and political consultants in Georgia. I thank God for giving me to courage to never cross this line during the 2016 Presidential Elections - despite the lucrative opportunities I could have cashed in on. But once Trump won and took over as my party leader, I switched back to serving Mammon by cashing in and taking on overtly pro-Trump political clients.

My lowest moment was getting paid thousands to ghostwrite an Op-Ed for a political client making the argument for banning immigration. Specifically, legal immigration. More specifically, the US government’s diversity visa lottery program.

Reader, do you want to know how I moved to the United States as a legal immigrant only a few years before ghostwriting this Op-Ed? You guessed it - the diversity visa lottery program.

That’s when I knew I needed to get out for the liberation of my own body & soul. A few weeks later, I took a 50% pay cut and came on staff with the US counterpart of my current employer that was looking for someone to lead the grassroots lobbying of several southern, conservative Republican politicians in a Republican Congress to stand up to the leader of their party (President Trump) so as to protect and increase US anti-trafficking foreign aid funds. It was the best decision I ever made for my body & soul in my early 20’s.

As a justice & liberation theologian today, I don’t do what I do because I see myself as a virtuous saint. I do what I do as an holy act of repentance for all the shit I’ve done in my time as a Georgia Republican political consultant. And believe me - I have a lifetime of shit to atone for.

I share all this to make this point:

I went to the halls of power to look for God. Instead, all I found was Mammon. But I ultimately found God. I found God on the margins - with victims of systemic injustice & oppression.

Because just like 2000+ years ago, Jesus is still on the margins with people who are marginalized by systemic injustice & oppression.

So if you’re looking for God this Advent & Christmas season, look to the margins.

And if you’re looking for God this Advent & Christmas season while being on the margins - know that God is right next to you in your suffering.

Blessed are those who mourn. For they *will* be comforted.

If 2023 was a year of mourning for you (like it was for me), may 2024 be a year of great comfort and rejoicing. Because you will *absolutely* be comforted one day.

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