ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

Published in The Christian Century , October 7, 2008 NOTE: This article was recognized by the Associated Church Press with its 2008 Award of Merit , the citation reading: “In this well-written article, the author uses the lens of his experience to focus on the larger issue of U.S.-Mexico border policy. A compelling and challenging look at a highly charged issue.” Among the least recognized yet most lasting legacies of the Bush administration's "war on terror" has been a dramatic transformation of the U.S.-Mexico border. This transformation is about to reach its symbolic and geographic culmination at Friendship Park, a plaza atop a seaside bluff south of San Diego. For generations residents of San Diego and Tijuana have gathered at Friendship Park to visit with family and friends through the border fence. In coming months the Department of Homeland Security will erect a secondary fence across the park, eliminating public access to this historic meeting place. Until then, I

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune , August 16, 2008 The Department of Homeland Security will soon erect a secondary fence across Friendship Park, eliminating public access to a historic place where for generations people from San Diego and Tijuana have gathered to visit through the border fence. The seeds of Friendship Park's destruction were planted by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Never mind that the 9/11 terrorists did not enter the United States illegally from Mexico. The psychic needs of an aggrieved nation matched nicely with the desire to limit undocumented Mexican immigration. Post-9/11, the idea that “securing the border” was a matter of national security became axiomatic for politicians of all ideological persuasions. The Bush administration institutionalized the axiom in 2003, when the newly created Department of Homeland Security took operational control of the Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (renamed Immigration and Customs E

Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Barack Obama’s home church on the south side of Chicago, knows a thing or two about preaching. It’s clear the aptly-named Reverend Wright understands there is a place in the pulpit for righteous anger. A “jeremiad” is a spoken or written work lamenting the state of society and cautioning the powers that be to change their ways. The name is derived from the Biblical prophet Jeremiah, who foretold the collapse of the Kingdom of Judah for having broken covenant with God. Reverend Wright has come under attack for two jeremiads in particular. In a 2003 sermon at the Trinity United Church of Christ, Wright preached this: “The government gives them drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America.’ No, no, no, not God bless America. God damn America, that’s in the Bible, for killing innocent Americans. God damn American for treating our citizens as less than human.” Critics – white critics, to be more