Meeting the Moment for Which God Created Us
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” —Antonio Gramsci
During the rise of Mussolini’s fascism in Italy, philosopher and political theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote this observation in his collection Prison Notebooks, as he witnessed what he called the interregnum, a time of swift and seismic social and political transition when old structures were losing legitimacy but new systems had not yet consolidated. A time when reactionary forces, opportunists, and authoritarian figures—what Gramsci called “monsters”—could emerge and thrive. This was precisely what Gramsci was seeing happen around him, but he knew the outcome wasn’t guaranteed. From history, he knew these periods of chaotic upheaval and competition between regressive and progressive ideas and forces, while causing enormous anxiety, also provided the opportunity for a new just order to emerge.
Beloved, we are living in such times. And in this election season we enter in August, we will no doubt see monsters—opportunists and reactionary forces—lurching about. There is no community I’d rather confront such monsters with than Creekside UCC, in partnership with the wider Twin Cities community. To help prepare us for this season, the Creekside Immigration Team, in partnership with our ISAIAH team, has launched a Democracy Defense effort connected to Monarca, the same initiative that played such a pivotal role in community defense during Operation Metro Surge. Read more about this effort in the social justice section of this month’s Current and reach out to Rebekah Montgomery if you’d like to plug in. Just as important to this work of public engagement will be our ongoing grounding in our faith values and spiritual practices, ensuring that our church’s efforts to protect democracy and one another is not driven by a partisan agenda but by the gospel and its greatest command: to love God and love neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40).
Over the summer, I have been in several places throughout the country—at election scenario planning sessions with national faith leaders in Washington, DC, or speaking about faith organizing at the Chautauqua Institution in New York—where I have received effusive appreciation from others about the role that Minneapolis played over the winter to defend democracy. Perhaps you have experienced this kind of adulation as well in your own summer travels. My response is always ambivalent… gratitude for the recognition, awareness of the toll it took on so many who stepped up, grief about the ongoing ICE abductions taking place in our community (I continue to visit detainees at Whipple regularly).
I’m also very aware of incredible organizing throughout the country, including in contexts where organizing is much harder, that is not receiving the recognition it deserves. And finally, I know our strong organizing infrastructure in Minnesota is born out of the reality of violence here, from the largest mass execution in U.S. history in Mankato, to the redlining that made Minneapolis one of the most segregated cities in the country, to incessant police killings of Black men, to last summer’s political assassinations. We are good at mutual aid and resisting violence (including that of the state) because we have a lot of experience of it here. But however we came to acquire these skills and systems, here we are: well positioned and armed in nonviolent tactics to defeat metaphorical monsters and help midwife the new, more just order that is trying to be born. It seems we have been called in Minnesota to play a special role in our country as the North Star State.
So let us move into this election with conviction and compassion in equal measure, to meet the moment for which God created us.
—Rev. Susie Hayward
