Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Watching the news out of Ukraine, it has been heartening to see the world rallying to try and stem the tide of aggression and misinformation. It feels like that brief window after 9/11, when violence that so clearly was an unwarranted act of brutality, galvanized much of the free world to declare a side. Across the globe, nations came to our aid.

It’s encouraging, to me, because it feels like a kind of last stand. It feels like a line has been drawn by folks who have had enough of violence, enough of threats, enough of misinformation, and enough of constant danger.

It also feels like a nation is trying to reclaim, by will, some bit of certainty about its future.

I want to include a picture below that I think summarizes where the Church is in the middle of all of this. We are not called to be impartial observers, as Supreme Court justice candidates often try to portray themselves, “just calling balls and strikes” as we see them. We have a bias. We have an agenda.

Our bias is for the innocent. Our bias is for the widow, the orphaned, and the oppressed. Our bias is for the powerless. Our bias is for peace. Our bias is for making no peace with oppression.

Our bias is for doing all that we can to promote, protect, and preserve peace. It is also for seeing a more just world, shaped not by the amorality of earthly empires, but but the abiding vision of the Kingdom.

So back to the picture. It is from the last time Russia attacked Ukraine seeking regime change in 2014. It shows Orthodox priests standing between two forces trying to keep the peace — standing in the breach. They are not, however, doing so without taking a side. They are facing down the aggressor. They are standing in solidarity with those standing against oppression.

We have a bias for peace. We have a bias for justice. We stand where we are able, in the breach to protect the peace. But we stand also to guard the innocent — placing ourselves at the foot of the Cross and at the empty tomb too — trying to once again show the power of love over hate.

May we continue to show our bias, following the call of Christ, to be a light whose truth beats back the shadows of oppression, injustice, and violence.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert