About Ukraine, Even Marianne Williamson Has Sold Out To Imperialism & Conventional Thinking

Readings for the first Sunday of Lent: Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7; Psalm 51: 3-17; Romans 5: 12-19; Matthew 4: 1-11

This is the first Sunday of Lent. It's that miraculous time of year when followers of Yeshua call into question their ways of life - the way they eat, drink, read, and think.

It's also an intense time for questioning convention - the way the culture reasons, its values, its tales, and narratives. It's a time for facing the fact that the world's key perceptions stand 180 degrees opposite those of the Master.

That's how Marianne Williamson describes miracles. Remember her? She's the best-known exponent of the modern handbook on Christian mysticism called A Course in Miracles (ACIM). She ran for president in 2020 and hints that she'll run again in 2024. She describes miracles as changes in perception that completely contradict the world's "wisdom."

I bring up Marianne Williamson, today not only for the Lenten and political reasons just mentioned, but because her recently articulated position on the Ukraine war contradicts the spirit of Lent just described. More to the point, it contradicts Marianne herself as well as A Course in Miracles.

As such, it reminds us of the seductive power of American culture based on arms manufacture, war, and deception. Ironically, what I'll describe as Williamson's fall from grace and from her own ideals represents a wake-up call not only for her, but for those who would take Lent seriously.

Accordingly, what follows will share Ms. Williamson's recent thoughts about Ukraine as utterly conventional and (in her terms) completely un-miraculous. I'll contrast them with the example of Yeshua found in today's readings for the first Sunday of Lent. There, in the spirit of ACIM, he completely rejects as intrinsically evil any possibility of endorsing empire of the type embodied in the United States' and NATO's policy in Ukraine.

My hope is that in the name of the gospel and even ACIM, my words might lead readers to reject the conventionality of the world's "wisdom" as found in the official narrative Williamson so shockingly endorses.

Marianne Williamson

Let me begin by saying that I feel I know Marianne Williamson. I like her. I used to think of her as a lone prophetic voice in an American political context dominated by warmongers and short-term thinkers with no historical perspective. In fact:

• I've been a longtime student of A Course in Miracles and have started a podcast called "A Course in Miracles for Social Justice Warriors."
• I once had dinner with Marianne and a few colleagues when she came to speak at Berea College where I taught for 40 years.
• Afterwards, we spent two hours in personal conversation as my wife and I drove her and Marianne's secretary to the Cincinnati airport.
• Subsequently, we even exchanged ideas entertaining the possibility of a shared writing project connecting the teachings of Jesus (my focus as a liberation theologian) and A Course in Miracles.
• I actively supported Marianne's candidacy during her 2020 run for president,
• Attending rallies, campaign speeches, and a debate in her support,
• And publishing 9 articles on OpEdNews to that effect.

You can imagine, then, my disappointment when I read a piece she published last week called "The Tragic Conundrum of Ukraine." My disappointment stemmed from the fact that the brief essay uncritically parroted the liberal, neocon, U.S. party line about Ukraine - anything but the "miraculous" thinking she describes and advocates.

Marianne's words reflected the ambition of a woman intent again on running for president in 2024 and therefore in need of assuring the public: Don't worry, I won't be reluctant to kill designated enemies like the Russians. Or as Williamson herself put it, "As president I would always seek to avoid the use of military force, yet I would not shy away from it if I felt it necessary." (Emphasis added)

You can't get more conventional than that.

More specifically, here's what she said:

• Despite her support for the creation of a U.S. Department of Peace to counterbalance the egregious influence of America's military industrial complex,
• And despite the U.S. track record in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere,
• The U.S. still retains moral authority to condemn Russia and conduct what she evidently judges as its "surgical" interventions in Ukraine.
• After all, countless U.S. interventions (often halfway across the world) were "misadventures" and "mistakes" (not crimes) while Russia's special military operations on its own borders are cynically illegal and therefore subject to unequivocal condemnation -- even by those living in glass houses.
• Russia must therefore be stopped by "the Western World" (i.e., the predominantly white 20% that includes the traditional colonial powers like the U.S., EU, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).
• While ignoring (she omits saying) the reluctance or downright refusal of 80% of the (colonized, mostly non-white) world to go along - including China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia - virtually the entire Global South.

In Williamson's pro-war position, there was no mention of historical context. Nothing about the facts that:

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