I watched the gentle flakes of snow fall outside our window on Wednesday night, their small flittering arcs illuminated by a solitary grey streetlight. I recalled the hushed white specks falling on my nose dozens of times as my wife and I were living in Kyiv, the city of her birth. As peaceful snowflakes fell on our apartment roof in the suburbs of Chicago, Russian rockets fell on the cities where our ministry partners, friends, and family dwell.
To many readers, Ukraine may be little more than a strategic segment on a Risk game board or the homeland of the thugs in a lazily written adventure flick. But to our family—and to millions of the most creative, hearty, and hospitable people on earth—Ukraine goes by a different name: home.
As explosions rocked parts of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other cities throughout the country, we messaged our friends and family members as they awoke in the still dark hours of morning. Some provided first-hand accounts of the blasts. Chaos reigned. As one friend on the ground wrote, “We know something is happening, but we don’t know what.”
I tried to access the website of The Kyiv Post, one of the country’s leading news organizations, but to no avail. I watched the browser’s loading bar halt, wondering if the site was the latest target in another round of cyber-attacks from Ukraine’s eastern neighbors.
In the United States, we take journalism for granted. Much of what passes under that name more closely resembles partisan, ESPN-fight-style shouting matches where the only winners are the beneficiaries of ad space revenue. Audiences are served bite-sized tweets that sound educated but in reality have little to do with how we as a democracy might make better decisions.
Social media is no substitute for professional news. Its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: Anyone can write anything. The truth gets buried in the mound of heated emotion or misinformation.
Whoever controls the delivery of information controls the world. This has been the case throughout history, particularly the last century. If citizens don’t know what is happening, they don’t know where the bombs are landing. Or which side the bombs are coming from. How many lives are saved through a network of reliable, independent news organizations performing their duty to inform the public?
Now is the moment for us to heed the lessons of history. In his book On Tyranny, renowned Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, warns,
“Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.”
You won’t find Ukraine on the roster of countries that compose the European Union, but that isn’t due to a lack of desire. In fact, the ambition to join Western fraternities stirred revolution back in 2014, the year that saw one of the biggest protests of modern times on the streets of Kyiv. When former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych opted for closer ties to Russia instead of an association agreement with the European Union, Ukrainian people took to the streets. What started as a protest of college students, who were beaten by police, swelled to a crowd of more than half a million in the span of a few months. Soon the protests represented more than anger about a broken EU deal: the people were revolting against Yanukovych and his cabinet for their corruption, demanding his resignation, insisting upon a new and different Ukraine. To this day, Ukraine’s land and people do not enjoy membership in the EU or the protection of NATO.
The present invasion of a sovereign, democratic nation by the whims of a strongman sets dangerous precedent for our world. War in Europe was a feature of a bygone time—or so we thought. The era of empire-building has passed—or so we thought. From the soil of Philadelphia and Phoenix to the soil of Kyiv and Kharkiv, democracy requires active cultivation.
At this point, some readers in the United States might be ready to take up arms in the defense of democratic freedoms abroad. That conversation extends beyond the scope of this article. As important as it may be, the cultivation of democracy does not equate to a decidedly Christian response.
How do we respond to the current invasion of Ukraine as Christians?
More than 2,500 years ago, God’s people were dragged into exile by a foreign conqueror. Like Ukrainians today, the people of God underwent jarring displacement and suffering. Amid the fears and uncertainties, the Prophet Jeremiah penned some of the most important words sojourners could ever read:
“The Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all those he sent into exile to Babylon from Jerusalem, ‘Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and allow your daughters to get married so that they too can have sons and daughters. Grow in number; do not dwindle away. Work to see that the city where I sent you as exiles enjoys peace and prosperity. Pray to the Lord for it. For as it prospers you will prosper.’” (Jeremiah 29:4–7, NET)
In one of the paramount theological works of the last century, Resident Aliens, theologians Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon call all Christians to consider themselves sojourners in a foreign land. Followers of Jesus across continents live as aliens, regardless of our peculiar ethnicities or the country name engraved on our passport covers.
Because Christian identity springs from union with a suffering God, we need to stand in solidarity—no, to kneel in solidarity—with those who suffer. Before we are American Christians or Dutch Christians or Guatemalan Christians, we are sojourning Christians. Our displaced Ukrainian brothers and sisters, who at this very moment walk the path of suffering, show us what it means to follow a suffering Messiah.
As a storied people bound in solidarity, we must learn to listen to full stories, long stories, histories of people in lands and borders close and far that span the hours of last night and the centuries of the last millennia. In the listening, may we humble ourselves in lament, kneeling before the God of the sojourner for peace in the city, for peace in Ukraine.
The clash of swords anywhere threatens the plowshares of peace everywhere. Blessed are the peacemakers.
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What can we do?
1. Write to our congressmen and congresswomen, imploring them to urge our government to join the international community in a unified condemnation of Russian aggression.
2. Sign the petition to urge President Biden to sign legislation to protect Ukrainians in the United States and prepare to welcome Ukrainian refugees.
3. Support real journalism. We pay for electricity and running water. Why would we assume the vital information upon which we rely should be free? The few real investigative reporters left in business deserve our support—and not just the lip variety. For a handful of our pocket change each month, these institutions can continue to provide their essential resource.
4. Apprentice ourselves to the stories of the displaced and suffering throughout the globe. Heed the lessons of history. Speak the truth about justice.
5. Pray for peace in Ukraine, asking the Lord to guide the hearts of rulers toward shalom-filled flourishing.
6. Give to crisis relief efforts in Ukraine, such as Samaritan’s Purse: Ukraine Crisis, the Red Cross Ukraine, the UN Refugee Agency, designation Ukraine, or UNICEF (the United Nation’s Children’s Fund) Ukraine.
7. If you wish to give to our specific friends and church family who are displaced or in danger, please contact me directly.