Sabbath Devotional: Advent Credo

Until yesterday, I believed my favorite advent poem was written by a Jesuit priest poet named Daniel Berrigan. It goes like this:

Advent Credo

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss —

This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life;

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction —

This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever —

This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world —

This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers —

This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history —

This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ — the life of the world.

I think this is an astonishing poem. I found it in a book of advent poems which claimed it was written by Berrigan in 2004. And it makes sense, because Daniel Berrigan was a great activist for positive peace. He and his brother Phillip famously destroyed draft files with homemade napalm, an act of civil disobedience for which he served time. He ministered to AIDS victims dying in a low-resource hospital in New York City during the height of the epidemic. He was a staunch believer in the sanctity of every human life and wrote powerfully against the death penalty, abortion, war, and euthanasia. Poetically and theologically, I admire Berrigan deeply.

But as it turns out, Advent Credo was written by Allan Boesak, a Black minister from South Africa, in 1983. Boesak grew up in Northern Cape, a sparsely populated and relatively insignificant region of the country. By some miracle, despite his father's death, little money, and limited education, Boesak was accepted into one of the pre-eminent theological colleges in the Netherlands where he received a PhD in divinity. Then he returned to South Africa and began preaching equality, peace, and justice over the pulpit.

In 1982 he persuaded the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to declare apartheid a heresy. But in 1983, the government of South Africa retrenched. Claiming reform, it created a Tricameral Parliament with separate chambers for white, Indian, and mixed-race people, but none for Black Africans. In response, Allan Boesak wrote a 299-page treatise officializing the formation of the United Democratic Front. The document ended with Advent Credo. Boesak described the poem as a prayer for his country and for the world.

Within two years, more than 600 anti-apartheid organizations had joined the UDF. United under one umbrella, the UDF enacted strategic political action to move the country towards negotiation. They survived mass detentions, torture, assassinations, banning orders, and kangaroo courts. The organization became a nexus point, an impact network that was massively influential in ending the practice of apartheid. Many post-apartheid political leaders, civil servants, negotiators, etc. trace their origins to this network. It changed the world beneath their feet.

Which is to say, at a time of year where the days seem darker and the nights longer, at a moment when conflict and injustice feel potent, peace is rising in the belly of the world. It will probably come from a place and at a time you don't expect — some insignificant region with few people and fewer resources. But it is coming. Because this is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

Joyous advent to you all.

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Sarah Perkins is the peaceful root director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.