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By Becky De Oliveira … “So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.” —Jaime Lannister, A Clash of Kings

Once, in college, I was taking an elective class in business with a friend, and she got into a public altercation with the professor sometime during the first week. She stood up, collected her things, stormed out of the room, and headed straight for the registrar’s office to formally drop the class. The professor looked me, knowing we were friends, that we had travelled to this overseas college together, and asked, “What about you? Do you share your friend’s feelings?”

The honest answer was yes, I did share my friend’s feelings—but to a lesser degree. My feelings were not—for me— worth engaging in battle over, not in this particular case. I wanted to get through the class, get the credit, graduate on time, avoid drama. If the professor chose to insult me or people like me, I would affect a pleasant but distracted expression and go to the beach that is ever present in my head. I would ignore the insults and get what I needed from the situation. I would not take a stand, would not make any grand gesture, would not stomp or slam the door. I am no one’s idea of a hero. So, I shook my head. “I do not,” I lied.

Betrayal? Lack of loyalty? Perhaps. But to whom or what? To whom or what did I owe loyalty in the first place? Should I have supported my friend no matter what her decision? Raise your hand if your parents ever asked you this question: “If so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you?” My friend would have felt better supported if I had walked out that door with her, but my loyalties were not clear cut. I owed something to my parents, who were paying my tuition, and to my own sense of integrity, to my belief that I can show respect for someone even if they show none for me.

Clearly, we collectively recognize that loyalty has its limits. We also know that loyalty can be severely misplaced. One of my favorite books, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, is about a butler who has sacrificed his integrity to a Nazi-sympathizing employer, only realizing his misplaced loyalty when it is perhaps too late to do much of anything about it. His loyalty is to duty, to the status quo—even when it means making immoral choices.

Sometimes loyalty is urged, required, forced, although not usually by friends. The only truly friendly oath of loyalty I can think of is the marriage vow. A person whom you love pledges loyalty to you; you pledge it in return, “until death do you part.” The most commonly-recited loyalty oath is likely the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, which many of us memorized as children, and can still recall decades after having uttered the words. History shows a certain enthusiasm for professions of loyalty in the United States. Civil War confederate prisoners of war signed an “oath of allegiance” as a condition of release. Depression-era Boston school children swore an oath of loyalty as “good American citizens” to support the National Recovery Administration through their purchasing. (If that isn’t performative, I don’t know what is.) President Truman signed an executive order in 1947 that required anyone suspected of holding membership in certain organizations to take a loyalty oath and submit to a background check. In 1950, the Levering Act required California state employees, specifically those at the University of California, to take an oath disavowing “radical beliefs.” The famous psychologist Erik Erikson refused to sign and lost his position. Another 31 faculty members were fired for refusing to sign the oath. Public school teachers were routinely required to sign loyalty oaths, swearing that they were not supporting communist ideas, and that they were, conversely, promoting respect for the flag and other patriotic American actions. More recently, the George W. Bush presidential campaign, in 2004, sometimes required rally participants to sign loyalty oaths, or pledges of endorsement. Some states require such oaths for their employees. I signed one when I worked at Front Range Community College, promising to uphold the constitution and “faithfully perform the duties of the position upon which I am about to enter.” I thought it was weird, and I made a few inquiries. “In what way I am specifically supposed to uphold the constitution?” I asked.

“No idea,” I was told. No one knew what it meant.

Most employees, like me, simply sign these oaths and move on; others, compelled by conscience, refuse to do so and lose their jobs. In 2008, an adjunct instructor at the University of California refused to sign because of her religious beliefs. As a Quaker, she wanted to amend the document to state that she would only defend the state “non-violently.” She was finally given her job back after undertaking an appeal, and still had to sign the oath, with the provision that there was no “obligation or requirement that public employees bear arms or otherwise engage in violence.” Another adjunct professor, novelist James Sallis, announced his resignation in 2015 rather than sign the loyalty oath required by Phoenix College in Arizona.

Michael S. Rosenwald, in an article for the Washington Post, notes that “loyalty oaths are almost always rooted in paranoia.” Harold M. Hymn, author of To Try Men’s Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History, calls them “crisis products” that come out of “the felt needs of authorities during wars, rebellions, and periods of fear and subversion.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church sees its share of action regarding loyalty oaths, with one unofficial group circulating a Statement of Harmony certificate in late 2018, asking pastors and individual church members to sign a pledge of loyalty to the General Conference. There have been attempts to get loyalty oaths from professors at Adventist colleges, as well. I learned an interesting anecdote about my own alma mater, Walla Walla University, which conducted a mini-Inquisition against its religion faculty in the 1930s, seemingly designed to verify their loyalty to a set of tightly-scripted beliefs.

According to Terrie Dopp Aamodt, author of Bold Venture: A History of Walla Walla College, a questioners during one of these sessions pointed to a black hat and said, “If Mrs. White had written that your black hat is white, it would be white to me.” This seems to imply something very specific about loyalty; that it requires not just faithfulness to a person or to a set of ideas, but a complete override of sense, of reasoning. Is this really necessary? The professor, in case you’re wondering, responded like this: “God gave me eyes to see things white and things black and things in between, and as long as I am normal, I will not substitute the word of Mrs. White or anyone else for what my eyes tell me. If I do not use the sense with which I am equipped, I cease to function as a man.”

I consider myself to be a pretty loyal person but with reservations because, well, things change. What if my country, my employer, my church, ceases to be the thing I thought it was when I made the pledge? Or what if one loyalty simply trumps another? For instance, I am loyal to Vista Ridge Academy. I think its teachers are truly outstanding, smart, hardworking, and caring people. My younger son loved the time he spent there, and I am forever indebted, in particular, to Mrs. Hodgson, Mrs. McLachlan, and Mr. Jones for the time and attention and love they poured into him. So, I am a loyal supporter of Vista Ridge Academy.

Or am I? Because, see, I didn’t choose to send my older son there. My kids are PKs (pastor’s kids) and we moved to Colorado in 2014, when my oldest boy was 14 years old, just about to start high school. What does everyone know about PKs? They’re bad kids, they suffer from the weight of public scrutiny, from being dragged all over the earth and never having any say in the major decisions of their lives. They rebel hard, take drugs, hate the church. My husband and I have tried, in various ways, to mitigate the possible negative effects of our children’s association with us, and everything that entails. Our oldest is now 20 and a junior in college and we both have a very good relationship with him, which has been our primary goal. He is realistic about the church without being bitter about it. I call that a win.

But back in 2014, when we as a family decided to send him to Boulder High School, because he felt that Vista Ridge. Academy was too small and could not offer the classes and opportunities he wanted in high school, people thought we were disloyal. It was the right school for one son but not for the other. I stand by that decision still. It was the right thing to do. And yes, it was disloyal to one obligation but absolutely loyal to another. Before God, I can say I did what I thought was the right thing. I remember someone back then asking, in an accusing tone, “If you, the pastor’s family, don’t send your children to the Adventist school, how are you supposed to convince other people to send theirs?”

Interesting question. Here’s my answer: It’s not my job to convince anyone of anything. I’m not the Holy Spirit. My best hope is that looking at my example will make some people—people who need to make different decisions—understand that it is OK to do so. There are lots of ways to be faithful, to be loyal, to live a life of integrity and meaning. There is not one path. We are not paper dolls. And you know, those teachers I mentioned earlier? They got from me by love what no one can ever take by force: genuine respect and loyalty. What is that saying about flies, honey, vinegar?

–Becky De Oliveira is a doctoral student in research methods at the University of Northern Colorado. Email her at: [email protected]

By Carol Bolden … In the decades leading up to the Civil War the United States saw some dramatic changes. Having begun as a third- world country with its people living on isolated farms, those decades before the Civil War were pivotal in bringing about changes in transportation, communication, and manufacturing that brought America onto the world stage and made it a global economy.

For even longer than those few decades, the people and the politicians of the Northern and Southern states had been warring over economic interests, cultural values, and the power of government to control states and slavery in America.

The war that eventually materialized was an exquisitely painful experience for this new world power, pitting brother against brother and father against son. What could be done in the aftermath of this wrenching war to bring the states and the people back together?

There’s no quick fix for broken relationships, and there’s certainly not an instant one, whether concerning an entire society or individuals. Healing requires time, trust, and connection. It requires commitment. In this instance, the people felt betrayed by opposing views. The North felt betrayed by the South’s secession from the Union; the South felt betrayed by the North taking away their means of financial support; and Blacks, whether from the North or the South and having little say in these events, were tossed to and fro by the turbulent politics of the day.

During World War II, a young Jewish girl, Stella Kubler, unable to get a visa to leave Germany, was arrested by Nazis and subjected to torture. To avoid deportation, she agreed to become a “catcher” for the Gestapo, finding and turning in other Jews, some of whom she had known from school days.

Stories of disloyalty throughout history abound. Think of Brutus who stabbed to death one of his closest friends, Caesar, then emperor of Rome. Or Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Brits will remember Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder. There was Dona Marina, a Nahua woman sold into slavery at a young age who aided Cortes in his conquests, using her linguistic abilities to serve as translator. Remember Tokyo Rose? A name for several English-speaking women, at least one from America, they transmitted anti-American scripts by radio to lower the morale of Allied troops. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, an American couple, were accused of spying for the Soviet Union during the Cold War by providing thousands of top-secret reports on aeronautics and atomic bomb construction to the Soviets. They also recruited sympathizers.

Why all this betrayal? Where did it begin? What’s behind it? Can we do anything to assuage it?

When Lucifer, that beautiful and talented being created by God and placed in the highest position in the universe next to God, began to harbor jealousy toward his Maker, it led to the biggest betrayal of all time. Using his position of privilege, Lucifer began to plant doubts in the minds of other angels, causing them to mistrust the One who not only created them, but sustained them.

When Jesus sailed to the country of the Gadarenes opposite Galilee and a man with demons (or fallen angels) met Him, the demons said to Jesus, “I beg You, do not torment me!” Satan’s lies were still imbedded in the minds of fallen angels thousands of years after the original lies were told.

How did God handle that one?

And what happens to those who choose to betray others? Unable to handle the guilt of their betrayal, both Stella Kubler and Judas Iscariot chose suicide. Betrayal, as a hostile action, affects both the betrayer and the betrayed.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to know how to handle being on the receiving end of betrayal. The hurt of it overwhelms, consumes us. Emotions run deep, with anger and hurt often at the core. Desire for revenge may rage. Perhaps we can learn something about responding to betrayal by looking at responses to betrayals already mentioned.

In his second inaugural address of March 4, 1865, then president Abraham Lincoln, sought to heal a once-divided nation, setting forth plans for healing the nation and establishing a standard for relations between the factions. He ended his address with these words, “. . . with malice toward none, with charity for all . . . .”

Forgiveness and acceptance were the path Lincoln chose to handle betrayal. He sought not only to forgive, but to restore those states that had seceded from the Union. His goal was to provide a way back to unity that would save face for those who had left, and which was not too difficult, a way that would begin to heal the wide rift that had opened up between the North and the South.

Forgiveness releases us from all the negative emotions that accompany betrayal.

When Lucifer rebelled, the heavenly councils pleaded with him to mend the rift. The Son of God presented before him the mercy, the greatness, the goodness and the justice of the Creator, and the sacred, unchanging nature of the law. But the warning, given in infinite love and mercy, only aroused a spirit of resistance. Lucifer allowed his jealously of Christ to prevail and he became the more determined.

Sometimes, there’s no remedy for betrayal and we must allow the betrayer to go their own way.

When we find ourselves recipients of betrayal, we should remember we are not alone. Jesus experienced it at the hand of Lucifer, from His chosen people, from Judas. And let’s not forget our own culpability.

As members of divided communities and even a divided church, what steps can we take to rectify the divide, to avoid betraying our brothers and sisters, to heal the sting of betrayal?

We can follow the advice given by Crosby, Stills & Nash in their early ’70s song: “You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by. . . .” Our code of love, blessing and loyalty to mankind must be lived out and passed on to our children so they too can live well, so they become a blessing to the generations that follow.

–Carol Bolden is traveling through the United States in a motorhome with her husband Thom. Read her blog: (https://outlookmag.org/off-to-see-america-traveling-by-motorhome/). She was communication assistant at RMC until her retirement. Email her at: [email protected]

By Rajmund Dabrowski … Loyalty has many meanings. So do freedom and compassion. A personal story comes to mind, a part of my family’s experience from exactly 40 years ago. How it came about is of no consequence. What is etched in personal memory is what matters.

Michael had been born just three years earlier and my wife and I were pushing him in a stroller to join thousands of others at the Castle Square, a historic square in front of the Royal Castle—the former official residence of Polish monarchs—in Warsaw, Poland. We were joining a demonstration in support of Solidarity.

Peaceful protests often turn into mayhem. That’s what happened that day in Warsaw. Songs and chants for freedom were met by the force of the state with water cannons and gas pellets shot into the crowd. Soon we were on the run, covering our faces and wiping Michael’s face from the unwelcome burning tears.

He remembers little, if any at all, though he said to me recently that he is thankful for the experience. He was being introduced to what it means to stand for freedom. Some- times at a cost.

Even today, I ask myself if it was reckless. But being passive, letting others stand up against a restricted way of life— was that a “better” option? We could not then and would not today.

This experience is etched in my mind and connects with Christian values and the larger experience of scores of others who remind us to stand for what is right. A pleiad of God’s people is an example of fidelity. A list of them in Hebrews (Chapters 11 and 12) refers to a “cloud of witnesses.” There is an element of solidarity that connects us with each other. We are connected through flesh and blood, work and language, suffering and humiliation. At times, though not as often, we are joined together through joy and happiness. But all too often we do not realize our togetherness, this human solidarity with a community of people.

When Apostle Paul writes that we should carry each other’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), he seems to suggest that solidarity with the other cannot be forced from the outside. Solidarity prefers infirmity above violence. It prefers light above darkness.

Reflecting on fidelity, philosopher Józef Tischner, wrote: “When we speak about fidelity, we are seeing a statue of the great father of faith, a statue of Abraham. He was faithful. To be faithful means to be a chooser. A chosen one and the one who chooses, together. Abraham heard a call in the desert: ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ He answered: ‘Here I am.’ He was called and he chose to answer. We remember another moment when God used a similar call. He said to Adam: ‘Adam, where are you?’ But Adam answered God’s call by hiding. He didn’t wish to be seen. Abraham was–as it were– fixing Adam’s error. He chose to answer God’s choice by choosing.”*

Abraham is referred to as a father of religion. It all started with him as a choice, and when the choice gave the fruit of faithfulness, a community, a nation, was born.

When we walked toward the Castle Square, we walked with a clear choice–to express solidarity with the people. It was our loyalty to the community. And we couldn’t do it any other way.

–Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director. Email him at: [email protected]

*Wiara ze słuchania (Faith Through Listening), pp. 131-132.