Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com.

In Dante’s “Divine Comedy” there is a warning, described as being inscribed above the entrance to Hell, that translates as “Abandon hope all ye who enter here ...”

On Tuesday night, in the sanctuary of a New Hampshire church, I quoted Dante while engaged in a discussion of a prescient and important book written by the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward, “The Seven Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism,” which illustrates how “American Christians have played a major role in building and securing structures of injustice in American life ... [and speaks to] ... Rising tides of white supremacy, threats to women’s reproductive freedoms and to basic human rights for gender and sexual minorities, the widening divide between rich and poor ...”

I quoted Dante because I agreed with Carter Heyward.

I quoted Dante because I am exasperated with the well-meaning, presumably progressive, LGBTQIA+ affirming peoples of all castes, colors, ethnicities, and religions, even among the program’s well-meaning attendees, who to this day naively believe that some kind of common ground exists between “us” and “them” and that we just need to reseed the landscape and, Kumbaya-like, we will become as one.

While I don’t agree with them I sympathize with their intentions.

I quoted Dante because I am most exasperated with those, mostly privileged white clergy and their congregations across America who together refuse to stand and speak out publicly against white Christian Nationalism as it infects our Public Square, refuse to strongly condemn corrupt forces within their own communities.

Who in their silence become complicit with those who would deny them their pulpits.

We don’t have time to cosplay the American Dream — we have 14 months.

On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, the United States will decide whether it will continue to be a constitutional republic and democracy or choose to become an ethnocratic, intolerant, authoritarian state along the path of other previous democracies like Hungary, India, Israel, and Turkey.

On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, America will choose a new president, and there will be no do-over. If the anti-democratic forces of today’s Republican Party, regardless of their nominee, triumph, the American experiment will be over.

I know that sometimes, when I am challenged, I see things that I miss when there is clarity, when I think I know what I am saying or doing.

I work to see the difference of difference and become awakened, and I wonder why it doesn’t happen to others, why they can’t see the difference of difference.

I become woke.

I wonder why, in the mostly white, cis-gendered world populated by Christians, more believers don’t confront the injustices being committed in their names, why don’t they stand in their pews and shout, “Not in my name.”

Why more aren’t woke.

I wonder why they’re afraid of being woke, an important word with a long history used in Black protest songs dating back to the early 20th century, a word that comes out of the lived experience of Black people, a consciousness of being intersectionally aware of the politics of race, class, and gender.

Why don’t they understand that their silence degrades all American lives; that their silence denies the humanity of others, that when they prioritize their privileges and prejudices over an aspirational vision embracing all Americans they reveal the shallowness of their faith.

This isn’t about losing hope with MAGA-Americans, the racists, antisemites, Islamophobes, and fundamentalist preachers who preach xenophobia, exclusion, and intolerance; nor is it about their donors who underwrite hatred and violence in order to further enhance their profits and profiles among fellow truth deniers.

I have no hope for them — they know woke and deny its meaning.

No, this is about silence, about those who are passive and selfish, those who, like the white ministers in Birmingham, think hatred and violence are negotiable commodities, that the banning of books and closing of libraries are temporary inconveniences.

About those who value their privileges and prejudices while denying marginalized and disenfranchised peoples salvific lives of joy and love.

It’s not just that white Christian nationalists are hostile to the rest of the world, it’s that they view the world, and all who don’t believe and worship as they, through an Amero-centric vision of privilege, power, and prejudice that is, to my mind, anti-Christian.

Late in the program, while engaged in a Q&A segment, I vented, “You’ve engaged a panel that includes a Black woman minister, a Muslim journalist, a queer Jewish Rabbi, and a queer Christian priest to discuss white Christian Nationalism.”

“It’s not our problem,” I said. “We’re its targets. It’s your problem; you, white cis-gendered Christian churchgoers, you need to challenge this. It’s your problem.”

I was done.

As the program ended a loved one invited me to share a late-night chicken quesadilla and a non-alcoholic beverage before we parted ways and, as I slathered sour cream on my half, they said, “I don’t believe you have abandoned hope.”

I quibbled for a bit, I always quibble, but as I think about it perhaps they are right, that I am fundamentally an optimist who has come to believe that as we move towards the light, the beauty of the gifts with which we have been entrusted becomes more clear — and when others can’t witness that beauty, when others deny the reality of those gifts, that’s when I become exasperated.

They are right. This may be a dark moment when my faith in humanity is being sorely tested, but I will not and cannot surrender to despair.

Later, as I drove back to Exeter, I thought of Rumi who said that, “There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can’t hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.”

Rumi’s prescription, to paraphrase the 13th-century Sufi poet, is to embrace as long as we can friends we love, whether they are moving away from us, or coming back toward us.

Don’t forget love, my friend was reminding me, don’t forget love.

Don’t forget love.

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