The following is a talk I gave Saturday, January 17, 2026 at a protest rally “Hands off Venezuela” in Bellingham, Washington.
My name is Bob Ekblad. I’m a theologian and pastor, co-founder and director of Tierra Nueva—a ministry based in the Skagit Valley. We started in 1994 as a ministry serving farmworkers and jail inmates after living amongst the poor in Central America throughout the 1980s. We are committed to accompanying people affected by immigration, addiction and incarceration. My wife and I and colleagues pastor a faith community in Burlington, and offer trainings around the world through The People’s Seminary– equipping people to serve society’s most vulnerable.
I want to remind us now that we gather this afternoon on the ancestral homeland of the Coastal Salish peoples. In the 1830s European settlers started arriving here– many of whom were direct descendants of English colonizers (like my mother’s relatives, whose ancestry goer back to the original 13 British ruled colonies). While they were seeking religious freedom, economic opportunity, and political liberty— many were doing this at the expense of native peoples—taking land, breaking treaties, committing genocide—building wealth off the backs of oppressed people.
Other Americans did this at the expense of African slaves—used and abused to build the new imperial state. The current “Christian nationalist” & Maga lie that USA is an originally “christian” or “god-ordained” nation, and that the current administration is in any way making it Great (or Christian) again—must be denounced as demonstrably false. Our actual history from the beginning has been marked by outright dispossession, exploitation & imperial domination.
Before the European-origin settlers arrived here there were over 125 tribes and 50 languages and dialects spoken within the borders of this territory later named “Washington State.” This state was named after the first president of a colonial power gone rogue—who himself was a slave holder. 123 of the 317 enslaved people living at his plantation in Mount Vernon, Virginia in 1799, were owned by George Washington himself! All of this is a sobering backdrop for today’s protest of the USA’s attacks on Venezuela.
US intervention in Venezuela is nothing new. My wife and I lived in Guatemala in 1980-81, and Honduras from 1982-88, witnessing firsthand the devastating effects of US intervention in Nicaragua, El Salvador & Honduras, the subsequent imposition of NAFTA—all of which led to a mass migration of war & economic refugees to the US. But before that there was the CIA-involved coup of democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 to defend United Fruit Company holdings, and the US establishment of military dictatorships responsible for genocide. And then there’s the CIA’s deposing elected president Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, Panama, Grenada… the list goes on and on.
What we see now in Venezuela reflects an even more brazen, shameless interventionism. with the recent extrajudicial killings of fishermen & the open admission by Trump that we’ve invaded to take their oil. These actions are more overtly imperialistic than usual. Extrajudicial killings of fishermen, seizing of oil fields…
Since Sept 2, 2025 there have been 32 US drone strikes on Venezuelan fishing boats, killing of at least 115 people in the Caribbean and eastern pacific. These killings have been justified as acts of self-defense against a purported invasion of the US by “narco-terrorist” vessels carrying drugs—though no proof has been given. Some of the drones used in this “war on cartels” have been shot from planes that are unmarked– a war crime called “perfidy” under international humanitarian law (IHL).
Then on January 3, 2026 the US armed forces conducted strikes on Venezuela— capturing Nicolas Maduro and his wife and bringing them to the US to face justice for drug trafficking. Admittedly Maduro is a complete thug who has stolen elections, committing untold human rights abuses against his people—leading to some 5 million fleeing the country. So there’s little to no sympathy for him.
However, Trump’s December 1, 2025 presidential pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez– who was serving 45 years in a US prison after a US federal jury convicted him of conspiring to traffic more than 400 tons of US bound cocaine through Honduras shows the lie of the US’s claimed motive.
Trump brazenly declared his true motive: the taking by force Venezuela’s oil fields, and has seized six oil tankers, this week even declaring himself “President of Venezuela.”
This kind of blatant intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation is an ugly repetition of past interventions in Latin America and around the world.
The bypassing of Venezuela (and other countries) own democratic process, the seizing of natural resources & threats to take over whole countries like Greenland is completely unacceptable and must be denounced. Donald Trump and his Administration are not above the law. Though officials may try to justify and defend themselves- before God & the world they stand guilty.
I have been asked to speak today from my particular faith perspective. I ask you to bear with me as I try to describe why I think this is so totally against everything Jesus represents—as the one I and many believe is Israel’s Messiah (though he would not have supported Israel’s invasion of Gaza and actions in the West Bank) & the world’s Savior.
My belief in a Creator God includes my conviction that the earth belongs to God, and has been given to share with its many peoples & creatures. It is not our right to take by force and violence. Might does not make right.
Genesis 1 states clearly that God created each and every human being in God’s image & likeness– placing everyone on equal footing (from billionaires to those labeled “criminal aliens.”
Recently when a group of our Tierra Nueva faith community met for a Bible study, we workshopped a faith-based response to US intervention in Venezuela. We read together the ten commandments (which self-avowed Christians like Hegseth, Rubio and many Maga devotees claim to cherish. We identified seven of the ten commandments that we considered broken by recent US actions. Here they are:
- Fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy (it was Saturday, January 3 when US Special Forces invaded Venezuela and abducted Maduro.
- Sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill has been transgressed—with the killing of over 115 fishermen through drone strikes and another 100 Venezuelans when Maduro was seized.
- Eighth commandment: “Thou shalt not steal,” – action underway with the seizing of Venezuelan oil tankers and oil expropriated.
- Ninth commandment: “You shall not falsely accuse your neighbor” – Fishermen accused without proof of trafficking drugs into the US…
- Tenth commandment: “Thou shall not covert you neighbor’s house…or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (including oil fields!).
- The first commandment has been violated & is regularly violated by this administration, which is: “You shall have no other gods before Me”— President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by, (in his words) “my own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me, and that’s very good.” “Not international law?” another journalist followed up. Trump replied: “I don’t need international law”– placing himself like god above the world (not under god, international law…).
- The second commandment could also be seen as transgressed: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them.” America itself is an idol- and the ideology “Make America Great Again” the ultimate transgression—and blatant refusal to embrace the truth that all humans of every tribe, nation on earth are equally made in the image of God- the Creator.
I believe that Jesus embodies the image of God, visibly showing the world what it looks like to be an empowered, love-filled human being in this world. Those who seek to follow him are called to act like him. I’ve personally been drawn to follow Jesus after reading of his actions and teaching in the Gospels of the NT.
In story after story I’ve been moved by Jesus’ embrace of the excluded, his compassion for the poor, oppressed and sick—and his calling of humble people to join him in his mission— “on earth as in heaven.”—a new earth which we can bring about now– without oppression, war, class divisions, exclusion, sickness and death.
- Jesus encapsulated the whole OT tradition (ten commandments & prophets) as “loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (and not money, nation, party, flag…) and your neighbor as youself.
- Jesus embodied and proclaimed “good news to the poor,” “freedom to the prisoners,” sight to the blind, liberation to the oppressed.” His teachings are powerful, and if practiced bring justice, mercy, and holistic liberation.
- Jesus taught that whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave” (Mt 20:26-28).
- He openly sided with the excluded, treating them with the highest honor & respect—defending them against the powerful of his day.
- Jesus never justified Roman imperial domination—but brought healing and empowerment from the bottom up. He was executed by the Romans through crucifixion— the death penalty of that time.
- Jesus followers believe he defeated the worst sanction the empire could use—death itself, through his resurrection.
- Baptism is about symbolic death and resurrection so we can live fearlessly now—advancing this new realm of love and justice.
While Venezuela’s president stole their last election and was an authoritarian dictator whose demise many people celebrate, Jesus says something that totally relates to the US’s recents actions against Venezuela.
“Do not judge lest you be judged… Cast the log out of your own eye, so you can see clearly to cast the speck out of your brother/sister’s eye” (Mt 7:1-5).
For the US President to practice this would mean facing squarely his own crimes & sins, including his own arrogant authoritarianism—casting them from himself and his administration—before he can ever see clearly anything in anyone (Maduro, Iranian leadership…). For the American public to practice this could mean casting our own sovereign from office through impeachment or elections, making him/them face justice– before we look across the Caribbean (or anywhere)— to challenge foreign heads of state.
In conclusion, we are in no way a Christian nation. At best we can become kind of representative democracy, informing ourselves and working together to establish a system of checks and balances, promoting actions that defend people’s human rights in our own country and in places like Venezuela, Iran, Sudan and beyond. May we work for justice and peace on behalf of society and the world’s most vulnerable.
The current administration is engaged in one anti-Christ action after another. May we humbly confess our historical & current crimes and change course—opposing the taking of Greenland, Gaza’s annexation, ICE’s terrorizing of immigrant communities, and whatever else brings harm. May we treat our own vulnerable populations around us with the utmost respect—making sure we are acting locally as we think globally.