Inside the Underground Railroad Out of Afghanistan
I struggled with this intensely, especially after reading hundreds of emails with personal pleas, and poring over documentation of entire Afghan families with real faces and identities. I could not do it. But I had to do it. Along with my co-worker, Faisal Al Mutar, I ultimately did pick just five based on a basic evaluation of relative risk and ease of extraction. The moral weight of such a decision was overwhelming. We should have never been in a position to make such a call in the first place.
On Saturday night I had just sat down to have a drink with a friend when he got a call. He apologized for having to take it, but it was urgent: it was about the Afghan women’s orchestra. They were stuck in Kabul and desperate to get out. He was involved in the effort to extract them.
Twenty minutes later, we ordered another martini.
I’ve been thinking a lot these past two weeks about luck. The luck of where we are born. The luck of the parents we are born to. And, right now, the luck of who we know.
Knowing — or having proximity to someone who knows my well-placed friend, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — is a matter of life or death for untold numbers of Afghans.
The question of who will live and who will die — part of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that all Jews say on the high holy days, which are just around the corner — is supposed to be in the hands of God. But right now, for so many Afghans, the answer to that question is in the hands of the Taliban. The chance to live relies on Americans: those who have the luck to live in freedom and those who are determined to right what the Biden administration has gotten so horribly wrong.
Melissa Chen is one of those people.
Melissa co-founded an organization called Ideas Beyond Borders, which digitizes and translates English books and articles into Arabic. And not just any books: Books like Orwell’s ‘“Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now,” and a graphic novel based on John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty.” Works that promote reason, pluralism and liberty. Suffice it to say the translators she works with in places like Egypt, Syria and Iraq do so at great risk.
Because of her connections in the Middle East — and because she is the kind of person who lives by her principles — it did not surprise me that she found herself involved in the efforts to save Afghans from the horrors of the Taliban. She shares some of the details of those remarkable efforts in the essay below.
The operation to get American allies out of Kabul has been dubbed the Underground Railroad and Digital Dunkirk. But I can’t help but think of the MS St. Louis. That’s the ship that came to this country in 1939 packed with more 900 Jews fleeing Germany. To our country’s eternal shame we turned the ship around and into the arms of the Third Reich. — BW
For the past two weeks I have been part of a 21st century Underground Railroad. We are a ragtag group — combat veterans, human rights activists, ex-special forces, State Department officials, intelligence agents, members of Congress, non-profit organizers, and private individuals with the resources to charter planes and helicopters — who have stepped into the vacuum left by the Biden administration.
Today the Pentagon announced the end of our 20-year war in Afghanistan. But there are hundreds of Americans and an estimated 250,000 Afghan allies who remain trapped there. Many of these Afghans, due to the nature of their work, their religious beliefs, their minority ethnic status or even just their appearance (say, sporting tattoos anywhere on their bodies), see escape as a matter of life and death. As Kabul descended into chaos, their pleas for help leaving were largely met with bureaucratic silence.
The operation to save them began before the Taliban were seen riding bumper cars in amusement parks and occupying the presidential palace. Many veterans and civilians who had deep ties to the country were under no illusions about the nature of the Taliban and what a deal with them would mean for the people who had worked with the U.S.
Long before Kabul fell, I noticed that military friends started using Facebook and Twitter to figure out how to help their “terps” — interpreters, linguists and translators who served alongside them during their tours in Afghanistan. WhatsApp groups, email threads, and ad hoc task forces with their own central command centers sprang up spontaneously. Google docs were cobbled together to compile and share resources for individuals assisting their Afghan friends in their evacuation and eventual resettlement. No one was relying on a White House that had voluntarily closed Bagram Airbase or a commander-in-chief who, as of last month, was assuring the American public that a Taliban takeover “is not inevitable.”
No One Left Behind, a charity that was founded to help interpreters through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program and resettle them in the U.S., has been at the vanguard of these efforts. Human Rights Foundation and Human Rights First were very effective in helping activists and dissidents secure political asylum. AfghanEvac, a self-organized group of beltway insiders and outsiders, have been logistical ninjas, chartering planes and requesting landing rights in neighboring countries. The Commercial Task Force set up shop in a conference room at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C., and has so far helped evacuate 5,000 Afghan refugees. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton set up a war room office to take over the duties and responsibilities that the State Department had abdicated. Democratic Rep. Andy Kim had his office set up an email account to assist those seeking help evacuating allies.
And then there were the extraction teams like Task Force Pineapple and Task Force Dunkirk, informal, volunteer groups of U.S. veterans who took matters in their own hands to launch dangerous secret missions to save hundreds of at-risk Afghan allies and their families.
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Making Sausage with the National Partnership
Among their efforts is identifying the men who their members should not vote for if they are nominated for committees or agencies. For instance, one well known Ruling Elder with a well-earned reputation for faithful service to the Lord and the PCA was recently nominated to serve on the Standing Judicial Commission. In one email the leader of the NP wrote that this brother, “is the primary GRN organizer and agitator, the prime organizing voice against CTS and mover of the Nashville statement. He would be, I cannot stress enough, a disaster for the court.”
“Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:1-2)
It’s been said that politics is like sausage. You don’t want to see it made. Unfortunately, church politics can often be like that as well. This is particularly true when church officers demand secrecy.
On the evening of October 26, I (along with others) was sent a cache of emails exchanged among the leadership of the National Partnership. If you are not familiar with the National Partnership (NP), they are a rather secretive organization operating within the PCA which seeks to shape the denomination according to their vision. For instance, the NP has been enthusiastic in their support of Revoice and other efforts to broaden the doctrinal “tent” of the PCA. You can read a little about the NP Here and Here.
Now, back to the subject at hand. The emails in question run from 2013 to July of this year. They are emails exchanged through a password protected website between the leadership of the National Partnership. They are a window into the political activity of the secretive organization. Why one member of the group decided to make those emails known I do not know. But I was grieved to the heart as I read them. They reveal a level of political maneuvering that can fairly be described as cynical.
Interspersed among the emails is a rather triumphal claim that they, the National Partnership, represent the majority of the PCA. Apart from the party spirit betrayed by such chest beating one must wonder why it is, then, that they must operate under cover of secrecy. I would like to ask any member of the National Partnership if they are troubled by the revelations of non-disclosure agreements that have been employed by churches like Mars Hill? Do they believe it is appropriate to saddle the members of their group with secrecy?
The emails reveal why the NP has had such success in recent years in advancing their agenda. These men are highly organized. Some of them spend hours each week working to influence votes on the presbytery and GA levels. Among their efforts is identifying the men who their members should not vote for if they are nominated for committees or agencies. For instance, one well known Ruling Elder with a well-earned reputation for faithful service to the Lord and the PCA was recently nominated to serve on the Standing Judicial Commission. In one email the leader of the NP wrote that this brother, “is the primary GRN organizer and agitator, the prime organizing voice against CTS and mover of the Nashville statement. He would be, I cannot stress enough, a disaster for the court.”
Not surprisingly, the NP stands in strong opposition to the passage of Overtures 23 and 37 which were approved overwhelmingly at this year’s General Assembly. These clear and necessary overtures are meant to help sessions and presbyteries by providing guidelines for examining the character of candidates for ordination. It goes without saying that the NP’s opposition to these overtures gives insight into their vision for the PCA.
Another troubling feature of these many emails are the number of times the NP’s political leader refers to having “NP representatives” on the various committees and agencies. Please understand the significance of such statements. There is a secretive organization operating within the PCA which has labored to get their “representatives” (those working for NP ends) on PCA committees and agencies. How is this anything other than a party spirit? How is this not divisive? What do the many faithful lay men and women in the PCA think of such strategies? What are we to think of an unaccountable and secretive organization referring to its members as “representatives” of – not the PCA – but of the secretive organization?
Also troubling is the ubiquitous use of terms like “NP churches,” and “NP Presbyteries.” You read that correctly. There are pastors in the PCA who refer to PCA Presbyteries with NP members as “NP Presbyteries.” I wonder what our TE’s and RE’s who do not align with the National Partnership think of the presbytery they faithfully serve as being thought of as belonging to this unaccountable organization? If you understand Presbyterianism this sort of terminology is brazen to say the least. It’s certainly not Presbyterian.
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Trusting God When Times Are Tough
Asaph has put into words what is and has been a struggle for many Christians down through the ages who have gone through difficult times. This frustration is compounded when their struggles occur against the backdrop of the prosperity of the wicked. Trying to understand this paradox seemed like a wearisome task to Asaph—that is, until he went into the sanctuary of God (vv. 16–17). The sanctuary of God—with its ceremonies and rituals and bloody altars—had a sobering and crystallizing effect on Asaph, causing him to see his previous envy and doubt as coming from an embittered soul (v. 21), leading him to think and speak like a brutish and ignorant beast toward God (v. 22).
Question and answer number 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism is as follows: “What is your only comfort in life and death?” Answer:
That I, with body and soul, both in life and death am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all of my sins and delivered me from all of the powers of the Devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; yea that all things must be subservient to my salvation and therefore by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and He makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.
I begin with this all-encompassing word of comfort as the backdrop for the very difficult subject of trusting God in difficult times, especially when that difficulty is financial. Contrary to what some might think, Christians are not exempt from the trials and adversities that are part and parcel of living in a fallen world. So I would like to begin with three overarching extractions from the answer to question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism: (1) We belong to Christ, both body and soul, which means that His love and care for us are for both body and soul; (2) the blood of Christ has satisfied for all our sins, and therefore, we cannot reason that our hardship is punishment for sin; (3) we are delivered from the powers of the devil, which means that tough times are not ultimately dispensed by the hand of Satan. He will use our tough times as opportunities to entice us to not trust God or to make us think that He has forsaken us. But as Paul says in Colossians 1:13, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” Therefore, all that occurs in a Christian’s life is by the will of God and ultimately works for the good of the believer. Romans 8:28 declares, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
This does not mean that only good things happen—far from it. The catechism and the Scriptures teach that God’s saving purposes for the elect can never be frustrated by anything they experience. Romans 5:3–5 puts it this way:
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Consequently, we are enabled to serve and trust God in all seasons and circumstances.
The rationale of the catechism is that faith in the sufficiency of the person and work of Christ and the sovereignty of God attaches us to a reality that transcends our temporal experience and circumstances. We do not diminish the importance of our physical bodies in their present state. After all, the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 12:1 that we are to “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice . . . , which is [our] spiritual worship.” But in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul points us to the transcendent realities to which our faith in Christ attaches us:
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (vv. 16–18)
Critics of the Christian faith, as well as those who adhere to various forms of the prosperity gospel, would take Paul’s words as espousing a “pie in the sky” religion. Be that as it may, our faith attaches us to a reality that is beyond our present experiences in this fallen world. Embracing the paradox that the Apostle presents does not mean that Christians go through tough times stoically and unperturbed. The words of Asaph in Psalm 73 come to mind.
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What Is Experiential Theology?
Experiential or experimental theology addresses how a Christian experiences the truth of Christian doctrine in his life. The term experimental comes from the Latin experimentum, meaning “trial.” It is derived from the verb experior, meaning “to try, prove, or put to the test.” That same verb can also mean “to find or know by experience,” thus leading to the word experiential, meaning knowledge gained by experiment. John Calvin used experiential and experimental interchangeably, since both words in theology indicate the need for measuring experienced knowledge against the touchstone of Scripture.
By experiential or experimental theology, we mean Christ-centered theology which stresses that for salvation, sinners must by faith have a personal, experiential (that is, experienced) Spirit-worked knowledge of Christ, and, by extension, of all the great truths of Scripture. Thus we must emphasize, as the Puritans did, that the Holy Spirit causes the objective truths about Christ and His work to be experienced in the heart and life of sinners.
For example, our lost state and condition by nature due to our tragic fall in Adam, our dire need for Jesus Christ who merits and applies salvation by His Spirit, and our responsibility to repent and believe the gospel of God’s freely offered salvation in Jesus Christ all must be known and experienced in our lives. Experiential theology stresses that the Holy Spirit blesses man-abasing, Christ-centered theology that makes room for Christ within the soul; believers will then yearn to live wholly for His glory out of gratitude for His great salvation. John 17:3 says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” The gospel truth of sovereign grace that abases us to the lowest and exalts Christ to the highest in our salvation must be proclaimed and experienced.
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