The “flood-the-zone” strategy is not new, but it is wildly effective.
How can we understand its effect on churches and ministers? The immediate aim of President Donald Trump’s White House is to keep journalists off balance, news and social media in an uproar, and the public in a state of panic. One underlying purpose of the chaos is to destroy 60 years of democratic gains which will alter the social landscape and thus the context in which vocation, ministry and religious life
takes place.
In just two weeks, the upheaval has included deportations, forced resignations, unprovoked trade wars, withdrawing security from officials under threat, pardoning more than 1,500 January 6
insurrectionists, and threatening millions of jobs, all while swaggering with glee.
Even when natural disasters and human tragedies grab the top headlines, rhetoric from the White House dispatches political blame and attacks.
While the new administration is “flooding the zone,” faith leaders need to respond with focus and clarity. The following analysis highlights how the
barrage of changes is shifting the conditions in which vocation and ministry take place.
Reporters at NPR called the first week “dizzying.” Make no mistake: This is the “flood-the-zone” strategy — to disrupt, overwhelm, degrade and leave everyone dizzy. But let us not fall for this strategy. When we give in to the overwhelm of the distractions, we give up our agency and power in the situation.
