I am an only child, so I’m used to spending time by myself, but I grew up in an east coast suburb in the 1980s and 90s, so I’m not used to being alone. Like, really alone. I’ve always been within a few yards of a next-door neighbor. Even most of my outdoor adventures hiking and camping are with groups, or with my wife or at campsites where you can hear the campfire laughter or hushed tent conversations of the people around you.

But when I was in seminary, hoping to renew my spirit before I began another school year, I booked two nights in a charming but bare-bones cottage at a small silent retreat center in Tennessee. I was the only person on the property that weekend. When I arrived, a kind volunteer showed me around and told me if I needed anything she was just a few miles down the road on the other side of the center’s wooded hiking trails. And then she left. I read a biography of St. Francis and sat by the pond and walked the labyrinth and when night came I went and looked out at the stars expecting to feel peace and wonder and instead I was terrified. I was struck by the sudden realization that I had never been that far away from another human being in my 35 years on this earth. I was trying so hard to take a break from technology on this retreat, but the desire to feel less alone was almost overwhelming. I had to restrain myself from grabbing my phone. And the thing was, it wasn’t even like I was going to call my wife or a friend if I pulled out my phone. I almost certainly was just going to scroll or try and drown out the silence. It was actually disturbing, the level of comfort I thought I would feel from listening to a podcast or going on Facebook. It would not have changed anything about my physical surroundings. It would have simply been an illusion of connection.

I tell this story because it helps me understand patterns that are happening in our larger culture, in more extreme ways. Do any of you have relatives, especially older relatives who watch fox news all day and you wonder “how can they stand it? How can they possibly believe it?” Or have you wondered, in the wake of the 2024 election or recent acts of violence, why so many young men are being radicalized by right-wing political podcasts or online forums? Why would they want to spend their time listening to Joe Rogan or posting in increasingly cynical and nihilistic online gamer forums? This story of my attempt at a silent retreat reminds me why. I am blessed that I am not a lonely person and yet the temptation to use the internet to escape a brief and voluntary moment of aloneness was so difficult to resist. The temporary feeling of belonging and community these kinds of spaces provide is addictive. And the people profiting off those spaces know this.

We are so lonely as a culture. To try and cure this, we have 24/7 access to tools that will temporarily numb that feeling of loneliness. But in the long run those tools only serve to further isolate and divide us from each other. So we become lonelier. And we rely on these loneliness numbing tools even more. We are caught in a seemingly inescapable web of disconnection. And it is killing us, literally and spiritually.

I know this might be difficult, but how many of you can reach way back in your memories and recall the bygone days when the US Surgeon general cared about public health? Like, you know, 2023. That’s when then surgeon general Vivek Murthy released a report naming loneliness and isolation an epidemic, calling it the most serious mental health crisis facing America today. In the 1970s, 45% of Americans said they could reliably trust other Americans. That number was down to 30% in 2016. Since 2003, the time Americans spend alone has increased by 24 hours a month, and time with friends in person decreased by 10 hours a month. According to the report, teens and adults said they are online “almost constantly” but across all ages had fewer friends and in-person interactions. Most strikingly, the report says that lacking social connection is as dangerous for our physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 15 cigarettes a day.

Loneliness and isolation are also affecting the health of our social fabric, with fewer people engaging in the kinds of civic and service associations that are so important to our democratic life. It would be easy to blame the increasing rates of loneliness and isolation on our partisan divisions, right? We are angry and distrustful, so we retreat to our own corners. But actually, some researchers and political scientists believe it’s the other way around. Our loneliness and isolation are a driver of our political polarization. Because when we lack a sense of belonging, one of the quickest ways to find it is through the act of othering. This is why increasing rates of loneliness are correlated with increases in hate groups, especially those that organize in largely online spaces. And this is what Fox news producers understand when they market towards older demographics who are more likely to experience loneliness and isolation.

These two impacts of loneliness—the damage to our physical health and our social fabric—would be concerning enough on their own and worthy of a sermon or two, but what I want to talk about today is more immediate and more terrifying. And that’s the way those in political and economic power are engineering this sense of isolation and then capitalizing on it for their own gain. The ICE raids, the attacks on free speech and on the free press, the militarization of American cities, these authoritarian maneuvers we’re witnessing with horror—their success relies on our distrust and fear of one another. It relies on a sense of isolation that makes us feel hopeless and helpless against it.

And this is not a new strategy. In 1951, German moral philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt called totalitarianism “organized loneliness.” Arendt devoted her life to studying the nature of power and evil and she, more than perhaps any other scholar outlines the ways the Nazis rose to power in Germany with sobering clarity. She writes, “What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience.”

The goal of an authoritarian or totalitarian regime is to disconnect us from one another so thoroughly, we eventually become disconnected from ourselves, from our own humanity, from our own capacity for empathy, and from our own sacred values. So, they tell us our cities, places where we regularly encounter diversity and are in close proximity with others, are unsafe, are on fire. They say things like, “The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy.” They tell us immigrants are a threat. They say things like, “At this very moment, large well-organized caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border. Some people call it an invasion. ... These are tough people in many cases; a lot of young men, strong men and a lot of men that maybe we don’t want in our country. ...

This isn’t an innocent group of people. It’s a large number of people that are tough. They have injured, they have attacked.” By “they” I obviously mean Donald Trump. They tell us that others are threatening to take our jobs; to take our spots in college or on sports teams. They tell us we’re under attack by violent criminals and protestors. They make us scared to encounter people different from us, scared to leave our homes, paranoid and distrustful. So, we retreat and isolate. And then when we’re so isolated that we hunger for belonging, they feed that hunger by offering a false promise of connection and community through identities and spaces that are built on othering, whether it’s the sense of belonging in wearing a red MAGA hat, the constant company of 24 hour news, or an online forum where young white men feel less alone in their anger.

Now, I’m not here today to preach a luddite sermon where I decry the use of the internet. I mean, on Friday I posted an invitation on Facebook encouraging people to come to church to hear this sermon and worship together. But I do want to help us see more clearly the waters we’re all swimming in. Arendt’s words are as true today as they were in 1951, but that preparation for totalitarian domination she writes about is in hyperdrive. The messages and propaganda that tell us to fear one another can reach us even faster and they reach us constantly. And the incentives to get out of the house, to be together in community to do the things that would counter those messages are even less, when we have such quick fixes at our fingertips.

So, this is why spaces like ours are vital and counter-cultural and frankly dangerous to authoritarianism. This is why so often, fascist states seek early on to co-opt or control religious institutions. Because here we resist attempts at isolation and disconnection. Here we remember there is beauty and meaning in coming together, across difference. We walk with each other through joy and suffering, refusing to become numb or apathetic. Authoritarianism needs us to feel helpless and powerless, but here, through even small acts like meal trains and rides and lending a helping hand on our pastoral care team, we remember we have the power and resources to care for one another. And we remember our sacred obligations to care for one another. Through worship and study and prayer and spiritual practice, we stay grounded in our sacred values and ethical commitments. We stay connected to our own humanity and to the divine spark in ourselves and each other.

In the 1940s, folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote on his guitar “This machine kills fascists.” Now I have not cleared this with the fellowship committee or vestry/decorating, but I did think about affixing those famous words to the coffee carafes and fellowship hour this morning. Because connection kills fascism. Real authentic connection, to the sacred, to the deepest part of ourselves, and to one another. Poet Maria Popova puts it this way: “Our insistence on belonging, community, and human connection is one of the greatest acts of courage and resistance in the face of oppression.”

If totalitarianism is organized loneliness, then now is the time for us to double down on organized belonging. So even when you aren’t sure how to respond to the injustice and corruption and inhumanity we are witnessing. When the protesting and letter writing and get out the vote efforts seem futile or exhausting, keep showing up here. Find Sallie after service and volunteer for pastoral care or chat with Kathleen about our social justice work. And invite your friends and neighbors to show up here with you. Keep resisting their efforts to isolate and divide and disconnect us from all that is most holy. Our lives and souls depend on it.

May it be so. May we endeavor together to make it so.

Amen.