On Tyranny, Lesson 13
Practice Corporeal Politics
It’s easy to feel like we’re doing something when we click, like, post, or share.
The screen glows. The heart reacts. The feed refreshes.
And still—nothing changes.
Timothy Snyder, in Lesson 13 of On Tyranny, calls us to “practice corporeal politics.” That is, show up. With your actual body. In actual space. With actual people. Because tyrants aren’t afraid of tweets. They’re afraid of togetherness.
“Power wants your body softening in a chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.”
This is not nostalgia for analog days. It is strategy. Because every authoritarian system depends on disembodied people—isolated, distracted, connected only by algorithms. The more you engage without showing up, the easier you are to manage.
But bodies are harder to ignore.
Why Tyrants Fear Flesh-and-Blood Solidarity
Snyder draws a clear line through history: oppressive regimes always fear crowds—not just because of their size, but because of their presence. People gathering in public defy the logic of surveillance and control. They cannot be muted. They do not disappear with the swipe of a finger.
Whether it was the civil rights marches in Selma, the Velvet Revolution in Prague, or the crowds in Tahrir Square, bodies in motion make truth visible. They testify to what cannot be denied: that something is wrong, and that people still care.
Tyranny depends on our withdrawal from the world. Corporeal politics insists that freedom requires friction. It is born in sidewalks, sanctuaries, city squares, and lunch counters.
Incarnation and Embodied Resistance
Christians should be the first to understand this. After all, ours is a faith that begins not with a text, but with a body.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)
God didn’t save us with a tweet. God showed up. In time, in skin, in sweat, in blood. And from that moment on, the Christian life has always been a bodied life. Not just ideas. Not just feelings. But acts of presence—feeding, healing, walking, touching, blessing, weeping, gathering.
Jesus practiced corporeal politics long before the phrase existed. He walked dusty roads to speak to people face-to-face. He refused to abstract the hurting. He stood before Pontius Pilate not as a meme but as a man.
So when the Church responds to injustice only with hashtags or polite concern from afar, we betray our incarnational roots.
To follow Jesus is to show up—at vigils, protests, town halls, communion tables, and hospital beds. Our bodies are not obstacles to faithfulness; they are the very instruments of it.
How to Practice Corporeal Politics Today
Snyder is not romanticizing protest for its own sake. He’s reminding us that democracy is not a spectator sport. And neither is Christian discipleship.
Here are a few ways to embody this lesson:
Attend local meetings—city council, school boards, church conferences. Don’t just complain about them later.
March when your conscience compels you. Not just to be seen, but to stand in solidarity.
Visit the people affected. Go to the border. Sit in a prison visitation room. Volunteer at a shelter.
Gather in prayer—not just in private, but in public lament.
Invite others into physical spaces of healing and resistance. Church, community centers, potlucks, front porches.
And yes—this takes time. Yes—it feels awkward. But that’s the point. The body remembers what the algorithm forgets: that you belong, that you matter, that others do too.
A Prayer for Showing Up
God who took on flesh,
who walked roads and bore wounds and blessed bread with your own hands,
teach us again to live with our bodies.
Deliver us from disembodied faith,
from safe screens and empty slogans.
Call us back into spaces where pain is shared,
where justice is enacted,
where hands hold hands and prayers rise with feet in motion.
Let our presence be protest.
Let our compassion take shape.
Let us not watch the world suffer from a distance.
Let us go—together, embodied, bold, and not alone.
Amen.