Note: This piece originally appeared in Religion News Service.

The LGBTQ community continues to bear a disproportionate amount of hateful gun violence in America.

It has been a week since the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, where five people were killed and at least 18 others were injured.

Let’s not move on. 

Raymond Green Vance. Kelly Loving. Daniel Aston. Derrick Rump. Ashley Paugh. Let us still keep the names of the dead in our minds.

It can be difficult to keep track of all the lives lost, and it is tempting to move on. Before we could fully grieve the lives lost in Colorado Springs, after all, there was another mass shooting at a Walmart in Virginia, where a man fatally shot six co-workers, then took his own life. Here in Philadelphia, where I live, four kids were shot as they were leaving school. In all there have been more than a dozen mass shootings in the U.S. since the shooting at Club Q on November 20.

But it is important not to move on from the attack at Club Q in Colorado. Here’s why.

The Club Q shooting was a targeted attack on the LGBTQ community, on the eve of Trans Day of Remembrance, a day on which we honor the transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming people who have been (far too often) the victims of violence.

The shooting at Club Q is tragically reminiscent of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando six years ago, where 49 people were shot and killed and 53 others were wounded. It is a reminder that the LGBTQ community continues to bear a disproportionate amount of hateful gun violence in America.

2021 was the deadliest year on record for trans and gender non-conforming people in the U.S., and unfortunately, this trend continues to play out in 2022, especially among trans women of color. While just 13% of the U.S. trans population is estimated to be Black, 73% of the known trans homicide victims were Black women.

Communities that have been historically marginalized, such as African Americans and LGBTQ folks, bear a disproportionate amount of the gun violence. For many years, guns have been the top cause of death of African American children, who are 10 times more likely to die than white kids. But during the pandemic, guns became the most common cause of death of all American children. Anyone who claims to be “pro-life” cannot ignore all these lives lost to guns.

Since 2009, the U.S. has had nearly 300 mass shootings, defined as four or more people shot and killed at one time. But while these mass shootings catch the headlines and capture our hearts, mass shootings account for less than 2% of our overall gun deaths. When you look at the other 98% of the gun deaths in America, which often don’t make the news, you see marginalized communities carrying the weight of the violence.

On December 14, we will remember the 10^th anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. That was a unique tragedy, because it impacted mostly white kids in a New England town, and it broke our hearts, as it should. Twenty-six people lost their lives that day … 20 of them were between six and seven years old. After Sandy Hook, many people said, “Never again!”

But we have let it happen again and again.

Though the victims at Sandy Hook were different from those at Club Q, the two shootings had several important things in common: Both were committed by young, white men in their early 20s, and both were committed using military-style assault weapons, which are still legal on the streets of the United States. These guns are designed for one purpose: to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible, and that is exactly what they keep getting used for.

It’s time for change.

We can’t save every life, but we can save some. We can make it harder for someone filled with hatred to kill. Every country in the world has people who are violent, hateful, mentally ill or racist. But this is where the United States is unique — we allow hateful people unimaginable access to weapons, including weapons of war.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me … but it can restrain him from lynching me.” You can’t legislate love. We cannot make fascism or homophobia illegal, but we can make it harder for people to kill.

So let us pray for the victims in Colorado Springs, and everywhere else. But let us also honor their lives by taking action to end gun violence, for everyone.

Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ -Jesus (Matthew 6:31)

Don’t worry about what you’ll eat. Don’t worry about what you’ll drink. Don’t worry about what you’ll wear. These are easy things to say—when you have enough to eat, when you have enough to drink, when you have enough to wear.

But many people in Jesus’ day—people living in poverty under the oppressive occupying force of the Roman empire—did not have enough to eat, or drink, or wear. And neither do many people—in the U.S. and around the world—today.

What do Jesus’ words mean, in light of this? Are they insensitive to the poor? Are they spoken a little too easily?

I don’t think Jesus is speaking from some high and mighty privileged place, here. He, too, was poor. He was born in a barn. He was homeless as an adult, traveling around the countryside preaching and healing and staying with those who would take him in—with people of peace (see Luke 10:5-7), kind strangers who quickly became friends. Jesus isn’t just theorizing and philosophizing and theologizing from some ivory tower, removed from the real world. 

Instead, Jesus goes around meeting people’s real material needs—their needs for food, water, clothing. He does other things too, of course—like healing people on many levels, teaching wise and true things about God, and rebuilding broken relationships and communities—but these other things aren’t in conflict with his attention to people’s basic physical needs. It all goes together. 

Take food, for example. Jesus doesn’t just tell people not to worry about what they will eat. He also miraculously feeds a crowd of five thousand men and who-knows-how-many women and children, using only five loaves of bread and two fish (Matt 14:13-21). Later, he feeds a different crowd of four thousand men, plus women and children, using just seven loaves and a few small fish (Matt 15:29-38). 

We can theorize all we want—and people definitely do—about the significance of these numbers. We can speculate as to why a very similar miracle story is told twice in the gospel texts. And some of these theories might be true. 

But could it also just be that Jesus wanted to take care of both crowds’ needs? The need arose for food, so he provided. Later, the need arose again, so he provided again. Who knows how many other times he did this, often in smaller-scale and less dramatic ways, throughout his ministry? (Not to mention the various miraculous catches of fish, as in Luke 5:1-11 and John 21:1-14.)

These are the things I think about when I hear Jesus telling people not to worry about what they might eat. He doesn’t just say “don’t worry”; he actually provides in practical ways for people’s needs.

Likewise, with drink. I think of the wedding at Cana, when the party ran out of wine, and Jesus (however reluctantly at first) changed several large water jugs into fancy-tasting wine so that the party could continue and the hosts wouldn’t be embarrassed by not having enough (John 2:1-12). 

I don’t often hear people ask this question: Why didn’t these wedding hosts have enough wine? Maybe we assume it was poor planning, or that their guests drank more than could have been reasonably expected. 

I wonder, though, if really the hosts were simply short on money. They wanted to provide enough drink for their guests but weren’t able to. Maybe they hoped people wouldn’t drink much and their secret wouldn’t be revealed. Maybe they could only afford a smaller wedding celebration, but so many friends and relatives and neighbors wanted to celebrate that it overwhelmed the reality of what they could provide. 

Regardless, they didn’t have enough. And Jesus didn’t just tell them not to worry about it. He provided what they didn’t have.

When it comes to clothing, then, I think of John the Baptist’s teaching: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same” (Luke 3:11, NIV). Jesus’ teachings and actions continue in the same vein as John the Baptist’s throughout the gospel stories. 

I get the feeling that Jesus didn’t personally have a ton of extra clothing to give away. But he did encourage people to share their resources with one another. He didn’t just tell people not to worry about clothing; he told them to share what they have, so that everyone might be adequately clothed. 

We see all of this lived out tangibly among the first communities of Christians (Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-37). The believers had everything in common. People sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. No one claimed any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Because of all this sharing, empowered by God’s grace, there were no needy persons among them. No one was lacking for food, drink, or clothing, because everyone shared. This is the work of the Spirit of God. This is the community Jesus inspired—the community Jesus birthed—through his teaching, healing, leading, and unlikely-friendship-building. 

Jesus doesn’t tell people not to worry and leave it there. There’s no guilt for worrying, no shame, no judgment, no condemnation. Just grace, provision, miracles, healing, sharing, community-building, peace. Just needs being taken care of—both directly from God, and, perhaps just as miraculously, through the generosity of fellow humans.

This is what we will eat. This is what we will drink. This is why we don’t need to worry. This is the kind of community Jesus builds.

Editor’s note: this piece first appeared on the RLC blog in Nov. 2020. 

For many (most? all?) of us here in America, today is a lot of things. It’s odd, different, bizarre, quaint, lonely, dull, sad, triggering, exhausting, celebratory, energizing, or uncomfortable. This Thanksgiving holiday, regardless of how we have strived for normalcy or ignored the cautionary pleas of the CDC, there is no escaping reality: this is a complex day.

Hasn’t it always been?

I’m writing from a city called Shreveport, located in Northwest Louisiana, where a man named Captain Henry Shreve contributed to the Red River region’s settlement and in return received a legacy. But this little plot of land, where my son swings from oak branches beside the bayou . . . where we make mashed potatoes for three instead of twenty-three . . . where I call home . . . is much more than just a settler’s trophy. We live in Caddo territory, or so it was solely known before the Treaty of Cession of 1835. A whisper of the exiled blows through our walls and halls every time a resident references our “county” by name—Caddo Parish.

It is on this land of Caddo Parish where the Caddoan people were to be paid $80,000 for one-million acres of land. “Eventually these Louisiana Caddo left—their credit was cut off by local merchants, their payments ended, and the United States protection was failing—and headed for the Kiamichi River country in Oklahoma. The Caddoan presence in Louisiana, after a millennium, or more, was over.”

It is on this land of Caddo Parish where a makeshift capitol was established when Baton Rouge fell to Union forces during the Civil War. 

It is on this land of Caddo Parish where, “in the decade following the Civil War, white men . . . were killing and terrorizing African-Americans in such high numbers that the parish earned the name, ‘Bloody Caddo.’”

It is Caddo Parish where nearly 13,000 people have contracted the novel Coronavirus this year, and many continue to shame the masked as “living in fear.”

And it is on this land that I have learned who God and my neighbor are. Where I have seen love, known mercy, connected deeply to image-bearers who have shown me the way of life, death, and life after death. My family is here, living off the fruit of stolen trees nurtured by enslaved hands.

It is home—haunted and heartwarming.

It’s both/and. So, too, is Thanksgiving.

READ: Join us in Prophecy Against the Pandemics

We are grateful for life and any chance to press into joy, especially in 2020. And we are aware that this holiday is built upon a false narrative that spun exploitation into mutual affection. We are missing the warmth and awkwardness of ritualistic connection. And we know that we are citizens of an empire forged by oppression and sustained by racism and inequality. We are nurturing our paths. And we are deconstructing our paths because of how the gain of some came at the expense of many.

There is tension in our country, there is tension in our churches, there is tension in our very selves today and beyond, because these times—like our stories—are complicated.

And we don’t love complicated. We’d rather certainty, which is why dualism is fed so plentifully from our political podiums and pulpits. But for today, I wonder if we might not reject the tension and instead lean curiously into Mystery. I wonder if we might make an honest home in the uncomfortable both.

I wonder if we might pray prayers that acknowledge pain and hope for goodness at the very same time.

Maybe, we can even start here.

A Prayer for Today (and all the days after)

Spirit who hovered over the waters of our earth and our bodies throughout the generations, we give you thanks for connecting us to who we were, are, and will be.

We pause to look out over this plot of land: _____ territory.

As we remember our Native siblings—who first invited the foreigner seeking freedom from oppressive rule, who shared space and sustenance with the homeless and welcome with the sojourner—stir in us the hospitality toward those migrating and seeking refuge today.

As we remember our Native siblings—who did not possess immunity, and who were vulnerable to the diseases of colonizers—impress further upon us the responsibility of protecting those most vulnerable in our current pandemic and racial climate.

As we remember our Native siblings—who were forced to leave unceded land, who were stripped of space and identity, who were taken from home and killed—illuminate the injustices still terrorizing Native communities today. Let us hear your call to act on behalf of sacred lands and water, on behalf of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

As we remember our Native siblings of centuries past, convict us of the narratives we craft and sustain that suggest a people solely confined to history. Let us believe and affirm: you’re still here, I’m still here. Let us lend ourselves to listening, supporting, honoring, and leveraging in months beyond November.

Let us bend low to the ground now, touching the blades or soil, let us remember our baptisms in puddled water or bubbled stream, calling to mind our place in the long story of death and life.

May we feel grateful to recognize the evil and liberation within it and within us, the provision and the need, the celebration and lament and everything in between—all present today.

We give thanks for these: ______

While grieving these:______

And we ask that all which adds to the fulness of our lives is ever used to add to the fulness of others.

Till all are home again,

Amen.

Book excerpt taken from Color-Courageous Discipleship: Follow Jesus, Dismantle Racism, and Build Beloved Community. (Waterbrook, November 2022) Permission available upon request. 

Like the ancient Greeks, we tend to envision ourselves as a tabula rasa—a “blank slate.” We like to think that we embark on new learning experiences with a neutral mindset: objective, clear-eyed, and level-headed. Unfortunately, this blank slate concept is more pagan than Christian.

Our human nature—tainted by sin—inclines us toward error from the get-go. What’s more, over time, our minds are further shaped by the sinful patterns of a broken world. That’s why the Scriptures insist: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

When it comes to race, what does it mean to renew our minds? I am convinced that one important way to renew our minds when it comes to race is to uproot unconscious bias. A greater deterrent to biblical equity today than conscious bias may be unconscious bias. A gargantuan gap persists between our intentions and the actual impact that we are having on the world. Somehow, people who have the best of intentions when it comes to race are still fostering racial inequity. How can this be?

Unpacking unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias) can help us come to terms with our confounding racial contradictions.  Yet unpacking unconscious bias also requires courage.  Why?  Because it’s never fun to look into a mirror and not like what you see looking back!  What helps me is to remember that we are all susceptible to unconscious biases, regardless of race. In fact, it’s quite common for people of color to experience unconscious bias even toward their own racial group—which I discovered, to my chagrin, was true of me.

I serve as a leader for the Evangelical Covenant Church, a denomination known for its multiethnic commitment. One of my most treasured Covenant experiences is the Journey to Mosaic (J2M), a bus tour that travels to sites of civil rights significance for multiple racial groups.

On my own Journey to Mosaic, our first stop was the Nisei Veterans Memorial Hall in Seattle where we listened to one woman’s experience in a World War II Japanese internment camp. At the Chinese Reconciliation Park in Tacoma, I heard for the first time about the Chinese Exclusion Act. And I will never forget my first visit to a Native American reservation, the Yakama Nation of Toppenish. There, we stood at an unmarked burial ground and commemorated the Indigenous people who perished as they resisted European encroachment.

But my most pivotal growth moment occurred during our final debrief session. Someone broached the topic of racial inequity in Black communities, and cringeworthy thoughts like these automatically welled up in me: Well, I wish it weren’t true, but Black communities are plagued with Black-on-Black crime. Mass incarceration is the sad but obvious result. It’s our own fault. I kept most of these thoughts to myself, but in the group conversation that followed, some of these very ideas were addressed head-on—and unmasked as unhelpful and misleading.

That night, I began to realize for the first time the depths of my unconscious bias—toward my own community. The Lord placed a mirror before me and I discovered the truth. Although I thought I was looking good, I was actually clothed with the dirty rags of unconscious bias. In fact, my bias had a name: attribution error. I was attributing blame in lopsided ways; I was predisposed to blame a person for their plight rather than also reasonably take that person’s situation into account. It is because of attribution error that our human tendency is to blame the victim and overlook the victimizer; to blame the oppressed and overlook the oppressive circumstances; to blame a community’s culture and overlook the community’s history.

When looking at a predominantly Black community riddled with poverty and crime, some might quietly harbor thoughts like these: Black people must not be as smart or hardworking as others. The fact that more Black people are criminal than others is sad but true. I wonder what it is about Black culture that keeps them in the gutter. Of course, there are exceptions, but in general, these people need to get their act together. These assessments are all characterized by attribution error, and they do very little to get at the root causes of our society’s challenges so we could find effective solutions.

Color-courageous disciples seek to ask more constructive questions: What is leading to such high levels of crime and despair? How might the system itself be failing this community, even unintentionally? What resources are needed for empowerment, growth, and healing? When it comes to crime, what would it look like to take a more restorative—rather than punitive—approach? For that matter, are these citizens being fairly convicted and sentenced to begin with? Why don’t more people care about questions like these? And how can I be part of the solution?

Now, an important caveat: I am certainly not arguing that individuals or communities should never take responsibility for their actions. What I am calling for—and, more important, what the Scriptures seem to call for—is both truth and amazing grace. Unconscious bias inclines us to attribute blame in fallacious, legalistic, and coldly detached ways—not an ideal approach for a disciple of Jesus Christ.

The Bible addresses unconscious bias, too, albeit in different terms. In the story of the man born blind, the disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus bluntly rebuked them, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me” (John 9:1–5).

Jesus did two intriguing things with this response. First, he pushed back on the disciples’ attribution error, rebuking their tendency to blame the victim. Second, he challenged them to get to work.

Here is my paraphrase: When you see a person or a community suffering, it’s not time to play the blame game. It is time for you to wake up, collaborate with God, and get to work.

Even in a story where the individual has clearly sinned—like the woman caught in adultery—Jesus’s response was beautifully balanced (John 8:1–11). Did this woman deserve death according to Jewish law? Yes, she did (Deuteronomy 22:22). Nevertheless, Jesus did a curious and unexpected thing: he drew attention not to the woman’s overt sin, but rather to her accusers’ covert sin—their judgmentalism, hypocrisy, and pride. While acknowledging the woman’s sin, Jesus declined to condemn her. Instead, he gently and graciously encouraged her toward repentance and life.

When it comes to race, we are called to “not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [our minds]” (Romans 12:2). 

There is a level, of course, at which uprooting our unconscious bias is impossible. The whole idea is that our bias is unconscious. However, that does not mean it’s altogether undetectable or unchangeable. In Christ, we have reason to hope for the transformation of even our most stubborn biases when we both commit to practices that have been proven to counteract racial bias and surrender to the transformational power of the Holy Spirit within us (Romans 8:1–2).

Excerpted from Color-Courageous Discipleship by Michelle T. Sanchez. Copyright © 2022 by Michelle T. Sanchez. Published by WaterBrook, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Used with permission.

A few years ago, I read a groundbreaking book called Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. In this book, two political scientists named Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan look at 323 civil conflicts between 1900 and 2006. They examine which conflicts succeeded, which didn’t work, and why. Specifically, they analyze the differences between the nonviolent and the violent conflicts. Through their research, they conclude, “Between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.” This means that if you practice nonviolence when resisting an unjust government, you have a 53 percent chance of success. When a group of people use violence to fight the government, they have a 26 percent chance of success. 

Nonviolent campaigns have a better chance of getting government forces to defect. Nonviolent campaigns offer a higher probability that democracy will work. Nonviolence has been proven to win over the masses faster than violent revolution. Do you believe these statistics? While reading the book, I had my doubts. I had a hard time processing the authors’ conclusions. I didn’t grow up viewing the world this way. I grew up learning that the sword is a necessary and good tool for justice. All I had ever learned was that violence is necessary in the fight for justice. I asked myself, Why do I think this?

It is critical for us to explore the forces, stories, and cultural values that have kept the church away from Jesus’s radical teachings on nonviolence. The violence woven into US history and my own family story makes it hard for me to accept the truth that at the foundation of my very salvation, God used nonviolent resistance in the face of overwhelming force to set me on a discipleship path of nonviolent resistance. Let’s go on this journey together.

Stories Woven with Violence

I come from a long line of cowboys, blue-collar entrepreneurs, bookies, oilmen, and farmers. The Buck family fought in the Revolutionary War, for the Confederacy in the Civil War, in World War I, in World War II, and in the Korean War. My grandfather John Brake on my mom’s side worked on stealth bombers in the 1980s. My grandfather Wayne Buck joined the navy right out of high school. The military is a point of pride in our family. A rite of passage for a young Buck is owning and shooting a gun. From a young age, I had toy guns that I used to reenact shoot-outs with Native Americans, whom I learned to view as savages. When I was ten, my dad sat me down and told me that if anyone ever picked on me and wanted to fight, it was okay for me to punch them in the face to defend myself. I grew up reading Tom Clancy and reenacting D-Day while playing video games. I looked up to Thor, Batman, and Superman—who always solved the problem of evil through the clever and brutal use of violence. I watched Popeye defend his lady by growing muscles and beating up Bluto. I learned in school from Christian teachers that battlefields should be considered holy, set-apart, and sacred places. As a teenager, I watched from the back of my freshman math class as planes flew into the World Trade Center. I was shocked. I saw our church rally behind the fury of a Christian president who was bringing some type of justice to Iraq. Words like God, country, freedom, Bible, and violence were brought together as strange bedfellows to reassure us church folk that God was on our side. I remember being proud of President Bush. Proud of his faith. Proud he was from Texas like my family. Proud that he used his Christian influence to bring the wrath of God upon an axis of evil. I bought into the rhetoric. All this can be summed up by a culture of the sword. A culture that promotes the myth that violence is necessary for peace to exist. A culture drowning in the myth of redemptive violence.

In all my learning at church, it never occurred to me that Jesus rejected violence. While the cross was a regular feature of Sunday school classes and sanctuaries, it wasn’t an emblem for everyday living. Instead, the cross was merely a symbol of my personal salvation. It never occurred to me that violence was not the answer when it came to evil in the world. It never occurred to me that Jesus offers us a more radical path to changing the world. After all, violence was deeply embedded in my family story. Growing up as a white, patriotic cowboy kid from Texas, I had no imagination whatsoever for nonviolent solutions to conflict. My imagination, for better or worse, was filled with men using a sword, knife, flying bat star, gun, tank, atom bomb, fist, or army to overcome evil. This was somehow connected to my faith. Without anyone sitting me down to explain these things, the cumulative stories, habits, and cultural expressions amounted to a story woven with violence.

For many in the United States, violence has been forced upon them through unjust immigration policies, brutal police tactics, the school to prison pipeline, patronizing truces with Native Americans, Native American reeducation camps, the slave trade, burning crosses, Jim Crow laws, and redlining, just to name a few. While we consider ourselves an advanced Western society, the webbed legacies of violence are embedded in our structures and weigh heavy on our land. Violence weighs heavy especially on those on the margins of US society.

Beyond the societal and structural violence described above, violence touches almost everyone on a personal level. Have you been overly aggressive before? Have you ever shouted someone down? Have you ever bullied someone? Have you ever overreacted in rage? Have you ever fantasized about hurting someone? Have you ever cussed someone out? Have you ever stood by while someone was getting hurt and did nothing? Have you ever intimidated someone into submitting to your desires? Unfortunately, I need to answer yes to some of these questions. French West Indian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon notes that “everybody has violence on their minds and the question is not so much responding to violence with more violence but rather how to defuse the crisis.” How do we address the problem of violence with everyday activism?

If you struggle with violence, know that Jesus died a violent death to help you walk away from violence. Jesus shows us how to drop our sword to pick up our cross.

Perhaps you are a survivor or victim of ongoing brutality. Whether intimidation, bullying, emotional or physical abuse, ongoing cruelty, or something sexual in nature, violence is all around us. You and I don’t need to have a PhD in psychology or become a trauma counselor to know that the effects of violence destroy lives, break families, tear apart churches, and draw us away from Jesus. Yet, we can’t seem to get rid of cruelty or find the courage to stand up to those who commit violence. Violence is ever before us, always knocking and pushing itself into our lives. Violence is a corrosive and dehumanizing thread woven through our stories. The sword is forever before us, luring us to use violence to create peace.

While reading Luke 4:16–21, we must ask ourselves, Does violence fit into the work of Jubilee? Anyone taking the New Testament seriously will come to the conclusion that it does not.

The Cross

In the beginning section of this article, we learned from the research that nonviolent resistance works better than violence to incite positive social change. We also know that violence is highly destructive in our personal lives and in our communities. While we have the knowledge that violence doesn’t work very well to create justice, oftentimes it doesn’t make a difference. Why do we often resort to violence? Why do we explain away Jesus’s teaching on nonviolence? It is because we live in violent times, are bathed in violent stories, watch violent movies, reenact violent wars, celebrate violent soldiers, endure violent family members, and are married to national narratives of violence. Yet, we know better! The wisdom buried deep within the recesses of the gospel and on the surface of the story is this: the tool God used to save the world is the same tool meant to be used in the fight for justice. If the sword represents violent action in the pursuit of justice, the cross has become the Christian symbol of nonviolent love. From Jesus, we learn that the cross is the method God uses to save us and also the model for Christian living.

Excerpt from J.W. Buck’s Everyday Activism: Following 7 Practices of Jesus to Create a Just World, Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Published November 15, 2022, Used by permission.

As a white person, speaking into the racial justice and reconciliation space can often feel like a loaded deliverable. Questions about the validity of my voice and how it should be presented & received, while important are also obvious. What makes me qualified? Shouldn’t a person of color be doing this? If I do say something, will it do more harm than good?

These important questions should not be easily dismissed as imposter syndrome but instead good checks of caution before proceeding. While I am ever learning, here’s what my 30 years in the work of racial justice as a white woman have taught me:  People of color should be leading this discussion and white voices, can help support the conversation, if we remember some of these important elements:

1) You cannot fix a problem you don’t understand.

Leaning in and learning from those impacted by racial injustice is the most important first step to the work of restoration. Getting to know people impacted by issues and not simply learning about issues, enables natural next steps to join them in what can become your shared efforts toward justice and restoration. In this shared restorative justice work, always center the voices that are closest to the pain and follow their leadership. We are there to serve the movement, to follow with humility.

As a long-standing justice advocate, I appreciate the prophet Micah’s powerful words forthtelling the truth of God’s heart for justice. In 6:8 of the book, the often-referenced passage in the work of justice is laid out so simply, “He has shown you O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.”

While I am grateful for this easy-to-understand mandate, I often wish he started his list with humility. Humility allows the enormity of injustice to move through our entire selves. It allows grief and lament to grip us. It provides us with a lens to recognize that all we think we are (good people) and all we think we have (good societies and systems) is often a result of exclusive efforts and greed. 

When we choose a posture of humility, we follow the example of Christ, emptying ourselves of our power and established place to join the people on the margins, always loving mercy, ready to do the long work of justice. True service requires the bravery to be humble, to recognize the racial justice movement has not been waiting for us to show up to demand attention. The movement needs our body, our solidarity, and our service. Intentionally choosing a humble place of service will result in a place of true honor and effective work.

2) Be honest and stay curious.  

The Bible may say that the truth will set you free, but that doesn’t mean it comes without a cost. The truth is always confronting. From the time of Adam and Eve’s original sin to today, when confronted with the truth, our natural human reaction is to avoid and blame. Learning the truth of America’s racist past and how systemic racism continues to perpetuate oppression is grievous. It can evoke feelings of guilt and shame, causing us to want to run from the truth. Yet, we cannot heal without the truth.

Internationally established, truth commissions began to formalize as early as the 1970’s when Argentina wanted to uncover actions by dictators and military juntas. These types of commissions, to address internal conflicts and bring together divided countries, have taken place in over 46 countries. The most well-known was South Africa’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission. It took place over 7 years, collecting testimonies from over 21,000 victims.

The framework for the process was to afford victims voice to share their testimony, their truth under the apartheid regime. They were given an opportunity to be heard, to share the deeply personal impacts of their suffering and for them to receive restitution. While the commission was not without some criticism, it is credited with moving a segregated and violent country toward a more reconciled path. 

USAID, the US principal agency to support these types of efforts, has supported nearly 330 peacebuilding projects in 42 countries and awarded more than $230 million in grants for “people-to-people” reconciliation programs and activities worldwide. They have however, never given any money toward supporting truth telling or reconciliation here at home, in the US.

We need to be willing to listen to the truth, no matter how hard it may be to hear. We also need to deal with our guilt and shame so that we can build paths of empathy to each other. 

In her book, Dare to Lead, Brene Brown speaks to the connection of shame and empathy. In the work of racial justice, empathy (connecting to someone’s emotions as a result of their experience) is the primary way people from different racial backgrounds can share a connection to each other’s experiences. Brown shares, “Where shame exists, empathy is almost always absent.”

She warns about assuming we can understand someone else. “One of the signature mistakes with empathy is that we believe we can take our lenses off and look through the lenses of someone else. We can’t. Our lenses are soldered to who we are. What we can do, however, is honor people’s perspectives as truth even when they’re different from ours.”  

She goes to on state, “We have blind spots. We need to learn from each other. “We cannot practice empathy if we need to be knowers; if we can’t be learners, we cannot be empathetic. And, to be clear (and kind), if we need to be knowers empathy isn’t the only loss. Because curiosity is the key.” 

3) Work toward repair

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the leader of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has said, “We are not responsible for what breaks us but we can be responsible for what puts us back together again.”

In our racially divided and unjust world, we are crying out in our brokenness. We long for restoration, for peace on every side. As people of Christian faith, we have reason to hope because of the restorative work of Christ. He is our peace (Eph. 2:14), our reconciler of all things (Col. 1:19 & 20). This reconciliation moves from God to people and includes the kind of people to people and people groups to people groups healing we need. His reconciling work of ALL things moves beyond personal restoration and includes the restoration of societies and systems. As agents of his light and peace in the world, we should not settle for a restoration that falls short of this level of repair.

Today the status quo of injustice, oppression, and complacency flow downstream with ease. If we are to capture the prophetic imagination of the prophet Amos whose metaphor of justice rolling down like a river and righteousness like a never-ending stream, we must grow deeper roots of commitment to the work of repair, to the work of resistance.

How should we respond when our democracy is being torn asunder in the name of our Christian faith?

Recently I answered the call of Faithful America and local clergy to go to Batavia, New York, where white Christian nationalists were gathering for the ReAwaken America tour, headlined by Michael Flynn. 

What struck me first were multiple signs lining the driveway that read: “No Guns, No Knives.” Never in all my life have I seen any church that needed such a prominent reminder. The speakers at this Christian nationalist revival event used apocalyptic language to stoke the fears of thousands who had gathered there. The speeches touted anti-Semitic, racist, sexist and homophobic beliefs in the name of Christianity and were full of violent predictions of God’s vengeance befalling a wide range of political opponents. 

Soon after I went to Arizona to settle my son into college and I joined some friends in the area to deliver supplies to migrants crossing the border in a remote region. Everywhere I went I found border communities and migrants harassed by QAnon and militia conspiracists. A local restaurant we visited for lunch had even posted a sign that read:

UNWANTED: Members of any vigilante or Border militia group | Do Not Enter our establishment | The management

In both of these encounters, I was demoralized at seeing firsthand the threats of violence against our communities, but then heartened to find faith leaders mounting a vigorous response. 

In Batavia, local leaders held a well-covered press conference and rallied their people to counter the apocalyptic, hateful rhetoric spewing from white Christian nationalists.

In Arizona, faith-based volunteers on both sides of the border risked their own safety to deliver much needed support to migrant families in danger, even in the face of militia and QAnon threats.

What we are up against is part of an old, even ancient struggle.

Throughout American and European history, Christian scripture and traditions have been used to justify domination systems. White enslavers removed half of the Old Testament to create the Slave Bible in order to justify their sin by suppressing the story of God freeing Hebrew slaves in Egypt. A Lost Cause history and theology developed after the Civil War to justify slavery, restore white southern pride and justify segregationist policies. You can read more about this in Robert P. Jones’ book, White Too Long. Throughout the twentieth century, white Christians burned crosses on lawns to violently intimidate and threaten their Black and Jewish neighbors.

Despite this legacy of white Christian nationalism, faith based movements have always risen up to counter these heretical systems of domination. From Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and so many more, faith communities were critical to countering and dismantling this ungodly worldview and working toward a true vision of multi-faith, multiracial democracy.

What does this teach us? 

1. Tyrants must hijack faith in order to succeed in their goals. 
2. Overcoming tyranny requires the reclamation of faith and our sacred text.

Most white Christians have not been taught that the entire Bible is a handbook for resisting tyranny. 

For example, the creation story is a moral indictment of the creation myths of the ancient Near East which portrayed the gods as tyrants who created humans to be slaves. The Jewish creation story radically taught that God loved all of creation and made human beings in God’s own image–not to be slaves. This Jewish story laid the foundation for human rights and democracy, the best system for supporting our core value of human dignity (imago dei) for all. 

Many white Christians have gotten caught up in demanding that the story is an accurate, scientific account of how the earth was made, rather than marvel at the moral vision conveyed by this story. Our Christian faith teaches that all of us are created in God’s image and are worthy of dignity and respect. Therefore, we must advocate for a multi-faith, multiracial democracy that protects human dignity and ensures everyone can thrive. 

Today our faith and our dream of democracy are at stake, and both struggles are intertwined.

Our project of democracy is gravely threatened by white Christian nationalism deeply rooted in our nation’s history of slavery and segregation and Lost Cause Theology. Many candidates and elected leaders are embracing this ideology. Former White House officials are touring the country fanning the flames of violence and laying groundwork for a civil war in the name of an apocalyptic and violent version of Christianity, the very antithesis of what the faith stands for.

This heretical, anti-democratic movement may be gaining political prominence, but when we look at the numbers, those of us who believe in a multi-faith, multiracial democracy are in the majority. 

We must continue to organize to ensure that our faith and our democracy are not hijacked by white Christian nationalists.

When I see the threat white Christian nationalism poses to our elections, our communities and our freedoms, I’m reminded of the words of the prophet Habakkuk. 

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous– therefore judgment comes forth perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2-4) 

How do we respond to violence and injustice around us? Habakkuk’s answer comes in the next chapter. 

“I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the LORD answered me and said: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.’” (Habakkuk 2:1-4)

Write the vision. Make it plain. Send it forth with a runner.

It is time we reclaim Scripture as a handbook for resisting tyranny. 

All social change starts with the imagination. Scripture gives us a vision and enables us to imagine a different world and thus make it so. It connects us to biblical heroes who confronted the Pharaohs and Caesars of their day and prevailed against all odds.

Scripture is also a powerful communication tool to reclaim the public narrative of who we should strive to be as a nation, a nation that upholds dignity and freedom for all God’s children, regardless of creed, race, faith tradition, sexuality or gender.

The separation of church and state does not preclude our speaking out, it instead urges us to enter debates to make our case even as we urge respect for all faiths and those of moral courage.

On November 8, we have an opportunity to make our vision plain. As people of faith, we must vote for candidates who are committed to create a world where everyone can thrive. We can take a step towards building a true multi-faith and multiracial democracy. 

We can also make our vision plain by keeping our elections free and fair. Report any voting challenges you witness at your polling place to the national election protection hotline by calling or texting 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Join Faith in Public Life in committing to uphold and expand our democracy in this election and beyond. 

We cannot cede the language of faith to anti-democratic and heretical forces to sway the vulnerable and capture the public imagination. It’s time to pray with our feet and our vote. 

This is our moment to reclaim our faith for justice; to write the vision, make it plain and send it forth into our communities. Our democracy depends on it.

The conflict in Ukraine has been rapidly escalating, drawing Western nations deeper into war with Russia– with increasing and grave risks of a nuclear confrontation. Followers of Jesus are inclined to take the side of the victim (Ukrainians), opposing powerful perpetrators (Putin and his oligarchs), which means agreeing with NATO’s efforts to support Ukraine in its campaign to expel Russian invaders from its territory using the means of modern warfare. Russian Orthodox Christian supporters of Putin are led to believe Russia is the victim of NATO aggression, a perspective which is used to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Jesus-followers thus become directly identified with killing, destroying, deceiving, hating, shaming and all available means to defeat the enemy– representing a complete break with Jesus and his way of suffering, victorious love.

Now is the time to look to Jesus as he faced unjust perpetrators, and take seriously his call to his disciples. If we believe he is the Messiah, the Christ who is Savior of the world, how should we respond to superpower aggressions? 

Jesus-followers in the Ukraine, Russia, the USA, UK and other NATO countries, and throughout the world, must consider how to effectively bear witness to Jesus and his kingdom “not of this world,” and renounce the logic of violence and war.

The United States and its NATO allies are currently supplying Ukraine with billions of dollars of weaponry, intelligence, and guarantees of support “as long as it takes.” These weapons are being used to kill Russian soldiers (25,000 estimated), blow up bridges, and destroy infrastructure, while economic sanctions are aimed to make this invasion even more costly for Russians.

While Russian aggression is rightly denounced, and Ukrainians (and Russian soldiers) understandably seek to defend themselves, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Western leaders, military experts and the media seem to go out of their way to shame and provoke Russia. 

Every day, I read accounts where Russia’s military ineptitude are exposed in detail. In contrast, every advance of the Ukrainian underdogs is lauded. Zelenskyy, Biden, and European leaders tell Russia to withdraw and accept defeat. This brings shame on Russia, effectively pressuring Putin and his supporters to up their game and succeed, escalating the war. Shaming and hating on Putin is risky behavior in the light of his threats of using nuclear weapons. Yet public disdain seems to be only increasing.

When an explosion caused the Kerch Bridge linking Russia to Crimea to collapse on October 8, the day after Putin’s 70th birthday, many Ukrainian officials and social media posts, mockingly presented this act of sabotage as his birthday gift. The next day, Russia fired a barrage of missiles in retaliation, and Western media showed that the majority were intercepted before they hit their targets. While stopping killer missiles is certainly good news, publically celebrating these successes and highlighting how outdated and ineffective they are, further shames Russia, and is used to justify drawing NATO further into the conflict as they send more Western air defense systems to Ukraine.

It doesn’t take 28 years of serving as a chaplain to inmates in jails and prisons to know that shaming a tough-guy bully only escalates conflict. 

The current approach is propelling us towards a nuclear Armageddon, and Jesus-followers seem largely silent, sometimes even cheering for the underdog team like this is a sports event.

Ukrainian leaders decry Putin as a “terrorist,” and war criminal, and Biden went as far as accusing him of genocide. Human rights abuses and infractions against international law must certainly be investigated. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating Russia’s possible war crimes in Ukraine. However, American and UK leaders responsible for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are themselves vulnerable, showing the difficulty in prosecuting the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations. 

Jesus-followers should be praying for world leaders (including Putin), and seeking nonviolent approaches to resolving conflict. World leaders should be encouraged to do everything possible to push for negotiations and offer Putin face-saving offramps, which currently aren’t even on the horizon. Zelenskyy recently said he will not negotiate with Russia as long as Putin is President. 

Jesus’ actions and words in the Garden of Gethsemane on the day of his arrest point the way forward for his followers as we contemplate how we resist injustice. 

In the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest, Jesus calls his followers to join him in watching and praying to avoid temptation. What could they have been tempted by? I imagine disciples being tempted to fight to defend Jesus, or to abandon his way of saving the world out of fear, unbelief, pride, or outright embarrassment. Temptations to choose violence or submission to the violent status quo are certainly present now, drawing people away from Jesus’ call to watch and pray.

On a recent visit to the Garden of Gethsemane, I was struck by an “X” through the firearm symbol on a sign at the garden’s entrance – a reminder of the need to resist the temptation to justify or engage in violence of any kind.

Jesus knew temptation first hand. After his baptism in the wilderness, Satan tempted Jesus to use his supernatural powers for his own security, fame, and power. He most certainly could have been tempted to violently overthrow the Jewish religious leaders who opposed him or to rid his homeland of the Roman occupiers.

​Now is the time to resist the seductive sleep that took out Jesus’ disciples the night before his crucifixion – the very sleep that threatens us now, removing us from the essential work of watching and praying. Temptations to hate, to agree with justifications of violence and war, to engage in partisan political divisions, to escape into distractions, or to abandon faith completely can only be effectively resisted through staying close to Jesus.

Thankfully, he loves us despite our weakness and never gives up on us, even when we betray him, defend him using violence, deny him, or flee. He can teach us to be peacemakers, resisting the evils of this age with the weapons of the Spirit and the wisdom of tried-and-tested approaches to nonviolent direct action. May we commit ourselves afresh to fight like Jesus.

This article was originally published by Word&Way and is shared with permission.

In an important panel discussion with the Christians Against Christian Nationalism initiative and Jim Wallis last week, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry underscored an important fact: Christian Nationalism* is not Christianity.

“If you look at the complex of white Christian Nationalism as an ideology,” Curry warned, “you lay it alongside Jesus of Nazareth and we’re not even talking about the same thing.”

Curry, like so many other prophetic Christian leaders, is right. Where Jesus taught love, peace, and truth, Christian Nationalism preaches division, violence, and disinformation. Yet with hundreds of right-wing political candidates using Christ’s name to deny election results, demonize their opponents, and spread discrimination – all with the blessing of far too many evangelical pastors and activists – Christian Nationalism is the single biggest threat to both democracy and the church today.

Christian Nationalism is defined by multiple academic researchers and sociologists as a theocratic political ideology that says America was founded to be a Christian nation, claims that the only true Americans are the country’s Christians, and frequently overlaps with white supremacy. It falsely teaches that there is no separation of church and state – and urges conservative Christians to seize and hold power by any means necessary.

This is the ideology that inspired the January 6 insurrection, organizes countless attacks on Americans’ equal rights, and could soon inspire a new wave of midterm political violence with rhetoric about “holy war” and the “armor of God” if the elections don’t go their way.

In his panel at Georgetown University, Presiding Bishop Curry urged Christians to speak out about this hijacking of our faith: “Silence is complicity… Lift up the text of the New Testament, specifically the four Gospels … and let Jesus talk. Anything that claims to be Christian, if it doesn’t match up, then we say, ‘Well, that’s not Christianity.’”

That’s precisely the goal of the newest campaign from the organization I run, Faithful America, called “False Prophets Don’t Speak for Me.” To help Christians recognize and respond to Christian Nationalism when they see it – in the public square as well as in our churches – we have identified a list of 20 leading Christian Nationalist leaders who, as Jesus warned, come to us in sheep’s clothing yet inwardly are ravenous wolves who devour the oppressed, the marginalized, and the least of these.

Our list includes three categories of False Prophets. The first category consists of political leaders who claim to speak for Jesus, using religious rhetoric and symbols to build their careers only to turn around and endanger the public with election denial, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, patriarchy, and other attacks on the common good.

This category includes Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, who claims the separation of church and state doesn’t exist, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who has built her campaign on Donald Trump’s Big Lie along with the slogan “God, guns, and glory,” and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who led the charge to overturn the election within Congress on January 6, 2021.

The second category of False Prophets is made up of other political leaders who may not use as much overt religious rhetoric as their peers named above, but who nevertheless endorse the same theocratic political agenda, help build power for their fellow Christian Nationalists, and attack equal rights despite personally identifying as Christian. Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters and Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance both fit that description. This category reminds us that many leaders and teachers realize that the First Amendment is actually still pretty popular, and thus try to hide the theocratic nature of their agenda.

The final False Prophets category names some of the pastors, televangelists, and other movement leaders who build the long-term infrastructure that the religious right uses to thrive in church and society. These are the faith leaders who provide church cover to the lawmakers who twist Jesus’s name for power, and who manipulate their followers as a political base rather than as souls looking for spiritual education and pastoral care.

Some examples from this last category are Franklin Graham, who gets away with saying election denial and MAGA conspiracy theories are “what God says in the Bible” by hiding behind his dad’s legacy, Michael Flynn, who brings dozens of QAnon-spouting pastors to churches around the country on the ReAwaken America Tour, and David Barton, the evangelical pseudo-historian partially responsible for manipulating voters into believing that well-funded national attacks on school boards are grassroots “parents’ rights” movements.

That’s why it’s incumbent on those of us who identify as Red Letter Christians not to remain silent. We must recognize the harm that is being done in our name, and call out the blatant abuse of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A big piece of the False Prophets campaign is lifting up the prophetic voices of faith leaders around the country who are resisting Christian Nationalism in their communities. As one of our volunteers, Ohio Lutheran Pastor Beth Westphal, told us, “J.D. Vance’s embrace of Christian Nationalism inspires discrimination, division, and discord cloaked in the language of faith. As a clergy person, I cannot sit quietly while such harm is done in the name of Christianity.”

Here are three things we can all do right now to push back on Christian Nationalism: First, make a plan to vote your red-letter values, if you haven’t already. Are you still registered to vote? When will you vote, and how will you get to your polling place or dropbox? Are there voter ID requirements in your state? Learn the answer to these questions and more at Vote 411 from the League of Women Voters now.

Next, educate yourself about Christian Nationalism. One starting point is to watch the new webinar “The Threat of Christian Nationalism” from Faithful America featuring myself, historian Dr. Jemar Tisby, Rev. Jen Butler of Faith in Public Life, and Rev. Adam Russell Taylor of Sojourners. (Stick around for the Q&A – Professor Tisby’s list of three ways to talk to the Christian Nationalists in your life is particularly helpful!) Then share what you learn with friends, family, and church members, sign and share the “False Prophets Don’t Speak for Me” statement, and find a local organizing group where you can put your new knowledge to good use.

Finally, pray. Pray for justice, mercy, and humility. Pray for peace, hope, and courage. Pray for our Christian Nationalist siblings in Christ, pray for the country, and pray however the Spirit may lead you. We know from the “thoughts and prayers” discourse around guns that prayer alone is not enough, but as Christians we also know that when prayer is combined with action, it becomes a powerful tool for hope, connection, and a better tomorrow.

This article was originally published by Word&Way and is shared with permission.

(RNS) — Recently, I visited my local DMV to renew my driver’s license. As I waited in a crowded room of about 25 people, a middle-aged man with a graying beard sat a couple of chairs away from me. Before he could even get settled, he aggressively asked, “Are you from India?” Though startled, I replied I was but that I’ve been living in the U.S. for decades.

Seemingly encouraged to continue, he followed up in an even more aggressive tone and asked, “Are you Muslim?”

Not understanding his intention, I stopped to think about this interaction and where it could be headed before I responded. “Sorry, that is none of your business.”

He took a deep breath and then in an even more aggressive and louder voice announced, “I’m a Christian. All Muslims hate Christians!”

Keeping my tone as polite as I could, I responded by noting that he does not represent all Christians — and just like there are many different types of Christians, there are many types of Muslims.

Despite being in a crowded room and others being able to hear this man harass me, no one intervened. In his loudest voice yet, he rambled something about the Quran being evil while the Bible is the Word of God. Fortunately, by this point my ticket was called and I was able to remove myself from the situation. After finishing my renewal, I privately spoke with a supervisor at the agency about the harassment I experienced — in what should have been a safe space open to everyone.

As I reflect on that experience, I’m saddened to think of what could have happened if he set his sights on a Muslim woman wearing a hijab instead of me. Racism, bigotry, Islamophobia and antisemitism run rampant in our country. People of marginalized identities frequently experience hurtful and harmful situations when we’re merely trying to live our everyday lives. I was just trying to renew my driver’s license.

I wholeheartedly understand why some Muslims prefer to not be in public alone because of fear of how they’ll be treated.

This specific incident was challenging, as the hatred that fuels Islamophobia impacts people like me, who are perceived to be Muslim even when we’re not. As a Sikh who wears a turban in public, I am well aware of the prejudice hurled at anyone who might look like a Muslim. I have had my fair share of being flashed half a peace sign, especially since 9/11.

When I was asked “Are you Muslim?” in such a harsh tone, I could have responded that I am not a Muslim but a Sikh. I could have used it as a teaching moment to engage the questioner if the tone had been more cordial. But I’ve learned from experience that teaching with facts to a strongly biased person in the moment of confrontation does not work.

And what about the question “Are you from India?” Are white immigrants from Europe also asked this question on the basis of their looks? No, they are not.

After living in Central Ohio for over 30 years, will I ever become American enough?

Or because of my turban, beard and dark skin color, will I always remain a foreigner? This is a question I often ask myself. Having lived in the U.S. for so long, I view myself as a Sikh American who once lived in South Asia. Home for me is in Dublin, Ohio. By living in this community, I have changed as a person, but the community around me has been changed by my presence as well.

And although I feel deeply connected to my community, I still worry that my DMV experience happened in public and around dozens of people. No one intervened, no one comforted me, no one confronted the aggressor who was screaming at me. I know these situations can be uncomfortable and, in the moment, sometimes people don’t know how to respond.

But what can you do when you encounter someone being harassed?

First, the person under attack needs solidarity. You can stand up and, instead of confronting the bigot, go to the person under duress, face them and block the sight of the bigot spewing hate. You can also offer words of support and ask if there’s anything you can do that would help them in the moment. None of this happened in my case.

Even after I completed my license renewal and walked across the waiting room to the door, not one person stepped up to say “I am sorry for what you went through.” That doesn’t mean folks in the room necessarily agreed with the screaming man. They just didn’t know what to do and how to react. Unfortunately, inaction is one major reason bigots feel empowered to harm others. Next time you see this happen before you, step up and be an ally of the victim. The world runs because goodness exceeds evil.

Silence is complicity and feeds the normalization of hate. As is commonly said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good people do nothing.” So please don’t be a part of the silent majority — instead, stand up, speak up and be an ally for those marginalized in our communities.

This opinion was originally published by Religion News Service and is shared with permission.

My therapist suggested that I let my feelings out in a controlled environment that was safe. So instead of driving too fast or eating the entire carton of ice cream, or taking a baseball bat and—well, never mind about that one—she advised that I get some newspaper and let ‘er rip. “Make sure you are in a safe, private place where you can express your feelings verbally, without fear of interruption or being heard. Let the anger surface. Let the grief come. Allow tears. Tear the paper, wad it up, throw it, whatever helps you to physically discharge the anger that your body has held for a long time. Verbalize your hurt and anger while you do this.” 

The year was 1997. I had finished seminary two years earlier and was in my first appointment as a pastor in the East Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. By then Alex, my abusive first husband, and I had been divorced for several years. We separated when I was in the final lap of seminary studying the hitpael in Hebrew and healing from childhood trauma. Our daughters were in high school and college by then, brilliant, funny, gifted girls, the apples of my eye. 

Because of the divorce I had become, as I expected, persona non grata in the evangelical church where I had been working toward ordination. It didn’t matter why the divorce happened. There was no contextualization for people who could not be together anymore because it was so destructive, or because one of them was sadistic, or crazy, or because of betrayal or one of the partners came out of the closet after years of painful denial, or any other complexity in life. Divorce was always interpreted as evil, period, deserving of eternal damnation and—like sin in general—mostly the woman’s fault. 

After the divorce when I found my way into the United Methodist Church, I was welcomed enthusiastically, and treated with respect. Though my life was so much better than it ever had been, now that I was unhindered in pursuing my vocation, I still had some hard work ahead in order to move into deeper inner freedom. 

But to get there I had to go through some pain. 

The parsonage where I lived was in a tough neighborhood in East Liverpool, Ohio. At one time that neighborhood was a great place to raise a family. People could earn a decent living at the potteries, factories, steel mills and small businesses that contributed to a thriving economy. Then outsourcing happened. One by one the potteries and mills closed, and businesses were shuttered. This happened up and down the Ohio River Valley. 

As is so often the case in communities that collectively lose their livelihoods, a new set of industries showed up. Now a toxic waste incinerator near the elementary school provided jobs and burned something at night that sent people to the ER because they couldn’t breathe. Chemical factories provided jobs and spewed God-knows-what but it made the paint fall off the houses. My neighborhood was riddled with drugs and crime and kids raising themselves. There was a busy crack house across the alley from the parsonage. 

My new neighborhood was both alien and familiar. I grew up in poverty with the kind of neglect, abandonment, and violence the kids in my new neighborhood faced, but I had never lived by a crack house or in an urban setting of this kind, immersed in hazardous waste. I suspected my neighbors thought I was highfalutin because I showed up with a decent, if old car, and I was a pastor who carried a briefcase and wore a suit. The three small churches I pastored were several miles out of town, not in the neighborhood, so I was gone most of the time and didn’t interact with neighbors much. They had no idea about how I grew up. 

My colleagues and congregants thought of me as a polished, professional woman with a great future. I did not talk to them about my history as a child or my long and painful marriage to Alex, or the trauma of divorcing him. Honestly, I wanted to move on. I tried to get away from my own story. But stories have a way of following us, and all that anger that had been stashed in a deep freeze was beginning to thaw. 

So it was that on a cold, rainy morning I stood in the middle of the living room doing my homework from therapy, wailing at the top of my lungs. I cried so hard it felt as if my body had turned inside out. The agony of a thousand memories poured out for the neglect, abandonment, rape, assaults, contempt, control, exploitation, frustration, lost opportunities, toxic religion, sexism, pervasive anxiety, and shame. I felt utterly Godforsaken. Heaps of torn, crumpled newspaper and wads of soggy tissue surrounded me. 

Someone pounded on the door. It was a fist, not a polite tap. I froze, mid-wail. The pounding became more frantic. I had to answer it. I went to the door and opened it a few inches. There was the scrawny little woman who lived in the crack house and sold her body to support her habit. Her teeth were shot and her hair looked like a bird’s nest. She was in need of a shower. I had waved to her a time or two but we had never had a conversation. 

“Honey, are you awright?” she asked, peering past me into the house. She pushed the door open wider and stepped in, looking around with a fierce glint in her eye, her bony hands balled into fists. “I was walkin’ by and I heard you a cryin’. What’s goin’ on, baby?” I realized with a shock that she had come to take on whoever was in there hurting me. 

I assured her that I was okay, I had been crying over old hurt from long ago. I thanked her for stopping to check. With one last scan of the room to make sure no one was lurking in a corner, she said “Awright then, honey, you take care,” and left. 

I was not Godforsaken. The Bible says that Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, that now he is a high priest who has gone through every kind of temptation we have and every kind of suffering so we can be sure that when we call upon him his seat of authority is mercy and grace. And I believed all of that. What stunned me was how he came to me through this woman. I didn’t know that was allowed. This street angel wrecked my theology. 

Don’t get me wrong. I learned so many things in seminary that to this day help me in my work. Even so, living with chronic, debilitating, hard-to-diagnose illness, multiple hospitalizations, an insurance company that didn’t want to pay for treatment, doctors with a political agenda, unbearable stress at home, and going through a divorce after a long, violent marriage were some of the most formative educational experiences of my seminary years. 

Never again would I take for granted the ability to walk or to have energy for a full day’s work. Years of Lyme Disease gave me compassion for people who suffer from chronic illness and because of the illness, depression and despair. The divorce opened my heart to all kinds of people who are judged and rejected by the church for deciding to be true to themselves and live with integrity, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. Most of all, I learned what it means to hold space with others who suffer in ways we cannot fathom. 

Just as illness and divorce from a violent partner provided transformational learning experiences, my encounter with the crack house neighbor changed how I understood the Bible and the character of God in ways that no classroom experience could. That woman remains with me today in my heart and mind, a raspy-voiced prophet. She’s there reminding me to listen to all my neighbors beyond the church, because God is speaking to me through them. God is with them, and in them. That’s how she wrecked my theology. She knocked down the walls of the church, all the insider outsider categories, all the sanctimonious ways we use pious language to draw lines between “us” and “them.” 

When she came to rescue me from whoever was hurting me, I learned there is only us. 

—

About  Loving the Hell out of Ourselves:

Abuses of sex and power in the church crop up with depressing regularity in the news lately. Stories of victims traumatized by authority figures are everywhere. We can’t just look away, even though we may want to. But how can we say anything constructive about the reality of this trauma that doesn’t sugarcoat the truth, yet still leaves us—and, most importantly, survivors—with hope?

One survivor of such trauma became a religious authority figure herself: Elaine Heath, the former dean of Duke Divinity School. With her sister, Jeanine Heath-McGlinn, a licensed therapist, Elaine has written Loving the Hell out of Ourselves, a powerful story not just of trauma, but of healing. These two sisters overcame the trauma of life in patriarchal authority structures, inside and outside the church, to find grace and strength. Their story offers hope for survivors—not candy-coated religious platitudes, but real peace born of hard work, discernment, and love.

Pope Francis has designated the month of September to address the death penalty and call for its abolition worldwide. In his newest appeal, the Pope invites us to pray “that the death penalty, which attacks the dignity of the human person, may be legally abolished in every country.”

The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network in collaboration with Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) has released this two-minute video of Pope Francis. Check it out below.

At the heart of Pope Francis’ message is a call to mercy. Pope Francis uses the analogy of a “window of hope” which no person should ever be denied. It is a core belief of the Church that each person is offered the opportunity to seek forgiveness and redemption; yet the death penalty takes this away. 

In response to Pope Francis’ call, Catholic Mobilizing Network, close friends and partners of Red Letter Christians, has launched the Mobilize Mercy Campaign, to spread this call to mercy far and wide.

“Pope Francis’ prayer intention reminds us that capital punishment continues cycles of harm and violence and perpetuates a throwaway culture. The tragic myth of the death penalty is that it kills the “worst of the worst,” but the truth is it actually targets society’s most vulnerable people: those with mental illness, those with inadequate legal representation, and people living in poverty or marginalized populations,” says Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network. 

“Ending the death penalty is within reach, and it’s one clear way we can build a culture of life. Every person, no matter the harm they may have caused or suffered, has God-given dignity and deserves an opportunity for restoration,” Murphy adds. “This month, may we, the Body of Christ, answer the Holy Father’s call to unite ourselves in prayer and prophetic action — not only for the abolition of capital punishment worldwide, but for the advancement of forms of justice that enable healing and transformation.” 

We want to invite everyone to sign the Pledge to Pray with Pope Francis throughout the month of September. Together, let us answer the call to uphold the dignity of all, regardless of the harm they have suffered or caused.

Advocates can also engage in amplifying the Pope’s message and advocating for death penalty abolition throughout September and beyond by utilizing CMN’s Mobilize Mercy Toolkit. Resources include backgrounders, infographics, and a social media toolkit, which includes an outline of potential posts with recommended graphics, captions, hashtags, and more. These resources are intended to make sharing this campaign to mobilize mercy easy and accessible to all.

Pope Francis’ call to action comes at a providential time here in the U.S. As Oklahoma begins its execution spree of 25 individuals, and states like Alabama and Texas continue to deal out death sentences, our prayer and action is needed. 

This article was originally published by Accidental Tomatoes

I was five years old the first time I heard the term strip mining. I was with my mom and a friend of hers at the local high school as they applied for federal assistance in the aftermath of what we in the Tug River Valley of Southern West Virginia refer to as The Great Flood of 1977.

While they waited in line, a petition to end the practice of strip mining was circulated. I recall how strange a term it was, even though at that young age I really had no way of grasping exactly what it meant.

Forty-Five years later, I’m just coming to terms with the meaning, and more importantly what it means for our people. Forty-five years later, it’s time for us all to come to terms with what it’s done and continues to do to the place we call home.

The day of reckoning has arrived.

No Room at the Inn

When I first learned what happened to Appalshop^[1] during July’s catastrophic flooding of Eastern Kentucky, I figuratively was gutted in much the same way our ancient hills literally have been gutted and hollowed out by an avarice-induced capitalist feeding frenzy. Not only was the organization’s building flooded, but so were its archives, which contain priceless, one-of-a-kind documentation of Central Appalachian history and culture through film, oral histories, art, music, and more.

As the archival recovery began, a recording of Jim Webb was found talking about how that 1977 flood led to community organizing around environmental issues. In fact, it was Webb and his friends who started the above-referenced anti-strip mining petition in the hometown we shared. They managed to acquire some seven thousand signatures from local folks…and did so while sheltering at a local church housing flood-made refugees.

Until the church asked them to leave because of it.

In the house of the Creator, there was no room for creation.

Pulling back the veil

There’s a common misconception of the meaning for the term apocalypse. In faith circles it’s generally used to denote anything pertaining to the “end times,” or the destruction of the world as we know it.

However, the literal meaning is an unveiling. In other words, the authors of what we know as biblical apocalyptic literature, such as the prophetic writings of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament’s Book of Revelation, are pulling back the veil on reality.

With that framing, the persistent, intense flooding we have seen over the last month in Southern West Virginia, Southwestern Virginia, and Eastern Kentucky is apocalyptic in every sense of the word. It most certainly has brought about the end of the world as many know it. The victims will never return to any pre-flood normalcy.

And most assuredly these tragic events have pulled back the veil which has blinded so many to the reality of climate change, and particularly—in this area—how strip mining (or mountaintop removal as its also known) has fueled the massive, unprecedented destruction we’ve witnessed and continue to live through.

It must awaken the church from its slumber. For the people of God that call these hills and hollers home, silence on the issue not only is no longer acceptable, but heresy. It is blasphemous.

No longer do we have an excuse.

The apocalypse is now.

The Forces of Death

(Photo: Strip operation at Irman, Wyoming County, West Virginia. Photo by Brad Davis)

Mountaintop removal is nothing new. It’s been a common practice in Coal Country for decades, going back to the 1950s when it became more cost efficient for companies to lop off the top of a hill to get to the coal seam below than to send human capital under the mountain to retrieve it.

But as is most often the case, what’s most cost efficient for the company costs the people everything. We end up paying the price…in blood.

It’s more murder than methodology. More disfigurement and disembowelment than simply displacement. The trees and all other foliage is the first to go. Then the soil. Then tons of rock. All dumped in the valleys below, burying streams along with our future.

What’s left is a flattened moonscape incapable of retaining water. There is no vegetation to slow down or hold at bay the runoff sweeping down the hillsides, and nowhere for it to go once it reaches the valley floor.

And when you have excessive amounts of climate change-induced rainfall, what you end up with is a cauldron of devastation bringing destruction from above on all that is below.

Hydrologists have concluded that runoff from strip-mined hills can be up to one thousand times greater than that coming off hills that have gone untouched by King Coal’s icy clutch.^[2] Couple that with studies that rainfall will only intensify in the coming years due to the continuing effects of climate change, and what we are faced with is nothing short of an existential crisis.

What we as God’s people are faced with is a choice to side with either the God of life or the forces of death.

Apocalypse as Resistance

I’m not Roman Catholic, but I’m a huge fan of Fr. Richard Rohr, the Franciscan founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. His words are pertinent:

Christianity is a lifestyle – a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established religion and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s personal Lord and Savior.

The world has not time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on earth is too great

—Richard Rohr, OFM

I can’t help but think of Jim Webb and what happened to him and his group at that church house whenever I hear or read that quote now. Coal Country has no time for such silliness anymore. No time for continued silence. No time for continued inaction.

The suffering and the impending consequences are far too great.

No place exists any longer for sweeping the subject under the rug and kicking prophetic voices out of the building.

We don’t have that luxury. Indeed, we never did.

It’s time to stop burying our heads in flood mud pretending like we haven’t a moral imperative to act, believing that the church should only be concerned with spiritual matters.

Newsflash: this is a spiritual matter. And we’ve no time to waste.

When God’s people are at our best, we focus on life in the present, giving hope to hold on in a difficult reality because a better future is coming. Hope that we will survive the hardship of whatever powers or principalities we face because God is with us and lifts up those who have been laid low.

In this respect the act of apocalyptic unmasking is one of resistance. In the midst of all this chaos and death, God still is in control. The same God who gives us the gift of creation as a trust. The same God who places upon us a sacred calling to care for what God has brought into existence.

Any action that places God’s creation in peril is sinful. Any action or inaction by God’s people that aids and abets such peril is equally sinful.

But hear the good news: There’s still time to reverse the two-headed monster of climate change and strip mining that threatens to render our homelands uninhabitable. And there’s still time to reverse the devastating effects of our failure as a church to address them by fiercely, urgently, and prophetically advocating for the cessation of harmful environmental practices.

But time is running out. Is there now room for God’s creation in God’s house?

[1] Appalshop is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Ky, the heart of Central Appalachian Coal Country and the heart of devastating flooding in that region which killed nearly forty people in mid July. In many respects it can be viewed as the region’s Smithsonian Institution.

[2] Strip mining contributed to deadly Kentucky flooding, ex-regulators say (courier-journal.com)

As women of faith, we are committed to the common task of making the ERA the law of the land.

(RNS) — Recent Supreme Court opinions dangerously undermine women’s equal protection under the law. As women of faith, we are alarmed and active. Each of us has struggled against patriarchal interpretations of texts and teachings that undermine women’s autonomy and rights. We reject the mainstreaming of repressive religious interpretations in shared public spaces that derail our quest for equal justice.

On Women’s Equality Day, we affirm the Equal Rights Amendment as an essential next step to protect women’s rights and dignity.

Justice and equality are at the heart of the human project. American history is replete with diverse, multifaith coalitions that advance cultural shifts toward inclusivity. It is appalling that the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion rights based on the literal text of a centuries-old document that excluded women from its inception. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected …,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

We recognize this brand of originalism from religion. Opposing justice because a text does not mention a word or emerged from a patriarchal context is a familiar argument made to preserve hierarchical power. It has long been common conservative practice to declare that the sexist historical context in which a document was penned should remain the norm today — just as the court did.

Many of our religious texts make no explicit mention of the terms “abortion,” “homosexuality,” “same-sex marriage” or “the declaration of human rights,” but all emphatically insist on justice.

In Islam, the word “abortion” does not exist; the supreme right and well-being of the mother do. For centuries, a Muslim woman has had the right to end her pregnancy whether for the mother’s health or for economic reasons. A fetus’s personhood is only recognized with the baby’s first gasp of air.

Judaism has a similar belief rooted in Exodus. The Jewish tradition has such reverence for human life that the pregnant person is held in high regard. Abortion is not only mandated to save the mother’s life but is permitted to save her from great distress, physical or emotional. The ancient rabbis described a fetus as part of the mother’s body, which does not take on personhood until the majority of the head emerges from the womb.

Protestant and Catholic Christians hold diverse views of abortion and women’s equality. A thread of misogyny runs through traditional orthodoxy; control of women remains a consistent theme in many theologies. Yet, Christian sacred texts highlight the dignity and empowerment of women in accord with Jesus’ teaching that all are equal.

Christian Scriptures are silent on abortion. There is no Christian consensus on when fetal life begins. Many feel compelled by their faith to respect women’s moral agency to make prayerful choices about childbearing and family life. Opposition to responsible reproduction is a minority view among U.S. Christians. It should not be accorded broad legal authority in a pluralistic society.

The Sikh tradition proclaims the equality and dignity of women. Sikh sacred texts present a vision of a world where people of all castes, creeds and genders are sovereign in their bodies. Any ban on abortion is a violation of this core belief. To strip away a woman’s freedom to care for her body — to decide when, whether and how to bring children into the world — is to deny her intelligence and humanity.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson stated that “a wall of separation between Church and State” was a foundational element of American democracy. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly cited Jefferson’s words as justification for the priority of secular law over the teachings of any individual faith. We live in a democratic society where rule of law, not fiat, should control.

The Equal Rights Amendment will play an important role in ensuring such a democracy. By inserting these words in the Constitution: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged … on the basis of sex,” we can correct the intentional exclusion of women. For the first time in U.S. history, people of all genders will be citizens of equal stature.

This nation is a hair’s breadth away from finalizing the ERA. It has been duly ratified by 38 states and needs only to be published by the U.S. archivist. We call on President Biden to ensure that this happens swiftly. We call on the U.S. Senate to affirm that there is no arbitrary deadline on the ERA’s adoption.

Recent Supreme Court decisions, with repercussions in the states, have shown us how urgent this reform is. As women of faith, we are committed to the common task of making the ERA the law of the land. We invite all people of goodwill to join us as we get it done.

(Ani Zonneveld is the founder and president of Muslims for Progressive Values. Lisa Sharon Harper is the president and founder of Freedom Road. Mary E. Hunt, Ph.D., is cofounder and codirector of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER). Valarie Kaur leads the Revolutionary Love Project. Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR and a leading voice in reanimating religious life in America. Allyson McKinney Timm is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Justice Revival. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

This article was originally published by Religion News Service.

This opinion was originally published on August 28, 2022 by The Oklahoman

I was in the execution chamber with James Coddington Thursday for the last 45 minutes of his life.

When I entered, he was already strapped to a gurney, lying on his back with his arms extended. It looked like he was on a cross, except lying flat on his back. He had an IV going.

His concern for the last week has been that he just wanted Gov. Kevin Stitt to announce a decision on clemency. His attitude has been, “This is hanging over me, and I can’t think about anything else. I would just like to know one way or the other.”

The Pardon and Parole Board recommended clemency on Aug. 3, but Gov. Stitt had to approve their recommendation to commute the death sentence to life without the possibility of parole. Stitt didn’t make his decision until less than 24 hours before the execution, releasing a statement in which he didn’t give a reason for denying clemency.

For the first 10 or 15 minutes, James was talking about that. He didn’t understand why Stitt waited so long. He was disturbed that he didn’t give a reason. James said that he was disappointed but that he accepted his fate. He said he was being punished for killing his friend, Albert Hale, and he accepted that. He thought he had a lot more to give, he could contribute to the community in prison, but if that was the governor’s will, there was nothing he could do about it.

(Image: Death penalty opponents gather near the governor’s mansion Thursday, August 25, 2022, to protest the execution of James Coddington | DOUG HOKE/THE OKLAHOMAN)

Then I held a brief religious service for him the last 10 minutes before the execution was to begin. I told James he was a beloved child of God, that every man on death row is a beloved child of God, that Gov. Stitt is a beloved child of God, and that God forgives his sins. I said the words of committal that ministers say at a graveside: “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” I prayed for him and talked to him about the people that love him. When the curtain went up at 10 a.m. his last words to the witnesses in the chamber were expressing his love for his fiancé and her three children, for his brother and his niece, for his attorney and her investigator, for me, for the other people who supported him.

Scripture tells the story of a 12-year-old Jesus who slipped off without the courtesy of a quick word to Mother Mary or Stepfather Joseph about where he was going or how late he was staying out. His parents assumed that he was moving with the group, as planned, back home to Nazareth at the end of the Passover celebration, traveling with others, not too far away. Eventually, they realized that Jesus was not on his way home at all; he had stayed behind in the city of Jerusalem. It took three whole days before his earthly parents eventually found him in the city’s Temple.

Mary issued the age-old, long-repeated refrain of maternal worry: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been very worried, and we have been searching for you.”

Jesus responded, “Why did you have to look for me? Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?” The tween Jesus offers a response that amounts to I had to do what I had to do and I had to go where I had to go. I’m called. Don’t you get it? 

Of course, his earthly parents really didn’t get it.

Jesus is neither the first nor last adolescent to worry his mother with seemingly inexplicable (to her) behavior. The developmental processes of adolescence – rapid growth, self-discovery, identity formation, boundary-pushing, vocational discernment and more – are beautiful, fruitful, creative and powerful to behold and often deeply aggravating to grown adults. This is not a sign of youth being “bad” or “broken”; they’re doing what adolescents are created to do.

Mary’s response to Jesus provides a useful model: the family returned home together and Mary “kept on thinking about all that had happened.” Those rooted in the Christian tradition know that Jesus ultimately gives Mary far more to think about than just this brief stint as a juvenile runaway: Mary’s son will have a truly unique, world-changing destiny. But those of us who parent, teach, mentor or otherwise care for mere mortal children and teens, can still learn from Mary’s practice of pondering. Like Mary, we can take time to “[keep] on thinking about all that had happened” before we react to adolescent and childhood behaviors with knee-jerk punitive patterns. Instead of immediately launching into control-and-punishment strategies – from suspension to criminalization — we can ask real questions that explore both the presenting issue and the larger backstory. These aren’t fake questions (“How could you be so stupid as to do ABC?”) but open, curious questions (“What were you feeling and thinking at the time XYZ happened?”). Transformative and restorative justice practitioners give us abundant tools for such honest dialogue.

We have another useful theological tool, as well: grace. In the language of my own Methodist tradition: we may be on the sanctification journey, but we have not yet arrived at perfection. Grace recognizes that all of God’s children – age six, sixteen or sixty – are people in the process of formation, in the midst of becoming. Grace is especially vital to children and adolescents whose bodies and brains are changing at such a rapid rate that they are quite literally not the same people this month as they were last. Grace is the opposite of juvenile incarceration and a powerful, obvious antidote to the relentless expansion of zero tolerance policies. Grace is vital to growth.

Our institutions already know how to extend empathy and grant grace to some kids: we habitually afford grace to White children and adolescents. We wonder about the “why” of their actions without pathologizing the “who” of their persons. We assume that they will make mistakes and we treat those mistakes as opportunities to learn. We give second, third, fourth and forty-fourth chances. This is not bad. White kids and teens are growing and changing and that’s not easy. They deserve our love and compassion. But kids and teens of color are also growing and changing and that’s not easy, either. They, too, deserve our love and compassion. But it is rarely forthcoming. We simply do not provide the same grace margin to children of color that we do to White children. This is especially true for Black children.

Instead, Black children are routinely held to absurdly age-inappropriate standards and expected to perform perfection as a means of earning their survival. Consider the horrifying victim-blaming rush to defame murdered children like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice. The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality has detailed the adultification bias, finding that Black girls are perceived as older than they actually are and erroneously believed to be less in need of protection and nurturance. Living under a veil of hyper-surveillance and racist suspicion starts early. The US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has clearly documented that racial disparities in school discipline begin by preschool and persist throughout the PK-12. Recent qualitative research on Black boys’ early experiences paint a clear picture of anti-Black racism and educational harm from the outset. Both Professor Kristin Henning’s The Rage of Innocence and Dr. Monique Morris’ Pushout describe the criminalization of Black childhood and adolescence.

Even when Black children do nothing wrong, at all, they are targeted, punished and criminalized just for the fact of being Black children. Black girls’ joy, itself, is suspect, as in the now-infamous case of four adolescent girls who were strip-searched at school in Binghamton New York for seeming too happy, as though tween girls being “giddy” was somehow unimaginable.

Meanwhile, the schools children attend are increasingly overpoliced and under-resourced. 1.7 million children attend schools with a police officer on site but no counselor. The presence of school-based police, often called school resource officers, increases the use of exclusionary discipline, further driving the school-to-prison pipeline.

We have heard this all before. When it comes to building safe and supportive educational spaces for children and adolescents, we know what works – and what doesn’t. But, in our collective anxiety, we don’t follow any of these best practices. We know that supportive relationships work wonders for all people and for children, especially; but we pour funding into “school hardening” strategies with no track record of efficacy while we starve counseling budgets, cut enrichment programs and lay off teachers. We know that real, commonsense gun control measures could improve public safety and save children’s lives in all the spaces they spend their days, from home to street to school; but, instead, we vote up funding for school-based police officers (SROs) despite the horrendous track record. while making only the most meager movements on gun safety.

We are not wrong to worry about gun violence. Firearms are the leading cause of death for people under 20-years-old in the United States. About three in ten of those deaths are due to suicide, one in twenty are the result of accidents, and two thirds are homicides. The New England Journal of Medicine notes that child mortality due to firearms increased by 13.5% between 2019 and 2020. The vast majority of these deaths do not happen at school. Nonetheless, it is inexcusable that children and youth in the United States are more likely to die from guns than from car crashes, cancer, injuries or congenital disease. It should shame us from our complacency to realize that our nation is alone among similar countries in this grisly statistic.

But putting more police in schools won’t help.

Robb Elementary was full of police officers. On that terrible day there were 376 officers from at least eight different departments and divisions present at the school in Uvalde. After an initial engagement, police stood by for over an hour, even as children lay bleeding to death inside the classroom, their peers making desperate, repeated pleas to 911. One officer, husband of a teacher trapped inside, did try to storm the school as his wife was dying, but he was stopped and his gun taken away. Meanwhile, at least one mother, Angeli Rose Gomez, was handcuffed by officers before she persuaded someone to release her and pulled her two children out of the building. All of this took place while police officers remained outside waiting a terrifying 73 minutes to intervene and stop the shooter. The Texas House of Representatives’ Interim Report concluded that while it was likely that most of the children died in the initial attack, “it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue.”  

While Uvalde showcases an especially egregious response failure, school-based police did not have a strong record on stopping mass shootings prior to this summer, either. A school resource officer was on site at Mary Stoneman Douglas High School, too. As of 2021, he was facing charges for child negligence because he hid during the shooting. 

Who died protecting students? A fourth-grade teacher and a football coach both jumped in front of bullets. An athletic director ran into the building, a first-grade teacher hid children in a closet and a geography teacher provided refuge in his classroom, though it cost them all their lives. A paraprofessional died holding the student she worked with in her arms while covering others with her body. Another fourth-grade teacher, finishing her 23^rd year at the school, embraced students to her dying breath. This list is not exhaustive; we could keep going if we had the heart for it. All these contemporary hero-educators deserve our honor, our respect and our unrelenting efforts to end gun violence in America.

But, as a public policy matter, school-based police do not keep our children safe. The Dignity In Schools Campaign, in conjunction with the Advancement Project, Alliance for Educational Justice and NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund released clear and compelling evidence that “Police in Schools Are Not the Answer to School Shootings” after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 and then again after the Parkland shooting in 2018.

If school-based policing strategies were just another well-intentioned but ineffective government expenditure then we could count the pro-SRO policy trend as a disappointment but not an emergency. But school-based policing is not neutral: it increases the number of children who are pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline. Black and Native children are the most likely victims of criminalization due to America’s longstanding and deep-rooted systemic racism. Policies that harm Black students and other students of color, by definition, do not make “all students” safer – not if we think of Black students and other students of color as a real part of the student body, equally in need of protection and care. We may sing “Jesus Loves the Little Children” on Sunday morning, but if we’re willing to throw some children in harm’s way in pursuit of strategies that give no evidence of protecting any children, then who exactly is the “all” children we’re keeping safe?

The failure to see Black children as children is perhaps one of the most damning indictments of the spiritual depravity of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. This is not merely an issue for expert educators and professional policymakers; it is a profound ethical crisis that concerns us all.

What can we do? We can publicly resist false promises of security through “hardening,” oppose increases to school police budgets and continue to push back on the criminalizing of children of color. We can support key federal legislation, including: The Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act; The Ending PUSHOUT Act; and The Protecting Our Students in Schools Act (POSSA). Most importantly, we can work at the local level, partnering with Dignity In Schools Campaign member organizations and others, to push school boards and other decisionmakers to prioritize racial equity, stop school pushout and interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.

12-year-old Jesus would be a juvenile status offender under today’s standards. But his mother knew better: she knew to love her child, to go home together, and to wait and sit with what she couldn’t yet understand. After all, who might any of our children live to become, if given the chance?

”The Kingdom Is Yours is a song for everyone who thought God left them when he was needed the most. The opposite is the most true. God shares his hope and kingdom not with the elite, but with the lowly.” (Dee Wilson)

“The Kingdom Is Yours is a song of hope and a reminder that the poor in spirit will inherit the earth. God honors the heart willing to lay its brokenness at his feet, and the soul that responds to violence, abuse and loss with the love of Christ. Society has its own standard of success, but God still honors faithfulness, humility and love when they’re hardest to do.” (Brittney Spencer)

“In a dog-eat-dog world, where only the strongest survive; where your brother may betray you in order to climb the next ring of the ‘corporate ladder,’ where loneliness threatens to be your closest friend, where abuse seems routine, and hope sounds like a fairy tail, Jesus speaks. He says his kingdom is at hand. He invites us in. It’s a place where the poor forever reign, where the pure finally win, where the peacemakers can rest, and where the persecuted rejoice. ’The Kingdom is Yours’ is a song of hope for those living in the tension of these two realities. It’s a reminder of what is to come.” (Micah Massey)

“The Kingdom is Yours is an encouraging reminder from Jesus’ beatitudes that the kingdom of God belongs to the unlikely: the grieving, the vulnerable, the hungry, the persecuted.” (Aaron Keyes)

VERSE 1
Blessed are the ones who do not bury
All the broken pieces of their heart
Blessed are the tears of all the weary
Pouring like a sky of falling stars

VERSE 2
Blessed are the wounded ones in mourning
Brave enough to show the Lord their scars
Blessed are the hurts that are not hidden
Open to the healing touch of God

CHORUS
The kingdom is yours, the kingdom is yours
Hold on a little more, this is not the end
Hope is in the Lord, keep your eyes on him

VERSE 3
Blessed are the ones who walk in kindness
Even in the face of great abuse
Blessed are the deeds that go unnoticed
Serving with unguarded gratitude

VERSE 4
Blessed are the ones who fight for justice
Longing for the coming day of peace
Blessed is the soul that thirsts for righteousness
Welcoming the last, the lost, the least

CHORUS
The kingdom is yours, the kingdom is yours
Hold on a little more, this is not the end
Hope is in the Lord, keep your eyes on him

VERSE 5
Blessed are the ones who suffer violence
And still have strength to love their enemies
Blessed is the faith of those who persevere
Though they fall, they’ll never know defeat

Written by Terrell Wilson (BMI), Brittney Spencer (BMI), Micah Massey (ASCAP), Aaron Keyes (ASCAP)
© 2017 Common Hymnal Digital (BMI), The Wilson Songbook Publishing (BMI), BSpencer Publishing (BMI), Common Hymnal Publishing (ASCAP), 10000 Fathers (ASCAP) (admin by IntegratedRights.com). CCLI 7109354

I don’t know Justice!
And I have not met Peace.

Well, I was told that I met her.
I was told that Peace has been around here,
but they must be confused.

Confused with Silence, perhaps,
In fact – I asked her.
I asked Silence and She said

“Naw young man, Peace don’t live here
And I don’t even look like that queen,
She sings and carries a big sword with a smile so clean.
Her hair is natural and rings like bells
And in heels she a little taller than, Justice

I don’t know Justice!
And I have not met Peace.

And Justice, arms are long and his embrace is strong.
And you can hear every step he takes
No, not every step he ask for
Every step he takes
No, not every step that is given
Every step he takes

She said Royce

Go back and tell them they got me wrong.
I’m silent.

My cousins are dumb,
hush,
mute,
quiet,
settle,
shut up,
sit still!

Royce, you know them.

I don’t know Justice!
And I have not met Peace.

I’ve been waiting for them to pull up in one accord
And I can’t afford to wait much longer
These arms ain’t much stronger
But they are strong.
Shoot! I’ll pat myself in the back.
I look in the mirror and don’t know how to act, I’m black!
I’m black!
I’m black!
I’m black!

Black…
What is that anyway?
But a word full of culture and void of identity
So I have to give love to my enter me

Now, don’t get me wrong –  I haven’t always walked around proud
But even when I didn’t, with my fist up I said it loud.

I’m Black …

I don’t know Justice!
And I have not met Peace.

And I can’t help but wonder how would it feel to say it.
If I could ride with peace and justice in dat accord

I want to know them!
I want to see them
I want to talk with them
I want to kick it with the rest of the folks , like Freedom, Liberty, opportunity
I want to breathe
Not In hell
Not in hell
But inhale – exhale

Now listen, you said it and I’m flatter
You even used the hashtag #BlacklivesMatter

But when Yeshua left the many for the one
I known my Black life mattered before The hashtag became relevant
This skin is heaven sent.

But … I don’t know Justice!
And I have not met Peace.

I wish I could walk away, from the microphone telling you I met them
I give the ear an resolve it wants to hear,
But I can’t

I believe in a redeemer
I believe a The God of creation
And I can’t

Because I haven’t met justice
And I dont know peace

But I’ll tell you this
I’m going to keep looking
I’m going to keep pushing
I’m going to keep shaking
I’m going to keep talking
I’m going to keep yelling
I’m going to keep learning
I’m going to keep voting
I’m going to keep grown
I’m going to keep engaging

Because I’m going to meet them

And when I meet them going to bring them
To my school

To my job
To my house
To my hood
To my friends
To my brothers
To my sisters
To my mothers
To my fathers
To the jail
Inhale – Exhale
Inhale – exhale

I don’t know Justice!
And I have not met Peace.

Written by Royce Lovett (BMI), Kevin Dailey, Ryan James Carr (ASCAP)
© 2020 Common Hymnal Digital (BMI), Royce Lovett Music (BMI), Common Hymnal Online, Kip Central, Common Hymnal Publishing (ASCAP), Ryan James Carr (ASCAP) (admin by CapitolCMGPublishing.com). CCLI 7157120.

]]> Tue, 16 Aug 2022 04:51:14 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/6xZQgR6riC0ysz7FNRofRLb9ICM-PHur https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/6xZQgR6riC2dIq7ABrzpq93hDS9njgCr

At 8 a.m. on Tuesdays in July, as usual, John Perkins was participating in his weekly Zoom Bible study. Officially the leader and the attraction for the more than 200 who log on each week, Perkins is far from the sole speaker, and that’s the way he wants it.

“I’m learning from them because they are doing really good research,” said Perkins, 92, of his co-leaders, both pastors and lay people, each of whom teaches from their perspective. “We want our Bible class to be a model of what the influential pastor or the influential leader can do back in their own hometown.”

This collective approach has been Perkins’ way of doing ministry since he began.

In November, shortly after having surgery for colon cancer, Perkins went where he has gone for years: the annual meeting of the Christian Community Development Association that he helped organize decades before.

It was worth the journey from Mississippi to Missouri, he said, to see his friends and to continue to motivate them while he could.

“Really to pass on, in my own way, this mission that we have arrived at together,” he said in a phone interview. “I just came to encourage and to say goodbye.”

A farewell tour it may be, but Perkins has been in motion as long as he’s been in ministry, moving mostly between his native Mississippi to California and back, always focused on his goals of transforming communities through faith and racial reconciliation.

Along the way Perkins has overcome the deaths of loved ones and his onetime hatred of white people, who included police who took the life of his brother and, years later, nearly killed him. Perkins, who at times was one of the few Black leaders in predominantly white evangelical settings, credits particular Caucasians for being there for him to introduce him to the Christian faith, bind his wounds and comfort him when he was mourning.

Born in 1930, Perkins lost his mother to starvation when he was just 7 months old. When he was 16, his brother was killed by a police chief after the young man grabbed the blackjack the officer had used to strike him.

Perkins fled to California in the 1940s after his brother’s death and a decade later launched a union of foundry workers in that state. After the Korean War broke out, he was drafted and served three years in Okinawa, Japan, and, back stateside, later became a Christian and was ordained a Baptist minister.

Returning to his native state in 1960, Perkins turned out to be as much an organizer as a clergyman. He started a ministry in Mendenhall that provided day care, youth programs, cooperative farming and health care. He registered Black voters and boycotted white retailers. When he visited college students at a Brandon, Mississippi, jail who had been arrested after a protest in 1970, he was tortured — “beaten almost to death,” he writes in his latest book — by law enforcement officers.

After recovering he moved to Jackson, Mississippi’s capital, where he mentored college students.

In 1976, Perkins published his influential book “Let Justice Roll Down,” codifying his principles of relocation, redistribution and reconciliation — known as Perkins’ “Three Rs”— as a way to address systemic racism with social action.

“Justice is an economic issue,” Perkins told Religion News Service. “It’s the management and stewardship of God’s resources on the Earth.”

In 2006 Christianity Today placed “Let Justice Roll Down” at No. 14 on a list of the top 50 books that had shaped evangelicals over the previous five decades.

Ron Sider, former president of Evangelicals for Social Action (now Christians for Social Action), said Perkins has “phenomenal” influence, cultivating — possibly more than “any single American” — holistic ministries meeting both spiritual and physical needs of people in rural and urban settings.

The ministry at Sider’s Mennonite church in Philadelphia, said Sider in an interview before his death on July 27, “is modeled on John Perkins, as are hundreds of others around the country.”

Perkins encouraged “collective prosperity,” where wealth is distributed equitably, and living in neighborhoods close to the poor, something he has done in the South and in the West.

“I’d say a lot of white suburban folks like me were deeply challenged by his call to justice and to the three Rs of his ministry,” said Jo Kadlecek, communication manager of Baptist World Aid Australia, who was inspired by “Let Justice Roll Down” and later co-authored a book with Perkins after he sought her out.

“‘You know Jesus didn’t commute from heaven,’ he’d say frequently, referring to urban ministers’ belief that Christians who help poor and underserved communities should consider residing near them.

Perkins returned to California in the 1980s — in part to hand off the leadership of what he’d built in Mississippi, to let others develop those skills — and Perkins’ family founded the Harambee Christian Family Center in a high-crime area of Pasadena, offering after-school and teen programs and providing urban missions training to visiting church work groups.

“You win the trust of parents, you win the trust of community leaders, because you’re proving, day by day, that you want to develop children and young people,” said Rudy Carrasco, who served as the center’s executive director and is now a program director for the Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington. “I learned that from John Perkins. … And he’s doing it now.”

In 1989, Perkins cofounded the CCDA, taking his ideas from his own books and his own previous ministries to fashion an organization that urges thousands of annual conference attendees to focus on building churches and sharing the gospel in local communities while also renovating houses, hosting medical clinics and tutoring schoolchildren to prepare them for college.

Sider said Perkins’ efforts on racial reconciliation contributed to the “evangelical center” growing more diverse to the point that the National Association of Evangelicals — on whose board Perkins served in the 1980s — now has an African American board chair, an Asian American president and a woman vice chair.

“That’s enormous progress, and it’s the sort of thing that John’s influence has helped to create,” Sider said.

In the 1990s, after returning to Jackson, Perkins founded the Spencer Perkins Center, named for his son who died suddenly in 1998 after suffering a heart attack at the age of 44. The center focused, as had other ministries of his father, on evangelism, affordable housing and helping poor children and families.

The elder Perkins has summed up his life’s work and learnings in what he calls his “manifesto,” a trilogy of books that concluded with the publication in September of “Count It All Joy: The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering.”

In the book, Perkins recounts some of the tragedies he has faced but talks of suffering as a part of faith, rather than a failure of it.

“This is the message that I want to leave as a witness to the next generation,” he writes in the introduction. “It’s not only given that we should believe on God, but that we should suffer for His namesake.”

Shane Claiborne, co-founder of Red Letter Christians and who has known and worked with Perkins for more than 20 years, said Perkins has long demonstrated “ministry of presence.”

Claiborne said Perkins’ approach to Bible study, whether early in the morning at CCDA conferences or online on YouTube and Facebook, is symbolic of the way he has lived his life.

“Almost everything that John does is collaborative,” said Claiborne, who co-wrote with him the 2009 book “Follow Me to Freedom: Leading and Following as an Ordinary Radical,” and has joined Perkins in an online Bible study, as has megachurch pastor Rick Warren and civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson.

Participants “might not have all the same theological assumptions, but they’ve got some wisdom he wants them to share and they’re his friends,” Claiborne said.

Perkins has been trying to build co-laborers rather than view himself as the only one to emulate.

“My dad, he has a hard time with people thinking that he is this person that people should be following,” Priscilla Perkins, co-president of her parents’ foundation, said as the Nov. 1 online Bible study came to a close. “No, it’s Christ that we’re following, so we want to make sure that everybody knows that.”

Over the last two decades, institutions of higher learning such as evangelical Calvin University and historically Black Jackson State University have recognized her father with a program, or with a scholarship named in honor of Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae.

Seattle Pacific University has had a John Perkins Center since 2004 and has held trainings, lectures and a day of service for incoming students in hopes of moving them from charitable to community development activities.

John Perkins Center Executive Director Caenisha Warren said Perkins’ principles have become ingrained in her. She recalled seeing an article about adding a fourth R to the 3 R’s. She started reading it, “only to discover it was talking about the other 3 R’s of reading, writing and arithmetic, when I truly assumed it was the Perkins 3 R’s – relocation, redistribution, reconciliation,” she said in an email to RNS.

Perkins once said he didn’t want buildings in his name because they might not last. “I have to say it: It feels good,” he said of the programs named for him.

But his sense of satisfaction does not mean he feels the work he accomplished with his wife of seven decades has been sufficient.

“Deep down in my heart I find joy, but I also see that we could have done more,” said Perkins, who was honored in June as a Black Christian “elder” at a Museum of the Bible gala. “But I’m thankful as I look back at it.”

This piece originally appeared in Religious News Services.