** Transcript of Adam Taylor’s talk is below.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. — Lev. 19:18

As evangelical Christians in America, we are grieved by the violence that has consumed Israel and Gaza and we are troubled by the ways our faith tradition has been used to justify it. Yet even as we witness gross distortions of faith by Christian nationalists in public life, we also celebrate how people from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions around the world are coming together to cry for peace. So say cease-fire, some say a “cessation of hostilities,” some say humanitarian pause. Some just say, “Stop for the babies!” But the world is experiencing a kind of Pentecost as people cry out in different tongues with a unified call to end the violence.

Judaism teaches through the prophet Amos that God hears a united remnant against injustice. Islam teaches that “God is with the group.” And Jesus prayed that we all might be One, even as he and his Father are One. There is power in the unified cry of faithful people.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share moral convictions that ground our response to this moment.

We believe that every human being is created in the image of God. Both the Talmud and Islamic teaching say that to save a single life is to save all humanity, and Jesus extends the law of love for kin and neighbors even to those who are our enemies. Together we believe that every Israeli life is precious; every Palestinian life is precious; every single life is precious.

We also share the conviction that vengeance belongs to God. While governments have a right and duty to ensure security, our traditions insist on restraint and limits when the state exercises its power. No government knows enough to become the ultimate arbiter of justice.

Finally, our traditions share a commitment to justice, especially for those who are weak and vulnerable in this world. Whenever there is an imbalance of power, God hears the cries of those who are suffering and calls us to join their cry for justice.

Because of these shared convictions and our knowledge that a “three-fold chord is not easily broken,” we join our voices with Jews, Christians, and Muslims around the world who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the safe return of all hostages and civilian prisoners taken in the present conflict.

While “cease-fire” is a technical term of international law, our faith demands that we outline a basic moral call to CEASE-FIRE.

Confront and stop immediately indiscriminate violence against any civilian, especially women, children, and the sick.

End the denial of basic necessities to any population, including food, water, electricity, fuel, internet, and medical supplies.

Affirm the image of God in every human being.

Stop the practice of holding hostages and ensure the safe return of all hostages and prisoners home.

Exercise nonviolent power to build a just peace for all people.

Faithfully work as Jews, Christians, and Muslims to support a viable alternative to the brutality of Hamas and to challenge the Netanyahu administration’s practices of occupation and apartheid.

Insist that human rights for all people are nonnegotiable.

Raise a moral cry against murder, indiscriminate violence, war, and public policies rooted in vengeance, no matter which faith is used to justify violence.

Engage nonviolently to interrupt the violence that is being carried out against fellow human beings.

As people who are committed to manifesting beloved community and overcoming violence of any kind against any person or people, we steadfastly demand that justice be done and seek to protect the dignity of all human life regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or national identity.

We need a cease-fire for God’s sake, for the future’s sake, for the sake of the babies who are dying, and for the sake of our own humanity.

Jesus said, “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword,” and, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made clear, in an era of nuclear weapons that can destroy the whole world, our ultimate choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence. Killing our future is worse than wrong; it is an act of despair that denies God’s hope.

Our faith compels us to lift up this moral call for a cease-fire. We invite any who share this conviction to join people of faith around the world who are praying and taking action for peace.

Bishop William J. Barber, II
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School
Repairers of the Breach

Shane Claiborne
Red Letter Christians

Mae Elise Cannon
Churches for Middle East Peace

Rodney Sadler
Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School

**Transcript of Adam Taylor’s talk at the vigil:

These remarks were drawn in part from the article published on Sojourners, Dear Christians, Cease-Fire Is Not Surrender.

Beloved—I want to thank Churches for Middle East Peace and all of the other faith leaders here tonight for this powerful witness. As we mark 44 painful and tragic days since the horrific massacre of Israelis by Hamas on October 7 and the estimated 12,000 Gazans who have lost their lives due to Israel’s bombing campaign, we continue to grieve and lament with all the families who have lost loved ones and we pray for an immediate end to the violence in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.  

This unconscionable suffering and violence breaks the very heart of our God.  While we pray that hostages can and will be a released through a temporary pause, we know that temporary is not nearly enough.  If our nation can negotiate a temporary pause, then surely, we can also negotiate a permanent one through a ceasefire to help end the war.  We also know that a ceasefire is not a surrender, instead it is a courageous step toward peace.   

Contrary to the misguided logic of war, we know that there is no true military solution to this crisis. Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God” These countercultural words from Jesus’ sermon on the Mount reverberate across time and space are equally relevant and urgent today.  Yes beloved, this is a time for peacemaking — and that starts with a ceasefire. As peacemakers, we must honor the image of God in every Israeli and every Palestinian. We must be clear that our condemning of Hamas’ actions and ideology and our support for Israel’s right to security does not negate our deep commitment to justice and liberation in Palestine!  And while we must strongly oppose both antisemitism and Islamophobia, we must be clear that condemning actions by the state of Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism!

Throughout scripture, God commands both truth and action — and forbids their opposites. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 16 says: “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand idly by when the blood of your neighbor is at stake: I am the Lord.”  And now, refusing to stand idly by means advocating that our own government use its power rightly.

And that’s why we’re here tonight. We are here to pray and to call on President Biden and his administration to apply maximum pressure to negotiate an immediate and durable ceasefire in order to help end the current war and restrain a wider regional conflict. We are here to ensure that sufficient medical aid, water, food, and fuel can reach Gazan civilians.  We are here to call for the immediate release of all hostages.  We are here to call for political solutions that provide lasting peace, security, and justice for all Israelis and all Palestinians.  It is time to replace the misguided logic of war with the imperative for peace. 

God, we pray that you will swiftly bring comfort for the grieving, freedom for the hostage, and lasting peace and justice to Israel and Palestine. We are reminded that you are rock in a weary land and a bridge over even the most troubled water.  Help us to stand on your rock today as we embrace your call to be peacemakers.  In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and liberator we pray, Amen.  

Add Your Voice to this Call for a Cease-fire

We’d lived the Good Samaritan story in Iraq, and as a recent Christian college graduate, I thought it was important to preach that parable’s good news to Christian colleges. Chaplains invited me into their pulpits, and we often shared conversation over lunch with students and faculty about what it means to live the gospel of Jesus in a violent world.

The culture on white Christian college campuses skews conservative, and there were always people who were uncomfortable with my messages—even those who publicly protested them. But as the occupation of Iraq drug on and the truth came out about the lies that had been told to justify the initial invasion, the common sense about that war changed. I had the chance to preach Jesus’ Way of nonviolent love, beloved community, racial equity and economic justice on Christian college campuses. I taught students to sing the freedom songs of the civil rights movement and introduced them to the vibrant faith of Fannie Lou Hamer and Dorothy Day, Clarence Jordan and Rosa Parks. Over the course of two decades, I’ve had dozens of conversations with chaplains and administrators about the challenge of young people who grew up in the Christian faith rejecting it as young adults because they do not see the church living out Jesus’ commitment to love, justice, and mercy. I’ve loved preaching in Christian college chapels because it’s given me the chance to watch faith get reborn in some of those young people.

Because of this experience, I was troubled when I heard from my friend Jemar Tisby that the Board of Trustees at Grove City College had commissioned an investigation that singled out a sermon he gave in their chapel two years ago. The language the report uses is common in right wing political circles right now. It demonizes “critical race theory” as a threat to faith, then finds signs of this imagined enemy in any efforts to address racial justice. Without naming any theological or hermeneutical error in his message to the students, the report names Dr. Tisby as a representative of its boogeyman, then recommends restricting access to the pulpit to prevent others from committing the same perceived error. If you’re interested in the details of all of this, Dr. Tisby has written a gracious response that includes links to the report.

What concerns me about this official action to single out Dr. Tisby and purge a Christian college campus of conversations about racial justice is the answer it implies to the question of what mission Christian colleges serve. Like I said, there have always been people on these campuses who would disagree with me or Dr. Tisby. This is what a college campus is for: critical reflection and honest debate about how we make sense of the world. At a Christian college, that debate is shaped by the shared conviction that the Bible and Christian tradition shape conversations about how we understand the world.

At least, that’s what I’ve always assumed. But in their zeal to appease extremists who’ve made “CRT” their boogeyman, the Board of Trustees at Grove City College seems to have made a public confession that the shared commitment which shapes conversation on their campus is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the conversative political ideology that racial equity challenges. Given the reach of the religious right into white Christian institutions, I suspect this board is not the only one that will have to decide which side of this ultimatum it is on.

My guess is that most of the members of the Board at Grove City aren’t happy they were forced to make this choice. The board chair, who also serves as CEO of DuPont, has made public statements on behalf of his company in support of racial justice, and he claims to be implementing a company-wide initiative to achieve racial equity in their workforce. It’s awkward to be put in a position where you publicly contradict yourself, but some powers and principalities persuaded the Board to accept and approve this report.

But having spent time on Christian college campuses, my heart aches for the young people who thought they were learning to follow Jesus and the faculty and staff who show up every day assuming that their mission is to pursue God’s kingdom, not the success of the Republican Party. The Board of Trustees hasn’t only singled out Dr. Tisby in an unfair and un-Christian way. They have also let down a community whose primary obstacle to faith in recent years is the hypocrisy of its leaders.

Since our friend Tony Campolo first called us together 15 years ago, Red Letter Christians have been preaching Jesus and justice on college campuses and in churches and communities around this country. In this moment, we have a chance to say #IStandWithJemar, and to challenge other Christian colleges and institutions to make clear whether their primary commitment is to the gospel of Jesus or to a political ideology. I hope we can do it not only for Dr. Tisby’s sake, but also for the millions of young people in this country and around the world who are genuinely asking whether an authentic Christian faith is possible.

An unprecedented surge of voter participation in 2018 and 2020 created majorities in the House and Senate that claim to support policies which enjoy overwhelming popular support: federal protection of voting rights, a $15 minimum wage, universal access to healthcare, comprehensive immigration reform and investment in sustainable infrastructure. President Biden says these are the policy priorities of the White House. But none of these policies has been enacted because of the interposition and nullification of Senate Republicans who represent an extreme minority.

So-called moderates in the Senate who continue to talk about compromise are not defending the institutions of democracy. They are insisting upon the right of arsonists to argue their case while our nation’s house is on fire. Climate activists who know that we have nine years to address the climate crisis have emphasized the urgency of this moment, taking direct action and putting their bodies on the line to insist that we cannot compromise with climate science deniers. But their point about climate policy is inextricably connected to the struggle for democracy in this moment. If we cannot refuse cooperation with voter suppression now, we have no hope of representation in the coming decade that will work to address the interconnected crises of climate catastrophe, inequality, systemic racism, and militarism.

From the Declaration of Independence to the struggle for Reconstruction to the civil rights movement that gave us the Voting Rights Act, our fellow Americans who have led us toward a more perfect union have not pressed forward through compromise, but by insisting that the fundamental principle of equality is non-negotiable. The abolitionists did not win their struggle for human freedom by accommodating Southern slaveholders and Northern accommodationists who defended the property rights of their Southern friends. “On this subject, I cannot be moderate,” William Lloyd Garrison wrote in the first issue of his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. “Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm… tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.”

READ: The Symptoms of A Nation Approaching Spiritual Death

If we recognize the urgency of the moment we face, we must also acknowledge that compromise with those whose only goal is obstruction is, in fact, capitulation to their plans. Every person has a right to equal protection under the law. When this right is compromised, we do not have a democracy. America’s true Independence Day was when the 14^th and 15^th amendments redeemed our Constitution from its pro slavery construction and made a way for the nation to be born again and again through the Women’s Suffrage Movement, The Labor Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement. No democracy can be to true to its promise of a universal right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” until workers are paid a living wage and have access to education, healthcare, affordable housing and clean drinking water.

The current crisis in our democracy is not a debate about which policies best protect the right of every American to vote. Senate Republicans have cast their votes and clarified that they are not interested in that debate. The current crisis is about whether we the people can muster the will to stand up to corporate interests and obstructionists to demand that the majorities we elected to represent us act on our behalf.

This is why the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, has announced a season of non-violent moral direct action. Through weekly Moral Mondays this summer, we aim to escalate the public demand for action, and we hope others will join and take up other days to demand that the Senate forgo the filibuster and act to defend democracy and raise the minimum wage before the 56^thanniversary of the Voting Rights Act on August 6^th. If Mitch McConnell can put Supreme Court justices on the bench for lifetime appointment with 51 votes, then we must demand that 51 votes be used to save the democracy, insure protection against voter suppression, and pay people a living wage.

Now is not the time for compromise. The battle for democracy demands nonviolent moral direct action and civil disobedience, if necessary. We are in the birth pains of a Third Reconstruction, and a more perfect union is possible if we push together. But we must not be naïve. The forces we are up against aim to force a still birth through inaction. Only definitive action to declare independence from the tyranny of McConnell’s obstruction can revive the heart of American democracy.

This past weekend, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival held our Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington virtually. Though we had planned to line Pennsylvania Avenue with the largest gathering of poor and marginalized people in this nation’s history, the coronavirus compelled us to reimagine our mobilization as a digital justice gathering back in March. We could not have known then how important it would be to come together now, but the global uprising for racial justice over the past few weeks has prepared millions of Americans to ask the question we have been discussing in communities across the nation for the past two years: How can we remake America so that “We the People” means all of us?

More than 2.5 million people joined us online for this past weekend’s mass gathering, and more than 300,000 sent our Moral Justice Jubilee Policy Platform to their congressional representatives. The three-and-half-hour program we shared was a beautiful celebration of the grassroots leadership I’ve witnessed in communities across America, and it was deeply encouraging to see a 100-fold increase in the crowd that united to support their demands as we rallied together in this critical moment.

The Poor People’s Campaign has shown me the wisdom of impacted people to address the problems we know too well. And it has taught me the incredible power of connecting across communities and issue areas to build power together. But we have not organized and mobilized together just to share our stories. We have said from the very beginning of our work together that our goal is to shift the moral narrative in this country. And we know that means changing who holds power.

READ: The Symptoms of a Nation Approaching Spiritual Death

We are not lifting up these policy solutions now because we believe they will pass Congress and our state legislatures this year. Many of them will not. We are building a movement that votes because we know the power of poor people to change the political calculus in this nation. In 2016, far more people who were eligible to vote did not vote than voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. A disproportionate number of those who were not able to vote or did not see how voting would benefit them were poor and low wealth. If we are able to engage just 10 percent of the inactive voters from 2016 this year, we can change the political possibilities in Washington, D.C., and state capitals across the country.

The Poor People’s Campaign does not endorse candidates, and we don’t need to. We know this nation has the resources to pay everyone living wages, guarantee health care for all, ensure affordable housing and clean water, and bring undocumented neighbors out of the shadows. If we make sure the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share and reallocate money from bloated military and police budgets, we can guarantee high quality, diverse public education and a livable planet for our children. We have made our platform clear, and we invite Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to explain to voters what they will do to embrace it now. We don’t need messiah candidates who promise to fix everything. We will vote together for those who have the humility to listen, and we will hold every elected official accountable.

The power of a moral fusion coalition in this nation is that when we vote together, we win. Too often we have been divided by cultural wedge issues, discouraged by the corruption of politics, or pushed out by voter suppression. But when fusion coalitions came together in the South during Reconstruction, they remade our state governments and amended the U.S. Constitution. When fusion coalitions joined civil rights and unions and welfare rights organizations in the 1960s, they ended Jim Crow, expanded voting rights, and transformed America’s immigration system.

As the cries for racial justice in our streets continue and the idols of white supremacy fall in our city squares, the Poor People’s Campaign is here to say that it’s time to vote together. It’s time to press forward together. It’s time to insist that America become the nation we’ve never yet been.

This article first appeared on Sojourners. 

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world face stay-at-home orders. A new and infectious disease can easily overwhelm our healthcare systems in any one place if we do not take extreme measures to slow its spread and “flatten the curve,” as we’ve learned to say. Thousands of doctors, nurses, public health officials, and janitors are rushing to the the frontlines of this dangerous struggle. But their message to the rest of us is clear: the best thing we can do is stay home.  

A few things we know: older adults are most vulnerable to COVID-19, with nearly 1 in 5 dying in areas that have been hit hardest. And this: countries like Singapore and Japan, which have been most successful in mitigating the spread of the virus, have done so by taking immediate action to limit person-to-person contact at the community level. From everything we know, the best way to love our neighbors in the midst of this pandemic is to limit contact, cancel all public gatherings where the virus can spread quickly through normal social interactions, and practice good sanitation in our homes.

This morning I’ve been praying about what it means for us to continue to make surprising friendships possible in this moment. I’m moved by stories from Italy, where elderly people have had to self-quarantine, even when they are not sick, in order to ensure they do not contract the virus. The Sant’Egidio community there has been organizing healthy young people, whose risk level is relatively low, to deliver essential items to elder’s homes and check in with them by phone or other electronic means.

READ: Love Thy Sick Neighbor: A Liturgy In Times of the Coronavirus

Given the lack of information we have about the extent of the coronavirus’ spread in the US, it is possible that within a week communities in the US could be in a similar situation. We need to begin now cultivating the kind of friendships we will need in our communities to survive such an outbreak. So I’m writing to encourage you to do that in your community today.

In our area (Durham, NC), we have set up a simple registration system for young people who are willing to be paired with an elder in the community as we develop plans to respond to people’s needs here. Maybe you’ll consider doing the same in your context. In uncertain times like these, our experience of beloved communities where people step-up to take care of one another gives me hope. Praying with you even now that we will have the faith and patience to build the surprising friendships we always need.

Editor’s Note: If you are aware of any efforts to build surprising friendships and care for neighbors happening in your area as the virus spreads, tell us about it in the comments, that we may spur one another on in love during these uncertain times. This message originally appeared in a Schools for Conversion newsletter.

“Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone?” the reporter asked.

“Oh, I don’t do this to change the country,” Muste, who was nearing the end of his life, replied. “I do this so the country won’t change me.”

In a political moment that is every bit as fractious as the 1960s, the 2020 primaries have finally begun. Already, many Americans are haunted by the cynical realism of the reporter’s question.

Can my vote really make a difference? What good is a single campaign contribution when hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent in the most expensive primary race in U.S. history? Even if my candidate wins, is the system so broken that it will force that person to either sell out or drop out?

Christians who ponder these questions must also face another reality of American politics: that Christians have an impact on American politics, for good or ill. For 40 years, the religious right has invested in a distorted moral narrative that pits “religious values” against progressive policies. This distortion has persuaded many white Christians to support political leaders and policies that demonize black and brown Christians and portray them as a threat to the nation.

Given this moral crisis, many Democrats have decided to make a direct appeal to voters of conscience or faith. In a December 2019 commentary for Religion News Service, Joe Biden wrote openly about his own Catholic faith. Pete Buttigieg has directly challenged the hypocrisy of Christians who excuse the personal immorality of President Trump. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have said it is immoral to watch people die from lack of access to health care or to refuse to address the climate crisis while corporations rake in record profits for their elite shareholders.

Without doubt, socially engaged Christianity has had an impact on every social movement in U.S. history that has pushed us toward a more perfect union — from abolition to women’s suffrage to labor rights, civil rights and human rights. While these movements have always faced well-funded opposition that has tried to claim the moral high ground, they have built a broad consensus for their demands by appealing to people of faith and rooting the justice they seek in the faith traditions that give many Americans their most basic sense of right and wrong.

These movements teach us that we cannot love our neighbor as ourselves within a democratic system of government without getting involved in politics, especially on behalf of the most vulnerable. Even if we don’t think it will make a big difference for our own lives, this tradition insists that we vote — for the sake of the immigrant family separated by extreme ICE enforcement, for the poor family whose SNAP benefits have been cut, for the disabled neighbor whose Social Security benefits are under threat.

READ: Vote for Life and Love

All of this is true. Yet I think A.J. Muste was on to something more. If faith is to sustain us in the struggle for public justice, we must each do the inner work to realize that our engagement is fundamentally a struggle for our own souls.

“Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” Jesus taught. Our political engagement as Christians is not just altruism. It is also a means of bearing witness to who we want to be. This is a decision we must make every day, no matter the odds. Even in races we can’t “win,” faith compels us to show up and bear witness that another way is possible.

This faith, I have learned, is the only thing that sustains struggles for truth and justice in this world.

When Pharaoh had the power and the army, Moses and God’s people had faith that the Lord could make a way out of no way. When the slaveholders had Congress and the Dred Scott decision backing them, the abolitionists had the conviction to say that every attempt to beat back their struggle only served to further embolden them. When the segregationists of Selma, Alabama, had the governor and the law on their side, the unarmed marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge knew they had the truth.

The question for them was never whether truth was going to win. It was always whether they would stand true to what was right while the forces of segregation clung to power.

As the 2020 campaign feels to many like it’s already drug on forever, even as it is just beginning in earnest, people of faith would do well to remember Muste’s wisdom.

Yes, we have a moral obligation to change a system that is crushing people. But the faith that sustains that struggle is rooted in a refusal to be conformed to a world that says the suffering of so many is just the way things have to be.

This piece was first published in Faith & Leadership where it is the first in a series of pieces from a variety of perspectives addressing the 2020 election.

“If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.” — Jeremiah 7:5-8

Recently, we were in El Paso at the invitation of the Border Network for Human Rights to highlight the violence that their community has been suffering. We heard stories of families separated, asylum seekers turned away and refugees detained like prisoners of war. We heard how their community has been militarized and how poor border communities have been especially targeted. We promised that we would do everything in our power to compel the nation to see this violence. Just a few days later, a terrorist opened fire in El Paso. And then another attack occurred in Dayton.

In reflecting on these outbreaks of violence, our hearts are broken. This moment demands a moral reckoning with who we are and who we want to become as a nation.

The truth is that, while every generation has worked to push us toward becoming a more perfect union, we have also tolerated lies that beget violence. America’s founding fathers spoke of liberty, while drafting documents that called Native Americans savages, accepted the enslavement of Africans, and ignored the voices of women. This hypocrisy created space for slaveholder religion to bless white supremacy, pseudo-science to justify eugenics, a sick sociology to pit people against one another, and predatory policies to scapegoat non-white immigrants and blame poverty on the poor.

Politicians who try to denounce the racism of an individual, but do not denounce racist policies refuse to deal with the depths of the problems we face. We cannot address the violence of white nationalism without stopping the policies of white nationalism and the lies that are told to justify them. In 1963, George Wallace began to spew racist rhetoric from the governor’s office in Alabama. By the end of that year, Medgar Evers was dead, four girls in a church were dead, and a president was dead because these words and these policies were a breeding ground for violence. It always has been that way. Whenever we’ve had these words and policies, they have also unleashed this kind of violence.

For this reason, we call on President Trump, members of Congress, and presidential candidates; our people on the ground in movements and communities of struggle; people who have embraced the lies of white nationalism; and our religious leaders and people of faith and conscience to revive the heart and soul of this country.

TAKE ACTION: Sign on to the Pastoral Letter 

Rabbi Arthur Waskow has been calling many of us to attend to the two covenants in public life. Since its inception, our nation has lived by these two covenants. One we made among ourselves and institutionalized in the Constitution and legal tradition that has aspired to greater justice than it has guaranteed in practice. The other covenant is far less formal and explicit. Every church, synagogue, mosque, and temple contributes to this public commitment to love and justice when they urge their communities to apply their deepest values to the content of government. We make our common life not only with each other, but also with some sense of sacred truth that is beyond us.

The two covenants connect when the Constitution speaks of “due process” and “equal protection under the law.” Our legal tradition speaks with a moral force when it prohibits the establishment of a single religion and protects the right of individuals to practice any religion. From the other side, the two covenants connect when any religious tradition applies its moral vision to the behavior of government. When the Constitution names “high crimes and misdemeanors” as grounds for impeachment, it is reaching toward the morality of the second covenant to hold the chief executive of our common life accountable to the values of our deepest moral and religious traditions.

Whether or not Congress holds President Trump accountable for his political corruption and policy violence, the faith community has a moral obligation to offer a prophetic indictment of the immorality we have all witnessed in plain sight.

“Woe unto you who legislate evil,” Isaiah says, “and rob the poor of their right.”

This administration’s immoral attacks on access to healthcare, anti-poverty programs, public housing, voting rights, and equal protection under the law must be challenged. And because so many of these attacks have been carried out under the guise of “religious liberty,” faith leaders have a special obligation to lift our voices in the public square.

“Faith leaders” is a broader category than “clergy.” Nuns are in Roman Catholic parlance not called “clergy,” but they are certainly faith leaders. Islam does not consider imams clergy per se, though they and others who lead prayer are certainly leaders of the faith community. Quakers often say either that they have no clergy or that all of them are clergy. Jewish women who are taught in the emerging tradition of Kohanot — the guild of “Hebrew priestesses” — do not call themselves clergy, but they are certainly faith leaders. And within many congregations of the faith-filled, there are some who clearly lead without a title. All faith leaders are welcome to speak out for the common good.

On June 12, wearing the sacred garb of our traditions, we will gather in Washington, D.C., beginning at 9:00am, at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, four blocks from the White House, at 1313 New York Avenue NW for Moral Witness Wednesday.

At the church, there will be explanations of our procession to the White House, of the legal plans for those who choose to risk arrest by persevering in nonviolent protest even if they are ordered to stop, and of the program. There will be prayers. And at 10:30am, we will recite a litany of challenge and affirmation as we go forth in faith-filled procession to the White House.

To engage in two forms of support and participation in this action, visit www.breachrepairers.org/moralwitnesswednesday. One action includes signing a petitionary “Letter of Spiritual Challenge and Affirmation,” and the other involves signing up to take part in the June 12th action. You can choose one or both of them. And if you choose to be present on June 12th, you can choose whether to risk arrest or not.

As a faith leader in the Red Letter Christian movement, I invite you to join us in spreading the word about this call to prayer and action. It’s not enough to lament the ways our faith is being misused in public life. We have an obligation to step forward together and demonstrate the better way that’s possible.

Forward together, not one step back!

Amicus Brief from Evangelicals 

As teachers and preachers in the evangelical movement, we write in support of Juliana’s claim that a fundamental right to life has been violated by the United States government, both in its failure to address the threat of climate change and in its insistence on continuing to invest in the oil economy long after we knew it was a threat to life on earth. While a right to life is fundamental to the Constitution and the legal tradition of the United States, we understand the fundamental rights of the Constitution to be rooted in the religious traditions that inform moral discourse in our common life. As women and men who have taken vows to both receive and pass on that tradition, we consider it a vocational responsibility to support these young people in their assertion that their right to life has been violated.

The Right to Life in Creation

While the creation account in Genesis is not a modern scientific description of human origins, we understand it to be a revelation about both the source and purpose of life. God creates from nothing — ex nihilo — in Genesis. Life as we know it is not the demonstration of one god’s power over another, but is a gift from God, given in generous love. The source of human life is the source of all creation in the Genesis story.

When God creates the human being in God’s image, we learn that all human life is precious because the Creator of the universe has stamped the divine image on humanity. But if God is our source, God also defines our purpose. As creatures made in God’s image, we are called to live into the generous love that is our source as we “till the earth and keep it.”

Murder is presented in Genesis as a violation of the right to life. “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made humanity” (Genesis 9:6). In the same text, God establishes a covenant with humanity, calling it an “everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” God promises to sustain the earth and entrusts humanity to this task in a covenant that precedes the legal code of ancient Israel. Acting to protect and sustain all life is a fundamental task of humanity in the creation story that Genesis tells.

The U.S. government’s failure to respond to climate science with a plan to address the adverse effects of carbon emissions is a violation of humanity’s fundamental responsibility to sustain life. Just as Noah’s generation was held collectively responsible for its sins against the God of creation, we are collectively responsible for the impact of society on the environment. To refuse to acknowledge this responsibility is to take life from future generations and from ourselves. It is not only tantamount to fratricide, but is also a suicidal assault on the environment that sustains our very life.

The Bible’s Concern for Creation

A growing body of biblical scholarship makes clear that God’s relationship with the land and creation is an enduring theme throughout scripture that has been overlooked and underappreciated by modern industrial and post-industrial society.[1] To recover a biblical concern for creation is to recognize that the prophetic witness of scripture testifies to the tendency of worldly governments to abuse power to benefit the wealthy and the few to the detriment of the poor, the immigrant, widows and children, and the land. These consistent victims of systemic abuse are also regularly imaged as the special concern of God.

The prophet Ezekiel uses the image of famine — a “natural disaster” in our modern imagination — to point out the connection between a land that cannot sustain its people and corrupt leadership. “You are a land that has not been cleansed or rained on,” the Lord says. “There is a conspiracy of her princes within her like a roaring lion tearing its prey… they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain.” (Ezekiel 22:24-27) The absence of the rain that is needed to sustain life is not natural in the biblical imagination. It is, instead, the result of unfaithful political leadership. As religious leaders in this land, we cannot fail to note the warning that immediately follow this indictment on political leaders who do not protect the environment and serve life. “Her prophets whitewash these deeds for them,” Ezekiel says. Religious leaders who defend corrupt politicians and do not cry out on behalf of the land and the oppressed are as guilty as wayward political leaders in Ezekiel’s assessment. If we do not speak out on behalf of creation in the midst of today’s climate crisis, we too will be judged.

Creation in Redemption

As evangelical Christians in America, we believe that Jesus shows us what God looks like here on earth and that His resurrection from the dead is the ultimate statement of God’s power to redeem creation. When we worship Jesus, we worship a God who took on human flesh and lived life here on earth. Athanasius, one of the early teachers of the church, said that “God became like us so that we could become like God.” Elsewhere, in a reflection on the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, he says that Jesus did not need the river’s water to make Him holy; instead, He made the water holy.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are not a spiritual pathway out of our earthly struggle to a heavenly place, but God’s affirmation of our earthly home and its possibilities. Jesus taught his disciples to pray for God’s reign to come “on earth as it is in heaven” as an affirmation that the creation as we know it has and will be redeemed.

To confess Jesus as Lord, then, is to confess that all creation is holy now. This is why St. Francis preached to the birds, and it is why evangelicals today are concerned about biodiversity and endangered species, land conservation, and sustainability. To destroy our common home is to assault the earth that we believe Jesus Christ has redeemed. If we live as if we have no future on this planet a thousand years from now, then we deny the hope of the gospel that the death and resurrection of Jesus were for the redemption of this world.

[1] See Ellen Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Walter Brueggemann, The Land (Fortress Press, 2002).