By William J. Barber, II, Liz Theoharis, Iva Carruthers, and Rick Jacobs

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 300,000 more people have died in the US during the coronavirus pandemic than would in a typical year. As faith leaders who’ve said burial rites, sat virtual shiva, and prayed the Janazah with families who were not able to be with their loved ones when they died, we have been on the front lines of this surge in death. Before covid-19, we were already weary of the death toll, especially among poor and low-income Americans. But this pandemic has exposed how much of the death in our communities results from the decisions of political leaders. As our communities go to the polls in this year’s election, we are uniting to ring our bells for those who long to be heard and protect the vote.

We cannot be silent as the voting rights of poor, Black and brown people are suppressed and democratic norms are called into question. We know we are voting for every voice forever silenced by covid-19 and poverty, and we are voting for every one disenfranchised by discriminatory laws. We are voting for every one of the 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions and the 140 million people who are either living in poverty or one fire, storm, job loss, or healthcare crisis away from poverty.

These victims of policy violence have joined our spiritual ancestors – those who endured violence and intimidation at every turn in order to vote years ago: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Sister Antona, Rev. James Reeb, Jimmie Lee Jackson and many others, both named and unnamed.

READ: For These Next Seven Days: A Prayer for Those Filled With Dread

Despite these witnesses who died in the struggle for voting rights, we are still living in an impoverished democracy. In the midst of a global pandemic, efforts to increase capacity for voting by mail as well as safe in-person voting at early voting locations and polling sites on Election Day have been challenged in court and questioned daily on cable news. Domestic groups are spreading disinformation and attempting to undermine the integrity of this election. Even public officials in the highest offices in the land have refused to promise that they will accept the results of the election.

Poor and low wealth people have been disproportionately impacted by both covid-19 and voter suppression. We cannot allow anything or anybody to interfere, take, or abridge the right of those who have suffered most to vote in this election. Indeed, poor and low-income people hold the key to changing our entire political landscape and making poverty and racism history.

This past August, a groundbreaking report showed that poor and low-income people can play a critical role in creating a transformative new electorate. With just a small uptick in voting, eligible poor and low-income voters in 15 states exceed the margin of victory from the 2016 Presidential election and in 16 states from the 2018 midterms. When poor and low-income voters participate at the same level as higher income voters, they have the power to win health care, living wages, quality education, and true immigration and police reform for all. This is what poor and low-income voters can do in this election.

In his famous line which has echoed across generations, the English poet John Donne wrote that we should “never send to ask for whom the bell tolls / it tolls for Thee.” When he wrote those words, church bells in English villages were used to call the community together for funerals. This year, as America has faced unprecedented sickness and death, we have used bells, pots and pans to honor the frontline healthcare workers who risk their lives every day to care for the sick. They do not have to ask for whom the bells toll. They toll for everyone who has stepped up to do their part in the midst of the pandemics covid-19, poverty, and racism.

At noon on each day of the week prior to November 3rd—and each hour on the hour as Americans vote on Election Day—faith communities in all 50 states will ring bells from our houses of worship and on the sidewalks of our communities. These bells will toll for you, calling every American to march to the polls and protect voting rights. We invite you to join us and pray with us as we lift up this nation and this election. May the clear sound of our bells pierce through the noise of this season and remind us of the call for each and every American’s vote to be counted.

Bishop William J. Barber, II is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, alongside Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.

Your voice is needed at this most morally perilous time in our nation’s history.

Our nation is battling not one, but three pandemics: the COVID-19 virus, poverty, and systemic racism, including brutalization and trauma by police and policy.  Such a time as this calls for religious leaders with the moral clarity to cry out prophecy from the pain, and to insist that America face the fullness of our truth.

168 years ago, on the 5th of July Frederick Douglass issued such a word.

 “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream …For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.”

We are calling on you to join in a clap of thunder, a prophetic word, on July 5th.  We are calling forth our power to speak with one voice from the same texts.

Say it plain and in your tradition: America is not yet what she was proclaimed to be.  Say it plain that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” have become hypocrisy while black Americans are continuously brutalized.  While senators sleep soundly, refusing to uphold the Voting Rights Act and working to suppress the vote for seven years in ways we haven’t seen since Jim Crow.  Read the Poor People’s Moral Justice Jubilee Policy Platform.

America is not yet who she promised to be while the money runs out and the rent is due for 140 million poor and low-income folks.  Not yet, while the COVID-19 cases rise and essential workers are sacrificed to this system.

There must be a rising of prophets!

168 years later, we are calling on 168 faith leaders to speak out against these three pandemics on the weekend of July 3-5. Speak from your tradition.  Speak in your way.  Speak at a time in the day you appoint.  But add your name to those who will not be silent anymore.  Will you join us?

Sign the pledge to preach the truth on this July 4th weekend of the America yet to be, and that must be.

Below you will find the four sacred texts as options to preach from this weekend. On Sunday, we will also host a special livestream service as a late afternoon intergenerational service, embracing the voices of our retired elders.  We will share the details of that service with you to share with your faith communities.  If you are a community faith leader not preaching for a specific congregation this weekend, consider a livestream from your personal social media account.

The nation needs a prophetic voice that would dare tell the truth as tyrants reign and apathy infects our elected officials. We won’t be silent anymore.  Join us. 

In the abiding Spirit of Love and Justice,

Rev. Dr. William Barber, II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis (Co-Chairs, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival)

Dr. Iva Carruthers, PhD (General Secretary Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference)

Rev. Dr. Alvin O’Neal Jackson (National Executive Director Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March)

Rev. Dr. Robin Tanner & Dr. Adam Barnes (Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival Faith Partners Team)

Readings for Sunday July 5th:

Jeremiah 22:1-5 The Message

22 ^1-3 God’s orders: “Go to the royal palace and deliver this Message. Say, ‘Listen to what God says, O King of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne—you and your officials and all the people who go in and out of these palace gates. This is God’s Message: Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don’t take advantage of the homeless, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering! ^4-5 “‘If you obey these commands, then kings who follow in the line of David will continue to go in and out of these palace gates mounted on horses and riding in chariots—they and their officials and the citizens of Judah. But if you don’t obey these commands, then I swear—God’s Decree!—this palace will end up a heap of rubble.’”

Jeremiah 22: 1-5 NIV

22 This is what the Lord says: “Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim this message there: ² ‘Hear the word of the Lord to you, king of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne—you, your officials and your people who come through these gates. ³ This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor, the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴ For if you are careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people.⁵ But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.

Matthew 23:23-24 The Message (MSG)

^23-24 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

Matthew 23:23 New International Version (NIV)

²³ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Frederick Douglass, July 5^th 1852 addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“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 

On April 4, 1967, just one year before his assassination, and more than 48 years ago, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called for a time to break the silence about the injustices in society. At the historic Riverside Church, he preached “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” About this revolution of values, he continued:

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…and say “This is not just.”

I had the honor of participating in both the launch and the first service of The Revival: Time for a Moral Revolution of Values at The Riverside Church in New York on April 3 and at Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, North Carolina on April 4. I recited these words from the litany for The Revival to crowds of hundreds gathered to revive our spirits and commit ourselves to raising the moral issues of our day – poverty, inadequate education, the crisis of health care and the environment, attacks on immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, the erosion of our democracy and voting rights:

Martin Luther King said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal. The truth must be told.” And the truth is that more than 250, 000 people die from poverty and the lack of education each year in the United States, that thousands die each year because of the lack of healthcare, including the lack of Medicaid expansion, that half of the United States is poor or low-income, and that millions of children are homeless, lack adequate food and housing, and do not have quality education. There comes a time when silence is betrayal. The truth must be told.

In The Revival, we heard from people directly impacted by these moral issues. We sang songs of hope and revival. We heard prayers from Muslims, Jews and Christians who follow a God of justice. We took our place in line with the prophets who came before us who cried out for justice, kindness, love and mercy.

The testimonies reminded me of Matthew 23 and Jesus’ critique of the moral leaders of his day. He says that instead of standing for justice and inclusion, the opponents of the poor, the opponents of the Jesus movement, these hypocritical moral leaders are tying up heavy burdens, worshipping gold and power and wealth, and crossing land and sea to convert one person to the faith but excluding many others.

Indeed, in my experience, too often it is our religious leadership who bring a message of inferiority and blame to the poor and oppressed of our society. Poor people are called sinners, lazy, and to blame for their situation. The rich and powerful are considered blessed. Many extremists in our society today claim to be “religious” but get away with denying Medicaid expansion, criminalizing immigrants and the poor, causing low wages and poor living conditions in our communities.

But Jesus calls out the immorality of these religious leaders. He proclaims the need for a radical revolution of values. He reminds us of what God requires of us. Follow the God of the poor and oppressed not elites and authorities who blame the poor for their poverty, homelessness and low wages. Worship God not Mammon nor Caesar. Treat our neighbors with love and humility.

The Revival is a call for us. We need a moral revolution of values. The truth must be told.

Hallelujah, Thine the glory.

Hallelujah, Amen.

Hallelujah, Thine the glory.

Revive us again!

To learn more about The Revival and when it is coming to your state, see www.breachrepairers.org/revival.

Watch a testimony from The Revival service in Raleigh, NC.