As we issue this #PrayForTruth statement together, we commit to pray for our members of Congress and the impeachment inquiry while they are home in their districts this coming Sunday, October 13th. We encourage faith communities to invite their Congressional representative to join them for a National Day of Prayer, read the statement aloud, and pray for those who bear the responsibility of shining the light of truth in this moment.

As Christians in the United States of America, we join together as people of faith to express our conviction that an impeachment inquiry is necessary to reveal the truth, hold President Donald J. Trump and other public officials accountable, and bolster democracy in the United States. We welcome the light of truth, honesty, and transparency that this moment affords our country, whatever may be revealed. We call for an open inquiry that shines light on this administration’s dealings behind closed doors and petition people of faith and integrity to join us in calling forth this light. 

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” Jesus said (John 8:12). Jesus’ words and ministry highlight the connection between truth and the well-being of the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the imprisoned, and the earth. Likewise, we who follow Jesus must make visible that any President’s violation of his oath of office would harm the most vulnerable among us.

The current impeachment inquiry is focused specifically on whether President Trump solicited help from a foreign government in his 2020 re-election campaign, buried evidence of that solicitation, and then attacked the whistleblowers and Congressional representatives who brought evidence to light. The constitutional process that gives the U.S. Congress power to investigate and try a sitting President is needed in this moment, because none of us can know the full truth apart from this process. But we have already seen enough to know that the accusations are both serious and credible.

While President Trump claims there is an evangelical revival supporting him, we know there is also a revival of people of faith whose commitment to truth remains strong and vigilant. We are Christians who resolutely affirm Jesus’ teachings of justice, love, and equality — echoed in the basic values at the heart of our democracy. This is not a matter of partisanship, but of deepest principle. 

For the sake of our nation’s integrity and the most vulnerable in our society, we call on fellow Christians to support the current impeachment inquiry. Now is the time to shine the light of truth. Please join us in praying that the truth will be revealed and set us all free.

Dr. Efrain Agosto, New York Theological Seminary
Dr. Neomi De Anda, University of Dayton
Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft, Middle Collegiate Church
Dr. Brian Bantum, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. William Barber, II, Repairers of the Breach
Rev. Jennifer Barrows, Retired, Episcopal Diocese of Albany
Dr. Nancy E. Bedford, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Moses Biney, New York Theological Seminary
Rev. Traci D. Blackmon, United Church of Christ
Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church
Daryle E. Brown, Trinity United Church of Christ
Rev. Micah Bucey, Judson Memorial Church
Rev. Jennifer Butler, Faith in Public Life
Sister Simone Campbell (SSS), NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo, Eastern University
Rosemary P. Carbine, Whittier College
Dr. Amy Carr, Western Illinois University
Rev. Dr. J. Kameron Carter, University of Indiana
Rev. Dr. Noel Castellanos, Camino Alliance
Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Christians
Rev. Dan Clark, Faith in Public Life Ohio
Rev. Peggy Clarke, Community Church of New York
Rev. Sharon Codner-Walker, Stuyvesant Heights Christian Church
Dr. Stephen Cooper, Franklin & Marshall College
Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Corey, Public Theologian
Rev. Angie Cox, Broad Street United Methodist Church
Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie, Pacific University
Amy Dalton, Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice
Rev. Fred Davie, Union Theological Seminary
Dr. Teresa Delgado, Iona College
Rev. Kaji S. Dousa, Park Avenue Christian Church
Rev. Dr. Gary Dorrien, Union Theological Seminary
Rev. Gordon Duggins, Retired, Episcopal Diocese of New York
Rev. Dr. Stacey Edwards-Dunn, Trinity United Church of Christ
Rev. Nathan Empsall, Faithful America
Dr. Wendy Farley, San Francisco Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Nancy Fields, New York Theological Seminary
Rev Dr. Yvette A. Flunder, The Fellowship of Affirming Ministry
Rev. Susan Fortunato, Christ Episcopal Church
Rev. Dr. Mary Foulke, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Rev. Dr. Mary Fulkerson, Duke Divinity School
Rev. Dr. Oscar Garcia-Johnson, Fuller Theological Seminary
Rev. Joel A. Gibson, The Micah Institute
Rev. Dr. Jeff Golliher, St. John’s Episcopal Church
Rev. Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, The Resistance Prays
Rev. Dr. Gwendolyn Hadley, Hall Christ Temple United Baptist Church
Lisa Sharon Harper, FreedomRoad.us
Prof. Dr. Christine Helmer, Northwestern University
Rev. Dr. Peter Goodwin Heltzel, New York Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, Auburn Seminary
Rev. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Activist Theology Project
Rev. Susan E. Hill, Church of the Holy Apostles
Rev. Stephen C. Holton, St. Phillips Episcopal Church
Rev. Dr. Chaz Howard, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. David H. Jensen, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Dr. Russell Jeung, San Francisco State University
Bishop J. Alfred Johnson, United Methodist Church
Rev. Stephanie Kendell, Park Avenue Christian Church
Kathy Khang, Author
Rev. Dr. Earl Kooperkamp, Church of the Good Shepherd
Rev. Posey Krakowsky, Church of the Ascension
Rev. Melissa Lamkin, Trinity School
Rev. Dr. Insook Lee, New York Theological Seminary
Britney Winn Lee, Red Letter Christians
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Middle Collegiate Church
Rev. Dr. Pamela R. Lightsey, Meadville Lombard Theological School
Rev. John Liotti, Able Works
Rev. Dr. Wanda Lundy, New York Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. C. Vernon Mason, New York Theological Seminary
Rev. Elizabeth G. Maxwell, Church of the Ascension
Dr. Joy Ann McDougall, Emory University
Rev. Richard McKeon, The Episcopal Church of the Messiah
Brian McLaren, Author
Rev. Rochelle Michael, Trinity United Church of Christ
Rev. Brian Moll, Rescue Alliance
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, III, Trinity United Church of Christ
Rev. Weldon D. Nisly, Retired, Christian Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi & Kurdistan Team
Rev. Sam Owen, Haitian Congregation of the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church
Doug Pagitt, Vote Common Good
John Pavlovitz, Pastor and Author
Dr. James W. Perkinson, Ecumenical Theological Seminary
Rev. Benjamin Perry, Union Theological Seminary
Rev. Sue Phillips, Sacred Design Lab
Rev. Dr. Nancy Claire Pittman, Phillips Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, North Park Theological Seminary
Elaina Ramsey, Red Letter Christians
Rev. Dr. Rafael Reyes, III, New York Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Rosalie Richards, Stetson University
Rev. Dr. Joerg Rieger, Vanderbilt University
Rev. Dr. Raymond J. Rivera, Latino Pastoral Action Center and Sanctuary Church
Rev. Betsy Johns Roadman, Retired, Episcopal Church
Rev. Brandan J. Robertson, Missiongathering Christian Church
The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, IX Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Bishop Dr. Raymond H. Rufen-Blanchette, The Clergy Campaign for Social & Economic Justice
Dr. Michele Saracino, Manhattan College
Rev. Dr. Jill Schaeffer, New York Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, Judson Memorial Church
Rev. Frederick W. Schraplau, St. Paul’s Church
Rev. Bryan Sirchio, McFarland United Church of Christ
Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith, Crazy Faith Ministries
Rev. Dr. Stephany Rose Spaulding, University of Colorado
Margot Starbuck, Author
Rev. Dr. Marti Steussy, Christian Theological Seminary
Rev. Cynthia Stravers, Church of the Heavenly Rest
Rev. Margaret H. Sullivan, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, Sojourners
Rev. Jasmin Taylor, Trinity United Church of Christ
Dr. John J. Thatamanil, Union Theological Seminary
Rev. Liz Theoharis, Kairos Center, Union Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Linda E. Thomas, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
Rev. Dr. Al Tizon, North Park Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes, Vanderbilt Divinity School
Rev. Laura Sumner Truax, Senior Pastor LaSalle Street Church
Rev. Michael Vanacore, Fort Washington Collegiate Church
Rev. Kevin VanHook, The Riverside Church
Rev. Dr. Mark I. Wallace, Swarthmore College
Rev. Jim Wallis, Sojourners
Rev. Dr. LaKeesha Walrond, New York Theological Seminary
Michelle Ferrigno Warren, Christian Community Development Association
Dr. Sharon Welch, Meadville Lombard Theological School
Rev. Dr. Damaris Whittaker, Fort Washington Collegiate Church
Rev. Dr. D. Newell Williams, Brite Divinity School
Rev. Dr. Reggie L. Williams, McCormick Theological Seminary
Rev. Dr. Rodney E. Williams, Swope Parkway United Christian Church
Rev. Terry D. Williams, Orchard Hill United Church of Christ
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, School for Conversion

When Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was brutally murdered on April 4, 1968, James Cone was mad as hornets. Cone went down into the basement of his brother Cecil’s church — Union A.M.E. in Little Rock, Arkansas — and wrote Black Theology and Black Power (1969) in six weeks. Cone writes of this experience, “It seemed as if a transcendent voice were speaking to me through the scriptures and the medium of African-American history and culture, reminding me that God’s liberation of the poor is the primary theme of Jesus’ gospel.”

Liberation is the heart and soul of the gospel. White evangelicals have demonstrated a commitment to thinking carefully about Christ and culture; now is the time to have an honest conversation about race in American society that includes the Evangelical Church, and Cone’s life’s work and death offer us the opportunity to reflect more deeply and deliberately during difficult days.

Anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus inaugurated his ministry proclaiming “good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). From the perspective of the poor in ancient Palestine, Jesus’ message of justice, freedom, and hope was heard as “good news.” Connecting Jesus’ preaching to the poor with the poverty and oppression of Black people in America, Cone reimagined Christian theology in the context of an America that continued to struggle with racism as its original and ongoing sin. Drawing on the Exodus narrative where God liberated Israel from the Egyptians, Cone discerned God’s liberating activity in the Black Freedom movement as he spoke out boldly for every Black person in America who was trying to survive in a white supremacist regime.

Cone experienced racism firsthand, growing up in the segregated South down in Bearden, Arkansas, in the 1940s and 1950s, and witnessed how Black folks suffered as marginalized people in a white world. In order to testify to the liberating power of the gospel, Cone sought to interrogate the white supremacy that was preached and taught in white churches, colleges, and seminaries. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s announcement of a “world freedom revolution”, Cone wanted to usher in a theological revolution.

Like Jesus’ suffering as a marginalized Jew in a Roman world, Cone’s A Black Theology of Liberation (1970) highlighted the realities of Black suffering and struggle in the field of Christian theology and ministry. A minister and theologian in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Cone offered a courageous challenge to pastors and churches to confront America’s racist past in order to press on toward a more just and equitable future.

READ: Am I Not a Theologian, Too?

Among Cone’s students is Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, Senior Minister of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — a pulpit formerly held by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — Warnock argues in The Divided Mind of the Black Church: Theology, Piety and Public Witness, that the faith of the Black church has been shaped and characterized by two complementary yet competing sensibilities: “revivalist piety and radical protest.” Dr. King and the Black Christian leadership of the Civil Rights Movement were able to bring together these two streams in a fierce, faith-rooted movement for justice.

Many white evangelicals shared this history of revivalist piety, but they were often resistant to participating in radical protest, and approached the problem of racism through personal piety, focusing on personal compassion. However, being an ethical individual is not enough for a problem like systemic racism that includes personal prejudice and power that has been institutionalized in a white supremacist system. So while many white evangelical’s hearts may be in the right place, they have been tone deaf to the blue note of Black suffering played in Cone’s theology.

Cone’s challenge to white evangelicals to confront racism demands more than becoming anti-racist individuals; it challenges us to acknowledge and repent the ways in which we are participating in a system of white supremacy that benefits white people, while harming Black and brown people. The only way to change the white supremacist system is to understand the system and work collectively to dismantle it.

To that end, 50 evangelicals recently met at Wheaton College for a two-day symposium to discuss how evangelicalism could begin to confront its racist past and chart out a path toward a prophetic intercultural future. Chaired by Rev. Claude Alexander, senior pastor of the Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina; Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition; and Jenny Yang, a vice-president with World Relief; the meeting provided an important space  for evangelical leaders to have an honest conversation about public Christian witness, addressing racism, sexism, and immigration in the evangelical world. A rift emerged between the young leaders of color and older white leaders like Dr. Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, who decided not to return for the second day of the gathering.  Instead of walking out, Dr. Cone would exhort white evangelical leaders to stay at the table.

It’s vital that we as white evangelical leaders stay at this increasingly diverse evangelical faith table. Only through honest conversation, vulnerable prayer, and collective action can we heal racism and work for a better tomorrow. Now is the time for evangelical pastors and theologians to think, speak out, repent, and work together. U.S. evangelicalism has been complicit in a rigged system of white supremacy in America whose victims are Black, but also brown folks, First Nations, Asians, Jews, and Muslims. Ultimately white supremacy harms everybody.

As President Trump prepares to meet with more than 1,000 conservative evangelical leaders in June, a group of courageous evangelicals of color are meeting May 4-5 at The Voices Conference in Philadelphia to offer a prophetic alternative. Gatherings of forward-thinking, prophetic evangelicalism are happening on the periphery in places like Philadelphia, challenging the center in places like Wheaton, with evangelical leaders like Leroy Barber, Amena Brown, Micah Bournes, Mark Charles, Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, Kathy Khang, Mike McBride, Latasha Morrison, Soong-Chan Rah, Andrea Smith, and Gabe Veas who represent the new face of evangelicalism.

Theology is not primarily about interpreting the world, but about constructing a more just and equitable world through bearing prophetic witness to Christ and the kingdom. Forged in the fires of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, James Cone’s Black liberation theology offers a courageous critique of the whiteness of American evangelical theology, a prophetic Christian theology relevant to Black existence in a nation dominated by white supremacy. After Cone, evangelical Christians can and should be unapologetically Black and unapologetically Christian. The beating heart of Christian theology is Black liberation.

May Dr. James Cone’s Black liberationist vision be resurrected in a new generation of evangelicals committed to racial justice, prophetic integrity, and large-hearted love. James Cone’s heart for liberation love lives on in the Jesus-led movement for faith-rooted justice, radical hospitality, and revolutionary love. When white evangelicals stay at the table with Christians of color, a brighter day will dawn in the evangelical world.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom, and God’s righteousness!” proclaims Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:33). What is God’s “righteousness”?

In Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just, Rev. Dr. Tim Keller, Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, writes: “Biblical righteousness is inevitably ‘social,’ because it is about relationships. When most modern people see the word ‘righteousness’ in the Bible, they tend to think of it in terms of private morality, such as sexual chastity or diligence in prayer and Bible study. But in the Bible tzadeqah refers to day-to-day living in which a person conducts all relationships in family and society with fairness, generosity, and equity. It is not surprising then, to discover that tzadeqah and mishpat are brought together scores of times in the Bible.”

God’s righteousness and justice (tzadeqah and mishpat) are the most common word pairing throughout the Bible (e.g., Jer 22:3-5; Isa 28:17-18). Keller continues: “When these two words, tzadeqah and mishpat, are tied together, as they are over three dozen times, the English expression that best conveys the meaning is ‘social justice.’ It is an illuminating exercise to find texts where the words are paired and to then translate the text using the term ‘social justice.’ Here are just two: The Lord loves social justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love (Psalm 33:5). And this is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness and social justice on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD (Jeremiah 9:23-24).”

An insightful exegete, Keller is right — the Bible calls us to live lives committed to social justice. When read through the lens of the Torah and the Prophet’s call to social justice, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is a manifesto for the Moral Movement for faith-rooted justice and revolutionary love.

Since racism is America’s original and ongoing sin, an evangelical theology of social justice today must begin with the task of dismantling institutional racism. It is vital that evangelical Christians today confess the sin of racism and begin the process of public repentance, financial reparations, and deep solidarity, so we can build a better and more compassionate tomorrow.

“Liberty to the Captives!” was Jesus’ Nazareth manifesto as he inaugurated his prophetic ministry (Luke 4: 18). Throughout his ministry, Jesus continually identifies with those on the underside of the Roman Empire — the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, and the naked (Matt 25:40). Change is not always easy. It was the faith of a Canaanite woman who inspired him to exorcize his own ethnocentrism, as he opened up the covenant of redemption that God had made with the Jews to all humans, even Gentiles like me. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, white evangelicals need to identity with and be led by African Americans and the poor, joining them in the faith-rooted fight for social justice.

Since the election of President Donald J. Trump, we have witnessed an escalation in racialized violence and hate crimes. While racism is deeply rooted in Alabama, there is also a prophetic anti-racist prophetic tradition of faith-rooted organizing that has deep roots and spiritual power. Doug Jones’ victory last night did not just happen, but was a product of a long tradition of faith-rooted organizing from Alabama that includes the likes of legendary organizers like Rosa Parks, Rev. Dr. Eleanor Moody Shepherd, Carolyn McKinstry, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Dr. Fred Shuttlesworth, and Congressman John Lewis. These prophets of deep faith and moral courage show us what prophetic resistance looks like in lives committed to faith-rooted justice and revolutionary love.

While white evangelicals voted to support Roy Moore’s “Alabama values,” Black Baptists, AME, and Disciples of Christ came out in strength. It was the Black vote that was the decisive factor in Doug Jones’ political victory. While Roy Moore calls for a recount, we need a revolution of love.

On November 20th at the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Boston, I joined over 300 Christian theologians who signed the Boston Declaration in renouncing the demons of racism, sexism, and Islamophobia. As an anti-racist, white, Red Letter Christian from Mississippi, I call on my fellow white evangelicals to join me in the anti-racist, pro-reconciliation struggle for a more just and equitable future. We know that Alabama and America at its best is a diverse community committed to “freedom and justice for all.”

It’s time for revolution! As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said in his “A Time to Break Silence” address at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967:

I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

King calls for a “radical revolution of values” as a pathway to a more humane, equitable and sustainable future.

In contrast to the violence of racial hate, Dr. King calls us to build the Beloved Community through nonviolent love.  King wrote, “The way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But the way of nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.” The path of nonviolence marked King’s prophetic Baptist theology and his faith-rooted organizing practice of nonviolent love which is the only path we can truly follow to realize Beloved Community.

Red Letter Christians, we cannot build Beloved Community on our own. As Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove says, “We must shift the moral narrative in this nation from abortion & sexuality — issues used to manipulate people of faith — to the Bible’s overwhelming concern for love, justice and the poor.” Let’s join Brother Jonathan, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharris, and Rev. William Barber II as we turn the tide in American politics through becoming leaders in the new Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

Now is the time to turn the tide and break the yoke of racial oppression and build the Beloved Community that Dr. King, Jr., spoke about. Let’s turn the tide for love and justice! Let’s turn the tide for a prophetic intercultural future. Let’s turn the tide for a better and more compassionate tomorrow! As they say in Alabama, “Roll tide, roll!”

I was born on the island of Okinawa, Japan, on the East China Sea, when my dad was serving as a captain in the US army. In our postcolonial hybrid world, I guess you could say, I’m Japanese-American.

As I paused to remember all the saints yesterday, my spirit was drawn especially to the martyrs of Japan. Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel Silence introduced the Kakure Kirishitan–“hidden Christians”–in Japan who were driven underground after the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion in the 17th century. The narrator, a Jesuit missionary, describes the brutal martyrdom of two Japanese Christians, Mokichi and Ichizo. As they were being burned at the stake Mokichi sang:

We’re on our way, we’re on our way,

We’re on our way to the temple of Paradise,

To the temple of Paradise. . . .

To the great Temple. . . .

Writes Endo: “I have heard from the people of Tomogi that many Christians, when dragged off to the place of execution, sang this hymn—a melody filled with dark sadness. Life in this world is too painful for these Japanese peasants. Only by relying on ‘the temple of Paradise’ have they been able to go on living. Such is the sadness which fills this song.

“What do I want to say? I myself do not quite understand. Only that today, when for the glory of God Mokichi and Ichizo moaned, suffered and died, I cannot bear the monotonous sounds of the dark sea gnawing at the shore. Behind the depressing silence of the sea, the silence of God. . . . the feeling that while men raise their voices so in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent, ” says the missionary who was sent later to evaluate the Jesuit mission there.

The martyrs Mokichi and Ichizo were burned at the stake and have gone on to heaven, but a feeling of profound grief remains in the hearts of those left behind. The melancholy of the martyrs is compared to “the dark sea gnawing at the shore.” As the silence of the sea, God, too, is silent.

The silence of God in light of human suffering remains an open question for Christians today. Where is God amid the suffering and oppressed who are crying out for help?

Japanese American artist Mako Fujimura says that American culture does not allow time for us to grieve the loss of tragedies and traumas in our own lives, as well as in our collective life. Since unprocessed mourning can metastasize into melancholia, Fujimura encourages us to care for each other’s souls through being attentive to the broken beauty unveiled in the arts. Music, poetry and art can help heal our sin-sick souls, if we are attentive to its comforting spirit and deeper truth. In his book Culture Care, Fujimura writes, “Culture is not a territory to win, but a garden to tend to, an ecosystem to steward.”

As a diligent farmer tends to the soil in the field to insure a healthy havest, we are called to tend the cultural soil that nourishes the creative Spirit and human flourishing. When we care for the artists, actors, musicians, dancers and creative catalysts as pollinators of the good, true and beautiful, we ensure the possibility of healing and hope during our difficult days. As a shepherd guides his flock to the “springs of the water of life, ” so too does God bring water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, and “wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:16-17; 21:4).

As we prepare to vote, let’s remember the martyrs who died in the Civil Rights movement so we could have the right to vote. Having grown up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, I also remember the three civil rights workers who were killed in Neshoba County, Mississippi during the summer of 1964: James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner. We are grateful for their sacrifice through lives of heroic courage in struggle for justice. In moments of solitude and silence, let us commit ourselves to continue the struggle for justice, for culture care and expectantly pray for a baptism by a sea of grace, restoring shalom to the community of creation, so there is no more destruction, no more tears.

“When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country. Believe me. Believe me, ” said Donald Trump last night as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland.

In a world full of fear of mass shootings and terrorist attacks, Trump argued that a politics of “law and order” is what America needs for public safety and a prosperous economy. Seeking to assuage the anxiety of rich white men and social conservatives, Trump’s speech echoed Richard Nixon’s invocation of “law and order” in his Address accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1968.

Five years earlier in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail, ” answering eight white pastors’ “anxiety over our willingness to break laws.” In his now famous epistle, King made a clear-cut a distinction between just and unjust laws. “An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law, ” King wrote. “To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.” 

With his back up against the wall of a Birmingham prison cell, King translates the theology of Thomas Aquinas to appeal to Catholics, evangelicals, multi-faith leaders and secular activists. As Trump prepares to deport 11 million immigrants and ban all Muslims from entering the United States, we must ask how this uplifts human personality?

King goes on to write “I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” 

Through non-violent direct action protest, Dr. King sought to “arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice” to African Americans and invited white moderates to join the civil rights struggle. Dr. King believed that the conscience, the innate sense of right and wrong belonging to all humans, can compel the moral conversion of white moderate Christians. We need this faith now more than ever.

Just as in the sixties, the South will play a critical role in the Presidential election this year. As a graduate of New York Military Academy in 1964,  Trump needs North Carolina to win the Presidency in 2016. He is doubling down on Nixon’s Southern Strategy through a message of militarized masculinity that appeals to disaffected white men; however, America and the South have changed. Our country is increasingly diverse in race and religion. Given the anxiety and instability in our current moment, Dr. King asks the critical question: Are we as Americans going to seek a politics of law and order or a politics of justice and love?

Here at the beginning of Lent, as we begin our forty-day journey toward Easter, I’ve been thinking about what kind of fast the good Lord calls us to. What are we supposed to do during the next six weeks as we wait for Easter?

Isaiah 58 says:

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
 and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, 
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40-day period that precedes Easter in the Christian calendar. It is a time for prayerful reflection, which historically has included fasting as an act of contrition, opening our bodies and souls to the fragility of the human experience, especially of the hungry and the hurting, the sick and the suffering.

This Ash Wednesday, I returned to my alma mater Wheaton College to join students who launched a Fast of Embodied Solidarity. I’m heart-broke and mad as hornets that Wheaton College has lost Prof. Larycia Hawkins, the first tenured African American woman in 156 years. What was Prof. Hawkins’ crime? In mid-December she put on a hijab, showing solidarity with Muslim brothers and sisters, as they’ve been experiencing discrimination in our country, quoting Pope Francis on her Facebook page, saying “Muslims and Christians worship the same God.” This statement enraged Franklin Graham, who publically called for her dismissal.

President Philip Graham Ryken had a decision to make: would he follow Franklin’s theology of fear or the loving vision of Rev. Billy Graham (Wheaton Class of 1943), 97 years old and still standing? President Ryken choose to follow Franklin and forced out Prof. Hawkins, igniting the fires of student protest on campus.

Wheaton College students are leading a nationwide, 40-day fast to call on the Wheaton community and all of the nation’s evangelical Christian institutions to confess and repent of racism, sexism and Islamophobia, recognizing that all humans have dignity and are created equal in the eyes of God.

This past Ash Wednesday, I joined Wheaton students in an act of public lament. We put on sackcloth and received ashes on our forehead in front of Edman Chapel at Wheaton College. Wheaton students say their Lenten fast is inspired by the moral courage of departing Prof. Larycia Hawkins, whose call for embodied solidarity as an expression of Christ’s command to love our neighbors during Advent late last year cost her tenured teaching position and livelihood. Inspired by Prof. Hawkins’ heroic love, students in the HNGR (Human Needs and Global Resources) program began fasting on February 4^th, soon joined by other Wheaton students, alumni, and allies—a fast that is now spreading to other colleges, seminaries and churches.

The Fast of Embodied Solidarity entails praying, fasting and serving alongside the poor to build a better world together. It is a response to Isaiah’s question: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, 
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”

We are called to break the chains of injustice. Our ritual fasting and prayer has to be connected to the work of justice. Isaiah teaches us that embodying our moral values is more important than empty rhetoric or ritual. Today’s Wheaton College student activists stand on the shoulders of a long line of student leaders, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organized by Ella Baker at Shaw University in April 1960. These young college students went to states throughout the South to educate, inspire and register voters, igniting the fires of the Southern Freedom movement.

SNCC leader Julian Bond said:
 
A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.
 
As we seek to break the chains of oppression, we must remember that they are structural and psychological. This past Saturday, I joined Brother Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Rev. Dr. William Barber II for the 10^th anniversary of the Moral March in Raleigh, North Carolina. The fusion politics of North Carolina’s Moral Movement helps me to see how the fast of Wheaton students, the marches of Black Lives Matter activists, the protests of the Fight for 15 and other public efforts to loose the chains of injustice can come together to fulfill Isaiah’s vision by the power of the Spirit in America today. In his speech at the Moral March Rev. Barber quoted the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 10:1-3
 
Woe to those legislators who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

We let the powers in Raleigh know that we the people want change. We want a Living Wage. We want an affordable house. We want health care. We want a good education. We want to be free to return home to a warm hearth where we can love and be loved.

In Isaiah 58:12 it says:

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of the Breach, 
 Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Although some exiles returned to Zion after the Persians defeated the Babylonians, the land remained in ruins. Isaiah said it was time for reconstruction. And the same is true today. We need a Third Reconstruction in America. It’s now time to rebuild the cities destroyed by racism and fear. Our police system is broken—that’s a breach in the wall. Our education system is broken—that’s a breach in the wall. Gentrification is pushing folks out of their homes—that’s a breach in the wall.

We need to be repairers of the breach, filling in potholes in the streets, moving into the abandoned places of empire and building friendships with Muslims, while working for peace. The prophet tells us that this is not only our duty to others. It’s also our only hope for ourselves.

Is this not the fast I have chosen… to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer shelter—when you see the naked to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will be complete.

I’m a broken hearted man who wants to be healed this Lent. I struggle with racism, sexism, and Islamophobia myself, and I know the wounds it has inflicted on me. But Isaiah’s message is good news to a man like myself. When we take up the work of justice—when we meet Jesus in the sick, the hungry, the naked and the imprisoned—we live into the resurrection that our Lenten fast points toward. I pray you will join us in this fast of embodied solidarity, putting love into action in hope of resurrection life.
 

King is remembered as a civil rights leader, but he died fighting for a living wage for sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. On March 18, 1968, just weeks before he was killed, King proclaimed in a speech to the striking workers, “You are reminding, not only Memphis, but … the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.”

What would King say about our current economic crisis, and the need for a moral, humanitarian response? In 1968 when the average wage in America was $3.02 an hour, sanitation workers earned just half that at $1.65 an hour. Forty-three years later, with the average wage at $18.63 an hour, a quarter of retail workers are earning starvation wages of $8 an hour or less and almost half are earning under $10 an hour. The fact that low wage workers continue to lose ground is igniting the fires of moral outrage in the hearts and souls of a growing group of Americans who are joining the movement for a living wage.

New Yorkers face an economic crisis. Many have lost jobs, more are underemployed, and even more are working for wages that they can’t live on. Working all day without earning enough to pay the bills breaks the spirit and weakens our communities, yet the City continues to support and do business with developers who do just that.

We need a compensation system that treats all with dignity and respect. Sanitation workers in Memphis held up placards that read, “I am a Man, ” affirming a deep personal dignity that’s not disposable. King’s challenge was prescient: “One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician. All labor has worth.” Our common humanity trumps our job status and fuels our fight for economic justice.

Los Angeles has a policy requiring all city development projects to pay a living wage. The Queens Center Mall, one of the most profitable in America, is receiving more than $100 million in taxpayer subsidies yet the majority of workers are earning at or near the minimum wage. It’s time for New York to lead the nation through establishing a living wage.

New York City is a rich city. We can lead the way to King’s dream. Religious and community leaders call on Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council to pass a living wage and benefits for all city-subsidized projects.

And not just in New York. In cities across the country it is time that religious and community leaders come together to live out the body of Christ for the well being of all persons. In honor of the 43rd Anniversary of the tragic death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. it is time we make his dream a reality.

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Peter Goodwin Heltzel teaches theology and directs the Micah Institute at New York Theological Seminary. An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), he is the author of Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race and American Politics (Yale University Press, 2009).