Faith and Freedom

As democracy erodes and the Gospel is distorted, faith leaders are calling Christians to choose courage.

Democratic freedoms are being eroded, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being distorted. The very people Jesus told us to stand with and defend—the poor, the vulnerable, the stranger—are being targeted and harmed. It is time for Christians to stand up, speak out, and act nationally and locally in congregations and communities across the country.

In the 1930s, there were German Christians who were more German than Christian. They supported the rise of the Third Reich and even saluted the Führer during their church services. Today in the United States, there are Christians who are more American than Christian, and more white than Christian. Chants of “USA” are more central to them than the proclamation that Jesus is Lord.

We are in a perilous moment— the crisis of democracy we face is a test of faith that we must confront. Returning to the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be the last line of defense against the tyranny that threatens us. The dangers surrounding our political life must be met with words and actions that embody the teachings of Jesus. Reclaiming Jesus has been at the center of every revival and renewal movement in church history. Now may well be such a time.

An authoritarian playbook is unfolding before us. But there is a gospel playbook rooted in truth, courage, repentance, solidarity, and sacrificial love. It is time for us Christians to put it into action.

When the young German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to study at Union Seminary in New York City, he found his spiritual home at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The worship, preaching, and music of that Black Church transformed Bonhoeffer. He carried that experience back to Germany, where he plunged into the resistance to the Nazi regime. Reggie Williams tells the story best in Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus, but the Black Church shaped the theological imagination and moral courage of the Bonhoeffer we came to know about.

Bonhoeffer’s contemporary, Karl Barth, was the principal author of the Barmen Declaration, which became the foundation for the Confessing Church’s resistance to Nazi control of German Christianity.

We are in desperate need of a confessing church in the United States.

More than 300 national faith leaders have signed “A Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy.” Today, on Ash Wednesday, that Call was launched with a prayer service outside the White House, where ashes were imposed on foreheads as a public sign of repentance. This evening, a nationwide Ash Wednesday Virtual Prayer Service invites Christians to reflect and commit themselves to faithful action.

Lent will be our season to deepen and share this Call. Many of us will fast in different ways, reflecting on this moment in time and faith, inviting clergy and lay leaders across the country to sign, speak, and act together.

This Call is both a judgment and an invitation.

It is judgement against the theft of democratic freedoms, and the co-optation of the Gospel to justify it. But it is also an invitation for all of us to come back to Jesus. It is an open door to make a statement of faith that is deeper than partisan politics. Regardless of how we have voted or what political loyalties we have held, we are invited to make a confession of faith that transcends ideology. Without condemning past political choices, this Call invites Christians to respond now.

Many Christians have already spoken and acted with courage and at real personal risk. We have seen them in Minneapolis, Springfield, and many beyond. This Call gives them something to stand within and alongside. Many clergy are anxious in politically divided congregations. This Call offers theological clarity and spiritual strength to stand up and speak out.

Many young people, like my students at Georgetown, are looking for faith that acts, that embodies what it proclaims. They want a church that walks the walk, as they would say. This Call could be that olive branch to the new generation that longs for integrity between belief and action—and may even help bring them back to faith communities who practice faithful resistance.

The initial signers of The Call include heads of denominations and faith-based organizations, regional church leaders, and the presidents of seminaries across the nation.

Winning and losing politically has become very important to many today, even within the church. We should not waste time trying to predict or control what will happen to our nation, or focus our energy on what could have been but never was.

In times like these, I am comforted and inspired by the words of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, who said, “The main thing is never to get discouraged at the slowness of people or results. People may not be articulate or active, but even so, we do not ever know the results or the effect on souls. That is not for us to know. We can only go ahead and work with happiness at what God sends us to do.”

We are at a focal point as a nation. Our task as Christians is to choose faithfulness. So we confess, we repent, we stand, and we act faithfully.

The results are in God’s hands.

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Author’s note:

The following are my remarks from today’s vigil outside the White House in Washington, D.C.

This is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian season of Lent.

On our foreheads we will place a cross–a symbol of repentance. The ashes will be imposed, and the world will see that we are devoted to being accountable for our faith in Jesus Christ–both personally and publicly. This sign on our heads shows to whom we belong and that we must act accordingly.

We are here today because of our own sins and our need for repentance. Lent is a time to deeply reflect on how we have failed to be obedient to Jesus Christ and how we have not been faithful to speak and to act in discipleship to Jesus. Therefore, we confess our sins today, ask humbly for your forgiveness, Lord, and commit to turn ourselves around, which is what repentance in the Bible means.

We are doing the laying on of ashes HERE because the sins of the White House need repentance. The President and his staff have sinned against God, violated the teachings of Christ, and against the vulnerable and the immigrants who are our neighbors. And they must now repent.

You are eroding the freedoms of democracy,

You are distorting, coopting, and compromising the Christian message in order to justify your sins. But your sins will find you out.

Now your most serious sin is to target, assault, commit violence, and even death against the very people Jesus commands us to protect. He explained to us that when we attack the poor and vulnerable, the hungry and thirsty, the sick and prisoner, and the stranger who is the immigrant among us, what we are literally attacking is HIM, “It is me,” says Jesus.

This White House is committing those sins every day, and the White House must stop, repent, and ask forgiveness from those they have lawlessly detained, deported, and even killed.

We are here today to call ourselves, to call all of us, to confession, compassion, humility, and repentance. And we address this call for repentance to the President of the United States, to repent of his sins against immigrants, the “strangers” whom Jesus told us to defend and love as our neighbors. We stand here to Love Our Neighbors today.

Our repentance today comes with the promise of resistance to cruelty and violence.

We will not remain silent,

We will speak, and we will act with courage and sacrificial love.

If there is no repentance for White House sins, we will respond with faithful resistance.

And may God have mercy on us all.

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