Friends and neighbors across New Hampshire: As members and clergy of the United Church of Christ in New Hampshire, we condemn last month’s insurrection in Washington as evil and a threat to our fragile democracy. It saddens us that this month’s impeachment was of little interest to nearly half the U.S. Senate. The time for accountability is now. Viability of the American project requires it.
This is a moment of choice and consequence, called a “kairos” moment in the Christian tradition. It is not enough to call for healing and unity if we do not bravely discern the evil among us and the damage it has done.
Last month’s insurrection was not an isolated event, but developed predictably from divisive political leadership, derisive presidential rhetoric, and decades of injustice in American communities of all kinds. To seek healing now is to name this injustice, mourn it publicly, and turn boldly to new priorities and practices. This task belongs to all of us.
Preaching at the Riverside Church in New York City, April 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “I am convinced that if we are to get on 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, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
What we witnessed on Jan. 6 – with rioters waving Confederate flags in the Capitol, others proudly wearing “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirts, and all of them raging on behalf of a bigoted billionaire in the White House – revealed the insidious and lasting power of King’s “giant triplets” that remain powerfully present in our national body politic.
When 9/11 stunned the world, we turned not to wisdom and justice, but to militarism and lies, warfare and mayhem. When birthers questioned Barack Obama’s right to serve, we settled again for white supremacy as a governing strategy. And through this, we’ve allowed the most wealthy among us – individuals and corporate interests – to direct our political institutions in building an economy that dispossess the poor, and privileges only their own privilege.
We must name the “giant triplets” every bit as bravely as Dr. King did. We must organize our many churches, synagogues, and mosques to expose violence and choose justice and mercy as first steps to meaningful healing and lasting unity. Therefore, as members and clergy of the United Church of Christ, we confess our country’s addiction to militarism and organized violence, and we confess the horrific disparity in resources we commit to warfare and resources we commit to human well-being every year. In confession and repentance, we seek justice in national decision-making. We will organize our churches to turn our nation from militarism to policies lifting up the human spirit.
“Christians have for too long tolerated racism and racists as a part of our collective story” (Revs. John Dorhauer and Traci Blackmon, UCC). In confession and repentance, we dedicate our energies to consequential acts of reparation within and beyond our churches, as we expose white supremacy, and heal our people and institutions of racism in all its forms. The time is now.
Dr. King was prophetic in linking militarism and racism with materialism. Powers and principalities have laid claim to our political and economic institutions, and they have made materialism a national religion. They have laid waste to working families, poor communities, peoples of color seeking solid footing and a fair way forward. In last month’s riot, we saw all of these awful forces raging in the streets of our nation’s capital, incited by a president happy to manipulate their rage. We watched in horror as insurrectionists barreled into the Capitol building with violence and destruction.
We implore you, peoples of faith, peoples of conscience, to open your eyes to the moment at hand, to the “kairos” moment unfolding in America. Let us come together in communities and congregations to live into Jesus’s vision and honor our covenant in faith. Jesus imagines a kin-dom in which all celebrate the grace of God, the abundance of the earth, and the horizons of the human spirit. Jesus imagines a kin-dom in which we turn the other cheek and resist meanness and retaliation. Jesus imagines a kin-dom in which we love one another, and heal one another, and feed one another.
One of Israel’s great prophets once declared: “The Spirit of the Lord … has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners” (Isaiah 61). The Spirit of the Lord is upon us now, to name injustice, to grieve what’s wrong in America, and to repair what’s broken. That’s our mandate – in New Hampshire and across the country.
(The Rev. David Grishaw-Jones of Durham writes on behalf of the Peace with Justice Advocates, New Hampshire Conference, United Church of Christ. The above column is co-signed by Janet Zeller of Concord, the Rev. John Gregory-David of Meriden, Janet Simmon of Laconia, the Rev. Gray Fitzgerald of Concord, Becky Field of Concord, Will Hopkins of Belmont, the Rev. Faye Buttrick of Concord, and the Rev. John Buttrick of Concord.)