Activism

Dean Dettloff 1-18-2024

Cuban women carry a cross through the streets of a neighborhood in Havana at the a re-enactment of the Via Crucis during Good Friday celebrations, April 9, 2004. Credit: Reuters/Claudia Daut CD.

On my first trip to Cuba in 2022, I met Jorge González Nuñez, president of the Movimiento Estudiantil Cristiano de Cuba (MEC). I asked how he would describe the situation the Cuban people were living in, impacted by the U.S.’ decades-old trade embargo and other policies introduced by the administrations of former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, from a theological perspective. His answer stuck with me.

“The Cuban people are going through a crucifixion,” he said without hesitation. “It is hard to have hope.”

He paused and then added, “But there is resurrection.”

The Editors 1-10-2024
The image shows the cover art for the podcast "Weight For It" which features a bald Black man with a beard and glasses smiling and laughing in a teal shirt.

Radiotopia

Bodies of Thought

In the podcast Weight For It, host Ronald Young Jr. explores “the nuanced thoughts of fat folks, and of all folks who think about their weight all the time.” These vulnerable, reflective episodes carefully address how fatness intersects with topics such as gender and health care. Radiotopia

Josiah R. Daniels 12-18-2023

Olga M. Segura. Photo credit: Enoch. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas/Sojourners.

“Something I often heard was that ‘there’s not enough Black Catholics.’ [That] the numbers of Black Catholics are not big enough to justify doing a survey into this community. But that was in complete contradiction with what I was seeing when I was at these rallies and with people who were engaging with the Black Lives Matter movement.”

Matt Bernico 3-06-2023

A person holds a rainbow flag during the 2022 NYC Pride parade in Manhattan, New York City, N.Y., June 26, 2022. Image credit: Reuters/Jeenah Moon.

The current discourse around right-wing politics and religion has been focused on the phrase “Christian nationalism.” Christian nationalism is a catchall for a variety of beliefs that generally claim the U.S. is founded upon Christian ideas and that the country’s current laws ought to reflect those beliefs. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R.-Ga.) is perhaps one of the most well known politicians in the U.S. who identifies as a Christian nationalist, but, according to a survey done by Pew Research, “Eight-in-ten White evangelical Protestants (81 percent) say the country’s founders intended it to be a Christian nation.” Christian nationalism, as a term, is fine but imprecise. What we’re seeing from lawmakers, like those in Missouri but also in other states, too, is more properly defined as “Christofascism.”

Rebecca Randall 8-08-2022

Photo Illustration by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners. Original images by Michael Maasen and Aaron Burden via Unsplash.

The June release of a Climate Vigil The Porter’s Gate Worship Project aims to nudge Christians toward climate action, but it isn’t alone among contenders to inspire the climate movement. For over 20 years, Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, a Presbyterian minister from New York, has written hymns for the times, including one for the 2021 UN climate talks held in Scotland and several to recognize increasing natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods. Fossil Free PCUSA, a campaign within the Presbyterian Church (USA) has used hymns in protests, including songs by Christian artist Matthew Black.

Jim Rice 1-28-2022
Illustration of Tiara Cooper with her quote, "My goal is to set the captives free."

Activist and community organizer Tiara Cooper's faith informs her work for those impacted by mass incarceration. / Illustration by Gabi Hawkins

IN THIS MONTH'S cover feature, Lydia Wylie-Kellermann wrestles with one of the central dilemmas of parenting: the tension between protecting our children and empowering them for action. That tension is made more pointed, and the stakes elevated, by the crises we face—including, perhaps most urgently, climate change. Though I imagine that balance has been one of the more challenging aspects of raising children since the invention of parenthood.

Image via  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

If we want to enact justice in any situation, we must listen to the voices of those directly impacted by the injustice. Those of us who served time on Rikers Island know firsthand why it has to close.  Any movement for justice that is not led by directly impacted people is charity, at best, but it is not biblical justice. Biblical justice empowers, while charity can disempower if it is not coupled with justice.

Kaitlin Curtice 10-09-2019

Photo by Loïc Fürhoff on Unsplash

Our greatest prophets took the time to ask that question often, and we can follow in their footsteps.

Kaitlin Curtice 9-04-2019

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

Contemplatives are people who seek the whole, and therefore, live in liminal spaces. So, what then does it look like for us to come up against systems that oppress? We stand against those systems, not because we are looking for a good versus evil duality, but because we recognize that oppressive systems do not see the whole, they themselves are working in dangerous dualities that dehumanize.

Wendy Besel Hahn 3-25-2019

CAROLYN FORCHÉ’S story begins more than 40 years ago, when the then-27-year-old poet opens her apartment door in California to a stranger from El Salvador. Leonel Gómez Vides—“Leonel,” as she refers to him throughout her book—spends several days outlining the situation in his country and making his case for Forché to come witness the roots of a revolution.

That Forché accepts such a calling, from January 1978 through March 1980 and for more than 40 years beyond, attests not only to her grit but also to her belief in the sanctity of the human spirit and the power of truth.

An awakening usually connotes a positive state of consciousness, yet Forché’s experience calls her to a grim, nightmarish landscape. Once her plane touches down in Ilopango, El Salvador, she ventures into a world in which nearly one in 10 children dies before the age of 5 and 80 percent of the population has no running water, electricity, or sanitation. To read Forché’s rich prose is to travel alongside her through the jungle, where she learns to squat over open pits to relieve herself, and follow her into palatial, private quarters, where she washes away the filth of the road before meeting with the military and civic leaders who want her dead. Beyond the poverty, the country devolves into a hell wherein mutilated bodies appear in the streets and political prisoners are kept in small cages, like animals.

Amy Fallas 2-07-2019

Martin Luther King Jr. at a press conference for the 18th Ecumenical Student Conference in Ohio. Bola Ige of Nigeria is on the right. Dec. 27, 1959. Photo courtesy of Ohio University Digital Collections, Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.

On Dec. 30, 1959, over 3,000 Christian students gathered in Athens, Ohio, at the 18th Ecumenical Student Conference. Participating youth leaders and activists developed methods of engaging with social and political transformations at the turn of the 1960s. One of the key speakers was a 30-year-old Baptist preacher who emphasized a religious as well as civic prerogative for students, claiming: “whenever a crisis emerges in history, the church has a role to play.” While the specific crisis Martin Luther King Jr. referred to was the fight for civil rights in the segregated American South, he urged Christian students to challenge injustice undergirding all systemic discrimination, oppression, and racism at home and abroad.

Harmeet Kamboj 2-06-2019

While the zeal and strategy of the Religious Right has been well-documented since the movement’s inception in the late 20th century, journalists have lately turned their attention to its alleged left-leaning counterpart. Stories, bearing equal parts documentation and speculation, of an emerging “Religious Left” have decorated the pages of major outlets such as the The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Reuters since 2016. But the framing of these stories distorts as much as it uncovers.

J. Dana Trent 12-12-2018

Andraz Lazic / Unsplash

Practicing silence can be counter-intuitive among progressive Jesus-followers who want to usurp the Trump-supporting, fear-mongering, Fox News version of Christianity. We’re emboldened to speak up and out, responding to next oppressive policy, the next breaking story, the next call to use our privilege to work on behalf of those who have little or none. But we risk something in this cycle: the development of a savior complex that loses touch with God’s direction of our call because we are too busy working to hear it.

Mallory McDuff 10-23-2018

Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash

Juliana was in high school when she first joined Our Children’s Trust to sue the Governor of Oregon for a stable climate. During my environmental education classes, I’ve discussed the litigation to illustrate the importance of a long-term view even for an urgent planetary crisis. When my undergraduates prepare conservation workshops for local schools, they know that Juliana once sat in their places. She hopes to advocate for them in the U.S. District Courthouse in Eugene, Ore. in what may be the lawsuit of their lifetimes. And regardless of this Supreme Court’s decision, youth will gather on the courthouse steps to call for their right to a stable climate.

Olga M. Segura 9-24-2018

Tarana Burke attends 2018 Time 100 Gala 

Despite the lack of coverage her faith has gotten, the influence of Christianity on her advocacy has remained constant. It is often difficult for people to associate Christianity with activism because it has become so weaponized, she says. “Christianity has been co-opted by people who have a political agenda, and have a very particular narrative that is steeped in racism, and classism, and sexism, and all of these other forms of oppression,” she tells me, “I’m the kind of Christian that recognizes who Jesus was — and Jesus was the first activist that I knew, and the first organizer that I knew, and the first example of how to be in service to people.”

Kings Bay Plowshares Facebook Group 

A group of about 20 peacemakers are embarking on an 11-day, 110-mile walk from Savannah, Ga., to Kings Bay, Ga. Named, “Disarm Trident: Savannah to Kings Bay Peace Walk,” the action is a call to abolish nuclear weapons globally and is supporting the seven Catholic activists arrested back in April on the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base back in April.

“We will walk in nonviolence and prayer with the hope of bending the moral arc of the world towards justice and peace,” Kathy Kelly, one of the organizers of the walk, said in a news release.

Vaneesa Cook 9-05-2018

“They shall not die in vain,” then, is very different from the concept embedded in “our thoughts and prayers are with them.” The former resounds as a call to action, while the latter connotes resigned quietism. Acquiescence, of course, is not the message that Bush, King, or Wilson intended when they used the phrase. They meant to inspire their listeners to make a change, to reinvigorate their commitment to a cause. They were exhorting people to ensure that the lives of the victims would not be lost in vain. In this version, redemption has not yet occurred. It requires further action on our part. 

the Web Editors 8-31-2018

2. The Online Gig Economy’s ‘Race to the Bottom’

“ … while freelance websites may have raised wages and broadened the number of potential employers for some people, they’ve forced every new worker who signs up into entering a global marketplace with endless competition, low wages, and little stability.”

3. How Some Women of Color Were Left Out of the Minimum Wage Hike

“I see my job as the work of God, but God is angry because he sees that my job is making me sick needlessly and is mistreating me. We have been treated like slaves.”

John Noble 8-30-2018

Credit: Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee

From Florida to California, imprisoned activists are organizing work stoppages, boycotting prison commissaries, and going on hunger strikes to draw attention to injustice in the U.S. prison system. Faith groups such as Christians for Socialism and The Friendly Fire Collective are supporting these prisoners as they hold a 19-day strike protesting what they call “prison slavery.” They see fighting for justice alongside prisoners as an important expression of their faith.

Anna Sutterer 7-12-2018

Image via Anna Sutterer 

And then jazz enters the scene, a music that grapples with chaos and comes out with soul. In the tension of clashing notes and melodies, fingers flying across valves and keys, the band finds a groove that communicates the experience of the civil rights movement