insurrection

Four men in law enforcement uniforms sit at a table. Behind them, a screen shows protesters on Jan. 6.

U.S. Capitol Police officer Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, DC Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone, DC Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, and US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn watch a video of the Jan. 6 attack during a July 27, 2021 hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS

When the hearings air at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on major broadcast networks and many cable news channels, I will be watching. And I hope you watch too, even if you don’t consider yourself a political wonk. These hearings will be crucial for the future of our nation and our democracy; it’s imperative that Christians tune in and encourage others to do the same.

Gregg Brekke 1-07-2022

On Jan. 6, 2022, hundreds participated in the Candleight Vigil for Democracy event on the first anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Photo: Gregg Brekke / Sojourners.

A year after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the District of Columbia remained largely silent. President Joe Biden gave a speech condemning the attack, Democratic members of Congress led remembrances, and different groups held vigils near the Capitol; a small group held a vigil in protest to the incarceration of those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack.

Madison Muller 1-05-2022

A person holding a wooden cross adorned with the phrase “Jesus Saves” marches down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the U.S. Capitol building alongside supporters of former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021. Madison Muller/Sojourners.

Last January, over two dozen community members assembled near the large Martin Luther statue outside Luther Place Memorial Church in downtown Washington, D.C., for a morning of orchestrated silent prayer. Staggered six-feet apart in the sharp winter air, they were acutely aware that the Capitol was already abuzz with protesters waving Trump flags, holding signs invoking Jesus Christ, and outfitted in insignia from dangerous far-right organizations.

This year, to mark the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, the church plans to hold a prayer service in reflection of the insurrection that took place less than two miles from their congregation at the U.S. Capitol building.

the Web Editors 12-29-2021

People react after the verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, found guilty of the death of George Floyd, at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, Minn. on April 20, 2021. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A collection of photos that defined 2021.

Lisa Sharon Harper 12-29-2021
A collage of images of the Jan. 6 attack, the Ku Klux Klan, and school segregationists.

Illustration by Máximo Tuja

This article is adapted from Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World—And How to Repair It All (Brazos Press, a division of Baker's Publishing Group, Feb. 2022, used by permission).

ONE MONTH AFTER thousands of white nationalist men and women stormed the U.S. Capitol while attempting a coup d’état under Trump flags—resulting in the deaths of five people and assaults on 140 police officers—former President Trump’s second impeachment trial began. In the opening arguments, House impeachment managers rolled the tape, illuminating the truth of the horrors of Jan. 6, 2021.

The evidence presented for impeaching Trump was overwhelming, though many leading GOP members turned their eyes, busied themselves, and refused to reckon with reality. House Democrats voted unanimously for impeachment, and 10 Republicans joined them, making it the most bipartisan vote of its kind in U.S. history. While 57 senators found Trump guilty of “incitement of insurrection,” Trump was acquitted—even though the majority of senators found him guilty of leading a coup against the United States.

That vote revealed a fundamental malformation in our national governance. It is not new. It has been with us from the beginning—from the days when my ninth-great-grandmother, Fortune, was sentenced to indentured service, even though the Maryland race law that she was born under had been successfully challenged. The law changed after she was born, yet a judge—an arbiter of what is supposed to be true and just in our nation—bent the truth of the law to sentence her to generations of powerlessness, exploitation, and rape that she (and we) should not have had to endure.

Jim Rice 12-28-2021
Illustration of Matthias Roberts with the quote "Being cut off from intimate relationship affects every other relationship in our lives."

Matthias Roberts, psychotherapist, author of Beyond Shame, and host of Queerology / Illustration by Raz Latif

THE REVISIONIST VERSIONS of Jan. 6—some would call it gaslighting—began soon after the attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol a year ago. One Republican member of Congress likened it to “a normal tourist visit.” Others called the rioters “peaceful patriots,” and still others claimed that, no, they weren’t Trump supporters at all. These apologists for sedition seemed to want people to forget that, um, it’s all on video. It quickly became painfully evident that the Jan. 6 insurrection, like the big lie it was based on, was not only an attack on constitutional processes, but on truth itself.

Lexi McMenamin 7-27-2021

Aquilino Gonell, sergeant of the U.S. Capitol Police, Michael Fanone, officer for the Metropolitan Police Department, and Harry Dunn, private first class of the U.S. Capitol Police, listen while Daniel Hodges, officer for the Metropolitan Police Department, testifies during a hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2021. Brendan Smialowski/Pool via REUTERS.

In an emotional congressional hearing Tuesday morning, witnesses of the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill used multiple words to describe those who attacked them: One was “terrorists;” another was “Christians.”

“It was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christians,” Metropolitan police officer Daniel Hodges stated in his testimony, which graphically described the physical attacks on Hodges and other officers.

It has been over a month since a mob of violent protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol under the false belief that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Since then, Joe Biden has been inaugurated as the country’s 46th president. The country is, ostensibly, moving forward. And yet, the fractures exposed by the election and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have not been fixed.

Cassie M. Chew 1-15-2021

Law enforcement officials prepare to detain protesters gathered in D.C. in 2018. Rachael Warriner / Shutterstock.com

Less than a week into the new year, the country watched in shock as hundreds of rioters used metal pipes and tear gas against police to gain entry into the U.S. Capitol, ransacking congressional offices for several hours while the nation’s elected leaders, who had convened to certify electoral votes, huddled for cover. But faith-based communities and other justice advocates saw something like this coming.

The U.S. Capitol stands as Democratic lawmakers draw up an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Jan. 11, 2021. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

I have been filled with a divine rage since armed insurrectionists, instigated by the president, violently sieged our Capitol last week. There must be accountability. In one move toward that, 10 Republicans joined all 222 House Democrats in voting that President Donald Trump incited an insurrection. He is now the only U.S. president to be impeached twice. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and the nine other Republicans who joined her described their vote to impeach as a vote of “conscience.” Invoking that word made me thing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s wisdom—

President Donald Trump disembarks from Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, after visiting the U.S.-Mexico border wall, Jan. 12, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to make Donald Trump the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol.

Madison Muller 1-07-2021

Despite advanced warnings of far-right demonstrations intent on wreaking havoc in Washington, D.C., Wednesday began as many pro-Donald Trump rallies have in weeks since the election: Spirited attendees in American flag apparel, some bearing the insignias of right-wing organizations like the Three Percenters, took pictures, mingled, and professed their ardent support of Trump – some going so far as to conflate the president with Jesus Christ.

President Donald Trump looks on during a campaign rally in Valdosta, Ga., Dec. 5, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

As faith leaders, we must call for the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office. There is great danger in the hands of a morally deranged president: the threat of martial law, his ongoing efforts to overturn a free and fair election, the potential of politically conceived war, and the unique danger of his destructive hands on the nuclear codes.

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump protest in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

Today we witnessed with shock and moral outrage that our democracy is fragile and in peril. Today we saw an assault on our democracy. We saw a violent insurrection turn what is normally a quiet but sacred procedure to certify electoral votes and ensure a peaceful transfer of power into a dangerous spectacle of sedition and political malfeasance.

Vishal Arora 2-05-2014

Protesting on the Streets of Bangkok. Photo courtesy Terence Lim via Flickr / RNS

Authorities in Thailand are preparing to arrest and possibly defrock a senior Buddhist monk on charges of insurrection and breach of Buddhist discipline for leading anti-government protests.

Police on Tuesday asked a criminal court to authorize the arrest of Luang Pu Buddha Issara for laying siege to government offices in Bangkok’s Lak Si district and obstructing voting during last week’s general elections, the National News Bureau of Thailand reports.

Issara, a 58-year-old monk from the Wat Or Noi temple in the central province of Nakhon Pathom, is a leader of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee that is seeking to topple the government.

Betsy Sholl 3-14-2013

Blindfolded and gagged, tossed in the back
of a car—it's how they gather up young men
and after tire irons and chains, leave some

lying in the road like dirt, rained on all night.
Some are bundled-up, tossed off a bridge
into the river whose muddy swirls warn:

kick, fight, breathe, twist your arms free.
Some do. They rise, spit out the rags
stuffed in their mouths, limp back to town,

and one begins to sing—slow at first— Lord,
I want to be in that number
... Another moans
a low muted tone where words won't go.

Austin Carty 9-22-2011
I wrote yesterday of Peter Rollins' new book Insurrection.
Austin Carty 9-21-2011


Last week, Rollins posted the introduction and first chapter of Insurrection on his website, and I devoured it. He really is one of the most challenging thinkers in the Christian world today.

Bryan Farrell 6-14-2011

Hundreds of miners, activists, students, academics, environmentalists, and other citizens are marching to West Virginia's historic Blair Mountain in an effort to save it from mountaintop removal.

Shane Claiborne 4-11-2011
As a Christian, Easter marks the most stunning act of grace and enemy-love in human history -- Jesus' death and resurrection.