Jim Rice

AS WE WORKED on the three feature articles in this issue, a common theme became clear: Each of the authors, in distinctive ways and from varied points of view, was grappling with related questions: How do we take the next steps in constructing a more just church and society? What models can help guide us as we go about the work of building something new?

In an excerpt from his new book A More Perfect Union, Sojourners President Adam Russell Taylor looks to the southern African philosophy of ubuntu—interdependence—as offering wisdom that goes far beyond one-on-one relationships to a paragon for society itself. Colleen Murphy, a law professor in Illinois and an expert in issues of transitional justice, explains why making progress on racial justice requires facing the hard realities of our past. And associate editor Christina Colón talked with pastors about how their churches will be different as they enter the post-quarantine era. In their own unique ways, each author is wrestling—as all of us are called to do—with questions of what it means to put our faith into action in an uncertain world.

ONE OF THE most misleading words in the recent explosion of violence between Israel and Hamas is “conflict.” There is no symmetry or equivalence between desperate rocket attacks, deplorable as they are, from Hamas and the massive, disproportionate blitzkrieg by the region’s dominant military power. And, as usual, the casualties in such attacks were disproportionate as well: More than 20 times as many Palestinians, including many children, were killed, most of them predictable deaths from Israeli air force strikes on population centers in the Gaza Strip.

The bloodshed has sparked renewed calls for the “two-state solution”—the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But, as Palestinian-American Jonathan Kuttab and American-Israeli Oriel Eisner explain in this issue, Israeli settlements have made the two-state approach impossible, and thus made clear the need for a shift in our thinking. As Kuttab writes, new thinking “would require each group to sufficiently empathize with and understand the hopes, fears, interests, and aspirations of the other group.” This spring’s violence makes painfully evident why such new thinking is urgently needed.

SOJOURNERS HAS GONE through various phases since our founding almost 50 years ago. In the earliest days, we were an intentional Christian community that sought to effect change in the world around us, including through our magazine. Now we’re a faith and justice magazine with historical roots in Christian community. There’s a difference. But among the things that haven’t changed in five decades is that for most of us here the language of “vocation,” rather than “job,” rings true, and that vocation is connected to the vision of helping to make the world a more just place.

For our new art director, Candace Sanders (see facing page), that includes the opportunity to offer a platform to artists who are too often rendered invisible, especially in some church circles. For many people, Sanders says, “it’s so hard to get your work seen—and people don’t usually get art in those places where decisions are being made.” Sanders looks forward to being a connecting link for underrepresented artists: “There’s power in that,” she says. “I don’t take that lightly.”

THE TROUBLING events of Jan. 6 helped many realize that we can never take for granted the staples of democracy, including the peaceful transfer of power. The violent uprising, spurred by the outgoing president, offered sobering reminders that our society’s most deep-seated pathologies are very much with us. The new administration promises not only relief from the traumatic outrages of the last four years, but also the prospect of seriously engaging urgent issues, from the pandemic and racialized policing to climate change and the crisis of poverty.

THE ELECTION DID NOT, as many had hoped, offer a resounding renunciation of Trumpism and its often-explicit white supremacist ideology. On the contrary, millions more people than four years ago voted for a man (and a worldview) with few illusions about his nature, showing a willingness to ignore, if not condone, racism, misogyny, and xenophobia.

Trump’s presidency made unarguably clear, for those who harbored doubts, that racism and white supremacy are not restricted to a small, inconsequential fragment of society tucked away in the shadows. Now, it’s distressingly but importantly clear that a very significant minority of voters either harbors these views explicitly or is fine with ignoring or downplaying them for their own perceived advantage. As painful as that is to acknowledge, it’s actually a step in the right direction, since a problem cannot be addressed until it is first named.

A primary task before us as we emerge from the destructive tumult of the past four years is to mitigate the damage done to so many people and to our earth itself. “Mitigation,” by definition, includes “reducing the harmful effects” of actions taken. It’s considered a stage of emergency management, which feels about right.

“Liminal space” refers to that often-disorienting reality of crossing over, when you have left something behind and are not yet fully in something else—the Latin root of the word “liminal” means “threshold.” That between-times spirit imbues everything in this issue of Sojourners : It was conceived and written before the election that affects so much about our life in this nation and world and arrives in your hands, presumably, as the results are becoming known. That time lag forces us to look beyond the daily news cycle—as portentous as it may be—and focus on more timeless matters.

OUR AUGUST 2020 article “Harboring a Culture of Hate,” by Catholic scholar-activist Eric Martin, contended that since the U.S. Catholic bishops did not explicitly condemn the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate—the bishops’ committee said “some still claim it as a sign of heritage”—some Catholics believe it is acceptable to be both Catholic and a member of white supremacist movements. Some Catholic officials and laypeople called the article misleading, saying it unfairly downplayed the institutional church’s other important anti-racist work, and Sojourners’ president Jim Wallis, who was then also editor-in-chief of our publications, decided to remove the article from our website.

Two weeks later, after some of the most intense and voluminous reaction in our publishing history, we issued a correction and reposted the article—and we’ve made some significant structural changes as well, instituting new policies that establish editorial independence from our organizing work (our new editor-in-chief Sandi Villarreal explains the importance of editorial independence). We’ve received hundreds of responses from our readers—including ordained and lay Catholic leaders, journalists, scholars, and activists—a sampling of which is below. As always, we appreciate your honest and passionate engagement, and we promise to keep listening.

WE’RE CLEARLY NOT yet in a post-pandemic world, and almost everyone seems well-disillusioned of any pretense that we live in a “post-racial” time. But, as Julie Polter explains in her cover essay, the COVID-19 pandemic—and the worldwide protests in response to the other pandemic of police brutality and systematized racism—has led to actions once thought unimaginable. From NASCAR to the Southern Baptist Convention, a surprisingly wide range of people and institutions seem suddenly aware of their own complicity in symbols and structures of injustice—and more and more white people express their recognition that police brutality isn’t, after all, the isolated behavior of a few “bad apples.”

IMMERSED IN THE enforced sabbath of shelter-in-place, it can be difficult to focus on anything other than the coronavirus and its consequences and to seek a return to “normal.” But it’s becoming clear that the pandemic is one of those rare, epoch-defining moments. When we finally come out the other side, the ways we interact with each other will likely be changed. Perhaps, more deeply aware of the brevity and fragility of life, we will take less for granted in our relationships, reassessing what is important and how we use our limited time on this earth.