In the summer of 2020, I was scrolling through Twitter (now called X) when I saw a video of young protesters gathering near the house of the Chicago Mayor at that time, Lori Lightfoot. They were protesting her heel turn away from the progressive policies on which she had run. In the background of the video the doors of my church, Grace Church of Logan Square, were firmly closed. To have our doors closed to brave and bold young people fighting for justice was not the witness that my church wanted to bear. So, I called several of my leaders and our partner congregation, St. Luke’s Lutheran, and our protest support group was born.
Protest support work takes a persistent theology of grace that reaches beyond the walls of the church and it also takes strategic planning. We had to strategically plan what to do whenever protesters would show up at our corner: We had to have people available to meet them, make sure the church doors were open, provide snacks, first aid, and public restrooms.
Earlier this election season, we shared what we learned with a larger group of colleagues and churches in the city. As Chicago prepared for the arrival of the Democratic National Convention, we worked with the community organization ONE Northside to organize a group of congregations to respond to the needs of protesters. We had initially partnered with these congregations to be prepared to respond to the emergency needs of organizers during this time. And while this was not needed during the DNC, we imagine it may be needed in the future.
The theologian Kelley Nikondeha reminds us that during the Roman Empire, the early church dealt with many of the same issues we are facing today: wealth inequality, exploitative labor, and war. Despite that, the early church built what it needed to survive. Rome’s so-called “peace,” was maintained by violence against those subject to Caesar’s rule. To those with means, Rome looked like the perfect picture of peace. But for the majority of the population, that peace was built on economic stress. Early in the book of Acts, we see this oppressed population sharing their resources, protecting each other and, worshiping a God that promised to stand with the oppressed.
Today, we still see the American Empire exploiting and violently suppressing its people all under the guise of “peace” or “law and order.” One example that comes to mind is the way that state power has been used to brutalize college students protesting Israel’s genocide against Palestinians. Another example might be how little of our taxes go toward healthcare, housing and food, while a majority are put toward paying for the U.S. military budget.
How does the church reclaim the radical identity of its earliest movement? How do we build the world we need inside the world we have? As the present-day church struggles to answer that question, some churches are organizing protest support groups and other strategies to engage in local justice movements.
Matt Temple is the co-lead pastor of NewStory Chicago. NewStory rents space from a small United Methodist congregation and Temple told me that the church recently organized their neighborhood to support a migrant family. Both NewStory and the United Methodist congregation decided to use an underutilized education wing to house a migrant family. From Temple’s perspective, part of the church’s responsibility is to organize the tools and resources we have for the flourishing of all creation, not just those in the church. Building the world that we need requires organizing to that end.
There is no one-size-fits-all organizing strategy for churches because organizing a community is intensely contextual. But there are places where churches can begin to think about organizing, or working with neighbors and those most impacted for the common good in our communities. This includes working together to expand our imaginations beyond what feels possible, and enduring what we don’t yet have the power to change.
Rev. MarilynPagán-Banks is the executive director of A Just Harvest and pastor of San Lucas United Church of Christ in Chicago. She insists organizing starts with building the beloved community in community. “We build political power so that we can have the life that God wants for all of us,” Pagán-Banks told me. Building this type of political power is deeply relational.
Churches that engage in organizing can be particularly transformational, as members work with those outside the doors of the church to advocate for justice. By the church affirming that justice can happen even outside its doors, it affirms that the struggle for liberation is something that everyone — Christian or not — can participate in. It’s in this struggle that we model what Christ first modeled for us: expansive love. Pagán-Banks calls this a “queer faith.” Having a “queer faith, a fluid faith, if we are truly to be the church, God’s love is not to be put in a Jesus box.”
In other words, the church does not and cannot exclusively claim the right to the work of liberation. Rev. Andrew Wilkes is the co-chair of the board for the Institute for Christian Socialism and pastor of The Double Love Experience Church in New York. Wilkes told me that, “Pastors, at their best, recognize a polycentric idea of power: that churches are one site that God uses to confront and address the powers and principalities. Multilateral institutions, global denominations, labor unions are all sources of national and international collectivity.” Solidarity with other sites of liberation beyond our doors means an ability to clarify the church’s capacity for struggle. This sentiment reminds me of a line from a prayer composed in honor of the liberation theologian and martyr Óscar Romero: “We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well.”
No single church will be able to solve the national and global evils that plague our world. So while we organize to create and nourish flourishing communities, we also provide pastoral care to those who are struggling to change systems and structures that seem unchangeable. Providing this pastoral care to protesters requires that we listen and point to reasons for hope when appropriate. From Wilkes’ perspective, this kind of pastoral care is critical to organizing work even if its focus is not always material. If we take Acts 2 as our guide, congregations not only redistribute resources; we also redistribute the pain points of marginalization, emphasizing that no one is free until we are all free, in and outside of the church.
The organizing work that my church is engaged in isn’t particularly earth-shattering or new. We simply opened our doors and tried our best to live out our values of radical hospitality. My congregants still tell me stories about the conversations they had with protesters outside the church doors: stories of despair and victory; trauma and solidarity; struggle and endurance. We are continually changed by protesters’ witness to us. And what we’ve learned is the critical turn that I think other churches need to realize as well: We are not “saving” protesters; engaging in the struggle with them is saving our faith.
Organizing as a faith community can feel like a monumental task, but the first step is actually simple: Open your doors and put your bodies where your neighbors are hurting. After all, Jesus promised he’d meet us there.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!
