As I was going through my email inbox, I was caught up short by this statement from the Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, President of the Auburn Seminary:
“The willful indifference on a turned away face is the indifference of an America that accepts the slow death of black and brown people through economic inequality and a wealth gap; voter suppression; compromised maternal health of black women; police brutality; COVID-19 that hits black people and communities the hardest; and on and on.”
In response, we are witnessing a wave of uprisings that are committed to sweeping away the status quo, committed to transforming the future so that Black people and communities can thrive.
But Trump’s Defense Secretary Mark Esper said to governors that the streets of our cities are now the battlefield and that America needs to “dominate the battle space.” Everything about this statement is wrong.”
Have we really come to this? Is white America waging open war on people who disagree with the status quo? Is violence going to quell violence or just raise the level until nothing is left? The President recently held up a Bible. Does he know what is in that book?
This administration worships profits, but the words of the prophets and Jesus are in the Bible and are a condemnation of the administration’s actions.
It should burn his hand.
It should turn religious people of all traditions against his actions. We can no longer feign ignorance of the motives and actions of this administration. Our silence makes us complicit in the same way that the three officers who indifferently watched George Floyd’s death should be held complicit.
The prophet Amos (5:21-24) condemns the hypocrisy of his day and ours, “I hate, (says the Lord) I despise your feasts and take no delight in your solemn assemblies … but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
The Rev. Dan Dibble
Pastor,
Trinitarian Congregational
Church of Warwick