

After preaching my sermon this week at Washington City Church of the Brethren, I had a conversation with another attender about what it means to be followers of Jesus in the midst of an unjust system. We sadly reflected on the fact that, most of the time, most Christians have not been interested in disrupting the status quo. In most times and circumstances, the body of the Christian community has been a neutral, ineffective presence at best – and sometimes has even lent energy and enthusiasm to evil causes.

With the rise of Trump and his proto-fascist movement, I and many other followers of Jesus are asking: What does it look like for the church to become mobilized in the struggle for justice – not just as individuals, but as whole communities? How do we muster the courage and energy to live in solidarity with the many people who may be marginalized, ostracized, and terrorized under this new administration?

Can we sustain the call to nonviolent non-cooperation with evil – not just as individual prophets and “voices in the wilderness,” but as whole communities gathered together in the power and presence of Jesus?

We have both positive and negative examples to draw on. There have been times when portions of the church – whole communities in the body of Christ – have taken effective stands for justice. During the civil rights movement, entire congregations were mobilized for direct action. The Quaker church was able to abolish slavery within their denomination 100 years before the rest of the country would fight a bloody civil war to settle the matter. There’s no doubt that the followers of Jesus are capable of mass mobilization for justice, even under great social and economic pressure.

But even when we have hungered and thirsted for righteousness, our Christian ideals have not always been enough. During the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany, only a tiny portion of the Protestant Church resisted the blasphemous, genocidal violence of Hitler. And of those few communities that resisted, most did not dare go beyond advocating for religious freedom within their own churches. It was only a precious few individual leaders – most famous among them, Dietrich Bonhoeffer – who were willing to actively resist the fascist regime, despite the very real threat of torture and death. The failure of the German church in the face of Nazism was so devastating that, following the second world war, some Christians in Germany felt compelled to formally apologize for their lack of faithfulness.

Faithfulness unto death is not something that comes naturally for any of us. It is a way we must be taught by the Holy Spirit and the gathered community. It is a path that requires a lifetime of prayerful preparation and real-world training. Are our churches today providing this kind of training? As the time of trial looms before us, are we being prepared to meet it?

What is it that allows whole communities to come together and be willing to face suffering in the face of injustice? What kind of leadership is required to train and prepare communities to stand as one body in times of deepest darkness? Is the path of discipleship and courageous witness one that is ultimately individual, or can whole communities walk together in the way of Jesus, even to the cross?

If you are reading this essay, you exercise an important role in the body of Christ. You have a part to play in how we train and prepare the friends of Jesus to be faithful, loving, and courageous in the face of hatred and violence. It remains to be seen whether the church in our generation will be equipped and prepared to bear witness to the truth in the midst of a “post-truth” culture. How will you and I help to provide that leadership, training, and support in the days ahead?

The alternative would be to go with the flow of the culture, lose our witness and – if we survive at all – find ourselves expressing our regret in coming generations. Explaining to our children and grandchildren why we were not willing to stand up for those who were crushed by the rise of white nationalist tyranny. Why we chose our comfort and privilege over fidelity to Jesus and his upside-down kingdom. Why the gospel wasn’t powerful enough to make us different from the world around us.

The good news is that this does not have to be our future. We still have time to invest in one another, build communities that can stand in the face of oppression, and lend our hands to help those most impacted by the rise of the Trump regime.

Let’s work together while there is still light.

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