LETTER TO THE CHURCH: "On the Court's Ruling"

Friends in Beloved Community,

Today's Supreme Court ruling--gutting "affirmative" action--is another blow to the democratic experiment in our country, and marks a terrible victory for the politics of division, grievance and white privilege.  

I believe that we are called--Children of God, friends of Jesus--to radically resilient hope; but today's ruling tests that hope anew.  And we cannot be silent or cynical in our response.  We are named Christian because we take Christ's commitments as our very own--and these commitments insist on action for justice, equality and reparations for the terrible racism and oppression at the heart of our national story.  This moment requires our courage.  And action.

Perhaps most devastating, this morning, is the way in which the Court's ruling came to pass.  Much like the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, this one is the result of right-wing strategy and political manipulation.  That same right-wing recognized that the American people want to protect women's reproductive rights and freedoms.  So they set about rebuilding the Supreme Court in their own image--denying Barack Obama's pick when Justice Scalia died, and filling spots quickly and brazenly during Trump's misguided presidency.  They've succeeded in seating a Supreme Court whose values are decidedly unpopular and (most importantly) grounded in right-wing ideology and religion.  That's not who we are.  And that's not how our democracy will survive and thrive.  This may be Mitch McConnell's Court.  It may be Donald Trump's Court.  It's clear today that it's not the American people's Court.

In her own powerful dessent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writes that the majority has "detached itself from this country's actual past and present experiences."  This is a pointed and even devastating critique.  According to CNN, Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke from the bench this morning and "talked about the profound mistake that the majority is making here.  She said it would close the doors of opportunity to people across the nation--for schools, for business, for the military..."

To the church today, I offer this: We have work to do.  We must bear witness.

We can and we must hear the pain, the anger and the profound fear coming from communities of color across the nation.  We can and we must speak truth to power in this moment.  In these days of distrust and division, we must dig deep and find anew the hope that is planted within us.  We see before us a world of shared prosperity, equal opportunity and racial and economic justice.  We hear in our own tradition a loud and clarion call to participate in the dismantling of white privilege and then to build that new world of communion and community for all.  We will find allies to do this work in a robust and decidedly American spirit--fueled by democratic hope, inspired by democratic pioneers and awake to the presence of the divine in all peoples, races, traditions and faiths.  

As Justice Sotomayor said from the bench this morning: "We shall overcome."