{"id":17090,"date":"2025-09-04T18:52:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T18:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=17090"},"modified":"2025-09-04T18:52:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T18:52:51","slug":"faith-leaders-launch-counteroffensive-to-city-occupations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/04\/faith-leaders-launch-counteroffensive-to-city-occupations\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith Leaders Launch Counteroffensive to City Occupations"},"content":{"rendered":"

From pulpits to prayer vigils, clergy say the occupation by the military and ICE are not only immoral, but also put communities at risk<\/em><\/p>\n

By Dorothy S. Boulware, Word in Black
\nGuest Column<\/p>\n

First, it was the National Guard and Marines\u00a0occupying the streets of Los Angeles<\/a>, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents snatching men, women, and children from car washes, schools and Home Depot Parking lots.<\/p>\n

And then it\u00a0became Washington, D.C.\u2019s turn<\/a>. The Trump administration federalized the D.C. police and deployed the National Guard to patrol streets and round up unhoused residents. ICE agents soon followed, on a mission to round up suspected undocumented immigrants for incarceration and deportation.<\/p>\n

For faith leaders, the stakes extend far beyond Los Angeles and Washington. If the rights of one community can be overridden so easily, they say, no community is safe. And, with the threat of occupation looming in cities like Baltimore and Chicago, people of faith are fighting back with the tools of divine justice. Their counteroffensive \u2014 from pulpits, protest lines, and prayer vigils \u2014 insists that faith requires resistance.<\/p>\n

These Occupations Are Antithetical to Scripture<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a recent statement, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA declared the occupations to be antithetical to scriptural directives.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God (Micah 6:8) is a mandate for those who profess to serve God,\u201d the council wrote.<\/p>\n

The current administration\u2019s decision on Monday to federalize the DC Police and deploy the National Guard in our Nation\u2019s Capital to patrol streets and round up people experiencing homelessness is antithetical to that biblical mandate and our ecumenical Christian values,\u201d it wrote.<\/p>\n

A Letter to \u201cDonald\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Aug. 28, the\u00a070th anniversary of Emmett Till\u2019s murder<\/a>, several ministers \u2014 including Bishop William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach; Shane Claiborne of Red Letter Christians, and Rev. CeCe Jones-Davis of Black Church PAC \u2014 published a pastoral letter on Substack addressed to \u201cDonald.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter assumed President Trump is serious about the desire to get into heaven that he\u00a0shared earlier in the month<\/a>\u00a0on Fox and Friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepentance opens us up to empowering grace that changes us. Which is why the Bible says we demonstrate our salvation by love and compassion to the most vulnerable,\u201d they wrote. \u201cMatthew 25 is clear that we will give account for our lives based on how we treat the homeless, the hungry, those in need of healthcare, immigrants and refugees, the starving children of Gaza and the Sudan.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Commemorative Protest\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On August 28, the 62nd anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s March on Washington, Black faith leaders and activists in New York City took to Wall Street to protest the administration\u2019s denunciation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.<\/p>\n

The protest organizer, Rev. Al Sharpton, CEO of the National Action Network, said, \u201cWe marched for your offices because we know your address, and we will march and keep coming to you until we turn the economic inequality in this country around. We\u2019re not going back.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Prayer Vigil in D.C.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hundreds also gathered for an Aug. 22 evening event, \u201cMulti-Faith Prayer Vigil for Healing and Justice, sponsored by Mount Vernon Place and Foundry United Methodist churches in D.C.<\/p>\n

Mount Vernon\u2019s pastor, Rev. Donna Claycomb Sokol, said, \u201cThere is enough \u2014 enough time, enough compassion, enough money \u2014 if only we would choose to use our resources for healing rather than control, for liberation rather than bondage.<\/p>\n

AME Bishops Speak Out<\/strong><\/p>\n

The AME Zion Board of Bishops\u2019 Aug. 15 statement instructed its pastors to \u201cPreach prophetically and teach with clarity and courage.\u201d The bishops asked pastors to \u201cHelp our people understand the spiritual, moral, and civic stakes of this moment and how to stand strong for the cause of Christ in this moment and those to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bishops instructed congregations to prepare for the 2026 midterm elections\u00a0now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegister and encourage others to register to vote \u2014 an act of stewardship over the freedom our ancestors fought to secure,\u201d they said. \u201cMonitor legislation and speak against any action designed to silence our voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bishops also urged congregations to view civic engagement as part of their faith, including supporting Black-owned businesses and media, and rejecting a \u201cwoe is us\u201d mentality.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven now, as we are months into this new normal, we are still learning,\u201d Monalisa Tui\u2019tahi, an immigration attorney and leader in the California-Pacific Conference, told the United Methodist News. \u201cBeing present is a statement, a counternarrative to the narrative of hate and injustice that rules the day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From pulpits to prayer vigils, clergy say the occupation by the military and ICE are not only immoral, but also put communities at risk By Dorothy S. Boulware, Word in Black Guest Column First, it was the National Guard and Marines\u00a0occupying the streets of Los Angeles, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents snatching men, women, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[309],"class_list":["post-17090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17091,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17090\/revisions\/17091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17090"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=17090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}