More Than a Protest: A Faithful Response to No Kings
Faith teaches us that Beloved Community is not built from perfect agreement. It is built through radical welcome, through the practice of making room for one another, through the daily discipline of living our values, and, yes, sometimes through loving and accountable critique.
There are many valid critiques of the No Kings demonstrations. But what feels important to name is what they have made possible, and the sacred responsibility that possibility now places on all of us.
No Kings has opened space: a public witness where people can ask the fundamental questions of where we are going and what kind of future we are called to build together. It has created room for movements to find one another, for grief and resistance to be expressed side by side, and for a broad rejection of authoritarianism to be spoken aloud in the streets.
As people of faith, we know this well. We know the power of an open door and a yearning heart. We know the power of welcome, community, and an abundant love that heals and moves people to build new worlds together.
Like our own spiritual journeys, we know that one way is not the only way. The No Kings demonstration alone will not topple an authoritarian regime. Neither will one election, one boycott, one mutual aid network, or one lawsuit. This time calls for what faith teaches us: many paths converging toward a shared moral horizon, many hands doing the sacred work of freedom, many communities bound together in courage, discipline, and hope.
This is the sacred task before us: to welcome those who are arriving, to invite people into the next faithful action, and to build the networks, skills, and trust that allow us to move together. But we must also be discerning and clear that we do not seek to replicate the same ideas and practices that brought us here.
Democracy cannot be built on silencing those fighting for a free Palestine, or on silencing survivors for the sake of the cause. We will not build democracy by ignoring the racial divisions within our movements. Nor will democracy be built on promises of care and relief deferred until after a campaign victory or election. Instead, like all good ministry, it must be rooted in accompaniment and in tending to people's spiritual and material lives now.
It will require all of us. Let us set ourselves on a path to move with deeper coordination, wider welcome, stronger solidarity, shared skills, shared accountability, and shared dreams, so that together we may help birth a radical democracy that the world has not yet known.
