It has been eight years since I was appointed bishop of Georgia’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. I am grateful to call Georgia my home, inspired by the tens of thousands of AME parishioners I have connected with across the state and proud of the discourse our African American community has provided the state on a host of important policy issues. However, as I transition to a new location and assignment for the AME, it is clear that the United States has become a different country from eight years ago.
Today, our country is unquestionably facing a crisis. We find ourselves polarized and divided by ideology, partisan politics, race, gender and so many other factors, including religion. As I have traveled throughout Georgia, I have seen firsthand how this modern American crisis is fueled by conflicting voices — and perhaps nowhere is this seen or heard more than among faith leaders and faith bodies.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Back in 2018, the AME Church organized a rally in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House in Washington, D.C. The theme was “A Call to Conscience,” and the rally was intended to challenge the Trump administration and Congress on a host of bills and policies that were clearly unrighteous, immoral and, most of all, detrimental to the American people, especially African Americans.
Following the event, I was handed a petition signed by 10,000 evangelical Christian ministers. The petition declared “that any preaching or teaching about social justice is an injustice to the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This type of extremism and its attempt to rewrite the tenets of the Bible and all we know about theology continues to serve as a foundation for how divided we have become as a country.
We don’t hear many evangelical ministers preach against racism, inequality, sexism or a host of other social justice issues. Instead, as the petition shows, there is a divide. Evangelical extremists seem to prefer we do nothing to face injustice, that we maintain and uphold the status quo at all costs, and ultimately attempt to “turn back time” to when civil and voting rights, equal opportunity and other achievements didn’t exist. By telling us not to fight for social justice, evangelicals are asking us to ignore God’s words “to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8); dismiss the words of the Prophet Amos, “let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24); and even shun the words of Jesus, “Your kingdom come, you will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). You would hope that regardless of politics or stands on issues, our country, and specifically the entire faith community, could unite around the fight for social justice, but it has not. In fact, over the past eight years, it has only gotten worse.
Many within the evangelical community are now more interested in blindly defending the corruption of former President Donald Trump and the tenets of “Make America Great Again” than the example Jesus provides all of us. Evangelical ministers claim that character, morals and integrity are essential to them. Yet they have sold their soul to Trump, a man who continues to sin and whose actions clearly contradict so much of our Christian faith. Yet, more than 70% of white evangelical Christians, some of the country’s most avid believers in Christ, voted for Trump, with some leading evangelical Christians having the audacity to claim God “sent” him.
This philosophy has only created greater division. The rest of Christian America, most of all the Black church, stands in direct opposition to Trump and his extreme rhetoric, actions and policies — and evangelicals do nothing. In the Old Testament, there were two kinds of prophets. The professional prophets were chosen by the king, whose responsibility was to tell the king what he wanted to hear. Then there were the classical prophets called by God, who declared, “Thus saith the Lord.” To speak in God’s name. Today, too many evangelical ministers are like the professional prophets. They tell the powers that be, the Donald Trumps, what they want to hear. They condone Trump’s lies, ignore his behavior and don’t call him out for denigrating and threatening people or implore him to repent for his sins. They encourage and enable him. They also use their pulpits to urge congregants to support and vote for him. They spin what he says to mislead their congregants.
Until the evangelical community is willing to speak truth to power and willing to fairly question Trump’s immoral actions and hateful rhetoric, we will remain divided.
In the meantime, it is up to all of us, not just Black preachers, to raise our voices in opposition to false prophets so people and the nation are not misled, or, in the words of the Bible, we must “cry loud, spare not, (and) lift up our voices like a trumpet” (Isaiah 58:1).
In February, I was chaplain of the day at the Georgia State House. Following my meditation, as I was preparing to leave, one of the legislators stopped me and asked, “Bishop, why is it that you Black preachers and the Black church always got (to) be speaking out and protesting?” I responded that the ideals of our country demand it. Our Founding Fathers wrote some of the most beautiful words the world has ever seen or heard: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We must continue until the country lives up to those words.
I hope the great Black preachers of Georgia continue to show their love of God through long-serving activism and community engagement, and to lead by speaking out and challenging us all to live up to the tenets defined by our country’s founders. But, most of all, for the sake of breaking this terrible division, I hope one day the extremists within the evangelical community wake up, find the truth, rediscover the word of God and not blindly support an immoral man like Donald Trump.
Bishop Reginald T. Jackson was bishop of the 6th District AME Church (Georgia) from 2016 until August. He now presides over the 2nd Episcopal District, which includes churches in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.
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