A Biblical Case for Activism

In the city of Birmingham, Alabama, a stone's throw from A&S Bail Bonds, Martin Luther King Jr. sat alone in a row of jail cells. In there, he penned a letter to Church leaders in the deep south. He made a case that their theological commitment to "obey the law of the land" has made them complicit with injustice. He wrote, “We cannot in all good conscience obey unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”

Scripture, even more pointedly, teaches us the same. It says that we should take up the cause of the oppressed , rebuke the oppressor, and amplify the voices of those who are unheard. God, in fact, is so emphatic about justice that he equates defending the rights of the poor with what it means to know him and even plugs his ears to our worship if we neglect justice and righteous action. Righteous action might mean giving a fish or teaching someone how to fish, but ultimately it asks why a fishing license is inaccessible for those who need it most. It means speaking truth to power structures and lifestyles that accumulate wealth through the systemic exploitation and repression of people. We’ve witnessed this with government-sanctioned redlining in the United States, we’ve seen it in the garment industry in Pakistan, and we’ve seen it the form of wage-theft from migrant workers in Florida’s tomato fields. Oppressors can be individuals, systems, or ideologies that ultimately inhibit human flourishing.

Conversely, nonviolent activists, drive a spoke into the wheel of injustice to enhance the imago dei in their fellow man. They make a spectacle of hate. They, governed by cross-shaped compassion, get tired of offering their good Samaritan’s hand to the battered man on the road to Jericho and, instead, condemn and repave a road that produces human suffering. They laugh at the propaganda of complacency, which encourages them to “keep calm and carry-on.” No, they won’t do that. They get angry with injustice, and with prophetic imagination, creatively liberate those bound by it.

When the Christian prays, “May your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” we are not passively daydreaming about what a heavenly world might look like. We are availing ourselves as the tools through which God will cultivate that world.

Peacemakers vs. Peacekeepers

Jesus said that God blesses the peacemakers. Notice that he didn't say "peacekeepers." And though they sound similar, they are diametrically opposed. Peacekeepers are complicit with injustice because they don’t want to cause discomfort. In their silence, they end up protecting a faux sense of peace, which underneath can be racism, bigotry, or prejudice masquerading as real peace. Peacemakers, on the other hand, aren’t afraid to disturb the faux-peace. Their lives are marked by disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed. And they do it all with love. For the cross-minded activist, peace is not just the goal, it is the means by which they arrive at the goal. It's the shovel in their hand, and it's the harvest to be enjoyed. They use peace to achieve peace. Not only are their tools cast from the mold of Christ's love, as bearers of the Kingdom come, they reform tools that were meant to propagate death into tools that will cultivate life. If Jesus' Kingdom were of this world, his followers would use the tools the world uses. But it is not. Therefore, they do not. They use the tools of the Kingdom in which they are citizens. According to Jesus, it is those who are willing to enter into the pain, brave enough to wield an olive branch of peace, for whom the blessing is reserved.

Maybe you're thinking, "That probably won't work in a world filled with vile hate." You might be right. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't. As a Christian, however, the primary question is not what works, but rather, what's Christ? Every question we've ever had about the invisible God is fully answered in the face of Jesus. We can simply look at his life to deduce the model through which a peaceful revolution is accomplished.

Wise and Fluffy

You might ask, “Ok, but must it be ‘nonviolent’?” Let's linger on this for a moment more. Jesus compared Christians to three types of animals when describing their role in confronting evil. He said that we ought to reenact the innocence of doves, the wisdom of snakes, and the vulnerability of sheep among wolves. Before we misinterpret that as weakness, we ought to consider the audacity required for a fluffy sheep to walk into conflict prepared to suffer for trying to love an enemy wolf. That takes gumption. Christian author, Shane Claiborne explained it well when he wrote, “Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer … It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.”

We see Jesus model this nonviolent framework most clearly in a garden in Gethsemane. Peter, while defending Jesus from the oppressor, cuts off someone’s ear. If there were ever a case for justified violence to protect the innocent, this would be it. And yet, interrupting violence with love, Jesus, not only reprimands Peter, but he disarms him and heals the person's ear. In this moment, Jesus definitively shuts down the logic of ending violence with more violence. Tertullian, a second-century Church Father, put it this way: "When Christ disarmed Peter, he disarmed us all."

Ok, so doormats. We're all supposed to be doormats? Thankfully, no.

100+ Ideas

I just finished Gene Sharp’s “From Dictatorship to Democracy.” It's a book that has become the definitive ‘how-to’ guide for the nonviolent, twenty-first-century revolutionary. In it, Sharp shares 198 creative methods of nonviolent activism. To help simplify, I’ve selected only a few for this list. You’ll see these methods classified into three broad categories: 1) Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion, 2) Noncooperation (Social, Economic, and Political), and 3) Nonviolent Intervention. I hope this gives you a foundation to start dreaming of how you might engage difficult issues in the nonviolent tradition of Christ by creatively forcing hatred to run itself into a standstill with your enduring love. Read the list here. First, a word of caution before you read the list: Be yourself and understand your issue. Avoid sensationalism and allow yourself the freedom to identify with strategies that feel authentic to who you are and align with your beliefs. Don’t misapply tactics. That could be as bad as the problem you're working to resolve.

You Can't Help People Without the Help of People

Even with all these great ideas, you can't help people without the help of people. I've boycotted sweatshop-made clothing brands, protested local policies that made it illegal to feed the hungry, participated in mock funerals to honor homeless folks who passed away unnoticed, and organized refugee-led welcome parties for displaced foreigners. Still, I and others often feel as if we are on an island and alone in our hopes and dreams. That's simply not the case. There are others. It's just difficult to find them. That's why we created a way for you to join and see a directory of activists who live near you and share your passion.

Whose Truth Do We Stand In?

Recently, a friend of mine called me out on Twitter. I mentioned that it would be beautiful if every Christian also realized they were an activist. He said, “James, most people know that at this point. They just don’t know what Jesus would have us be an activist for.”

He was right.

It’s easy to be seduced by the prevailing winds of culture that are vying to inform our opinions with crafty slogans on posters and compelling incantations echoing through the streets. Where some movements have a semblance of Christ but lack Gospel-centeredness, others boast of Gospel-centeredness but lack Christ-likeness.

Scripture teaches that, when these winds come, many believers will ignore and distort sound doctrine in order to suit their own desires (2 Timothy 4:2-4). We’ll join movements that Christ would not. Instead of humbly siding with a God that we might disagree with, we’ll subject God to human reasoning and listen only to what makes us feel nice—exchanging truth for candy-coated counterfeits. We will begin to say things like, “stand in your truth.”

The funny thing is, the truth will set us free. And free people become activists who then go on to free other people. So it’s important that we get it right. But it isn’t just any version of truth that will set us free. Jesus said that if we abide in His teachings, then we will know the truth and only then will we be free. Freedom is found in the confines of Christ’s word. So it isn’t my opinion we need. It isn’t your opinion we need. It’s His which he has made available to us in his Word.

It’s Your Move

The Apostle Paul, wrote in his letter to the Romans, “The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters.” Did you catch that? All of creation is waiting for you to make your move. God made his move. Now it’s our turn.

He waits. Creation waits. The refugee who has suffered persecution and the horrors of war… waits. The unborn child of a single mother who wonders how she’s going to pull this off… waits. The little girl being trafficked as a commodity… waits. The innocent victims of preventable gun violence… wait. The repressed voices of black lives… wait. The over-qualified and under-paid woman…waits. The unseen sweatshop worker whose life is stolen so we can get a steal on a cheap pair of shoes… waits. The inmate scheduled to be killed on death-row… waits.

No more waiting. Go, make your move.