A New Call to Civil Disobedience: the role of the church and the way of the cross

Nonviolent civil disobedience is an effective tool for generating opposition to unjust laws and social conditions that have oppressed and suppressed people on the margins. It has also helped raise public awareness of serious issues related to national safety and social conditions, making life more difficult than it otherwise would be for marginalized people. Civil rights marches are the most obvious example, as are the varieties of sit-ins, work slowdowns, and mass demonstrations in my lifetime. Nonviolent civil disobedience has always meant disobedience to existing unjust laws and conditions.

In these next few years, nonviolent civil disobedience will take another direction. It will become determined disobedience of demands from the administration, undermining our democracy and its liberties. It will mean voicing verifiable, fact-based truth as loudly as possible, in as many public places as possible, to overcome the gigantic propaganda machine that the administration has at its disposal.

In previous decades, portions of the church have dedicated themselves to nonviolent civil disobedience when needed, but the majority of the church remained comfortably in their pews. The majority voice was heard, but softly and in excessively diplomatic tones. Church leadership was conflicted about proclaiming boldly the good news of God in Christ Jesus and maintaining the institutional stability of their respective denominations. It always means walking in the way of the cross is sacrificed. The new way of nonviolent civil disobedience has got to change that. The majority of the church must boldly speak on behalf of the way of the cross and the godly justice that it represents without equivocation. The key to success is keeping Jesus at the center. If politics is allowed to become the central point, the nonviolent, civilly disobedient voice of the church will fail. If Jesus is kept at the center and the way of the cross is fully illuminated as the way forward, the voice of the church will have an enormous impact on society as a whole.

The way of the cross does not seek to impose the Christian faith on anybody or any groups of people. The way of the cross is able to articulate clearly the expectations and commandments of God revealed to us through the prophets and in Jesus Christ. They name what it means to be a just people. It has two sides. One side is inscribed with commandments and standards of justice that the people of God are to obey individually as best they can. The other side declares what it means to be a just society, no matter who the people are. The two sides cannot be separated; they are one thing. A person cannot walk fully in the way of the cross if they are not both intentional in their thoughts, words, and deeds and engaged in society for the common good of godly justice for all.

Holy Scripture is not shy about revealing what the commandments and standards of social justice are. They are summarized below, as drawn from the Ten Commandments and Sermon on the Mount:

• Honor ancestors whose wisdom serves as a reliable guide for us.
• Do not commit murder—including killing heart, mind, and soul.
• Do not betray the integrity of any relationship.
• Do not acquire for yourself anything to which you have no moral right, whether legal or not.
• Say nothing about others without certain knowledge of its truth, nor betray a confidence, nor with intent to hurt.
• Be content with what you are able to do and have without becoming jealous of others’ good fortune.
• See that those who live in physical and emotional poverty are nourished.
• Comfort those in emotional distress.
• Seek to be persons of true humility.
• Seek to be a person of integrity in everything you say and do.
• Let mercy guide every judgment.
• Seek peace that makes no room for hate.
• Be willing to suffer the cost of walking in the way of the cross.

God, through the prophets, illuminated in greater detail what is necessary for a nation, a society to be just, but that’s for another time. For now, commitment to following in the way of the cross will always drive toward justice and confront injustice with nonviolent boldness.