Monday, January 20, 2025
Happy Monday, my friends! If you’ve been following along you know that last week I took a five-day intensive course titled “Creation in the Christian Tradition” at MTSO. One of our assigned readings was James Cone’s essay “Who’s Earth Is It Anyway?”[1] in which he discusses environmental justice in conversation with racism and global white supremacy. If you’re not familiar with Cone and his work, I highly advise you explore his theology, particularly Black Theology and Black Power (1969) and The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2011). His writing is blunt, saves no words, and isn’t for the faint of heart. There are at least two quotes I want to share with you just from the first paragraph of “Who’s Earth Is It Anyway?” but here’s the best one:
"People who fight against white racism but fail to connect it to the degradation of the earth are anti-ecological – whether they know it or not. People who struggle against environmental degradation but do not incorporate in it a disciplined and sustained fight against white supremacy are racists – whether they acknowledge it or not. The fight for justice cannot be segregated but must be integrated with the fight for life in all its forms." [2]
Yet, why today, am I quoting Cone from an environmental essay as we witness a presidential inauguration and the beginning of an administration that has among its top priorities levying tariffs against trading partners, mass deportations of immigrants, rolling back the hard-won rights of Transgender people, and annexing Greenland? Because Cone, among many others, recognizes that justice must be integrated and intersectional.
One might be forgiven to forget that in addition to the inauguration and the NCAA Division I football championship—Ohio State and Notre Dame? Midwest for the win!—today is also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. While the academic analysis of intersectional identities was in its infancy during King’s life, he understood the power of addressing not just the political rights of marginalized communities, but also their inherent right to assemble and agitate for better conditions in all aspects of their lives including their jobs and their living conditions. In fact, people have argued that his support of unions and striking sanitation workers in Memphis was perhaps the proverbial last straw for his opponents.
Last week I wrote that our backyards are someone else’s backyard. We have to remember that true, lasting justice cannot be achieved until justice for all people is achieved. Justice is broad and intersectional. While justice knows limits and humanity continues to demonstrate the lengths we will go to limit justice and therefore love, the truly terrifying thing for humans to admit is not how we withhold justice, but that our capacity for justice may in fact be limitless.
Where is justice and injustice prominent in your life today? How can you contribute to achieving justice for all people?
Let us pray: Dearest Jesus, come and sit with us today. Show us the lies that are still embedded in the soul of America’s consciousness. Unmask the untruths we have made our best friends. For they seek our destruction. And we are being destroyed, Lord. Reveal the ways the lies have distorted and destroyed our relationships. They break your shalom daily. Jesus, give us courage to embrace the truth about ourselves and you and our world. Truth: We are all made in your image. Truth: You are God; we are not. You are God; money is not. You are God; jails, bombs and bullets are not. And Jesus, give us faith to believe [that the] redemption of people, relationships, communities, and whole nations is possible! Give us faith enough to renounce the lies and tear down the walls that separate us with our hands, with our feet, and with our votes! Amen.[3]
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
[1] James Cone, “Who’s Earth Is It Anyway?” Cross Currents, 50, no. 1/2, 36-46.
[2] Cone, 36 (emphasis added).
[3] Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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