A line was crossed. On June 12th, the United States of America turned into an authoritarian state. We are told not to believe what is in front of our eyes when a Senator declares himself a Senator, and their representation of the people is silenced. We are told we are not allowed to speak our minds, because it is a disruption. Well, let it be a disruption! When the government has turned its back on the people, when they claim ignorance is strength, when they violate our rights, acquit the guilty, plunder the poor, and become a destruction of the safety, and the laws and rights God has entitled us, we have an imperative to rise up and speak truth to power. Righteous anger shall not let up on the long train of abuses and usurpations that have risked the livelihoods of the people!

What they do to the smallest of us, happens to all of us. Our voices will span the far reaches of our home towns, just as the prophets of past left their home towns to argue against injustice. It is our duty to make our voices heard when all of us are threatened by the stomp of injustice elsewhere, for no person who lives in the US can be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

I urge people to stand up to tyranny, to stand up for human rights, to stand up against the decimation of God's people, against those who claim the work and produce of the people for their own personal profits, enslaving us under unjust order while many are sitting still, refusing to hear and see except only the visions of deceit and smooth words of the tyrants. Empty verbose words and inaction will not do.

Some will say that they deplore the demonstrations taking place, but where was your outrage when the conditions brought about the demonstrations? You may hate the effects, but you cannot ignore the causes when you leave us with no alternative.

There can be no contradicting that injustice is upon us. Our courts are trampled, orphans are created, crying out as they and their families are deported, while a corrupt Executive sits on his throne among people who put him there, manipulating markets and selling idols for money, refusing to assent to the laws of our land, disrupting the passage of legislation, silencing representatives of the people, imposing measures outside of the legislature that fatigue the courts and undermine the judiciary, obstructing naturalization of foreigners, erecting new offices that harass our people, keeping national guards by his side without proper consent, quartering armed troops among the people, protecting criminals, cutting off trade with all parts of the world, depriving us of Trial by Jury, transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences. For this is the unanimous declaration of our voices.

Non-violent demonstrations seek to create a crisis and tension that forces communities to confront the issues that they have long ignored, just as the prophets created tensions within Israel to accomplish justice there and then, not in some distinct future. As Martin Luther King Jr. says, "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." While we have a moral responsibility to obey just laws, we also have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws and orders, ones that degrade human persons, giving the oppressors a false sense of superiority over their brethren, relegating God's children to things rather than equal persons, ones that those in power compel in others but do not bind themselves by, or even just laws that are unjust in their application.

For God calls us not to order but to justice, first and foremost; order only exists to establish justice. God will not forget. He rests in His residence and gazes down at the righteous, at the unjust, and equally at those who sway in the cold winds, never choosing a direction. No, it is not the time to remain silent, or to excuse away violations of the natural law. June 14th is the day of the No Kings protest. Which direction do you choose?