have stayed together? What would the history books say? Today, we might read about a nation that intervened, prevented the Holocaust.
Instead, we read about how a nation was complicit. Complicity can take different forms. For example, fear in the heart of
a person can become a tool used to manipulate them into silence. Suspicion is another gateway to complicity. It leads to fear. Fear leads to hate, and hate leads to violence and death. Mass complicity is violence. It is sin. It says nothing in the face of injustice for the sake of self-preser-
-vation. Human psychology tells us about the bystander effect, which posits that most people witnessing a crisis will not do anything to stop it because they believe someone else will step in. This part of human psychology undergirds authoritarians’ committing atrocities. They bank on it. Unfortunately, so many lives are lost because people fail to end evil at work.
During my trip, there were many times my mind turned to the United States right now. In the U.S. today, we see blatantly negative attitudes towards groups of people considered “other.” We witness the rotten fruits of an intense rise in nativism, religious nationalism, and long-simmering racism. Fear that the “other” will harm you, will take away your economic prosperity or is the reason for all your problems stands as an infectious lie that has swept across this nation with an unholy fervor. People are mistreated every day in this country simply because they don’t pass the false test of what many think a “true American” looks like or should be. Individuals are denied due process rights at an alarming rate.
Unfortunately, such mistreatment and dehumanization are not new in American society. This is a tale that goes back to before the Founding. We have, however, taken the better path at certain critical junctures. Those moments provide glimpses of what America can be. But sadly, when we have taken “one step forward,” we have then taken “two steps back.” Once again, we face an inflection point, a point at which we the people can decide how much farther the mistreatment and dehumanization of our fellow human beings will go.
Will we live up to our highest ideals? We must find the resolve within us to appeal to what President Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.”1 And we as the American Church must decide whether we are going to allow religious nationalism to continue tainting the witness of Christ, or whether we are going to rebuke this heresy with the power of God’s word. Are we going to adhere to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, where he tells us to care for “the least of these,” the disinherited of the world? We must be faithful to what we claim to believe. In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus says “ for I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing,
I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” This is a critical piece of who we are as the church. The core of the Gospel requires that we speak clearly and boldly from a place of agape, love for anyone who is dehumanized and treated as “other.” Jesus identifies with the “other,” and so should we.
Consider this today: will you be a bystander who is complicit? Or will you stand in the gap, even at the risk of your own comfort and convenience? I remind you of the words of Dr. King that “the ultimate measure” of someone, “is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of chaos and controversy.”2 So, will you follow the command to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” as the prophet Micah says (Micah 6:8)? Will you decide to choose love over hate and fear? Love is radical. It forsakes self-preservation and intervenes on behalf of others. Jesus gave up his own life that we might have life more abundantly. The way of love is not self-seeking. It is selfless. Let us never forget that justice is love in action. Will you choose love, even when it’s not popular? This is the essential question I leave you with. For although a nation makes collective decisions, we will be judged for our actions individually as well as collectively.
By way of closing, I recount when our guide at Auschwitz, Paul, offered a surreal and challenging statement to us. He said, “there are atrocities happening all over the world right now. Forty years from now, what will history say you did during this time?” Where will you stand in these chaotic times? I implore you today to stand on the side of love, not hate, hope, not fear. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past, but instead imagine new futures where justice, dignity, and love are given to all people of the earth.
Reverend Edward C. Ford Jr. was a 2025 FASPE Clergy & Religious Leaders Fellow. He holds a Master of Divinity from Yale University Divinity School and was the inaugural student to receive a certification from the Yale Center for Public Theology and Public Policy.
Notes;
1. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp.
2. Luther King Jr., Martin. Strength to Love, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1981, 35.
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