Do not be silent, O God of the oppressed.
For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against your beloved;
They speak of greatness with lying tongues.
They attack the disinherited with words of hate,
They claim to be oppressed without cause.
They hate the truth;
They love to deceive themselves;
They return evil for love.
They go about sowing chaos,
They attack those who act with honor.
So, God, appoint a host against them.
Let them encounter resistance with every step.
When they go to trial, throw the whole book at them;
When they pray idolatrous prayers, let their prayers fall flat.
When they go to vile marches, cover their feet with blisters;
Let the hands carrying their flags be covered in boils.
May their evil websites crash forever,
May their deceitful mouths be sewn shut.
May their stomachs turn sour for the evil they ingest,
And their mouths be parched from the vile they imbibe.
May their legacy be cut off;
May their monies be used to pay reparations.
Humiliate them, O God of Justice,
Bring them low, out of their seats of power.
For only humiliation can bring repentance.
But not only them, O God;
Humiliate all of us who think we are white.
Bring us close to the ground,
The ground we have taken again and again,
The ground we have falsely claimed your name over.
Let us see in the streets of Charlottesville a mirror,
Make us recognize ourselves in the light of those torches.
May we know that we profit from the system that the red hats scream to uphold;
May we never sleep well with the knowledge that we benefit from others’ pain.
Withhold your blessing from our neighborhoods until we rip down every Confederate statue,
Until we repair the plunder that our people have done.
Topple the steeples of our churches that uphold privilege;
Tie the tongues of our clergy who run from telling the truth.
Close the pews of those who do charity but despise justice.
May you wreck our fine houses and empty our trust funds;
Let our wealth be ripped away for the sake of our souls.
Put us to shame, O God, for our silent complicity,
Clothe us with dishonor until we can love ourselves enough that we do not need to believe the lie of our superiority.
With our mouths we will give you great thanks, God,
We will praise you from our humiliated lowliness,
For it will be our salvation.
For you stand at the right hand of the oppressed,
And through your oppressed body comes our liberation.
Related opinion:
Reflections on Charlottesville for white Christians / Kristopher Norris
The white singularity: The racial divide in American evangelicalism / Alan Bean
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