On Dec. 1, 1955, a Black woman named Rosa Parks, sitting in the “no man’s land” of a Montgomery, Ala., bus, declined to relinquish her seat to a white rider as required by law. The refusal led to her arrest and the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the great protests of the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century.
On Dec. 5, 1955, Martin Luther King Jr., newly installed pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, entered the pulpit of Montgomery’s Holt Street Baptist Church to address an overflow crowd of African American citizens ready to participate in the boycott, the bus riding rules being a daily symbol of Jim Crow authoritarianism in the American South.
Bill Leonard
In his recent biography, King: A Life, Jonathan Eig writes that “without notes or manuscript,” King said the crowd had gathered “because they were all American citizens, resolute in their insistence on acquiring the rights to which they were entitled. They were patriots, lovers of democracy, and their actions would prove that democracy was the greatest form of government on earth.”
Addressing “the bus situation,” King declared: “And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.” He called for a peaceable protest befitting their Christian faith, then he asserted:
And we are not wrong. … If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie. Love has no meaning. And we are determined in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.
“Some members of the U.S. Congress already have given up their seats and moved to the back of the constitutional bus.”
Those words, spoken 70 years ago, sound shockingly, immediately applicable to the present moment in American political, moral and, yes, religious life. Right now, Americans are being asked to relinquish our seats of citizenship to yet another authoritarian effort at undermining the rule of law, pardoning convicted criminals and threatening judges who challenge the president’s singular authority. Sadly, some members of the U.S. Congress already have given up their seats and moved to the back of the constitutional bus.
Tragically, these autocratic efforts, inherent in Project 2025, promote a particular kind of authoritarian Christianity seeking governmental and cultural privilege, not only among churches, but increasingly in the public square, the public schools and the public policy. Massive staff and funding reductions have tremendous implications for the church’s calling to care for “the least of these.”
Consider the following examples.
Concerning Medicaid, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that:
Some of these proposals will directly and immediately reduce the number of people who receive Medicaid, which is how the policies save money. Some policies take aim at the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion and would achieve many of the same goals as ACA repeal. Other policies will upend Medicaid financing and payment arrangements and pass the cost onto states, which likely will be unable to absorb these new costs. These cuts could push states to cut funding for other state programs and services or cut Medicaid eligibility, benefits, provider payments, or some combination of these.
With the dismantling of the Department of Education, the National Education Association’s NEA/Today reports that the DOE:
Directs money to schools with high concentrations of students living in poverty and provides supports such as reading specialists and smaller class sizes, could be decimated if, as proposed in Project 2025, it is turned into block grants and handed over to individual states—without any sort of accountability or oversight.
According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, 180,000 teaching positions could be lost, affecting 2.8 million students in low-income communities.
“What will our church do, if people in our congregation and community lose some or all of their Medicaid funding?”
Roughly 7.5 million students, or 15% of the student population, receive special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act which provides $15 billion to support students with disabilities. This program could be transferred to another agency, making it significantly less likely that students with disabilities receive the services and support they need and deserve.
PBS News reports:
The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut 83,000 jobs, slashing employment by over 17% at the federal agency that provides health care for millions of veterans, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press on March 5, 2025.
The report continues by noting:
Cuts to the federal workforce are also affecting medical care for veterans. The Veterans Health Administration workforce constitutes 90% of the VA’S 482,000, so cuts to VA workers mean cuts to health care.
American churches must now confront the question: “What will our church do, if people in our congregation and community lose some or all of their Medicaid funding?”
Or if teachers lose their jobs or their disabled students lose special education programs?
Or if cuts in funding or staffing mean veterans no longer receive the medical care they were promised and so desperately need?
Whatever may happen, the worst possible result is that churches with deep ties to their respective communities fail to prepare or refuse to develop strategies for responding to the loss of so many resources for people who may not be able to live without them. Many congregations already provide food banks, clothes closets, counseling centers or tutoring programs, but the rapid demise of government revenue adds new challenges for responding to immediate needs.
Reevaluating existing or nonexistent programs, perhaps reshaping or instituting them in light of federal and state cutbacks seems essential. MAGA-affirming churches must work to take up at least some of the slack caused by government program-reorientation they supported, while MAGA-dissenting communions must pick up the pieces created by those cutbacks even as they lobby for restoring needed government assistance.
“This is a gospel moment if ever there was one.”
Will these government programs and funding reductions compel diverse faith communities to forge new alliances, blending their limited resources in an effort to provide maximum response in their particular towns, counties or regions? This is a gospel moment if ever there was one.
In King: A Life, Eig says that ultimately, King would call Dec. 5, 1955, “the day of days.”
Eig concludes:
It was the day, at the age of 26, that King found his voice preaching a mixture of political agitation and gospel, making the radical seem reasonable, perhaps inevitable. The world would change. All … would be free. Their time had come. He promised.
Seventy years later, can a new generation of gospel preachers find her/his/their voices accordingly?
And what of the rest of us 70 years later, as another kind of Jim Crow autocracy strives to become the law of the land for red and yellow, black and white alike? Like Rosa Parks, let’s resolve to stay on the freedom bus. And keep our seats.
Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce, and their daughter, Stephanie.
Related articles:
Become ‘courageous resisters,’ scholar tells UMC women
America stands at a moral crossroads, faith leaders warn
Here’s one way to do something and not remain silent | Opinion by Catherine Meeks