Today we stand as truth-tellers witnessing to the pain and suffering caused by the injustices within our community and across this country.
We gather to declare that we need a moral revival, a radical revolution of values.
Time for a Moral Revolution of Values
The Forward Together Moral Movement in North Carolina, and especially the Moral Mondays protests, is an example of the kind of leadership our society so badly needs. Rev. Dr. William Barber II and others from that effort have tapped into a source of real hope in hard times: the potential unity of all of us who are hurting, against the people in power; the discovery that we have more in common with each other than the people who make all the decisions that govern our lives — in state capitols, in Washington, and in banks and boardrooms. More than a shared pain, in North Carolina they’ve uncovered shared values as well.
These are the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; of democracy and equal protection under the law; of a just and righteous God; and of our responsibility to love and care for one another. For too long, these values and their sources — the Bible and other sacred texts, along with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — have been turned upside-down, used to shame us and divide us in the service of the powerful. The Revival national tour is about working on national and a state level to revive the true meaning and power of those values, along with our ability and our determination to fight alongside one another and not against one another.
The Revival Tour
The tour is being organized by Repairers of the Breach (a new national group led by Rev. Barber), the Drum Major Institute, and Healing of Our Nation Ministries. The Kairos Center is a proud co-sponsor. Throughout the Spring and into the Summer the tour will stop in fifteen states around the country, particularly in the South and the Midwest. Each stop will be preceded by a Moral Political Organizing Leadership Institute and Summit (MPOLIS), aimed at training clergy and other local leaders in the kind of moral analysis, moral articulation, and moral action that has been so central to the success of Moral Mondays in North Carolina.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/revival.jpg” alt=”Religious leaders at the Moral Revolution of Values kickoff in NYC” align=”center” lightbox=”off” caption=”Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Rev. Traci Blackmon, and Rev. Dr. William Barber, II at the Revival launch in NYC.” captionposition=”left”]
The revivals themselves will feature a liturgy of musical arts reflective of our deepest moral traditions; testimonies from impacted people; and exhortations from Reverend Barber and other nationally-recognized and local clergy. They will give a charge and invite attendees to sign a moral challenge to every candidate for President, the U.S. Senate, and Governor of their respective state. An “altar call” will invite leaders and impacted persons to sign a personal pledge to lead direct actions in their respective states on three consecutive Mondays in September. The services will be live-streamed and recorded so all can participate. Learn more about Repairers of the Breach and The Revival, including how you can get involved, at www.breachrepairers.org.
Litany for The Revival
Rev. Jessica Chadwick Williams, an alumnus of Union Theological Seminary and the Poverty Initiative (the central program of the Kairos Center), composed a beautiful litany for the revivals. You can read it below, and download it and the rest of the program from the launch event here.
Leader: Martin Luther King said, “There comes a time when silence is betrayal. The truth must be told.”
Congregation: And the truth is that more than 250,000 people die from poverty and the lack of education each year in the United States, that thousands die each year because of the lack of healthcare, including the denial of Medicaid expansion, that half of the United States is poor or low-income, and that millions of children are homeless, lack adequate food and housing, and don’t have quality education. There comes a time when silence is betrayal. The truth must be told.
Leader: The truth is that voting rights are being eroded 50 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, that systemic racism plagues America as extremists drum up bigotry and hatred, that in many communities it is more likely that teenagers will end up in prison than graduate from high school.
Congregation: There comes a time when silence is betrayal. The truth must be told.
Leader: Today we stand as truth-tellers witnessing to the pain and suffering caused by the injustices within our community and across this country. We gather to declare that we need a moral revival, a radical revolution of values. And we call on the prophets of old from the sacred texts of the world’s religions who proclaimed:
Congregation: “This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jeremiah 22:3)
Leader: “Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims – laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children.” (Isaiah 10:1-2)
Congregation: “All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of God.” (James 5:4)
Leader: “Arjuna, whenever righteousness is on the decline, unrighteousness is in the ascendant, then I am reincarnated. For the protection of the virtuous, for the extirpation of the evil-doers, and for establishing Dharma [righteousness] on a firm footing, I am born from age to age.” (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4:7-8)
Congregation: “The believers, both men and women are in charge of and responsible for one another; they all enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong…” (Qu’ran 9:71)
Leader: If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. (Isaiah 58)
Congregation: As with these sacred texts, we, too proclaim revival across this land as we sound the alarm and join hand in hand.
Leader: We join voice with voice until all are heard and arm in arm until all are seen.
All:
Hallelujah, Thine the glory.
Hallelujah, Amen.
Hallelujah, Thine the glory.
Revive us again!
One of our co-directors, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, helped lead the launch event at Riverside Church in New York on April 3rd, as well as the first revival, in Raleigh, NC on April 4th. Watch videos from both below.
Video from the launch event at Riverside Church in NYC.
Video from the Raleigh, NC revival.
The tentative schedule for the rest of the Revival tour is:
May 2 — Charleston, SC
May 23 — Atlanta, GA
June 6 — Birmingham, AL
June 20 — Houston, TX
July 11 — Cleveland, OH
August 1 — Indianapolis, IN
August 15 — Madison, WI
August 29 — Richmond, VA