When asked to respond as a pastor to Tarrio’s use of biblical language to justify the Proud Boys’ actions, as well as to Tarrio’s inflammatory statements against Metropolitan AME, Lamar replied, “My response is: You shall know a tree by its fruit…As the writer of Hebrews says, that for the joy that was in sight—literally the Greek, the joy that was before him in his sight—Jesus endured.”
“And so we do this work, not because we’re angry or bitter. We do this work because we are consumed by the joy of the vision that God has for the world,” said Lamar, “and that is peace, not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice, that is, abundance and healing and wholeness for all.”
“We do not defame churches,” he emphasized. “We do not inflict violence. We do not harbor hatred, but we will not allow human beings to be treated in this way.”
“So when it is us, we fight to the full extent of the law. But [when] it is other human beings, we stand with them and fight beside them because we are aware that from one blood God has made all of humankind,” said the pastor. “And those who practice this kind of separation are doing it for one reason and one reason only—that is to control, that is to exploit.”
“We need to be clear,” Lamar continued, “that it is time for Christians in America to divorce themselves from the American imperial capture of Christianity.” He compared our current situation to that of Christianity under Emperor Constantine, who “used it as a tool to further the bloodiness of the Roman Empire.”
Likewise, said Lamar, “The American imperium has used Christianity in many ways. It has used Christianity to destroy native cultures that were complex and beautiful and take their land.” Moreover, he said, “It used Christianity to take my ancestors, enslave them and get free labor from them, and to then deny us citizenship in some places, even to this very moment.”
“Church leaders must decide if they follow the gospel of Jesus or the empire of America,” said Lamar.
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The pastor said that people throughout the world are asking his church how they can help. “What we are seeking to do is to build a space together where we can do the Spirit work. In order for us to participate in God’s building of God’s dream in the world,” said Lamar, “we must do Spirit work. That is, we must become completely aligned with the presence of the divine and the movement of the Spirit of God,” which opposes worldly forces that destroy and strengthens “things that would create life.”
In addition to “Spirit work,” the church is focused on “soil work.”
“Soil means how do we grow right where we are? How are you doing the work of liberation, justice, and freedom in your own backyard, in your own city, county, state?” said Lamar. “So we’re working through, how do we do the work of Spirit, soil and solidarity together to fight the onslaught that we see today?”
“If we get past this mountain, more mountains will be before us,” Lamar said.
“So with strong spirits, with the commitment to the soil before us, building justice community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, and then standing in solidarity, not believing the myth that we fight alone,” said the pastor, “we believe that we can literally, in the word of the text, turn the world upside down. We believe that.”
