In our latest LIVE episode of The Convocation Inscription, we all report from our experiences from the road over the last two weeks—from California, Indiana, Tennessee, and New York. We’re sensing that all of the destruction unleashed by the Trump administration is finally sinking in to a broader swath of Americans, including folks in predominantly white Christian spaces. People are beginning to wake up, not only to the incompetence, but to the critical threat Trump and his presidency is to our pluralistic democracy. We urge people to understand the purges of websites, databases, and exhibits of the lives and work of women, LGBTQ Americans, and Americans of color for what they are—the modern day equivalent of a massive book burning. And we give a grateful shout out to Sen. Cory Booker, who took the record from segregationist Strom Thurman, for the longest speech given in the Senate in our nation’s history—this time calling for a more inclusive vision of America. Finally, we urge people to channel their anxiety, anger, frustration into action by looking for local ways to be loud and to use whatever resources they have now, before it gets even harder, to protect democracy.

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In this episode, the Convocation Unscripted team takes a break from the daily outrages coming from the Trump administration to talk about the work for racial justice, healing, and repair that is taking place in unexpected places. Jemar talked about his recent travels to Jackson, Mississippi, and Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. Robby talked about his recent trips to speak at First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia, where his book White Too Long was chosen as a city-side book read for Black History Month, and to the Zacchaeus Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, which is facilitating reparations payments from white residents and historically white churches to support Black nonprofits in Northwest Arkansas. Diana is also about to be on the road for much of April, speaking with churches and groups who are continuing the work of social and racial justice, even against the prevailing winds. We wrapped the episode with a tribute to Roger Freet, a literary agent to and friend of Diana and Robby, who passed away this week. He was a great soul who supported so much good work in the world, and we miss him.

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Jemar Tisby- JemarTisby.Substack.com

Amid the continued onslaught against our Constitutional rights by the Trump administration, Robby, Kristin, and Diana discuss the importance of focusing on “bright lines” that are being crossed. We celebrate the institutions that continue to hold courageous conversations in these challenging days, such as First Baptist Church of Richmond and St. Mary’s College in Indiana, which are hosting Robby and Kristin for public conversations. We discuss the likely illegal detaining of Mahmoud Khalil--a Palestinian recent graduate of Columbia University, U.S. green card holder, and husband of an American citizen—for speech the Trump administration did not like. We also talk about the dangers of Trump’s usurpation of power by declaring a national emergency. This emergency declaration, made without any legitimate grounds, gives Trump the power to unilaterally impose tariffs and to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, as he is likely to do shortly to institute mass deportations.

Finally we talk about the heresy circulating in Christian circles that empathy is a threat to the gospel. We point out that previous purges of empathy as a Christian virtue among white Christians in America prepared the ground for the genocide of Indigenous people and the enslavement of people of African descent. We know where that road leads. We also discussed the importance of universities and churches to avoid the trap of neutrality, since, as our colleague Jemar always reminds us, justice takes sides.