This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it is no joking matter.
How a rabbi and an evangelical pastor are fighting white supremacy together
USA Today via Yahoo News
By Tom Krattenmaker
December 28, 2021
Depressed by the mutual contempt in which the two Americas hold one another? By the gloom hanging over what is supposed to be a season of light?
I certainly am. But I am lifted by the story of Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin and evangelical pastor Tom Breeden and the work they’ve been doing together since the infamous "Unite the Right" rally violated their city of Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.
Rather than running for the shelter of like-minded liberals as she was tempted to do, Schmelkin has thrown herself into the work of reducing identity-based violence and hate. She has found a ready partner in Breeden who, contrary to oversimplified notions about evangelicals, shares her commitment to restoring decency to public life.
When we speak up people don’t listen, they see us as having an “axe to grind” but when clergy speak up against injustice and bigotry they are seen as being a “moral person” and their voices carry more weight with religious people. A friend says, "If you hear mean, intervene."
We cannot let the manipulators and extremists on both sides continue their self-serving battle at the expense of, and against the wishes of, the non-extremists who constitute the majority.
To not speak up against bigotry and violence is to condone it.
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