A reflection of the last 4 years and looking forward.
Why I have hope and the need to ask for support
Having spoken to other groups who work in activism and social justice spaces, we have all encountered the same phenomenon. There has been a growing amount of apathy among liberal and progressive people over the last 4 years.
In 2020, there was a moment that lasting change could happen. The BLM movement was gaining traction to the point that my (Kalie’s) hyper-conservative seminary at the time was taking steps to address and educate students on systemic racism. At the same time, there was growing recognition around sexual assault, toxic masculinity, and the need to protect LGBTQ+ rights.
That all came to a crashing halt after the 2020 election.
Progress was no longer a political strategy for many and voices speaking out against injustice were often silenced to maintain the idea that progress had happened. This became glaringly obvious this last summer as our “liberal” political leaders’ condemned student protests against the US funding of genocide.
This lack of interest in creating change at the highest level of leadership ultimately led to the Democratic nominee, who was supposedly the "progressive" candidate, to fail to get the turnout needed to win the election.
As much as some leaders are saying that it was "pushing the far-left agenda" that caused the election to go the way that it did, it is clear to many of us that it was the push to the right that led to the election outcome. I told people last May that Georgia could not be won by a liberal if they continued ignore the genocide in Palestine since the candidates were asking people to give up solidarity to vote for someone they couldn’t believe in.
However, I believe the complete failure by our liberal leaders to stand for justice has led us to a critical moment in our history as more people will start to understand the need for justice and progress in our world.
Between the 2016-2020 elections there was a significant shift in our culture’s push for social justice. Evangelicalism, the Christian tradition which has most aligned itself as the tradition of Christian Nationalism, saw its largest exodus in recent history and the “deconstruction movement” became popular as the cognitive dissonance between Jesus and conservative policies. People were seeing the harm that bad theology causes in our world and were changing.
It is my hope that we see the same movement again, if not more so, and we must be willing to be a resource for those looking to create change in our world.
With Ashe’s expertise in spiritual discernment and my experience in theology and biblical studies, I do think we are going to be an organization that people will look to when they are trying to navigate through a world where hateful theologies have risen in power. We do not claim that the answers to injustice are only found in the Christian tradition, but we recognize that we need to speak to the harm that Christianity’s power has brought from a place of experience.
Because of all of this, I have hope that the future can be better. Not just for us as an organization, but for us as a society.
*The part where we ask for money and support*
The truth is, being a progressive non-profit, we are rarely financially secure. We rely on donations from people like you to keep our work going. We are a small, two-person staff non-profit that could not maintain our programs without your help and your support. So, we are incredibly grateful to everyone who has been supporting us.
If you do not currently financially support CPI, please consider donating on the link below. But if you do currently support us financially or are not able to financially support us at this time, here are some things you can do to support us:
Tell people about us and encourage them to donate to our work.
Share our social media content.
Be outspoken about all human rights. The last few years have shown that solidarity is required, not just affirmation.
And send us encouragement.
*The last few weeks have been incredibly difficult. Not only are we dealing with the changes in our world, but we are also receiving more hatred online than we ever had before. And your notes of encouragement go a long way.
The future is still unknown, but we are in this together and we will not stop working toward liberation.
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