Declaration of Sacred Resistance
We are a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and participating congregations, called by our shared values to respond actively and publicly to the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters residing in the United States. We are deeply grieved by the violence done to families through immigration enforcement, including through raids, detention, deportation, and sometimes achieved through dangerous collaboration with local law enforcement. We cannot in good conscience ignore such suffering and injustice.
We stand together in our faith that everyone, regardless of national origin, has basic common rights, including but not limited to: 1) livelihood; 2) family unity; and 3) physical and emotional safety. We witness the violation of these rights under current immigration policy, particularly in the separation of children from their parents due to unjust deportations, and in the exploitation of immigrant workers.
As people of faith and good will, we pledge to:
Resist policies that target and deport millions of undocumented immigrants and discriminate against marginalized communities.
Work alongside our friends, families, and neighbors to ensure the dignity and human rights of all people are honored and respected.
Educate and activate our congregations, organizations and affiliate groups, to listen, amplify and respond to the voices of immigrant leaders, and to speak out against the discrimination of any and all marginalized people.
Accompany our community members, congregants and neighbors facing deportation, and those impacted by detention, deportation, and family separation.
Collectively be prepared to provide sanctuary to an immigrant and their family, providing them with a means to continue to resist their deportation while hosted in a safe space for their body and spirit, the ability to remain with their family and community, and a public platform to proclaim their prophetic message regarding just and humane immigration policy. Many of our congregations will participate in a supportive ministry to those able to offer sanctuary directly, and we firmly resolve to DO SOMETHING.
The below-signed congregations, organizations, and leaders have chosen to stand with and support immigrants and their families facing deportation, revealing the actual human costs of current immigration policies. We believe this movement reveals the face of the immigration crisis. We share their grief at the separation of children from their parents due to unjust deportations. We join their call for the moral awakening of the nation and share their commitment to protect immigrants against hate, discrimination and deportation. We covenant to assume these responsibilities and actions as an apt vehicle for living out our shared values in the current historic moment.
In addition, because each of our traditions value love, justice, and dignity, we extend this invitation to all Greater St. Louis Area faith communities, to join in forming a broad multi-ethnic and interfaith coalition assuring sanctuary, solidarity and safety for our immigrant sisters and brothers.
You are encouraged to sign-on as an individual, and/or as a representative of a group, organization, or congregation. If you have any questions, or would like to become part of this movement, please contact Sara John.
Pledge of Resistance
"As people of faith and people of conscience, we pledge to resist the newly elected administration’s policy proposals to target and deport millions of undocumented immigrants and discriminate against marginalized communities. We will open up our congregations and communities as sanctuary spaces for those targeted by hate, and work alongside our friends, families, and neighbors to ensure the dignity and human rights of all people."
Revolutionary Love Declaration
“We pledge to rise up in Revolutionary Love.
“We declare our love for all who are in harm’s way — refugees, immigrants, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, queer and trans people, Black people, Latinx people, the indigenous, the disabled, women and girls, working-class people and poor people. We vow to see one another as brothers, sisters, and siblings. Our humanity binds us together, and we vow to fight for a world where all of us can flourish.
“We declare love even for our opponents. We oppose all policies that threaten the rights and dignity of any person. We vow to fight not with violence or vitriol, but by challenging the cultures and institutions that promote hate. In this way, we will challenge our opponents through the ethic of love.
We declare love for ourselves. We will protect our capacity for joy. We will rise and dance. We will honor our ancestors whose bodies, breath, and blood call us to a life of courage. In their name, we choose to see this darkness not as the darkness of the tomb – but of the womb. We will breathe and push through the pain of this era to birth a new future.”