The NC Council of Churches is proud to publish a brand new e-book collection of testimonies from Moral Mondays. With 32 short vignettes from North Carolinians across the state, Voices of Moral Mondays tells the story of everyday folks being motivated to speak out on account of their faith. Many, though not all, of the accounts describe what it was like to engage in civil disobedience and be arrested by the authorities. Click here to download the free e-book.
By Rev. Ron LaRocque, Metropolitan Community Church of Winston-Salem
On May 20, I drove from my home in Winston-Salem to Raleigh to participate in the Moral Monday campaign. Part of my participation included voluntarily committing an act of nonviolent civil disobedience which resulted in my arrest. I admit I was not as calm on the inside as many of those arrested alongside me appeared to be on the outside. Still, the anxiety I experienced was a personal sacrifice I was willing to make in order to live out my faith.
In Micah 6:8 the Holy Voice asks, “What does the Lord require of you,” and then immediately answers that question saying, “but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
I went to Raleigh because our state legislature is not walking humbly. Instead, those drunk from the wine of new power continued to imbibe, seeking even more power for themselves and their cohorts as they strove to wrest control away from local governmental bodies, abolish judicial seats, and change the makeup of boards and commissions to suit their own political purposes. Throughout the session, they talked about, and in the closing days found a way to, extract even more power by making it increasingly difficult for some with opposing views to exercise their right to vote.
I went to Raleigh because our state legislature showed by their actions they do not love kindness. Quite the contrary, mean-spiritedness seemed the order of the day. Two of the first acts taken in the recent legislative session were to deny people access to affordable healthcare by refusing to expand Medicaid under the provisions allowed by the Affordable Care Act, and to unnecessarily deprive the long-term unemployed access to federal extended benefits which cost our state nothing.
I went to Raleigh because our state legislature is not doing justice. When bill after bill is introduced in and passed by the General Assembly – bills which effectively further disenfranchise some of the most vulnerable citizens of our state while further enriching the already-wealthy and further empowering the already-powerful – that is the very definition of injustice.
Most of all, I went to Raleigh because I felt the Lord required it of me.
Most of all, I went to Raleigh because I felt the Lord required it of me. I was required to do justice. The Lord did not suggest, did not ask, did not prompt, did not prod, but demanded I raise my voice against injustice until justice returns and God’s righteousness prevails. I went to Raleigh to play my own small part in helping bring about that righteousness. I trust God will bless my efforts and the efforts of many, many others taking a moral stand.
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