Faith and activism: A discussion with three religious leaders in Princeton

The reverberating chants of “No more! No mas!” filled the air as the Rev. Lukata Mjumbe preached about racial justice to a crowd of thousands at a recent Black Lives Matter rally in Downtown Princeton.

For Mjumbe, his involvement in the protests and his activism go hand in hand with his job. He sees his role as pastor of the Witherspoon Presbyterian Church in Princeton as both a religious leader and a civil rights advocate.

“I have a faith-based and -inspired responsibility to advocate and organize for all who are oppressed,” he said.

A few days after the rally, the Rev.Jenny Smith Walz of the Princeton United Methodist Church led members in a five-day prayer vigil to end racism, with a closing ceremony held on the church lawn facing the intersection of Nassau Street and Washington Road.

Participants prayed for an end to systemic racism and for the courage to do anti-racism work. The church website provided a list of anti-racism resources that included books, films, organizations, songs, and more.

Meanwhile, at Princeton University, Sohaib Nazeer Sultan, the Muslim life coordinator, organized conversations about race with his students and other members of the university community. He has posted about the current movement on social media, and preached about it in his Friday sermons.

Religious leaders across the country from many faith traditions have joined with Black churches and other faith groups in calling for police reforms and the dismantling of racism after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some have marched and carried signs, while others have spoken at rallies or served as protest chaplains. Many clergy members have also fostered discussions about racial justice in their congregations.

Planet Princeton spoke with Sultan, Walz, and Mjumbe about the intersection of faith and activism in their own lives, and how they view their responsibilities as religious leaders in the fight against injustice and inequality.

Defining activism

For Sultan, activism does not refer exclusively to protests and marches. Teaching, community building, preaching, and sometimes even studying and reading are all forms of activism, too, he said.

Walz added that prayers such as those recited at the vigil in early June are also a form of activism. “It moves us on to next steps,” she said. “We continue to hear what God invites us to do next.”

Mjumbe’s vision of activism is focused on “moving beyond words, moving beyond reflection and righteous indignation, and actively engaging communities to move around issues,” he said. An activist must march, protest, write letters or make appeals.

No matter what form it takes, activism is slow work, Walz said. Changing systems, communities, and organizations to eradicate inequality and uplift the vulnerable takes time. “It goes little bit by little bit, relationship by relationship,” she said.

Activism is too often associated with liberalism, Sultan said. Many expect activism to take on a particular form or content, but both vary greatly by the community in which the activism work is being done. Ultimately, Sultan encourages conservative and liberal activists alike to prioritize thoughtfulness.

“In Arabic, the words for action and knowledge have the same letters. There is a close relationship between knowledge and activism,” Sultan said. “Knowledge with no activism is useless, and activism with no knowledge is dangerous.”

The intersection of religion, activism and politics

Mjumbe said he has been an activist, advocate, and organizer for most of his life. He said he started off in high school protesting police brutality and racially motivated violence, then began organizing around workers’ rights, environmental justice, hunger, and poverty issues. He worked with Black farmers to challenge institutional racism in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He also advocates for reparations and has asked Princeton University to take responsibility for its history of white supremacy and slavery.

Walz was hired as the lead pastor at the Princeton United Methodist Church in part to help the church embrace its diversity more fully, she said. She has been working to welcome people to the church regardless of their sexual orientation and to build a leadership team that accurately reflects the diversity of the church.

Before coming to Princeton, Walz worked with the homeless population in Phoenix, Arizona for 14 years. She spent time getting to know people at the homeless shelter near her church and encouraging her church members to do the same. Her time in Phoenix studying and praying with those experiencing homelessness were the basis for all the activism that followed, she said.

“Even though I wasn’t really changing systems, it informed the other activism work that I did,” Walz said. Her faith underlies everything she does, including her activism, she said. The moral teachings of her religion have compelled her to fight against injustice.

Sultan said political activism is important to religious activism. “If we don’t engage our lawmakers and the system, then it’s all going to go into thin air,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen on the ground.”

Balancing comfort and discomfort

Being a faith leader is about bringing all people together, including those being pushed to the margins economically and culturally, Walz said.

Sultan sees himself as a shepherd guiding his religious community and feels it is his responsibility to make sure his flock is doing its part in creating a more just and whole society. He does this, in part, with preaching and teaching, but also by modeling correct behavior. “Being there myself is just as important as calling the community to be there,” he said.

All three described seeking a fine balance between comforting their congregants and making them uncomfortable by asking them to reckon with their own privilege and bias or acknowledge their complicity in injustice.

“We’re here to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” Walz said. She is constantly juggling these dual objectives — offering care, compassion, and support to her members while simultaneously challenging them to better themselves and their communities.

“The deepest struggle for us as Christians is to actually believe we are all God’s beloved children,” she said. “We don’t always believe it with our actions and reflect it in our whole lives. There has to be a certain discomfort to make that change. There’s a way the discomfort is ultimately healing.”

Religion is multifaceted in its goals, Sultan said. It is intended to bring people joy, but also to bring about change to immoral systems and call people towards righteousness, and sometimes that makes people feel uncomfortable. But he said we all have to consider our privilege.

“No one should be fully comfortable and no one should be fully uncomfortable,” Sultan said. “There has to be some sort of tension. If there’s not, then you’re missing something in life.”

Walz works in a relatively privileged area of Princeton, and was initially daunted by the task of challenging her members to question their own biases and complicity. She knows preaching on oppression will prevent some people from attending her sermons, but said that does not stop her.

“I have to find the courage to know that people aren’t always going to agree,” she said. “I hope I can offer a space for people to learn.”

Mjumbe’s advice for handling dissent? Make some enemies. If everyone loves you, there is a problem, he said, because challenging and changing oppressive systems inevitably results in conflict. He said he has learned to expect anger and resistance but knows that there will always be people who understand or are seeking to understand.