Letter to the Religious Community
From Reverend Deborah Elandus Lake
Dear Colleagues:
I write to you for three reasons:
1. To inform you, if you do not already know, of a mass movement that
is taking place in our country.
2. To encourage
you to use whatever influence you have to add to the number of us who are
demanding that Bush step down.
3. To request
that you support this movement.
On Monday, Dec 12 the New York Times carried a full page ad calling for the
Bush regime to be driven from office. The ad challenged all Americans to do
three things:
a) drown out Bush when he
gives his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 31.,
b) march on Washington the Saturday after his address, February
4th, and
c) join World Can’t Wait in
demanding that he step down.
There is an unprecedented
national movement of people from all walks of life, races, orientations, and
ethnicities organizing and calling for Bush to step down. I am honored to be
part of this movement, and I am inviting you to do the same. The Bush regime is
illegal, immoral, and must end. As people called by God to the ministry, we
have a duty to address the immoral activities of this regime (Matt. 7:21-28). As religious leaders of
organizations, churches, synagogues, and temples, we have a responsibility to
stop the direction our country is being taken (Matt. 21:12). Bush lied about Iraq harboring weapons of mass
destruction, and time has proven that lie. Bush heads an immoral regime, and
the activities in Abu Ghraib illustrate this immorality.
What Bush represents must
be stopped, and we are calling on you to speak out.
Support this movement! Go to the World Can’t Wait website (www.worldcantwait.org), endorse the
call and circulate it to your constituency.
Support this movement! Write statements calling for organizations and people to
join with World Can’t Wait to drown out Bush when he gives his State of the
Union speech, January 31.
Support this movement! Mobilize people to go to D.C. on Feb 4th by the bus
loads. Support this movement! Give your donations to help cover the cost of
demanding that Bush step down.
In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “We have been silent witnesses of
evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of
equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept
us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and
even made us cynical. Are we still of any use?”
I
ask if we can afford to pay the spiritual, ethical, and moral price of silence
and inaction in the
face of a country created by Bush and those who have kept him in office?
Respectfully,
Reverend Deborah Elandus Lake
Executive DirectorSankofa Way Spiritual Services,
Inc.
The Chicago Chapter of The Interfaith Alliance
deborahelake@aol.com