this is a rly salutary thread for “stoles to the protests” type christians esp white ones who think doing so will make us the conscience of the government/nation (it won’t and shouldn’t)—we love to speak to important ppl to feel important. but I have a concern about it also:

I don’t think it’s true that Jesus didn’t speak truth to power. He taught and healed the ones he was sent to, whom most would not count worth speaking to, but it’s pretty clear that power heard about the truth he was speaking, because that truth directly concerned them.

The beatitudes and their attendant woes, the decrying of the power of and love for money, the declaration that the Kingdom is here, all of these things had implications: the hungry get fed bc the rich get their food taken, etc.

It might be worth observing that Jesus spoke most to something like local power (scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, synagogue leaders), and had little to say to Rome. Local folks were interested and could also directly hurt his local people (cf the man whose blindness he healed)...

...and if anything I think it’s quite salutary for those of us who want to be Truth Tellers, myself included, to speak less self-righteously about what concerns our local people less directly and look more at what’s in front of us.