(RNS) — On the day after President Donald Trump was reelected, the Rev. Joseph Evans, a Berkeley School of Theology professor, wondered, along with some of his colleagues: “What are we going to do now?”
The subsequent collaboration of more than two dozen Black ministers answered with a statement, “A Credo to Legatees of the Black Church Tradition,” urging those who were raised in or now run African American congregations to defy white Christian nationalism and take acts of resistance, including investing in Black banks, supporting Black businesses and providing scholarships to help students attend vocational schools and historically Black colleges and universities.
“We believe, Black people should return to the ecumenical Black Church tradition and renew fellowship with their brothers and sisters,” the document concludes, “to help fight and resist hegemonic practices which continue to endorse under-resourced public and private funding to abolish human poverty.”
The statement, dated Jan. 1 and published later in the month in the Black digital media outlet Reel Urban News, is a critique of Project 2025, a series of conservative proposals that some Black denominational leaders had worried could be solidified in a second Trump administration.
“Project 2025 is informed by white Christian Nationalism,” reads the statement, completed prior to its authors seeing some of the project’s proposals put in place through Trump’s first executive orders.
A Project 2025 fan in the group’s tent at the Iowa State Fair, Aug. 14, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
“We believe our Credo is inspired by the Spirit of the Lord: Therefore, our Credo is not a reaction to Project 2025. Instead, it is an ethical response to white Christian Nationalism.”
RELATED: At King Day rally, Sharpton leads oath to support DEI as Trump opposes it
The Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner, a coordinator of Faiths United to Save Democracy and the onetime executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, is among the document’s supporters.
“I added my name to the Credo because it prophetically calls Black clergy back to the theology of moral resistance in the spirit of Frederick Douglass and many other righteous resisters to injustice and oppression like those inherent in Project 2025,” she told RNS in an email message. “Project 2025 is an all-out attack on over 60 years of civil rights protection of African American people in the U.S.”
In his first days back in office, Trump — whose name was mentioned only in a footnote of the ministers’ statement — signed executive orders that terminate DEI federal programs, offices and positions; urge private-sector entities to end DEI preferences; and revoke executive orders that supported affirmative action in treatment of government contractors and promoted diversity and inclusion in the federal workplace.
President Donald Trump talks as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Time magazine reported on Friday (Jan. 24) that its analysis determined that close to two-thirds of Trump’s executive actions at that point reflected or partially reflected Project 2025 proposals.
In addition to critiquing Project 2025, the statement’s writers also questioned the practices and beliefs of white evangelicals.
“We believe, that many in the white evangelical church have committed irrefutable political, economic, and religious idolatry,” the Black ministers state. “White evangelicals are drunk on the religion of white Christian nationalism which does not find its footing in the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth which is to ‘proclaim good news to the poor.’”
The statement is interwoven with the names of African theologians such as Athanasius of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo, and the words of scholars and activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, James H. Cone and Angela Davis.
Its signatories include Baptist leaders, such as the Rev. James C. Perkins and the Rev. Tisha Dixon-Williams and the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., as well as recent independent presidential candidate Cornel West and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Rev. Otis Moss III, pastor emeritus and current pastor, respectively, of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.
The Rev. Joseph Evans. (Photo courtesy Berkeley School of Theology)
Evans said the Black ministers’ statement, which calls for collective action by Black individuals and Black churches to support Black organizations — with an openness to cooperation with other Black faith traditions — is a necessity in the current political climate.
“In light of what’s going on, we need to reinvent our infrastructure,” said Evans, who also is director of Berkeley School of Theology’s Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Restorative Justice. “If we didn’t learn anything else from this last federal general election, (it) doesn’t look like anybody’s coming to help us. We’re going to have to help ourselves.”
Evans, whose center is set to co-host a town hall in February on “Healing through Justice: Policy Solutions through Traumatized Communities,” points as an example to the statement’s call for Black psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to help address the mental health needs of African American communities.
“It is one of the largest challenges that is underserved, goes undernoticed,” he said.
Evans expects different aspects of the credo will be the subject of upcoming online and in-person workshops and forums.
The statement comes at a time when other Black religious leaders also are seeking next steps to respond specifically to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI stance.
The Rev. Al Sharpton announced at a rally on Inauguration Day, which coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, that his National Action Network would work with others to determine two companies it plans to boycott among those that have pulled back on DEI programs. The Rev. Boise Kimber, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, announced earlier this month that he had created an economic development committee to meet with politicians and major corporations that have been rolling back their initiatives to address diversity, equity and inclusion.
“We have to applaud Reverend Sharpton and Dr. Boise Kimber for taking that particular issue very, very seriously,” said Evans, who anticipated that collaborators on the credo will also continue working with others on that issue.
RELATED: How a movement to resist Christian nationalism took on Project 2025
