Moral Monday

Faith leaders across the South gather to protest cuts to vital services for our most vulnerable neighbors

Public Theology is based on the work of Zach W. Lambert, Pastor of Restore, an inclusive church in Austin, Texas. He and his wife, Amy Lambert, contribute to and moderate this account. Zach’s first book, Better Ways to Read the Bible, will release on August 12, 2025, and is available to preorder today.

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American faith leaders gathered yesterday for “Moral Monday” protests across the South. These protests are part of a larger effort against the passage of Trump’s H.R.1 bill, which has drastically cut Medicaid and food assistance benefits to our country’s poorest citizens.

I was honored to be asked to speak amongst friends in Austin, and I’m proud to share my words with you here. We must continue to speak up and speak out against injustice however and wherever we can.

Moral Monday

July 14, 2025

Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.

Isaiah 10:1-2

The prophet Isaiah spoke those words on behalf of God almost 3000 years ago and yet they ring just as true today as they did then. They applied to the leaders in Isaiah’s time and they still apply to the leaders in our time, because an unjust law is exactly what this “Big Beautiful Bill” really is: an oppressive decree meant to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed.

This bill represents the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since chattel slavery. And because of this bill, over a million people in our state alone are losing their healthcare and hunger assistance.

Now there are those who would say, “We don’t have enough money to give people food, water, and medicine.”

To them I reply, “According to this bill, we have enough money for an extra $150 billion for the military industrial complex, an extra $170 billion for ICE to terrorize immigrants, and an extra $5 trillion in tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy over the next decade.”

If we don’t feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome the immigrant, or support the impoverished, it is not because we don’t have enough money, it’s because we don’t have enough compassion. It is not because we’ve lost revenue, it’s because we have lost our humanity.

A budget is a moral document and this budget is a moral evil. We are supposed to be a country committed to liberty and justice for all, and yet this bill represents a profound injustice.

Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” but let me tell you my friends, this injustice is already everywhere.

This bill takes money from hungry kids and gives it to overfed billionaires.

It takes money from cancer patients and gives it to crooked pharmaceutical companies.

It takes money from immigrants fleeing violence and gives it to ICE to inflict violence.

All of the budget numbers I’ve been quoting are publicly available. No one is trying to hide the horrors of this bill. This legislation wasn’t signed by shadowy figures in a dark alleyway, it was voted for by our elected officials in the well-lit chambers of the United States Capitol.

Why would they do this? Why would they knowingly perpetrate this brutal injustice? Because it helps their power and their pocketbooks.

Let me tell you this: the only people fighting against equality are those who profit off of oppression. The only people standing against justice are those who benefit from injustice.

And many of these agents of inequality are quick to call themselves Christian in an attempt to give divine justification to their harmful policies. But make no mistake about it, they are taking the Lord’s name in vain.

We must be clear: You cannot follow Jesus and forsake justice at the same time. Jesus said, “Whatever you do to the least of these, is what you do to me.” The hungry and thirsty, the injured and the immigrant, the prisoner and the poor… whatever we do for them is what we do for Christ.

That is what it means to be a Christian. If we are truly following Jesus, we will be pursuing justice.

Pastor and womanist theologian Karen Mosby-Avery puts it like this: “We cannot continue to bear the name Christian… if we will not join God in eliminating marginalized people’s suffering, if we will not join Christ in rebelling against injustice.” This bill is a monumental injustice. It will hurt people. It will cost lives.

This bill may have passed in the halls of Congress, but it will not pass in our streets, in our churches, or in the conscience of a people committed to justice. We are still here. We are still fighting. And we will not stop until this country lives up to its promise of liberty and justice for all!

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