One hundred and seven years ago today, on March 1, 1919, students, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens raised the Korean flag and cried out, “Long live Korean independence!” in protest the brutality of Japanese colonial rule. They did not carry weapons. They carried truth.
Today, our world also seems to be ruled by the logic of power. Yet the March 1st Movement reminds us that the beginning of true historical change is not weapons, but conscience shaped by faith.
Among the 33 national representatives who signed the Declaration of Independence, 16 were Christians—nine Methodists and seven Presbyterians. The March 1st Movement teaches us that authentic faith takes responsibility before history. The small acts of justice we practice today, our love for neighbors, and our public witness may not immediately change the world, but in God’s redemptive history, they are seeds.
In Nazi Germany, state power systematically murdered six million innocent Jews. The laws of the nation legalized this atrocity. The Lutheran Church, the state church of Germany, remained silent and even cooperated. The Catholic Church in Poland did the same. Even after the horrors became known, many Protestants around the world justified Hitler’s crimes by quoting Scripture, claiming that the Jews were being punished because they had crucified Jesus.
A few days ago, I recommended a film called Sweden Connection to my children, which portrays real historical events. Through the efforts of Swedish government officials working in immigration and diplomatic administration, nearly 100,000 Jews were granted visas to escape Nazi Germany and find refuge in Sweden. Raoul Wallenberg, who led much of this rescue effort, was simply a Swedish “government official.” Yet one decision, one stamp, one document became part of God’s saving work in history. For Jews in that time, a visa to Sweden was the very hand of God.
We often ask, “Where was God?”
But perhaps the question should be changed: “Through whom was God working?”
On February 25, about 2,000 Christians gathered in Washington, D.C. Thank you for your prayers—I was able to attend with young pastors from New York for the gathering titled Faithful Resistance: A Public Witness for Immigration Justice. We worshiped together, and then we walked to the Capitol. As we marched, we declared:
“Every person, including immigrants, is a child of God.”
“Welcoming the stranger is the gospel.”
“We will not participate in policies that spread fear among our communities.”
“We will not remain silent when immigrants are treated as criminals.”
“In the name of the gospel, we will testify to love alone.”
In the final paragraph of an article reporting on the event, my words were quoted:
“Policies that treat immigrants as criminals clearly contradict the spirit of the gospel. The state may establish order, but the Church cannot stop loving. Today’s Church is called by God to respond not with fear, but with love; not with exclusion, but with welcome; not with division, but with justice and mercy.”
(Erik Alsgaard, United Methodist News, February 26)
We may not be able to change the course of massive historical forces. But we can protect one family. We can welcome one person. We can choose courage instead of fear. And when those choices accumulate, they become part of God’s history.
Jesus said, “Keep awake.”
To be awake does not mean to conform to the ways of a broken world, to remain silent, or to live in fear. It means to act according to the ways of the Kingdom of God—through love, through justice, through hospitality, and through courage.
That is what it means to be a Church awake in the last days.