Protest as Liturgy
The issue of Liturgy entitled “Religion Outside of Religion,” guest-edited by David Farina Turnbloom, raises the question of whether the daily rituals of our lives might be seen as contributing to our religiosity. This is an excerpt from Brandy Daniels’ essay “Practicing Martrydom? From Liturgy as Protest to Protest as Liturgy.” Dr. Daniels served as a “Clergy Witness” with the Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance (PICR) created in 2017 by Rabbi Ariel Stone of Congregation Shir Tikvah. The PICR brought leaders from a wide variety of faith communities to the streets to accompany the resistance and bear witness to the violence of police against protesters. –– Melinda Quivik
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During the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests that took place after the murder of George Floyd, Portland again was on the national stage. After over fifty nights of protests, against the wishes of state and city leadership, then-president Trump sent federal agents to Portland (among other places) in order to guard the federal courthouse from the “lawlessness sweeping our nation.” In addition to the ongoing brutality and intimidation from local police and alt-right counter-protesters, Portland protestors now faced an extraordinary use of federal force. Federal agents used tactics such as the “indiscriminate [use of] tear gas, rubber bullets and acoustic weapons,” as well as surprise detainments, where protestors were without warning taken by unidentified agents into unmarked vans where they were interrogated. Despite the excessive use of force, Portlanders protested against racial violence and the systems that sustain it for over 100 days straight, and they continue to protest on a regular, albeit no longer daily, basis.
The ecosystem of Portland protests is complex. While much of the mainstream media attention is directed to the group of protestors who participate in black bloc, the protestors and the roles they play are diverse, and they are often marked sartorially, typically by color-coding. There's the press, who don’t have a particular “uniform” but are always sure to identify themselves with press badges around their necks and/or labels on their backpacks and clothing. Medics generally wear black, marked with red crosses. Legal observers adorn either blue vests (if they are with the ACLU) or neon green baseball caps (if they are with the National Lawyers Guild). Moms coming out to protest will often wear yellow, and the grandmothers get more theatrical, donning flowery dresses, aprons, and large ornate hats. And clergy, as I’ve already noted, wear purple vests affixed with the words “clergy witness.”
Notably, and importantly, PICR’s work is not that of leading protests. Rather, it’s mission is to “bear moral witness in the streets: holding sacred space, centering BIPOC voices, and journeying alongside justice seekers.” Speaking with Yonat Shimron for Religion News Service, Rabbi Stone explained, “We don’t take leadership as much as we try to support the appropriate leadership and to center the marginalized voices…. We are supporters. We can rally resources. We can witness.”
This essay reflects upon the people’s work of witnessing. I begin by briefly exploring the etymological and historical roots of martyrdom, as an exercise in bearing witness to truth. To do this, I rely heavily on Michel Foucault’s examination of courageous truth-telling, known as parrhēsia, and its presence and function within early Christianity. With this vision of martyrdom in mind, I then propose a kind of inversion, moving from how religious leaders might bear witness to the work of anti-racist protestors, to considering how anti-racist protestors themselves serve as living martyrs. When these witnesses publicly and courageously flood the streets, standing against state-sanctioned, white-supremacist violence, they are a sacrament. They reveal and make present a God to whom Black Lives Matter. As such, they extend an invitation of grace to others to “help to carry out God’s policy [justice, love, peace without qualification] in history.”
The rest of this essay is available in the full digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 36, no.4 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.
Brandy Daniels is assistant professor of theology and gender, women, and sexuality studies at the University of Portland, Oregon. Her work stands at the intersections of constructive and political theologies, ethics, and gender and sexuality studies.
Brandy Daniels, “Practicing Martrydom? From Liturgy as Protest to Protest as Liturgy,” Liturgy 36, no. 4 (2021): 22–33.