What Does Repair Look Like? What does true repair from harm look like in the 21st century? We are living during chaotic times, where division has the potential to upend our world as we know it. For some, the chaos is new, for others, the chaos has been constant. Today, I am inviting the voice of Bryan Epps, Sojourners’ Chief Program and Impact Officer. His current piece on Sojo.net invites us to go deep theologically in this moment. Today I am in conversation with the piece entitled “Trump Defectors Are On The Rise. Do We Welcome Them?” ————— “There are moments when a system fails so completely that it reveals its design. For me, that moment was in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. I watched from Newark as floodwaters submerged New Orleans, Black families were stranded on rooftops and packed into the Superdome while the state and national media moved with a deadly indifference. As a young adult, I learned something important: Systems don’t collapse; they are disinvested in and allowed to fail when people are deemed expendable.” I want to sit with the idea that society has historically determined who is worthy of safety and care and who is considered human enough for people to care. Even further, as Epps says, “we are constantly making decisions about proximity: Who is inside, who is outside, and under what conditions will we work with certain people.” Epps goes on to say that he has “been thinking about what it means to come back from harm; not to leave it behind, but to repair what was broken. And, in this political moment, this thought leads me to an urgent question: What do we do with people when they leave the Make America Great Again movement?” That question is very real. Many people are sitting with this now that the realities of the Trump era touch more than the intended targets. As Epps asks, “What does accountability look like when harm is public and repeated?” How will we proceed, as people of faith, when people have previously made the choice to support a movement that has strategically harmed people on the margins of society? This is something we have not done well, as a society and as people of faith. Epps says that “history warns us about what happens when reconciliation doesn’t include material weight. In both American Reconstruction and post-apartheid South Africa, change was instituted without economic redistribution, leaving inequities intact. These moments expanded Black power either briefly or with limitations but without restitution; those gains were violently reversed or quietly stifled. In both cases, symbolic progress failed without concrete material commitments. Even our violent breaks from oppressive systems—like war, rebellion, and mass uprisings—have failed to repair them without material transitions.” I hope we take the historical record seriously and refuse to let symbolic progress stand in for real transformation. We have been here before, and we know how the story ends when accountability has no material weight. Epps' piece challenges us to imagine and demand something different. I invite you to read the entire piece here: ––Rev. Moya Harris, Senior Director of Programs, Sojourners
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