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There are 1,753 articles in the Sojourners archives that reference Isaiah 58:8 and for good reason: The verse offers a succinct summary of the biblical call to social justice. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” Jesus himself quotes the verse in his first sermon. But who exactly are “the oppressed” that need liberating? Two recent stories offer different views. Last month, a Trump-created task force released a 565-page report on what it described as the “anti-Christian bias” perpetuated by the Biden administration. Alleged examples of this bias included the fact that the Transgender Day of Remembrance fell on Easter Sunday in 2024. For some, the report confirmed that the Christian faith in the U.S.—or at least a particular version of it—has been persecuted by the federal government. Meanwhile, Sojourners opinion columnist Yanan Rahim Navarez Melo traces “the afterlife of U.S. colonial rule” that has killed, displaced, and deprived people of self-determination from the Philippines to Palestine. Quoting Filippino theologian Karl Gaspar, Melo says that “Jesus always sides with those who, under empire, suffer ‘in the collage…of blood and tears.’” It’s a sobering contrast to what’s documented in Trump’s task force. Elsewhere this week: Our authors examine how Christians can offer more persuasive alternatives to war and be patriotic in all the right ways. And in the latest Sojourners cover story, Josina Guess offers a beautiful meditation on her mother-in-law’s dementia in light of a different verse in Isaiah: “Can a woman forget her nursing child […] Even these might forget, yet I will not forget you.”
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