Community gathers in protest and prayer to reclaim Christianity 

Hundreds of church leaders and community members sang “Peace Like a River” and waved green palms in the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza in Eugene on Sunday, March 29.

It was Palm Sunday, a Christian holiday that celebrates the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and marks the start of Holy Week. The group, which included clergy from churches throughout Lane County, had gathered at First Christian Church before marching to the plaza. 

Multiple churches partnered to plan the event, which was part of a nationwide demonstration to reclaim Christianity from authoritarianism and speak out against white Christian nationalism. 

A group of musicians who lead an interfaith vigil on Tuesdays at the Federal Building, called Singing for our Lives, led the group in song throughout Sunday’s event. 

“The Palm Sunday story, in and of itself, is a demonstration of brave protest in solidarity with the oppressed class,” Rev. Valerie Austin, transitional minister at First Christian Church, said to the group gathered at the church, where the pews were filled and more people stood in the back. 

“We as people of various faiths, or no faith, in the spirit of solidarity, speak a resounding ‘no’ to the manipulation, coercion and perversion that is white Christian nationalism and a wholehearted ‘yes’ to a Christianity based on the Jesus of the Bible,” she said. 

Rev. Ryan Scott, a pastor at First United Methodist Church in Eugene, was part of the event’s planning team.

“Most of the Christian story in America right now tends to focus on reward and punishment or on conservative politics,” he told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “But that’s not the full breadth of what Christianity really is. So we’re here to say that Christianity is a movement of love, peace and justice, and we’re here to represent that.”

He said he hopes one of the impacts of the event is that people see that not all Christians are the same. 

“We’re not all conservative, we’re not all part of that wing of the Christian movement,” Scott said. “There are Christians out there who are fighting for justice, who care for migrants and immigrants and welcome the outsider and the stranger and who care for the poor.”

Phil Barnhart held palms from the Sunday morning service at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, where he attends. 

“Jesus did not discriminate against people based on their skin color or their gender or their religious beliefs or anything,” Barnhart told Lookout.

“My belief is that Christians need to make sure that Americans understand what Jesus was about, and he wasn’t about the things that the Christian nationalists are saying,” added Barnhart, a former state representative. 

Tiphany Jones, who lives in Junction City, said she has a strong faith in God, “but I don’t like necessarily being associated with Christianity, because unfortunately, so many people use it as a manipulation tool to make people believe that it’s acceptable to be racist and hateful.”

She said she wanted to be part of different faiths coming together, showing that it could be more positive and speaking against using Christianity as justification for hate.

“When you do look into the Bible, the lessons in there are completely opposite of what’s happening right now, which is to watch out for our neighbors, care for one another, not lie, cheat, steal or hate people,” she told Lookout. 

In the plaza, Austin encouraged attendees to contact their representatives and offer their time to local organizing groups such as Indivisible.

“Keep speaking out and speaking up,” she said. “The future of our democracy depends on our individual and collective bravery.”

Members of the group then linked arms and sang “We Shall Overcome.”