‘We can’t stay silent’: A closing message for Kamala Harris fills an historic Durham church

St. Joseph African Methodist Episcopal Church welcomed surrogates for the Harris-Walz campaign on Sunday. Pastors and officials both said Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump offered two very different visions for the future. 

On the last Sunday of the early voting period in North Carolina, Justice Hill, the young adult minister at St. Joseph African Methodist Episcopal Church in Durham, told the congregation the story of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who called out for help as Jesus passed by him outside Jericho. 

The crowd that milled around Jesus, Hill said, yelled at Bartimaeus to be quiet, showing him such derision because his blindness had made them blind to his suffering. But Jesus, the Biblical story goes, called Bartimaeus over.

Your faith, Jesus told him, has made you see again.

The moral here, Hill said, is to never let anyone else silence you. Especially in the voting booth.

The St. Joseph pastors and elected officials who spoke as guests in this Sunday service called for spiritual and civic action in the 2024 election, describing the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump as a fork in a road with two very different paths ahead — one full of light, the other darkness.

Like Bartimaeus, voters needed to find their voice, Hill said. 

“How can I stay quiet when I’m longing to see with faith, yet I’m blinded by fear?” Hill said, his volume and intensity rising with every sentence.

“How can I stay quiet when racism and discrimination have become normalized?

How can I stay quiet when people seeking political office are spewing words of hate and office seeking to destroy our hope for the future?”

How can I stay quiet when womens’ rights are on the line?

How can I stay quiet when people don’t think [Harris] is worthy of being president?

How can I stay quiet when God has given me something to say?”

‘That is the contrast at hand.’

The service doubled as one of the church’s Souls to the Polls events this election season, also featuring three surrogates from the Harris-Walz campaign, including NC Sen. Natalie Murdock, who represents the district St. Joseph’s is in. 

They cast Harris as the only candidate who reflects the principles and priorities of a church that has fought for social justice and civil rights since its founding 155 years ago. 

“[The Kamala Harris] campaign will include everyone so that we are moving together as a country,” Tenn. Rep. Karen Camper, a Democrat, said. “Find yourself in her policies, in her platform. You’re there.”

No one mentioned Donald Trump’s name, but the differences between the candidates couldn’t be clearer, the speakers said.

“When we think about our future, can it be one that we are proud of? Can we speak confidently about our leaders and their reflection on who we are as individuals?” asked US Rep. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island. 

“That is the contrast at hand,” he said.

‘It will come down to our state’

Early voting runs through Saturday, Nov. 2. But this was the final chance to vote on a Sunday after church. Souls to the Polls is a loose but large affiliation of Democratic groups and congregations that help voters get to the polls. St. Joseph’s formal event was last Sunday. This Sunday served as a reminder of the stakes. 

Murdock preached the urgency of voting in a tight election, saying that North Carolina could be the deciding factor.

“North Carolina, it will come down to our state,” Murdock said. “We can determine the outcome of this election right here.”

The close race means that North Carolinians had an obligation to bring others to the polls as well, Amo said.

“We have some agency here. We have a sacred right, a sacred privilege to vote,” Amo said. “Call on those in your lives to vote, and when I say call on them, I don’t mean just post on Facebook, I mean pick up your phone and call them,” he said.

“Call them because our lives depend on it. And that is not hyperbole. That is reality.”

Amo added: “It is a serious time, but I am hopeful.”

‘We can’t stay silent’

After the service, Hill told Cardinal & Pine that the link between the story of Bartimaeus and the story of this election was as clear as it seemed. 

These are not stories of religion and history, he said. They are stories of now, stories of the future.

“We can’t stay silent,” he said. 

“If you’re asking ‘how will this election help me,’ think about your future, think about 10 years from now, think about the generation of your kids, how do you want them to live? We can’t just be focused on today, we have to be focused on tomorrow and years to come,” he said.

“Your voice matters, your votes matter,” he said.

“And God is good.”