15/01/2026
Challenging words of courage for our time.
Thank you, Sam Collins, for this transcript:
The Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, Rev. Rob Hirschfeld, gave a very powerful address last Friday night at the Statehouse, where a vigil for Renee Good was held. Sam transcribed it because none of us can stop thinking about his words:
"I'm coming to an awareness that the times of statements and the times of our eloquent words have reached a kind of limit, sadly.
As someone who is a man of profound historical privilege, as one who has made statements that I have to say have been really good and eloquent but have not moved the needle one bit, I want to speak briefly primarily to the Christians among us.
We are now engaged in a horrible battle that is eternal, that has gone on for millennia.
As soon as the Christian Church became linked to the empire by Constantine in the year 325 or so, the church immediately became corrupt.
And the message of Jesus's love, compassion and commitment to the poor, the outcast, was immediately compromised.
We are now, I believe, entering a time, a new era of martyrdom, Renee Good being the last of note.
Of those martyrs, New Hampshire's own Jonathan Daniels, a man of also white privilege, stood in front of the blast of a sheriff in Hayneville, Alabama, to protect a young black teenager from a shotgun blast. He died and was m*rdered.
We know of the women, the Maryknoll sisters who stood alongside the poor and the oppressed in El Salvador and were brutally r*ped and m*rdered in the name of Jesus.
Oscar Romero, in a Mass, called upon the death squads of El Salvador to lay down their arms or risk excommunication, and was martyred the next Sunday at the altar.
I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness.
And I've asked them to get their affairs in order to make sure they have their wills written.
And for us, with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.
It may mean that we are going to have to, in a new way that we have never seen perhaps in our lifetime, except for these remote stories that I've just cited, to put our faith in the God of life, of resurrection, of a love that is stronger than death itself.
There are those who call themselves Christians now who are very close to the seat of the highest echelons of power in this country, who tell us that the way the world works is by force. We've heard it this week from Steven Miller. The clarity could not be more stark.
Saint Paul, in his letter to the Philippians said, 'Let the same mind that was in Christ Jesus be in you,' who though had every force in the world and could just lay assault to the whole universe, chose instead to enter our humanity, to empty himself and to take the posture of weakness, of vulnerability, to enter even death, even death on the cross in speaking to the Christians.
That's what we are to model because life, the life that God wants for us is stronger than what we see.
The cruelty, the injustice, the horror that we saw unleashed in Minneapolis. And we've seen it so many other times also in Minneapolis.
Lest we forget George Floyd, six blocks away.
So that is my prayer: Those of us who are ready to build a new world, we also have to be prepared. If we truly want to live without fear. We cannot fear even death itself, my friends. And that is the stark truth of my faith.
If I want to live and live with the fullness that God intends, I have to trust that God will always protect me and raise me as God, I believe, is bringing Renee Good to glory right now.
And I see that face of that glory among all of us who are here on this cold, dark night.
So I'll lead with a prayer:
Live without fear.
You have been created holy in the image of the divine.
Whatever race, whatever gender,
whatever orientation,
straight, q***r, trans -
You have been made in the image of the divine.
God has always and will always protect you
no matter what happens.
So live in that fear.
God supports you, protects you
and loves you with a power
and a presence that is stronger than death.
That is how we live free or die.
And may the Creator,
the anointed and the Holy Spirit uphold,
give you courage and strength
and compassion to live these days.
There is a new day ahead.
It is coming.
We can smell it.
It is on its way.
Let this light shine.
The darkness, the shadows of our lives will not overcome it."
