Last Sunday, I joined House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and others to kick off the week-long “America Reads the Bible” initiative, where President Donald Trump read an appeal to God from 2 Chronicles 7:14. Meanwhile, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) spent the weekend saying we don’t need any help from on high.
Speaking at a Democratic Women’s Caucus luncheon, Booker warned, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a storm in our nation!” Then, pointing upward, he declared, “What we need is not from on high. We need foot soldiers of our democracy willing to stand up.”
I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, so we contacted his office to see if he was referring to Chuck Schumer or God. We didn’t get an answer.
Regardless, many of us were looking upward to the One who can provide what our nation needs. And as the Word was read, the words of the prophet Amos came into focus: “Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
And as the Word was being read, the Department of Justice announced a multi-page indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center.
An Alabama grand jury charged the organization with 11 criminal counts, including wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and money laundering.
According to the indictment, SPLC raised millions claiming to dismantle white supremacy, while allegedly funding leaders and organizers of the very groups they said they opposed.
Prosecutors allege SPLC used shell organizations to funnel money, not to informants, but to individuals organizing extremist and violent activity. The indictment references funding tied to a member of the online leadership behind the 2017 “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia. The unnamed individual, who was paid $270,000 by SPLC, also helped organize transportation to the event — at the direction of SPLC.
That raises an obvious question: why?
Fundraising appears to be part of the answer. In the week following Charlottesville, SPLC reportedly saw a surge in donations, with millions coming from George Clooney, Apple Inc., and JPMorgan Chase.
But money alone may not fully explain it.
The existence and amplification of these groups also provide a basis for labeling and marginalizing others. The same organization that allegedly funded extremist groups compiled “hate” lists that placed mainstream Christian and conservative groups alongside these alleged hate groups.
Those lists have been used by media and corporations to determine who falls outside the acceptable standards of discourse, in other words, who should be silenced, canceled, or worse.
That’s not theoretical.
In August 2012, a gunman entered the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C. with the goal of killing “as many people as possible.” He later admitted he targeted the organization after seeing it listed on the SPLC’s hate map because of its biblical views on marriage and sexuality.
And that biblical view was read over the nation this week as Jesus stated in Matthew 19: “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female?”
So while some insist what we need is not from on high, the exposure of SPLC reminds us we need the standard of truth and justice that comes from above.
