By Tré Goins-Phillips
Editor
November 1, 2018
Two Christian ministers heckled U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions Monday, when he was delivering a speech at a religious freedom conference in Boston.
One of the pastors accused Sessions and his supporters of hypocrisy, while the other called on the attorney general to repent, according to The Christian Post.
Not long into his speech, Sessions was interrupted by Methodist minister Will Green, from Andover, who began to loudly recite the words to Matthew 25.
“I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,” he began.
After he finished reciting the passage, Green urged “fellow United Methodist” Sessions, whom he called “Brother Jeff,” to “repent,” “to care for those in need” and “to remember that when you do not care for others, you are wounding the body of Christ.”
Moments later, Green was escorted out of the conference hall as Sessions thanked the pastor for his comments. Sessions was, at that point, interrupted once again by another Christian leader.
Rev. Darrell Hamilton II, a pastor at First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain in Boston, then stood up and began to defend Green’s remarks.
“That is a person who represents the Christian tradition, a faith that everyone here professes to believe in,” Hamilton argued. “He was actually sharing the words of Jesus himself. The words of Jesus are actually represented in the book of Isaiah.”
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While security officials escorted Hamilton out, the Baptist preacher continued, “I thought we were here to protect our religious liberty, sir. I am a pastor at a Baptist church and you are escorting me out for exercising my religious freedom.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he added. “That seems very hypocritical for this group of people to be wanting to protect religious freedom while you are escorting me out for doing that very work, and as a black man… .”
In an interview with CNN, Green claimed his disruption was “grounded and rooted in love.”
“This action came out of deep community — people who are organized and people who work together,” Green explained, adding he hopes his activism encourages others “to get involved, to get organized, to stand up and speak out.”
We are grateful to Rev. Green who worked with us to remind Jeff Sessions that religious liberty is about love. #FaithInLOVE
Contentious moment as religious leaders interrupt Jeff Sessions' speech: "Brother Jeff, as a fellow United Methodist, I call upon you to repent, to care for those in need."
Sessions: "Thank you for those remarks and attack, but I would just tell you we do our best everyday."
Hamilton, for his part, told the Religion News Service he heckled Sessions because the attorney general is “not a champion of true religious liberty.”
“And as a Baptist preacher, in the long legacy of Baptist preachers such as Roger Williams and John Leland, I disrupted Jeff Sessions to defend the protection of both soul and religious freedom of all people as a true witness of Christian religion practice,” he said.
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