A Pastoral Letter from Bishop Shannon: Courage Is A Response to Fear

January 27, 2026

Dear Beloveds,

In these last three weeks, I have struggled with what to say or write. Part of this struggle has been trying to keep my thoughts succinct, but I believe you deserve to read them in full.

I sat down to write something many times since the murder of Renee Nicole Good. I’ve started and stopped. Revised and waited. I see that three weeks have passed. As I waited for eloquence to come to me, another person, Alex Pretti was executed by our government. Sandwiched between these murders countless injustices have occurred such as the physical and emotional harm inflicted on children ranging from 6 months old to 5 years old, to high school age – tear gassing, abduction to detention centers, harassment and bodily, physical tackling by agents of the state who have sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Those who have been spared, physically, have been made to endure the cruelty of watching this violence unfold, watching their classmates go missing, watching families torn apart.

Before Renee Good, there was Keith Porter, a Black man, shot and killed by an off-duty ICE officer whose death has been conspicuously absent from mainstream media coverage. Yet, this is not unusual in this country where Black life has always been seen as less valuable than white life.

In this time, I signed on to two letters in support of the people in Minneapolis, that condemn the actions of ICE, the execution of Renee Nicole Good, the government’s actions in Minneapolis, and calling for the end to the occupation and targeting of that community. These letters were the result of the community organizing efforts of Faith in Action and the Minneapolis federation of the same. With my signature, I joined hundreds of faith leaders across the country. But I know this is not the same as offering a word to help people make sense of this moment.

I know you want me to provide a word of comfort, to tell you that all will be well. Having no platitudes or reassurances to offer, I have hesitated to write. Would it be enough to simply say, I know this is terrifying and should not be happening, hold on to your faith because we’ll need it to get through these times? You want me to tell you not to be afraid. I know you want me to remind you of the love of Jesus and to be hopeful.

The love of Jesus leads us to speak truth to power, in as much as it compels us to speak the truth to those whom we love and are responsible for. I have always told you the truth, even when it is difficult to tell or to hear.

There is little to offer in the way of comfort right now. The comfort that does exist though, is seen in the thousands who participate in planned and spontaneous demonstrations. They, after seeing that it could cost them their lives, were not deterred. They have continued to resist and to protect their neighbors, with their own bodies and voices. This is a display of Jesus’ justice and love.

I’m reminded of a quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates from Between the World and Me. “I did not tell you that it would be okay, because I have never believed it would be okay. What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.”

I have a complicated hope as I face the injustices of this time. I’m strengthened by the hope that made my ancestors carry on when things seemed hopeless, the hope that is born from the resilience of ancestors whose faith in Jesus kept them focused on freedom, and the reassurance of their dignity and belovedness in the eyes of God. 

We have given too much value to the fleeting comfort of avoidance. Thus, we have avoided what will bring the comfort of lasting justice. This has clouded our judgement and dulled our senses. We did not act as evil flourished and the sins of this country’s past were resurrected.

As I write now, I’m reminded of many conversations, sermons, community organizing actions, prayers and pleadings which have brought me, us to this foreseen, wholly unnecessary and preventable moment.

This is what people like me have feared would happen; what we said would happen. None of us would find satisfaction in saying ‘I told you so’. None of us wanted to be right about this. We wanted to be listened to before things went this far. 

There were many warnings, ahead of the last election, even ahead of the first election of our president, of the evil afoot and a general sense that these warnings were unlikely to be taken seriously at best, or were hysterical at worst. I am sorry to say, we are past the point of warnings now, their contents have come to fruition.

One problem we are facing is a lack of respect for the value of fear. All of our emotions are a gift from God, meant to help us learn and grow. Because of Biblical language, we expect to hear encouragement not to be afraid. I refuse to tell you to not acknowledge your feelings of fear. This is too close to how the current regime is telling us not to believe what we see. We should be fearful of what is happening in our country right now. We should not hope to be fearless when fear is logical. We are not meant to let fear be stolen and motivate those who have united it with evil to establish an authoritarian regime that centers whiteness and Christ-less Christianity. Since the president’s first election, our country has been in a deep moral crisis. This moral crisis must be met by us followers of Jesus, the church, with truth, clarity, and with us being fully human, imbued with God-given feelings.

What we are experiencing, seeing, has never been about enforcing immigration law. What we’re witnessing is a foil to open the door to ultimately create a society of racial stratification, gender/sex-based exploitation and class-based oppression. The murder of white citizens might seem counter intuitive to this project, but it serves, one, as a message to whites, that they alienate themselves from safety and privilege if they do not acquiesce to this imposed order, and as a warning to everyone else, that if they are willing to kill “their own,” the profundity of non-whites’ danger is beyond comprehension. It is a tool to instill, in all, hopelessness and to create fear of taking action or of protest, to crush our spirits.

At this moment, our church is called to the multi-tasking work of justice. We need to be prayerful, speak out against injustice and earnestly take up the work of racial justice and healing as if our lives depend on it. They do. Speaking out against these atrocities also means doing better when it comes to being an institution. We must have integrity in how we relate to marginalized people. We need to do a better job of learning from them and the lessons they’ve learned; through the Black Lives Matter movement of the 2010s and 2020s, the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the Anti-Vietnam War Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. We must remember how, when faced with death, we responded.

This moment calls Episcopalians to recommit, or perhaps, commit, to being and building beloved community in The Episcopal Church. We must strengthen our capacity to have relationships with Indigenous, Black and Brown people as equals, people we can learn from and be led by. They have been in this struggle to be seen, heard, respected, and valued their entire existence in this country. The people of the global majority must be true partners rather than those the church aims to help.

We must strengthen our capacity to not always default to the middle of the road.

We must pray for communities currently under siege from federal law enforcement, especially Minneapolis which has been a nexus for sparking the country’s awareness and action for justice.

We must pray for these people who have died at the hands of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. Learn their stories and pray for justice to be done for them.

Alex Pretti
Renee Good
Keith Porter
Heber Sanchez Domínguez
Victor Manuel Diaz
Parady La
Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
Geraldo Lunas Campos

We are not meant to become our fear, for it to consume us. To live and act without fear isn’t courageous. Courage is a response to fear. We are meant to be fully human in this moment, to let our fear move us to acts of compassion, courage and justice. Fear can be a mighty and integrity filled catalyst for courage. It can be a fertilizer for the power needed to seek justice. With God’s help, in combination with truth and love, fear can motivate us to be and build beloved community.

Please remain fully human.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  – 2 Timothy 1:7

In faith and love,

Bishop Shannon

The following organizations and the resources they’ve created are recommended to those in the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont:

Bishop Shannon also commends the following texts which she has been reading with her family. She writes, “My family and I have been reading these works to try and make sense of this moment. I have linked free pdfs where possible, but these books are also available at local libraries.”

Bishop Shannon continues, “In this time, many of us do not have the luxury of sitting down to read a book, which makes listening to an audiobook a wonderful option as well. If purchasing, I encourage you to buy from local bookstores, university presses and independent online bookstores, such as: Octavia’s Bookshelf, The Strand, Thrift Books, Bookshop.org, IndieBound.org, Better World Books, and Libro.fm.”