A Call to Courageous Love
From the Session of Swarthmore Presbyterian Church
The Session is the governing body of Swarthmore Presbyterian Church. On January 29, 2026, the Session met out of concern for rapidly escalating violence targeting immigrants and refugees in Minneapolis and other cities around our country, and to discern the Spirit’s guidance around our response. At that meeting, the Session took action to create a small task force of leaders charged with deepening relationships and learning how we can best put our courageous love into action in local communities. Committed to Christ in both word and deed, on February 9, 2026, the Session met for a second time. The action at this meeting was to adopt a statement that names the increasing threat to our communities by unchecked power and declares opposition to the cruelty and violence used against both citizens and non-citizens. The statement, which is intended to both guide our life together and serve as a public expression of our faith, is as follows:
The Session of Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, comprised of 27 ruling and teaching elders, is entrusted with the spiritual life, mission, and administration of the congregation, bears witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the church chooses to love our neighbors.
Jesus teaches us through Scripture to love our neighbors as ourselves, with no exceptions. We proclaim a God who values the humanity and inherent dignity of all people; a God who made manifest in Christ courageous love and the way of nonviolence. As members of the body of Christ, we have each committed to live as Christ’s faithful disciples, following his teachings and evincing his love and justice. And we remember that Christ’s love and justice are, more often than not, focused on the poor and the dispossessed.
For these reasons, we are compelled to declare our opposition to the violence and cruelty that our federal government has waged upon documented and undocumented immigrant neighbors in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the United States by aggressively denying them their humanity, stripping away their human rights, and ignoring the protections guaranteed to them by the United States Constitution. And that violence is metastasizing; others among us who exercise our rights to support, observe, report, protest, and peacefully assemble are also being subjected to harm.
We call on our federal government to cease using violent and cruel tactics and to comply with the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution, respecting the human and constitutional rights of both citizens and non-citizens.
We commit to using our energy, intelligence, imagination, love, and resources to enact change born of partnership and accompaniment; to counter the rhetoric of hatred and fear; to engage honestly with those who hold different points of view so that we can find common ground; and to do these things with mercy, kindness, and humility.
Seeing the humanity of each person, we will help to build a humane society, one that reflects God’s love for all. Upholding our sacred connections, we will follow Jesus’ way of nonviolence and love to guide our path forward.
As expressed by the Office of Public Witness of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “we choose welcome over suspicion, truth over secrecy, and hope over fear.”
