Salt Melts ICE: Faith, Justice, and Encouragement in a Time of Chaos

Dr Brad Miller:

Hello again, good people, and welcome to the To Be Encouraged podcast with Bishop Julius C. Trimble. This is the podcast where we look to offer an encouraging word in an often discouraged world. I'm your co host, Reverend Dr. Brad Miller. Bishop Tremble. Welcome to our conversation today, my friend.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Thank you, Brad. It's good to be with you. It's good to be a blessing and to journey into a new year. 2026. Wow.

Dr Brad Miller:

Absolutely.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

2025 flew by, but I guess it didn't. But here we are in a new year. New year, new opportunity to praise God and to bless people and to. And to deal with serious issues that are facing our society and our church.

Dr Brad Miller:

Well, as you mentioned, we're in a new year, but we have continued to deal with some really dramatic changes, traumatic issues in our society as we speak. We are in a. Prior. In our conversation, prior to us recording, we were talking about the murders that happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the hands of ICE agents and how that has disrupted things. And so we kind of live in a time of chaos in our society and where there has been a deconstruction of the civil order and all kinds of things happening here. And we're a time of chaos. So you're all about peace and you are all about encouraging words. Give me some thoughts.

Dr Brad Miller:

You may have to today, Bishop, about peace and encouragement in a time of chaos.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

But I think back, I was just reviewing. I shared this in a sermon I preached recently that the early Methodists in 1908 drafted what was considered a very radical statement. It was called the Social creed.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And the last statement of that social creed in 1908, drafted by Methodists before we became United Methodists and we still were a church full of some contradictions, but. But nonetheless, the General Conference of the. Of the Methodist Church, the predecessor to the United Methodist Church, passed a social creed. The last statement of that social creed said that Methodists advocated for the use of the Golden Rule. Interesting paraphrasing.

Dr Brad Miller:

Sure.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

The use of the Golden Rule as a. As a guideline for society and our relationships and basically that all people should be treated as they. We would want to be treated ourselves, and that this, the Golden Rule, served as the remedy of all social ills. Now, that may have been a bit of an overstatement, but the Methodists felt so strongly, Brad, in 1908, they passed this at the General Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, without dissent.

Dr Brad Miller:

Okay.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And they felt it was so important that they delivered the social creed right after the General Conference to the White House, to President Theodore Roosevelt. They delivered it Hand delivered it to the White House. Yes, I would think, I would pray that the church would be so bold. And we saw this in Minnesota. The faith community should be so bold that we stand before injustice and cry out and speak directly to those who've been elected to leadership to say, what about whatever happened to the Golden Rule? At least to treat people in a way that we would want to be treated.

Dr Brad Miller:

What a great question and, and what a direct and pertinent question to the day we live in when so many people seem to have tossed out all civil, basic civility towards one another. Regardless of your feelings about law and order and so on, people are just being brutal to one another. And I've been impressed what I have heard about the faith community in Minneapolis, Minnesota and other places there locally, and also, you know, people coming in from other places to be helpful there. And I understand at one of our larger United Methodist churches, Hennepin Avenue there in Minneapolis, the pastor was arrested and one of the protests, for instance. And I've heard other stories of people being involved with peaceful protests of the faith community, engaged with other aspects of the community in that particular time of violence and disorder. So tell me, tell me a little more about what stories you're hearing and what are some ways that, just like they did in 1908, they went right to the White House to present the Golden Rule, the Methodist version of the Golden Methodist take on the Golden Rule. What are some ways we can speak truth to power? What ways we can speak a faithful message, either in Minneapolis or Indianapolis or Washington, D.C. or wherever it would be.

Dr Brad Miller:

What's your take on that, my friend?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Well, I think some of what we see happening, not just in Minneapolis, but around the country, the United States, that is, and around the world that, as someone quoted, there are more of us than them, meaning there are more people who are just plain citizens who want a compassionate democracy and a government devoid of constant chaos and categorizing people as being shithole countries or being illegal aliens. You know, that. And I believe I would have to confess I remember when that term used to come first came out. It seems so normal, it seems so offensive to me now when I heard one elected representative from Florida saying, well, these. They're in Minneapolis, are pursuing illegal alien. And you know, when I think of aliens, I think of the movie, you know, monster movies of everything. So what's the. What's the opposite? I guess there are.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

There. Is there such a thing as legal aliens are people, not people. And, and Brett, when we get to the point where we can we. Can other people in such a way that we dehumanize them, then that becomes acceptable to a certain part of the population. The president said he, you know, we. We're gonna go after criminals and drug cartels and violent persons who committed violent offenses. And now we see children being separated from their families.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yes, yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Oh, my God. Mothers being snatched from the workplace, and we see workers refusing to go to work on farms. So, you know, my prayer has always been, this is prior to the current Trump administration administration, that there would be bipartisan work on comprehensive immigration reform, which has not happened. And hence, we've got this. It seems to be extremism. And what it is is it seems as though rather than being a government of law and order, we see a government where we have state sanctions, murders, and a government of disorder. Now, I believe that the faith community, this is a moment for us individually to speak up in our own local communities, because what has happened to others, we realize happens to us. Renee Good and Mr.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Petty, the most recent person happened to be white citizens, but there was eight other people who were murdered or either were hit, were killed in some other way prior to this by ICE agents or Border Patrol. 31 people, according to the New York Times I was reading, have died in detention facilities. Some of them were under suspect. Suspect circumstances. Right. So we know that people are dying as a result of this effort for mass deportation.

Dr Brad Miller:

And there's. Some people have just disappeared. Some people have just disappeared, flat out. Their families can't have any contact with them. They've just been taken off the streets and gone. That is scary stuff. That is scary stuff. And I heard reports from one pastor friend of mine about how a.

Dr Brad Miller:

Also is kind of the surveillance side of things, how a. They went to some sort of checkpoint at Minneapolis and the. The ICE agent saw their face and said, oh, it's you again. We'll see you again next time we've got you on record. You know, in other words, they. They kept this person, they recognized them, they had them on their phone or whatever it was. So people are being surveilled, people's names are being taken. There is some scary stuff going on.

Dr Brad Miller:

You said something in our conversation about kind of, this is the deconstruction, if you will, of the social order. And so I think this may be a real seminal moment for the. For the faith community to step up. I'm going to ask you this question because I don't know if I feel qualified to really relate to it other than the kind of de gut level era. Reaction. It seems like there may be some similarity to the civil rights era, the mid-60s, in terms of. There needs to be some turning points where the faith community and the community at large say, okay, enough's enough. This is ridiculous.

Dr Brad Miller:

Do you see any parallels here, my friend, in that?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Yeah, well, a lot of things happen after the two things people say were pivotal points. There were a number of pivotal points. You know, early, early in the 50s, they, they said it was Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat. But in the 60s, before the Civil rights bill was passed, before the voting rights bill was passed, you know, four girls were killed in, in Birmingham and. Right. A bombing people saw on television, you know, water hoses and dogs being released on, on. On. On children's and high school students in Birmingham, Alabama.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And that again, I think, I think when people saw what happened. Now, Brad, as you know, with, with cameras, I mean, with video, with, with smartphones, we basically, we basically are recording things that we previously did not see and would not. We were not. So, so the first report coming from, I think the attorney general, Attorney general of the Homeland Security, which are. One of them wasn't. Yeah, Homeland Security was, you know, that, that these officers were attacked, you know, with a person brandishing a gun and so forth, only to find out that the video of what happened, at least the murder of this citizen, you know, wasn't the way it was reported.

Dr Brad Miller:

And so, yeah, and there was four things, you know, and there was ample, ample video evidence. It was, There was really no question here. These were out outright murders because there was several angles and so on of the videos. There was no gray area here. There was none. And so that is the evidence there. And just. I think this could be a turning point, but I don't know.

Dr Brad Miller:

I think the faith community has to step up. The community at large has to step up. And I think encouragement. Say what you think, Mr. Trample, encouragement isn't always only, you know, kind of a good word. But what's the good actions of encouragement? What are the things we have to do as people of faith to take action? We know people of faith who are showing up for the protests and so on, and 10 below, 10 below zero temperatures and so on. Speak to that kind of the difference between encouraging words and encouraging actions.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Well, I think our prayer should be linked with our participation in, and sometimes our protests. Let me say that again. Our prayers should be linked to our personal participation. And often our protests are those things that would be not pleasing to God.

Dr Brad Miller:

So, thoughts. So just to interject, I'm Sorry, go ahead.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Thing I would say is that our liturgy often should also be linked. A liturgy should be linked to legislation.

Dr Brad Miller:

Ah, yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Values that. Values the lives of people. All of us are children of God. Yeah.

Dr Brad Miller:

I was gonna say, just so it sounds to me what you're saying, thoughts and prayers is just. It's a start. It's not the end all and be all. It's not just thoughts and prayers. It's thoughts and prayers and action and legislation and people involved. Is that part of what we're saying here?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Yes. And what I like about at least, you know, the Wesleyan theological perspective is that our religion and our faith is both personal and social. Yeah. And when you think back about you and I, you know, studied in seminary, but, you know, going back to the end of the 19th century and the 20th century, that with the onset of what was called the social gospel, the Walter. Walter Rasham Bush and the Reinhold Niebuhrs of the world, who basically said that, okay, Jesus's death on the cross wasn't just an atonement for the sinful man, but it was an expression of love that should be translated into trans. Transforming the society to reflect the love of Jesus Christ. That's an. That's a broad oversimplification.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Sure. But what I like about the social gospel, the way in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Embraced it and the civil rights movement embraced it too, was that, yeah, we cannot, you know, we say this. We cannot say we love God. And yet we have segmented the society so that some people are considered full citizens with full rights and privileges, and we have another whole set of citizens. I'm just reading an article in the paper about someone's writing a column saying, you can't denaturalize me. We have people now, Brad, who are saying we can denaturalize people who have been naturalized, who are now citizens.

Dr Brad Miller:

Right.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

People who were. People who had legal status for being in the country, people who've been naturalized. And we talked them, I think we talked previously before about people going through the five year process of becoming citizens only to find out that they couldn't complete the process because their. The country they were born in is now on a list, you know, of countries that can no longer travel to the United States, can no longer get visas to come into the United States. So this is just blatant discrimination. Oh, yeah. What we see. What we see, Grant, what we see now really can be traced back to many say is not just to the 1930s, the rise of the Gestapo and Nazism, but if you go back to 1793 and 1880, the Fugitive Slave act, so that the government, so it was approved by Congress that persons who had escaped from slavery and found themselves in states, what they call free states, they could be tracked down across state borders, across into Canada wherever they, and if you impeded the quote, unquote slave catchers that you, you would be subject to the, to the penalty.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And this is what we heard from the, from the, Tom Holman and others who are saying if people impede the work of the Border Patrol ice, you know, if you impede the work, then you too are subject to being arrested and bad things can happen to you. This is what's being said. I'm not saying anything that as an imposter, bad things can happen to you if you, if you exercise your.

Dr Brad Miller:

Well, and, and bad thing. And bad things are happening. That's the thing. It's not just a threat. Bad things are happening. People are being scooped off the streets. You have confrontations going on where people who are unarmed or legally armed in some cases like the, the man who was killed in Minneapolis recently and being. When you're shot 10 times, you have been, you know, you have, it is a ridiculous reaction to the thing there.

Dr Brad Miller:

And I know they're also looking to leverage old laws, you know, some of the laws that were used to incarcerate like Japanese Americans doing World War II and things like this, which was a horrible thing then, but they're looking to revive some pretty ugly stuff and in order to have their racist agenda enacted. And that's exactly what it is. It's a racist agenda. And it's sickening. It's sickening. And, and we, you know, it's happening and we, and yet we gotta be a voice of encouragement is what you keep harping on all the time, my friend. And I admire you so much for that because sometimes it's hard. Just this whole thing about the Golden Rule, for instance, it's got a lot of, it's just based on the great commandment of God, of Jesus to love God and love neighbor.

Dr Brad Miller:

And I think some people have just kind of lost that whole second part altogether. Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And, and, and people wanted to get down in the, in the weeds and, and, and test Jesus on that. And you know, who is my neighbor, using a wonderful long standing example with the Good Samaritan and, and, and some commentators have said the question was the, the Good Samaritan didn't ask what will happen to me if I don't, if I don't help this person but what will happen to him or what will happen to that person if I don't help, if I don't stop and help? And I think, you know, the two persons that, that were most recently killed in Minneapolis had already resolved that question. They had decided that they would stand on the side of protecting their neighbors, notwithstanding. Maybe some of them could have, you know, could have been arrested and eventually deported. But the way in which the government has gone about this is so brutal and so traumatizing to communities that it just, we could have predicted this. And it seems so part, so much part of a retribution because it happens. This happens. It happened in in particular communities where the current administration was not more popular, didn't get votes.

Dr Brad Miller:

It's targeted. It's absolutely targeted. Absolutely targeted. I have a son, lives in Portland, Oregon, and he says that, you know, they've had ICE presence there for a long time, but he says they're just kind of bracing there for, you know, when more ICE people roll in to be even more violent. So they're kind of bracing there. So. All right, I want to bring this around, Bishop, to some, you know, you work in the world of church and society and social justice in your position in the church, and you've always been involved with that as a bishop in the church, as a local church pastor. And I know from my own experience that there are people in local communities who are really disturbed by what is going on.

Dr Brad Miller:

You know, they have these gut wrenching times personally. Pastors are dealing with gut wrenching times personally. And this going on. So what is. And some people are able to go and to protest, you know, in Minneapolis, and you and I both live in Indiana. There's been a protest here at the detention centers here. I know of there's protests going on around, around the country. Not everybody can do that, but what can people, not everybody can travel.

Dr Brad Miller:

Not everybody's willing to risk that. And they're, you know, there's, there's something to be said for people being mindful of the cost that's involved with it. But how can people involved in their local church, in their local community in some way or another to make a stand for justice in the midst of this chaos?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

People could raise a question in their communities of faith, you know, if we're not talking about this, why are we not talking about this in our communities of faith, in our Sunday school classes, in our Bible studies, in our reflections on us, you know, sermon? Because, you know, it is important that we worship our God, but it's also important that we, we Live in the real world, in real time. And so these things are happening. And, and, and how do, how do, how is what happened, what is happening? Reflect upon our baptismal vows, our membership vows, or whatever denomination we may be a part of. And some people aren't maybe built or feel like I'm not the person to go out on a protest to age it or affirmed or too young or I'm just afraid to do that. What we can do is to reach out to our elected officials, particularly in the Senate and Congress. We all have congressmen and congresswomen, senators. Every state has two senators. I've written the senators in the state of Indiana, because I live in Indiana, and said that, you know, we have an overfunded, militarized border patrol and an ICE police department.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And at the same time, people in North Carolina who experienced horrible devastation through storms, hurricanes and flooding and storms are still waiting. Houses still haven't been built, bridges haven't been restored because FEMA doesn't have as much money as we have. And we're chasing people all on the interior of the country with border patrol officers. So it just doesn't make sense. And we should be putting tremendous pressure on our elected officials as well as asking the question, how does this reflect on the kind of society we want to see? You know, how does this reflect on the kind of world we want to see? Because all of us, at some point, a door was open to us, a community was open to us, an invitation was extended to us, and somehow we have selective amnesia about that.

Dr Brad Miller:

Well, wonderful words here to be helpful. Just, it's time to take some action in your local community and to put the pressure where the pressure needs to be applied. And because we have, you know, the time for complacency is over with, I believe. And we have to, you know, I, I just, you know, Jesus was a man of action. He had men and women of action who followed him. And so here we are in this day and age to take action for the sake of the gospel, to, to, not only to live out the golden rule through the great Commandment, but also to, you know, live out the great commission to make disciples, but also to learn, you know, how, you know, the acts of kindness from the Beatitudes and so on about the acts of how we treat people matters as well. And so I think that's where I'd like to ask you to kind of wrap up our conversation here with what is Jesus saying right now to our particular circumstances in our country and our local communities as we deal with as you have said earlier this kind of how do we, how are we indeed? A voice of voice of Jesus in the midst of chaos. So what's Jesus saying just now? Let's bring it around to that, my friend.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Well, you, you alluded to it when you made reference to the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. You know, Jesus said, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The word, the translation, Greek translation for righteousness is the same word for justice. So you could put justice where in that verse, Matthew, I think, you know, maybe the 12th verse there. Matthew 5. Blessed are those who seek justice, for they shall be satisfied. And at the very, very end of that pericope that, that Sermon on the Mount, it says, blessed are those who, you know, who, who are persecuted.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

I call all, I'm praying phrase, call all kind of vile things, my sake, because you are pursuing justice, you know, you are, you are deep, you know, and then blessed are the peacemakers. Yes, they should be called what? The children of God. So, yes, we want, if we really want to be called the children. We can't say we're a follower of. We can't say we're a follower of Jesus. And yet we refuse to exemplify society and relationships that reflect mercy, reflect humility, reflect empathy, reflects sacrifice, charity, compassion, those things that seem to be absent in a lot. You know, there's a new notion now being preached that might makes right again and that we can, we can just, we can become great by ourselves. And I never believed that and I will not believe that.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And Jesus says, remember who you are. He says to his disciples and to us, you are salt and you are light.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And yeah, I know if you've been hearing it lately, but you know, salt melts ice.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yeah, salt melts ice. I love it. I love it.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

So if we want to be the salt of the earth, we have to realize and the light of the world. Dr. King says darkness cannot drive out darkness. Light can do that. Hatred cannot drive out hatred, only love can. I don't hate my president. I don't hate anyone. But I do.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

I am angered, Brad, by the way in which we have allowed state sanctioned violence to become normalized and defended and political retribution to go without any protest. That's what disappoints me most about particularly some of our elected officials. They're just watching this campaign of retribution as if it's normal. Love, what I say to everyone. I say to everyone, remember you are called to be salt and you called to be light. If you hang on to that, we'll find our voice to speak out and we'll find our ways to teach our children. Someone shared, shared to me, I don't know who was saying this, that they would be embarrassed to have their children sit down and watch our president. And we should be able to say to our children and grant you, let's sit down and listen to what the president has to say.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Because that president should be an example of. Should be an example of, you know, powerful, compassionate, you know, leadership concerned about the whole of humanity. The leader of the quote, unquote, free world.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And what we. What we see is something more like, you know, you know, narcissistic, you know, gamemanship. And so I think that we need to be reminded and I would encourage people remember that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world salt. We need not hate anyone, but we ought not also allow people to be abused and then let that become normalized. We can't become numbed to this kind of violence. And it happened before, it's funny, in 1935. And this is one of the things I was reading and research is this February. This is Black History Month.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

Langston Hughes, the poet and writer, in 1935, during the rise of fascism, he said, the Negro people. This is not new to the Negro people. Right? The rise of fascism.

Dr Brad Miller:

Sure.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

So he said, we. Basically, he was saying the violence that we see directed toward the Jewish people or directed toward homosexuals or directed toward the quote unquote social union trade members was not new because black people have received it and received it in double doses at. After the end of slavery. Oh, yeah, absolutely. End of slavery. So, well, we are the slaughter of the earth. This is not a. This is not a tremble quote.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

I just heard actually during the protests in Minneapolis, you know, someone was saying, you remember, we're the salt of the earth and salt meltzites.

Dr Brad Miller:

I love that. And that image of salt melts ice and light dissipates the darkness of the chaos of ice agents and an evil empire, which is a lot of what our current administration is all about. And the image I just have in mind in terms of the application of salt melts ice and light beats darkness. I believe is embodied in the two recent victims that are. Have been so mindful here. When Renee Good, her last words to the person who shot her through the window of her wind of her car was, I'm not mad at you. She said, I'm not Mad at you. And he shot her dead.

Dr Brad Miller:

And then the image I have of the man who was killed last week, his name slips my mind and I hate that. But Petrie is that his image was that he was a nurse at A R. At a VA facility helping injured veterans.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

ICU nurse.

Dr Brad Miller:

ICU nurse at a veterans hospital helping people walk in to do things like that, who had lost limbs and such in war. Yeah, that's Alex. Alex Pruddy. And so that's the images I have. What I mean by that is the application of what you're sharing there of the salt melts ice and the dark and the darkness is dissipated by the light is embodied in people like Alex Preddy and, and Rachel. I mean, not Rachel, but you know, Renee. Good. Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And we're, we're older. I'm a little older. A little older than you, Brad, but.

Dr Brad Miller:

Well, not much. Not much.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

I do, I do know what happened after Martin Luther King was assassinated. You know, other people, Jesse Jackson and other people picked up the baton and this is what's going to happen. You know, what is already happening. I mean, I've met some of the people, you know, who will go unnamed, but who said, you know, I can't just watch people get killed and not pick up the baton and do whatever, do whatever my little part might be and maybe be maybe, maybe this is maybe happening on, you know, on social media platforms and podcasts as well. Because people have to realize, you know, I'm, I'm not mad at any particular person who, who signed up to get that $50,000 to join that border patrol because you probably needed that money and you know, it's employment. But I am mad at a policy as a country that would embrace state sanctioned violence.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And then, and then criticize other countries for being, you know, so violent and corrupt.

Dr Brad Miller:

Yeah. Just amazing. We live in amazing times. And yet Jesus still speaks into these times with a, with a voice that cuts through all the nonsense and gets right to the heart of matter and you've got right to it, you know, about, you know, love God, love neighbor, is what the Bible says, what Jesus said, and it's embodied out in what I love what you said about salt melts ice and light dissipates the darkness. So we'll leave it at that.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble :

And yes, sir, listeners and view is my granddaughter. I won't say my granddaughter had a sweatshirt on going to school. And we said, well, what does that sweatshirt say? And we read it. It said kindness all day long.

Dr Brad Miller:

Love it. Well, and that's what we're called to do my friend kindness. And all day long. I love that. So we'll leave the last word to your granddaughter. Love it. Kindness all day long. Well, thank you for being part of this great conversation here today.

Dr Brad Miller:

Bishop Tremple and I thank you for our kind listeners for tuning into our conversation here. You've been listening to the To Be Encouraged podcast with Bishop Julius C. Trimple. I'm your co host, Rev. Dr. Brad Miller. This is the podcast where we love to offer an encouraging word to an often discouraged world.