Where Do We Go From Here Lessons on Justice and Hope in 2026

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:00:00]:

Hello, good people. Welcome to the To Be Encouraged podcast with Bishop Julius C. Trimble. This is the podcast where we look to offer an encouraging word to an often discouraged world. I'm your co host, Reverend Dr. Brad Miller, and in today's episode, we are talking about Black History Month and part and how it has application to the situation we find our world in today. So, Bishop, welcome to our conversation.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:00:29]:

Thank you, my friend, Brad, and happy Black History Month to you. And I hope folks are staying warm wherever they find themselves. I've been in and out of freezing weather at various places across the country, headed to someplace warm for a few days and then back to some cold Midwest weather. But blessings to those who hear this. It's always good to be able to proclaim that you are loved by God and there's nothing anyone can do to change that fact. And we live in some challenging times, Brad, and every day it seems that there's more trauma being besieging residents in this country, the United States, as well as places across the globe.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:01:17]:

Indeed, that is the case as we have just terrible tragedies of ICE raids and murders and things happening in places like Minneapolis, which we talked about in a previous, previous episode. And then we have other situations where people are being harassed and terrorized in their churches and marketplaces, places of business. And, you know, it wasn't too long ago during the Civil rights movement when we had some similar things happening. And that was a part of what led to what we now know as Black History Month. And certainly a big part of that was the work of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And he wrote a book back in that era called Where Do We Go From Here? And I think it's apropos to what we're dealing with in our world right now. So can you speak to this? You.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:02:02]:

You. It's been on your mind, this phrase, where do we go from here?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:02:06]:

Yeah, that kid, that book that Dr. King wrote at the end of his ministry, the subtitle was Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community? And so I think what we're experiencing now, Brad, is, is the erosion of a compassionate democracy and an administration that seems hell bent on. On investing in chaos rather than building community. I just got a. We just heard a story about North Hills United Methodist Hispanic Mission in California where ICE agents and Border Patrol agents blocked their parking lot while they were doing their huge feeding ministry. And while the child care center was in, was at, was in. It was broad daylight in the middle of the day chasing people, ostensibly persons that were undocumented and maybe suspected to have committed some kind of crimes. But hundreds of people are being disappeared and being detained and even heard a colleague who was stopped at the airport just a few days ago.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:03:21]:

And I, I think basically because her, she has brown skin, she has this black and brown. Black and brown people are easy targets. And that's been made even easier by the Supreme Court. But the question that King raised is where do we go from here? Chaos or community? I think that question is before us even in now, in 2026.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:03:41]:

Oh, absolutely. And so the question is, given our circumstances where children and innocents are being terrorized in the name of apprehending a few for a completely political purposes, not for actual security of the state, things of this nature, it is about imposing a racist agenda on people. And that is certainly not the Christian way of thinking. And it certainly goes against our social principles in our church and certainly has to be it. I just believe it has to be responded to. The question is, is how, you know, the question, you know, where do we go from here? Is a pertinent one, isn't it? So what are some, from your point of view, what are some practical ways, some of the ways that we can respond to the, in many ways, the terrorist state we find ourselves in?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:04:37]:

Well, sometimes we get things right in the past and sometimes we don't get them right. And sometimes we say the right things or we make the right statements or approve the right resolutions, but we don't seem to be resolute in the way in which we treat one another. In 1908, Brad, the Methodist Church, Methodist Episcopal Church passed its first social creed or its document by the General Conference in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland, without dissent. And a couple of things that were in that social creed, which is, was the, was the precursor to the current social principles. I just want to lift up a couple of things that we said as Methodists back then, please. Didn't get everything right. So one of the things was that we opposed forced child labor. We advocated for a day off in a seven day work week.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:05:36]:

Check this out, Brad. Which was pretty radical tonight. We advocated for a fair wage in every single industry. So whatever job people had, Methodists advocated that they receive a living wage. And the last statement, which hold on to your seat, was we advocated that the Golden Rule treat others as you would want to be treated would be the benchmark, along with the mind of Christ on how all people were treated and how society would be judged. This is what Methodist said. And they thought so strongly about this, Brad, that After it was passed without dissent, it was hand delivered to the White House and President Theodore Roosevelt. The Methodists believe that the golden rule, treating people the way we want to be treated was something that we should not apologize for.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:06:33]:

So let's just. Let's just to be clear, we're talking here about your basic right to earn a living, to have a livelihood. That's the fair work wages, to protect children and to treat one another with respect. Why should that be so radical that we adhere to those things in our day and age when it seems like all three of those things are being just, you know, just hammered by many aspects of our culture?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:07:06]:

Yeah. And people. People like to say, well, we. You know, we, the church shouldn't be political and we shouldn't be doing this, but we go back to Jesus. Let's think about what Jesus said. He charged the scribes, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, and said, okay, you brag about the fact that you tithe you, you. You the. To the woe to you, you scribes and Pharisees for.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:07:29]:

You pay your tithe of mint, deal and cumin, but you forget the weightier matters of the law. Do justice spread peace and faith among your communities. I'm. I'm adding a little bit to that.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:07:44]:

Sure.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:07:45]:

That's from Matthew. Matthew 23:23. And Jesus called the religious leaders hypocrites because, you know, you're going to church, you're making sure you follow certain rules, but you ignore how you treat people. And I believe we're at a. We're at, you know, some form. People like to use the term inflection point. The former president Joe Biden used to like to use that. A lotion.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:08:13]:

But I don't know if we could say that. But I do think, Brett, we're at a point where, as the. As Joshua says in Joshua 24, you know, choose this day whom you will serve. Who will what? Who God will you serve?

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:08:28]:

And, you know, that's for me in my house. Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:08:30]:

Yeah, it's for me in my house. We'll serve the Lord, right? Who is the rock of our salvation. The. The Lord who loves justice and mercy. The Lord who says, through the prophet, do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. Wow. I can hear the words of Marvin Gay echoing throughout the time.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:08:52]:

I love it. What is going on? Oh, man. What a great. What a great, powerful song of. And we had a lot of songs in that era of the civil rights era, which, you know, spoke to the pain that people are going through. I saw where Bruce Springsteen came out with a song about Minnesota. Basically a.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:09:14]:

An anthem of peace out about Minnesota.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:09:17]:

Yeah, peace and justice. So yeah, I just were saying that some of that is starting to emerge and I think we're hitting a bit of a, you know, you talk about inflection point. We're also at a bit of a tipping point in our society for people who may have kind of given a pass or kind of not paid attention to the abuses going on by our government towards everyday folks or are starting to pay attention here. And it needs to be led by the church, though, I really do. It needs to be led by people of faith who can help guide, direct and guide direct people who are now mindful that there are some appalling things going on that go against their gut level instincts and principles. Whether they be men and women of faith or not. They're seeing that this can't go on this way. And I think it's part of what you're saying here today.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:10:05]:

We cannot sustain, sustain the way things have been going. So if we're going to do, where do we go from here? Are we going to continue to decline and descend in the darkness? Are we going to find a way to fight and scratch and claw to do something different? That's just kind of my take on it. What do you think? What's the role of men and women of faith and what's the role of the church in all of this that's going on these days?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:10:28]:

Well, I think, I think our prayer should also be connected to our willingness to protest things that are not right. You know, who's going to speak up for children don't get to vote. So who's going to speak up for the children? Those who who are quote unquote undocumented have never been allowed to vote. So who's going to speak up for those, for our neighbors? This is a country that was built on immigrants. We used to be a place. I think I've heard you say this and others say this. We used to be a place where we welcome people who were from hiding. Now we have people that have to hide in the country because we're not willing to welcome them.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:11:10]:

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't have a secure border or that we should not. People who have committed crimes should not be expelled from the country. But we don't have 10 million undocumented people who've been living here as basically as citizens. People born here now being threatened to say, you know, your citizenship is not guaranteed. And the fact that we have that we have hundreds of thousands of Europeans who are here, whose visas have, visas have expired or who are here technically illegally, but none of them are being expelled.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:11:51]:

Yeah, well, what we just basically have is just a pure abuse of power where people are using this opportunity, save the grifter, the criminal element, which whatever the percentage is, let's just say it's 1 or 2% of the population. They're using that to leverage pressure on everybody else. And that is just an abuse of power. It's absurd, for one thing. And it certainly goes against the principles of Christianity and it goes against our values as Americans as well. And so it's just not going to, it's not sustainable. Something has to give. I think it is a shift that's starting to happen.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:12:27]:

I don't know that that would be a word of hope in the midst of a kind of dark days. But what do you, what are your signs of hope that you see?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:12:36]:

Well, I think I see that people are speaking up that typically wouldn't, wouldn't speak up. I see people, the clergy who responded to go to Minneapolis, they received emails saying, inviting them to stand in solidarity. I see people standing up in their communities. But I also see churches saying, wait a minute, we are in the business of feeding the hungry. We're in the business of providing sanctuary for people to worship. Now you're going to now come into these sacred spaces and people now no longer feel there's any place that is sacred or safe. And I just feel that if, if law enforcement has a judicial warrant that a judge has said, you know, there's a criminal that you're pursuing. But this notion that we can just now harass people and there's a big effort to get people to self deport, to just not want to live here anymore.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:13:35]:

Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:13:36]:

And that saddens me. That is just as a follow up question. It's pretty gross to make it so people don't want to live in America, United States of America anymore.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:13:49]:

And it's just a flat out ugly.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:13:53]:

I'd have to be deported to Chicago, I guess.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:13:57]:

Well, it's an ugly thing to do. It's presenting yourself as being an unhospitable place, an ugly place to be for people who should have a place to not only feel at home but to be contributors. And we know that the past, our country is built on immigrants. The only people who have laid claim to this, to our land originally is the First Nation people, Native Americans, Native North Americans. That's the only ones who really lay claim to anything. But you know, we have people who are abusing their power and making it happen. And I, I'm glad to see churches and clergy and men and women of faith stepping forward and to see the tide turn just a little bit. What do you think of some lessons that we have both biblically and maybe from other past leaders like ML King Jr that can speak to our situation right.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:14:49]:

Right now?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:14:51]:

Well, I think one of the things with lessons we have is that we can't be bystanders. I think about Bishop Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who's now passed on, and the Congressman John Lewis, who's now passed on. Both of them were strong advocates that individuals maybe have more power than we give ourselves credit for. We can call our elected officials, we can register to vote. We can tell our family members who live in other parts of the country that voting we should be voting for people who are willing to advocate on behalf of the least the lost, the unlucky and children. You know, I'm not willing to vote for anyone who has no agenda whatsoever to provide safety for children, to provide food for the hungry and to provide compassion for those. I had a chance to ride on a bus with someone who lives in Germany, on the border of Germany and Switzerland and said that, you know, they provide health care for all of the citizens. And they said, you know, when they're very family supportive society.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:16:03]:

And it seems as though, you know, we're not willing to be generous even though we're the wealthiest country on the planet now we're cutting international aid, we're reducing support for research on things like sickle cell anemia that that historically impacts black and brown people, African Americans in particular, at a much higher rate. And this particular administration has decided, well, we don't need to invest that kind, that kind of money into research and support for whatever they consider to be a woke agenda.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:16:46]:

Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:16:46]:

Woke to. You earned a brad. Is that at the end of the Matthew. In Matthew 25, one of the headings of the very familiar passage, and I heard of one of the bishops share this on Yesterday was was the judgment of the nations and it's spelled out, Jesus says the nation shall be judged by God.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:17:11]:

Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:17:12]:

And how shall they be judged? How they have treated the least of these.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:17:16]:

Yeah. The golden rule, as you mentioned earlier. Yeah.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:17:18]:

Yeah. When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was naked, didn't you clothe me? When I was in prison, did you visit me, not try to burst the prison by overcrowding them with people who, who need to have an act, have an access to due Process. I want to share a little bit from my last book.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:17:38]:

Pleased?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:17:39]:

Hopefully. Yeah. I got a book coming up in the next. This, this year, 2026, at least a book. But here's on what shall I do? You know, where. Where do we go? This is a reflection. Being too woke is not good, so they say. Too much talk about diversity and equity and inclusion fosters guilt, shame and resistance.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:18:01]:

The poor will always be with us, a sort we, or so we are told. I suppose I could join the crowd sleepwalking back to the past when America was great and the world was at peace and we had fewer choices of people to hate. Go back. Go back in the past, before wokeness was a thing and black people were fully employed and learned skills, or so I have been told. Go back to a time where people were reluctant to be their true selves and closets. Brad was not just for clothes. I do remember a time when truth was a real thing, something to be honored and valued. I was a child.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:18:46]:

And lying and fibbing and falsehood was subject to parental punishment. Don't you remember those days when the library was a safe haven and books were not banned and dreams were not dashed? I remember Marvin Gaye singing War Is not the answer and Dr. King asking the question, where do we go from here? Oh, my Lord, what shall I do?

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:19:15]:

Wonderful words from three great sources. The great Marvin Gaye, the singer, great civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. And Bishop Julius C. Trumbull. And I would just like for you to, if you will, Bishop, just kind of synopsize those comments for your book. What's the name of your book again? I forget the name of it.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:19:36]:

You told me before, I dreamed of life in living color.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:19:41]:

And then we'll put links to, if that's available on Amazon or whatever, we'll put links to that in our show notes.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:19:47]:

But Amazon and. Go ahead. Go ahead, Brad.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:19:52]:

I just wanted you to see if you could kind of synopsize those comments and do an applicable encouragement to a local church pastor or a local church layperson who is really being compelled by circumstances. Maybe not only in Minneapolis or Indianapolis or a church in California, but their own community that they find disturbing and they want to do something about. So how can those words be an encouragement for. For those folks?

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:20:24]:

Well, I'm encouraged because I, I received the words from North Hills United Methodist Method Hispanic Mission. And in their letter they say, we are not going to be silent about these things. Have been traumatized. We need Brad to hear the stories from communities. And you know, I saw A clip of a person who, who. A person who was handicapped, who had. Handicapped, who had been thrown to the ground in Minneapolis and was testifying before Congress. A person who has had autism as well as some physical.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:20:59]:

And was physically abused by ICE agents and then just released after being detained, abused, physically abused, and now has some potentially some additional permanent injuries as a result of that.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:21:18]:

Wow.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:21:18]:

We just gotta remember that everybody deserves to be respected because we all are of sacred worth. So there is a way to go about even quote unquote enforcing laws without, without just being running ramshod over people's rights or the fact that dignity is deserved by all people. People are now choosing, and I would say to pastors and lay people as well, from the book of Joshua, we need to choose this day whom we will serve. Will we bow down and serve a elected. I will use the term regime that is willing to abuse people's freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom, freedom to peacefully protest, freedom to be considered innocent until proven guilty as opposed to be considered guilty until one can escape or one can have an attorney to plead their case. We who are people of faith must plead the case of civility and respect and harmony. And I say that you need not wait to see me and respect me as holy and sacred, as beloved and beautiful. You need not judge me or question me for your own satisfaction or convenience, staring with eyes of judging, making up stories to justify stigma or question my status, never pausing or sitting with me.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:22:55]:

I can tell my own story, you can tell your own story. And you will be blessed to know that you too are a child of the most high God.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:23:06]:

Wow. What a great way to leave things. Everybody I just to respond to what you're sharing there. Everybody's got a voice. At least right now everybody's got a vote as well. And we need to focus in here on dignity and what Joshua says. From Joshua as for me and my house, what it's for me in my house, we will choose to say it, my friend.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:23:28]:

Serve the Lord.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:23:29]:

Serve the Lord. And I think that is the word of encouragement. I think we can leave with our listeners here today. As for me and my house, we choose to serve the Lord. So we thank you for sharing here today what a powerful message that you shared today and I think might behoove us to. You know, it's been a long time since I read Martin Luther King Jr's book Where Do We Go From Here. Wouldn't be bad to revisit that, would it? To revisit that book.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:24:00]:

It wouldn't be bad to revisit that. And, and there are other writers who've written things more recently. But when you think about the subtitle, you know, chaos or community?

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:24:08]:

Chaos or community.

Bishop Julius C. Trimble [00:24:09]:

That's kind of our choice. That's our choice. Brad. Yeah, we can choose to pursue beloved community or just what we are experiencing with dozens of executive orders. And try the erasure, the erasure of black history, the erasure of anything that's not complementary of America, quote, unquote, America first, or supplant or supplements what we see as a, as a white supremacist agenda. And I think that Christians, those who are followers of Christ, we must remember we are called to love God and neighbor.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:24:47]:

So I think the opportunity here is for men and women of faith to choose community over chaos. And it says, for me and our house, let's choose the Lord. Thank you, Bishop, for sharing great words of encouragement here today. And we don't shy away from the hard words either for the hard things that need to be said, the tragedies and the things that need to be had need to be said. But we got to respond to it from the biblical basis and from the Christ center basis that, you know, God is with us. So who can be against us? So thank you for sharing. You've been listening to the To Be Encountered Courage podcast with Bishop Julius C. Trimble.

Rev. Dr. Brad Miller [00:25:25]:

This is the podcast where we look to offer an encouraging word to an often discouraged world. I'm your co host, Rev. Dr. Brad Miller. We'll see you next time on To Be Encouraged.