You have heard it said, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

As a progressive church, we declare: “Love the sinner, hate the system.”

By that we mean that we recognize that the majority of injustices are not committed by “bad apples,” but by decent people, created in the image of God, who are caught up in “bad systems.”

We recognize that the main issue is not whether cops are bad. Instead we ask, “Why have we as a country decided to ask our criminal justice system to solve all our social problems of poverty, mental health, and lack of affordable housing? Why do we continue to increase budgets of police departments while cutting social services?”

We recognize that the main issue is not whether rioting is bad. Instead we must ask, “What shall we call this system that has for centuries terrorized black Americans, who have patiently waited for justice while their homes, churches, and businesses were burned down, until it became too much?”

We recognize that the main issue is not whether looting is bad. Instead we ask, in the words of Kimberly Jones, “Why are there people who are so poor that they feel their only hope of getting something is to snatch it from a broken window?” When much of the wealth in America was extracted from the coerced labor of black enslaved peoples, when today blacks are 13 percent of our population but still own only 3 percent of the wealth, we have to ask, as James Baldwin did, “Who is really looting whom?”

To struggle against sinful systems that feel overwhelming, beyond our grasp, and indelibly etched into the earth, is a tall order, but as Christians, we know that this has always been the true struggle:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

Ephesians 6:12

Sarah Ngu, executive director of Forefront NYC Church