Redemption as Rebellion: Organizing at the Edge of Grace

We need to build spaces not only for the already converted but for the deeply confused, the misled, the wounded who have wounded others.

Redemption is a dangerous word. It has been wielded like a scythe and offered like a balm. It shows up in the whispered confessions of the devout, in the murmur of river baptisms, in the trembling pulpits of churches and mosques and temples, in the low, bruised prayers of the condemned. But it also arrives unannounced, from the mouths of revolutionaries and freedom dreamers. Redemption, when properly understood, is not about absolution without consequence: it is the stubborn, radical belief that transformation is possible, even for those who have harmed.

This belief, old as the first hymn and as subversive as the first revolt, should be at the center of our organizing. Not as sentiment. Not as false reconciliation. But as strategy. As a vision of what liberation truly requires.

Because let’s face it: we cannot jail or cancel our way to justice. If the world is to turn, it must turn not only on the axis of punishment but on the promise of return. What if we believed that even those who have enacted the policies we despise, who have voted for leaders we abhor, who wear their bigotry like a badge; what if even they were not beyond reach?

Martin Luther King Jr did not merely dream of black and white children holding hands. He spoke of redeeming the soul of America. He did not mean ignoring the terror or the trauma, but transfiguring it. He meant that the lyncher’s rope and the policeman’s baton and the legislator’s pen could be undone not only through protest, but through moral confrontation, through a belief in the possibility of repentance and rebirth. It was not naïveté. It was an act of rebellion to say: we will not hate you, even if you hate us. We will not write you off, even if you have written our lives out of the story.

In this way, redemption becomes not the language of the meek, but of the militant. Not a whispered prayer, but a drumbeat. It forces us to imagine organizing not only as a march or a campaign, but as an invitation. It means building spaces not only for the already converted but for the deeply confused, the misled, the wounded who have wounded others. It means that community is not just a safe haven but a crucible; a place where change is demanded, expected, and nurtured.

When I was a union organizer, we referred to people who were not members of our union as “not-yet-members,” understanding that we must unite all workers if we are going to have a powerful union. I believe it is time for us to view our political opponents, not as enemies, but as the “not-yet-organized.”

The left, so often caricatured as angry and rigid, must reclaim its own heart. Not in the name of civility, which is too often the velvet glove of oppression, but in the name of power. The real, unruly, transformative power of movements that win. And we will not win if we only speak to ourselves, or preach to the proverbial choir. We must, somehow, speak across the battlefield. We must risk the heartbreak of engagement.

That doesn't mean tolerating abuse or silencing the truths of the oppressed. It means understanding that even racists are made, not born. That capitalism distorts not only economies, but imaginations. That imperialism trains not just soldiers, but citizens. And if systems can mold minds into weapons, movements can unmake them into neighbors.

This is not easy work. It is not tidy. It will require patience, grief, and a thousand small failures. But it is the only way forward. If we are to build a world worth living in, we must believe that people can change. And we must organize not only our resistance, but their redemption.

Because the revolution is not only about tearing down what is broken. It is about building what has never existed before. A politics of grace. A community of return. A future forged not only by the righteous, but by the forgiven.