“Good evening. I am in such awe of what I just heard, as you no doubt are, and of the statements that have preceded my coming up. The statements that call for justice, that are statements of deep sorrow and grief, and that it's met with resolve and commitment to build a new world.
I'm also coming to an awareness that the times of statements and the times of our eloquent words have reached a kind of limit, sadly.
As someone who is a man of profound historical privilege, as one who has made statements that, I have to say, have been really good and eloquent, but have not moved the needle one bit.
I want to speak briefly—primarily to the Christians among us.
We are now engaged in a horrible battle that is eternal, that has gone on for millennia. As soon as the Christian church became linked to the empire by Constantine in the year 325 or so, the church immediately became corrupt. And the message of Jesus's love, compassion, and commitment to the poor, the outcast, was immediately compromised. And we have lost that voice, and we are now, I believe, entering a time, a new era of martyrdom.
Renee Good being the last of note of those martyrs.
New Hampshire's own Jonathan Daniels, a man also of white privilege, stood in front of the blast of a sheriff in Haynesville, Alabama, to protect a young black teenager from a shotgun blast. He died and was martyred.
We know of the women, the Maryknoll sisters, who stood alongside the poor and the oppressed in El Salvador and were brutally raped and murdered in the name of Jesus.
Oscar Romero, in a mass called upon the death squads of El Salvador to lay down their arms or risk excommunication, was martyred the next Sunday at the altar.
I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness. And I've asked them to get their affairs in order—to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.
And it may mean that we are going to have to act in a new way that we have never seen perhaps in our lifetime, except for these remote stories that I've just cited, to put our faith in the God of life, of resurrection, of a love that is stronger than death itself.
There are those who call themselves Christians now who are very close to the seat of the highest echelons of power in this country. Who tell us that the way the world works is by force. We've heard it this week from Stephen Miller. That disparity could not be more stark. St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians said, “Let this mind be, let the same mind that was in Christ Jesus be in you.” Who though had every force in the world and could just lay assault to the whole universe, chose instead to enter our humanity, to empty himself, and to take the posture of weakness, of vulnerability, to enter even death, even death on the cross.
I'm speaking here to the Christians.
That's what we are to model. Because life, the life that God wants for us is stronger than what we see, the cruelty, the injustice, the horror that we saw unleashed in Minneapolis. And we've seen it so many other times. Also in Minneapolis, lest we forget, George Floyd: say his name.
So that is my prayer.
Those of us who are ready to build a new world, we also have to be prepared. If we truly want to live without fear, we cannot fear even death itself, my friends.”
Excerpt from Rob Hirschfeld, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, speech at a vigil for Renee Good on Jan. 9, 2026, with emphasis by me. The full transcript can be found here.