Rev. Michael Woolf, Senior Minister, Lake Street Church of Evanston calls on people of faith at Saturday’s Chicago protest:

As I have watched impeachment hearings this week, I have been struck by the fact that we are endlessly focused on whether a United States  president practiced too forcefully the imperialist policies of domination that have been our way of operating since the beginning of our country.  We have not been focused on what I would term the spiritual sickness of our society. Any society that permits human beings to be placed in cages, denies fair asylum claims, or practices cuts to SNAP benefits that hurt our most vulnerable is sick. Too often people of good will mistake cruelty to be an unfortunate side effect of policies, but we must awaken to the fact that cruelty is the point of these policies – it is not a bug; it is a feature of our states programming.

When spiritual sickness and cruelty dominate, it becomes clear that those at the top must be removed from office. Whether or not Democrats can convince their congressional peers that Trump must be removed, our moral and ethical compasses demand his removal. The impeachment process skips over the fundamental fact that he is already impeachable through public acts that we all have seen. A 7 year old could see that he is impeachable. But it is impossible to see what you are being paid not to see. That’s why it’s up to us, and why I support Refuse Fascism and our efforts to remove our president from office. Otherwise, I fear we will not be able to address the spiritual rot at the center of this debacle.