Viewpoint: Let Pastor Scobey's act of civil disobedience spur us to fight racial injustice

On Nov. 17, 2021, the Rev. Derrick Scobey, of Oklahoma City’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, knelt in the middle of the street to pray outside the Governor’s Mansion. Pastor Scobey is a praying man, but this prayer was unusual in several ways. He knelt between a crowd of frustrated protesters and a cluster of Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers in tactical gear. The protesters were calling the governor to heed the recommendation of his Pardon and Parole Board by commuting the sentence of Julius Jones, a Black man who was scheduled to be executed the next day. Pastor Scobey was arrested during his act of public moral witness, and he currently faces criminal charges.

As the aftermath of his provocative prayer plays out in the courts, I hope the legal drama will spur my fellow Oklahomans to wrestle with the moral meaning of Pastor Scobey’s witness. To do this, we need to understand his actions last November within the context of the ancient tradition from which they emerged.

The spiritual practice of nonviolent civil disobedience has deep roots in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. When Pharaoh commanded enslaved Hebrew midwives to commit infanticide, they “feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live” (Exodus 1:17). When Haman plotted to commit genocide against the Jews, Esther risked her life by violating court protocols to advocate for her people. When Darius made it illegal to pray to the God of Israel, the prophet Daniel opened his window so that everyone could see him defying the decree by kneeling to pray three times a day. When the apostles of Jesus were commanded to stop proclaiming his resurrection, they replied, “We must obey God rather than human beings” (Acts 5:29).

Throughout the 20th century, Christian civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. drew upon this scriptural tradition to make nonviolent civil disobedience a cornerstone of their peaceful fight for justice. Their conviction was that all civil authority is subject to the higher moral authority of God. When human laws are out of sync with this higher moral order, then peaceably breaking such laws is a sacred witness to God’s truth. Such acts do not aim at chaos or anarchy; they aim to disrupt an immoral status quo in pursuit of law and order that is rooted in righteousness.

King did not rush into acts of civil disobedience. In fact, he wrote that in the face of injustice, we must first attempt to negotiate through normal legal means. But if this attempt fails, civil disobedience is an appropriate next step. This leads us back to Pastor Scobey praying in the middle of the street last year.

In the days leading up to this incident, I was among many pastors and concerned residents who gathered in the state Capitol to pray outside the governor’s office. A few of those present, including Pastor Scobey, requested a meeting with the governor. To be more specific, Pastor Scobey joined the Rev. J.A. Reed — another deeply respected local pastor and a veteran of the civil rights struggle that raged in Oklahoma City during the 1960s — to request a meeting with the governor. In the midst of a heated racial situation that was making national headlines, two African American pastors who are well-known community servants asked to have a quiet conversation with the governor. Their request was denied.