Rick Nowlin is a news assistant, editorial writer, and former jazz critic at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette currently on strike.
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My Evangelical Faith Sent Me to the Picket Line
Tens of thousands of people filled downtown Pittsburgh for the city's annual Labor Day Parade, one of the largest in the nation, on Sept. 4, 2023. Roughly 200 unions participated in the event. Credit: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect.
You may be asking: How do I reconcile, on the one hand, identifying as an evangelical Christian but then, on the other hand, striking with organized labor? “Media Christianity” — represented by “The 700 Club” and other television and radio programs — has, over the years, generally opposed organized labor and its work stoppages, often referring to it as “greedy” and decrying it for disrupting the lives of workers and the economy. For me, however, participating in this strike is congruent with my commitment to biblical principles, such as admonitions about not exploiting workers, of which there are numerous references in the Old Testament, most notably in the prophets such as Isaiah, Amos, and Micah.