As we enter the most important three days on the Christian calendar, here is a Good Friday quiz. 

Name the Christian fanatic who said the following, clearly seeking to impose his religious views on our society:

“The judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning…” 

Part of the Christian Nationalist brigade? A budding theocrat?

Not close.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

King’s letter, which should be required reading for every American, was written after he had been arrested for leading a protest urging a boycott of white-owned businesses. A group of white ministers had written publicly to scold King, saying that the march was “unwise and untimely.”

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In other words, the upstart Black Baptist minister should shut up, sit down and stay in his lane.

Rev. King, of course did just the opposite, saying the current generation would have to repent “for the appalling silence of the good people.” 

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” fell into the centuries-long tradition of American clergy engaging in vital national issues.

Today, it is only the religious left that is embraced, while those on the religious right are derided, demeaned and de-legitimized. Consider the double standard. 

Recall then-Sen. Barack Obama had his pastor and a liberal Catholic priest as key – and controversial – players in his presidential campaign. They were controversial for exotic views, not because they were members of the clergy. 

For decades, appearing at Sunday services at Dr. King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta has been a rite of passage for prominent Democrats. Current Georgia U.S. Sen. Rafael Warnock, a Democrat, remains the senior pastor at Ebenezer. 

Clearly the left has no problem with clergy, and faith communities, actively and eagerly engaging in political issues – if they are reliably progressive.   

Which brings us to another prominent voice challenging the Christian church to engage in the public square, and speak out with principle:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”

This is author and historian Eric Metaxas from his “Letter to the American Church.” Metaxas was here in Colorado recently, appearing at BRAVE Church in Englewood (my church) promoting a documentary made from the book.   

Metaxas is best known as the author of an acclaimed biography of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-Nazi dissident who was executed in a concentration camp in 1945. Metaxas writes about Bonhoeffer’s ire at the silence and acquiescence of German Christian clergy and laypeople during the Hitler era. He challenges today’s Christians to not sit idly by, leaving the right side of the public square naked. 

“It is our duty to fight the powers of darkness, especially on behalf of the weak and vulnerable,” Metaxas writes. “Silence is not an option.”

Here is the difference: Metaxas is conservative. Yes, he is an unabashed Donald Trump booster. His issues are the hottest of hot-button issues on the right.  

Eric Metaxas is a Yale graduate, lives in Manhattan and dresses like he fell out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue. He’s very hard to caricature, as the liberal media is fond of doing, as just another gullible, uneducated Christian. If Metaxas were liberal, he would be a celebrated national literary figure and have a prime-time television gig. 

But since he is a Christian conservative, his radio show is continually under siege, and he’s been banned from YouTube. 

It is wrong to be inspired by “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and then reject out of hand “Letter to the American Church” because you find the politics of Rev. King congenial, and the views of Metaxas irritating.  

The challenge now, as in Rev. King’s time, is the comfort and complacency of faith communities. 

Liberal churches, and liberal clergy, are right to speak out even if I don’t agree with a word they say. 

It is also good, and needed, for conservative clergy and their congregations to be just as engaged, just as vocal – and just as effective – in America’s public square.

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.