Seeking honor is a double-edged sword – from ancient Greece to samurai Japan, thinkers have wrestled with whether it’s the way to virtue

(The Conversation) — Though they lived centuries apart, Aristotle and Tsunetomo both explored what it means to live virtuously, and the risks of wanting praise or recognition.

Desire for validation from other people can lead people toward virtue – or in the other direction. (Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock via Getty Images Plus)

Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo
January 9, 2026
THE CONVERSATION 

(The Conversation) — Pete Hegseth, the current defense secretary, has stressed what he calls the “warrior ethos,” while other Americans seem to have embraced a renewed interest in “warrior culture.”

Debate about these concepts actually traces back for thousands of years. Thinkers have long wrestled with what it means to be a true “warrior,” and the proper place of honor and virtue on the road to becoming one. I study the history of political thought, where these debates sometimes play out, but have engaged them in my own martial arts training, too. Beyond aimless brutality or victory, serious practitioners eventually look toward higher principles – even when the desire for glory is powerful.

Many times, “honor” and “virtue” are almost synonyms. If you acted righteously, you behaved “honorably.” If you’re moral, you’re “honorable.” In practice, chasing after honor can prompt not only the best behavior, but the worst. We all long for validation. At its best, that longing can motivate us toward virtue – but it can also lead in the opposite direction.

I am fascinated by the way two famous thinkers grapple with this paradox. They are teachers who lived centuries apart, on opposite sides of the world: Aristotle, the Greek philosopher; and Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a Japanese samurai and Buddhist priest.
The ‘prize of virtue’

In the age of Homer, the Greek poet who is thought to have composed “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” around the 8th century B.C.E., being “good” meant attaining excellence in combat and military affairs, along with wealth and social standing.

According to classics scholar Arthur W.H. Adkins, the “quiet virtues” like justice, prudence and wisdom were seen as honorable, but were not needed for a person to be considered good during this time.

Several centuries later, though, those virtues became central to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle – Greek thinkers whose ideas about character continue to influence how many people, both inside and outside academia, view ethics today.

Aristotle’s understanding of virtue is reflected not only in his works, but in the deeds of his reputed student, Alexander the Great. The Macedonian king is commonly held as the best military commander in antiquity, with an empire that extended from Greece to India. The Greek author Plutarch believed that philosophy provided Alexander with the “equipment” for his campaign: virtues including courage, moderation, greatness of soul and comprehension.

In Aristotle’s view, honor and virtue seem to be “goods” that people pursue in the search for happiness. He refers to external goods, like honor and wealth; goods related to the body, like health; and goods of the soul, like virtue.




A Roman copy of a bust of Aristotle, modeled after a bronze by the Greek sculptor Lysippos, who lived in the 4th century BCE.
National Roman Museum of the Altemps Palace/Jastrow via Wikimedia Commons

Each moral virtue, such as courage and moderation, forms one’s character by maintaining good habits, Aristotle proposed.

Overall, the virtuous human being is one who consistently makes the correct choices in life – generally, avoiding too much or too little of something.

A courageous warrior, for example, acts with just the right amount of fear. True courage, Aristotle wrote, results from doing what is noble, like defending one’s city, even if it leads to a painful death. Cowards habitually flee what is painful, while someone who acts “bravely” because of excessive confidence is simply reckless. Someone who is angry or vengeful fights due to passion, not courage, according to Aristotle.

The problem is that people tend to neglect virtue in favor of other “goods,” Aristotle observed: things like riches, property, reputation and power. Yet virtue itself provides the way to acquire them. Honor, properly bestowed, is the “prize of virtue.”

Still, the impulse for honor can be overwhelming. Indeed, Aristotle called it the “greatest of the external goods.” But we should only care, he cautioned, when honor comes from people who are virtuous themselves. He even recognized two virtues – greatness of soul and ambition – that involve seeking the correct amount of honor from the right place.


Loyalty, even in the face of death


Nabeshima Mitsushige, the 17th-century lord whom Yamamoto Tsunetomo served.
Kodenji Temple Collections via Wikimedia Commons

Two thousand years later, and half a world away, the samurai warriors of Japan also famously focused on honor.

One of them was Yamamoto Tsunetomo – a servant of Nabeshima Mitsushige, a feudal lord in southern Japan. After his lord’s death in 1700, Tsunetomo became a Buddhist priest.

Tsunetomo’s counsel can be found in the “Hagakure-kikigaki,” a collection of his teachings about how a samurai ought to live. Today, this text is considered one of the most notable discourses on “bushidō,” or the way of the warrior.

Tsunetomo’s samurai oath involved the following:


I will never fall behind others in pursuing the way of the warrior.

I will always be ready to serve my lord.

I will honor my parents.
I will serve compassionately for the benefit of others.

The road to becoming a samurai required developing habits that would enable the warrior to fulfill these oaths. Over time, those consistent habits would develop into virtues, like compassion and courage.

To merit honor, the samurai were expected to demonstrate those virtues until their end. Tsunetomo infamously stated that “the way of the warrior is to be found in dying.” Freedom and being able to fulfill one’s duties require living as a “corpse,” he taught. A warrior who cannot detach from life and death is useless, whereas “with this mind-set, any meritorious feat is achievable.”

A courageous death was integral to meriting honor. If one’s lord died, ritual suicide was considered an honorable expression of loyalty – an extension of the general rule that samurai should follow their lord. Indeed, it was considered shameful to become a “rōnin,” a samurai dismissed without a master. Nonetheless, it was possible to make amends and return. Lord Katsushige, the previous head of the Nabeshima domain, even encouraged the experience to truly understand how to be of service.

The Japanese characters for ‘bushidō,’ the ‘way of the warrior.’
Norbert Weber-Karatelehrer via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

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The path to virtue, then, might involve a period of dishonor. The “Hagakure” suggests that fear of dishonor should not lead a samurai to mindlessly follow his lord’s instructions. In some cases, a servant could correct their master as a sign of “magnificent loyalty.” Tsunetomo referred to the example of Nakano Shōgen, who brought peace after persuading his lord, Mitsushige, to apologize for not paying proper respect to certain families within the clan.

The “Hagakure” presents honor as something essential to the way of the warrior. But fame and power should only be pursued along a path aligned with virtue – a life in accord with the samurai’s core oath.

“A [samurai] who seeks only fame and power is not a true retainer,” according to the “Hagakure.” “Then again, he who doesn’t [seek them] is not a true retainer either.”

Honor matters in the pursuit of virtue, both Aristotle and Tsunetomo conclude, especially as a first source of motivation.

But both thinkers agree that honor is not the final end. Nor is moral virtue. Ultimately, they acknowledge something even higher: divine truth.

For Aristotle and Tsunetomo, it seems, the way of the warrior turns toward philosophy rather than unrestrained power and endless war.

(Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo, Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government, Hamilton College. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


The Conversation religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Conversation is solely responsible for this content.

A GODDESS REBORN

Thecla: The saint who faced down lions and killer seals is one of many ‘leading ladies’ in early Christian texts

(The Conversation) — The Christian apocrypha, texts not included in the Bible, include stories of Jesus’ female followers – including St. Thecla.

A relic said to be part of Saint Thecla's arm has been kept in the Cathedral of Tarragona, Spain for centuries. (Gaspar Ros/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA)

Christy Cobb
January 20, 2026

(The Conversation) — The Bible is filled with brave and courageous women.

Deborah, the judge who fought a war to protect her people. The widow Ruth, who wittingly convinces a man to marry her in order to continue the lineage of her mother-in-law, Naomi. Esther, who boldly stands up to an evil politician, Haman, in order to save the Jewish people from death. Judith, who beheads an opposing general in order to save her community.

The stories of these confident women are found in the Hebrew Bible, the sacred text of Judaism, which also forms half of the Christian Bible. But when it comes to the New Testament, where are the “leading ladies” of Christianity?




A reliquary of St. Thecla dating to the 15th or 16th century shows her with the lioness who defended her.
Daderot/Wikimedia Commons

While a few important women are mentioned – such as Mary, the mother of Jesus; and Mary Magdalene, who discovers his empty tomb – no women are the stars of their own books in this half of the Bible. Instead, one must look to the Christian apocrypha: texts that are not found in the New Testament but were written by early Christians. One example of a prominent woman in these writings is Thecla, venerated for her persistence, courage and influence.

Thecla makes frequent appearances in my research and teaching, which focus on gender and early Christian literature. Her story is memorable not only for its dramatic miracles but Thecla’s persistence as a woman who felt called to preach, teach and baptize.
Facing down fires and seals

Thecla’s story is told in a second-century text titled the Acts of Thecla, or the Acts of Paul and Thecla. The story begins when the apostle Paul, who spread Jesus’ gospel more than any other follower in early Christianity, visits the city of Iconium, in modern-day Turkey. Paul’s teachings there highlight celibacy, and he blesses the bodies of virgins, which he says are pleasing to God.

Thecla listens intently while sitting in her home by the window. She is so drawn to Paul’s voice that she refuses to move, eat or drink for three days and nights. Even though she is engaged to be married, she longs to be pure like the virgins Paul celebrates. Thecla’s mother and fiancé are troubled by this, and they convince the leaders of the city to arrest Paul.

The altarpiece of the Cathedral of Tarragona shows Thecla miraculously surviving the flames.
Amadalvarez/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Thecla gains entry to the prison by trading her bracelets and sits with Paul and kisses his chains. During his trial, Thecla is questioned and refuses to answer. Her own mother calls for her to be burned because of her refusal to marry. Thecla is stripped naked and placed on a pyre, but no flames touch her. A miraculous storm erupts, the fire is extinguished, and Thecla survives.

Afterward, she cuts off her hair and dresses as a man in order to follow Paul in disguise. Thecla also asks that he baptize her. Paul asks instead that she have patience and takes her to the city of Antioch.

Thecla’s beauty attracts unwanted attention there, and a man named Alexander immediately falls in love with her. Rather than come to Thecla’s aid, Paul denies knowing her, and Alexander attempts to rape her. Thecla humiliates him by ripping his robe and tearing the wreath off his head. Alexander brings her to the governor of Antioch, who condemns her to face the beasts in the arena.

A relief of Thecla in the arena with wild beasts, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
R. Huggins/IslandsEnd via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

The scene is terrifying and vivid. Thecla is stripped naked and thrown into the arena, where lions and bears are waiting to attack her. But a lioness walks over to Thecla, lies at her feet and protects her from the other animals.

In the midst of this danger, Thecla stands, reaches out her hands and prays to God. When she opens her eyes, she sees a pool of water filled with killer seals, yet throws herself in to baptize herself. Immediately after, lightning strikes and the seals are killed.

The governor finally releases Thecla and provides her with clothes. She goes immediately to Paul, who finally blesses her and commissions her to teach the gospel.


Women preaching

Many Christians in the ancient world viewed Thecla as an inspiration and an example for leadership. Yet not everyone approved of women teaching and preaching, including a second-century church father named Tertullian. He discouraged Christians from reading the Acts of Thecla and claimed that it was a forgery, since he did not think Paul – who wrote that women should be silent in church – would affirm a woman’s right to teach and baptize.

Tertullian’s warnings reflect controversies surrounding women’s leadership and imply that some women claimed Thecla’s example as justification for preaching.

Later Christians remembered Thecla through artwork as well as texts. For example, a fresco of Thecla – along with her mother and Paul – is depicted in a fifth- or sixth-century grotto just outside of Ephesus, an important city both in the Roman Empire and in early Christianity. The painter imagined Thecla looking out her window, just as the beginning of the Acts of Thecla describes.

In Egypt, a round, carved plate was discovered depicting Thecla with the lions at her feet. This fifth-century artistic depiction demonstrates how far the story of Thecla’s perseverance in the arena with the beasts had spread.

People form a ‘castell’ during celebrations for St. Thecla’s feast day in 2008.
Ferran Llorens/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Today, Thecla is the patron saint of the city of Tarragona, Spain, where the cathedral is named after her and images of Thecla decorate the altarpiece. Each year on Sept. 23, the feast day of St. Thecla, this Spanish city celebrates her story through parades, music, dancing and human towers called “castells.” A relic of her arm is processed through the city and displayed in the cathedral so that devotees can view it and pray for blessings.

Just as Thecla listened through her open window to Paul’s message, today Thecla’s story echoes to those who desire to hear the stories of courageous early Christian women.

(Christy Cobb, Associate Professor of Christianity, University of Denver. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

When a racist refusal of the Eucharist becomes a tool for competing nationalisms

 Opinion

When a racist refusal of the Eucharist becomes a tool for competing nationalisms

NATIONALISM IS FASCISM

(RNS) — When religious nationalism collides with racial nationalism, they don’t cancel each other out — they compare notes.

(Photo by Robert Cheaib/Creative Commons)

David Dasharath Kalal

January 16, 2026

(RNS) — At first glance, the video looks disarmingly ordinary. A silver-haired, middle-age man sits in what appears to be his car, wearing a zip-up velour tracksuit, offering post-church reflections to his phone as he drives home. There is no visible anger, no shouting, no sense of urgency. He speaks with the casual confidence of someone who assumes what he is about to say will be understood — perhaps even affirmed.

Then the turn comes.

“Well, I did a bad thing in church today,” he says. “I refused to receive the Eucharist from an Indian woman. I was supposed to go to her. She was in my aisle, but across the church was the white priest, so I walked across all the pews and received it from him, for fear that I might get fecal matter on my Eucharist, receiving it from an Indian woman.”

He does not want to receive the Eucharist from anyone who is non-white, he says, going on to invoke the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and the need to keep “our churches ours.” And when he reaches the end, he delivers the thesis: If this makes him a “bad Catholic,” fine — he would rather be that than let America “turn into India.”

“I guess I’ll go confess this to my priest, but I’ll continue doing it. That’s the compromise, okay.”

“That’s the compromise,” he says — confession without repentance, acknowledgment without restraint. It is not a moment of shame, but of resolution. He knows this choice violates church teaching, but he has already decided which authority matters more.

It’s an “I choose violence” moment of Christian nationalism: the point where someone stops pretending they are conflicted and announces which god they serve. Not Christ or Church, but disgust, elevated into a worldview.

What matters is not that this happened. What matters is how quickly it became useful.

Within hours, the clip was no longer just racist spectacle. It became a traveling artifact, passed between ideologies eager to extract value from it. White nationalists saw a familiar fantasy confirmed: the clean center, the filthy edge. Christian nationalists saw their own reflection: the church as property, the altar as border control.

Then the moment, perhaps predictable, when another nationalist ideology moved in to repurpose the post for its own ends.

A group calling itself Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network reposted the clip to condemn the racism — and used it to deliver a lesson to Indian Christians “who think they are white-adjacent because they are Christians and not Hindus.”

“You’ll always be treated as Indians!” the post warned. “Your religion has zero value to a gora.”

There is a truth buried here: Whiteness is not a sacrament. You do not receive it through conversion or proximity. Racism does not check your theology before deciding what you are.

But Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network did not offer this post as solidarity. It was offered as instruction. Not we’re all targets here, but learn the lesson fast: whatever you think Christianity buys you in America, it won’t buy you whiteness — and it certainly won’t buy you safety. Stop imagining coalitions. Come home — on our terms.

Why respond to a man chasing virality or amplify a group eager to weaponize his ugliness? In quieter times, restraint might have been wise. But this moment is no longer quiet. What we are seeing is not an isolated provocation but a pattern asserting itself across ideologies. Refusals at the altar, nationalist bullying masquerading as anti-racism and recycled tropes of contamination are symptoms, not stunts — signals of how racism and religious nationalism are co-testing what they can now say aloud. Silence here misreads the danger.

Because this is not a debate between racism and anti-racism; it is a convergence of supremacist projects borrowing each other’s tools: the body as evidence, proximity as threat, belonging as something that must be guarded against dilution.

They differ only on who gets to claim the center. 

This is where the “white adjacency” conversation gets twisted beyond recognition. At its best, the phrase names conditional tolerance — how some nonwhite groups are invited closer to power if they help police others. It is meant as diagnosis, not destiny.

Here, it becomes a scolding theology: You thought Christianity would save you? You thought the cross was an entry pass into whiteness, Western belonging? Foolish.

The bitter irony is that this framing (from both sides) treats Indian Christianity as if it exists only as a negotiation with whiteness — as though Indian Christians were merely auditioning for Europe. Reducing Indian Christians to “wannabe white” is not just insulting, it is historical erasure. Christianity in South Asia has ancient roots, stretching back to the earliest centuries after Christ.

And the more revealing part is what Hindu nationalist scolders are really saying — because it is less about Indian Christians than about their own disappointment. They’ve also flirted with the promise of “adjacency” and discovered it rarely matures into belonging or power.

Far-right Indians in the U.S. have already seen this strategy boomerang. Sometimes it is the public humiliation of Vivek Ramaswamy — proof that perfect ideological loyalty does not guarantee acceptance. Sometimes it’s the abject lackey work of Harmeet Dhillon — now doing Trump’s bidding as the U.S. assistant attorney general for DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. That’s the trade: you surrender principle for proximity, get no belonging in return, and help hollow out both democracy’s guardrails and religion’s moral vocabulary.

Adjacency will not save you. It will not elect you. It will not protect you from becoming the punchline when the room decides it’s time to laugh.

The irony deepens when placed alongside Hindu majoritarian politics in India itself, which has intensified pressure on Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and others through anti-conversion laws, mob violence and cultural suspicion. Persecution is not hypothetical. Yet here, Hindu nationalists flip a racist Catholic’s refusal of Communion into a lesson about misplaced loyalty, as if the danger were coalition rather than majoritarian power.

This is what happens when religious nationalism collides with racial nationalism. They don’t cancel each other out. They compare notes.

What emerges is a familiar figure, refurbished for a new moment: the Dirty Indian. Not a person, but a prototype. Before hierarchy hardens, hate experiments. It asks which story works.

Are they violent? Thieves? Apostates? Or — does this one stick — filthy?

It’s possible to read this as another episode in the long history of using disgust to police belonging — and it is. But what feels newly dangerous is the confidence: the sense that you can move bigotry from the background of religious life to the center of it — doctrine be damned — and call it honesty. The public statement becomes the point. This is the new anti–virtue signal: cruelty framed as courage, humiliation offered as “realism,” and the expectation that the community will reward it the way it once rewarded moral witness — likes instead of absolution, applause instead of accountability.

What disappears is the woman holding the Eucharist. Her hand is either too dirty to mediate God — or useful proof that God will never fully receive you. But the dehumanization, of course, was always the point.

(David Dasharath Kalal is communications director with Hindus for Human Rights. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Nationalism and Culture : Rocker Rudolf : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

‘Just Like Selma’ hymn project aims to help churches recall King, mark Black History Month

(RNS) — The new song’s composer thought it could be a way to again hear from Black churches, collectively, about civil rights.

Soloists Beverly Crawford, center left, and Zacardi Cortez, center right, perform “Just Like Selma” with the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mass Choir at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston. (Video screen grab courtesy of NEWorks Productions)

Adelle M. Banks
January 15, 2026

RNS

(RNS) — Composer Nolan Williams Jr. has long combined faith, culture and the arts in his productions on stage and screen, often centering on African American life. Now, he has created the “Just Like Selma” project to focus on the history of and continuing advocacy for voting rights.

The song he composed by the same name debuted via a video ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 19), and will be incorporated into the worship services at churches across the country during Black History Month in February.

“We are shifting from voter participation to civic engagement and really shining a spotlight on the Voting Rights Act and the history that led to the Voting Rights Act,” Williams told Religion News Service in an interview, describing the law that has lost some of its key provisions since a 2013 Supreme Court decision. “We have seen the impact of that and the number of precincts that have been closed or the kinds of voter ID laws that have been enacted. … States that had a history of discrimination no longer have to answer to anyone before they make any changes in their voting procedures.”

Williams, 56, is the founder of NEWorks Productions, a music and arts production company, and the chief music editor of the African American Heritage Hymnal. The song “Just Like Selma” is the next part of NEWorks’ Freedom Advances campaign, whose “Rise Up & Fight” pro-voting animation music video earned him a Best Director award at the 2025 Cannes Film Awards.

The social justice hymn calls for the kinds of resistance and protest that King declared as the final voting rights march from Selma in 1965 concluded at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, saying, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

The music video blends archival footage of civil rights marchers — showing the historic signs they carried and headlines they prompted — with a recording of the song by two soloists, Grammy Award-nominated artists Zacardi Cortez and Beverly Crawford, and the 130-voice Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mass Choir from Houston. The a cappella performance captures the sounds of hands and feet being used as instruments to undergird the song’s lyrics, reminiscent of the anthems of the 1960s. The refrain begins:

“Oh, Oh, Oh, Selma has taught us how to persist, resist.

Selma has taught us how to protest, endure.

Selma has taught us how to fight hate, agitate,

Until the arc bends our way …”

As the nation marks not only the King holiday but, in February, the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, which began in 1926 as Negro History Week, Williams thought the hymn could be a way to collectively hear from Black churches again. He noted that recent social and racial justice movements, such as Black Lives Matter, began outside of church walls, a shift from the Civil Rights Movement’s closer connections to churches.

Nolan Williams Jr., left, speaks with choristers while filming the “Just Like Selma” project at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston. (Photo by Alma Hicks, courtesy of NEWorks Productions)

“That’s where the roots are in terms of social protest, and it’s important to make that connection,” said Williams, who is the son of a Baptist pastor. “But this project is not exclusive.”

The list of dozens of churches that have indicated they will perform the song during Black History Month includes Black churches of a range of sizes and locations, in addition to other churches, such as the Arlington Church of the Brethren in Virginia. Those that registered to incorporate the song on the NEWorks website receive resources, including sheet music, to help them prepare to sing the hymn.

The Rev. Jacqueline A. Thompson, senior pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California, said her church’s Unity Choir plans to open its Black history commemoration by singing “Just Like Selma” during its morning worship service on Feb. 1.

“There is a deep irony in celebrating 250 years of American democracy while simultaneously witnessing efforts to erase Black history, restrict voting access, and the narrowing of the story we tell about who belongs,” Thompson, who also is the second-vice president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a historically Black denomination, told RNS via email. “This project is a reminder that remembrance comes with responsibility.”

Promotional poster for the new hymn “Just Like Selma.” (Image courtesy of NEWorks Productions)

The Rev. Matt Rittle, pastor of Arlington Church of the Brethren, considered a peace church, said he hopes his mostly white congregation that usually gathers 25 to 40 people on Sunday will sing “Just Like Selma,” after congregants began an email thread discussing it after seeing it in a denominational newsletter.

The video will also be featured in bicoastal events on the King holiday before the song’s release in February on streaming platforms.

The video will be included in the annual “Let Freedom Ring” Martin Luther King Day celebration and concert, which had long been a partnership between Georgetown University, Williams and the former John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This year, the event will be held at the historic Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Since the recently renamed Trump Kennedy Center began being chaired by President Donald Trump last February, numerous artists have canceled appearances.

Asked about the recent ending of his 15 years on the Kennedy Center’s Community Advisory Board, Williams declined to comment.

Leon C. Lewis. (Photo courtesy of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church)

A spokesperson for Georgetown said the new venue was “chosen in part to contribute to a set of proactive steps to protect the university’s financial health amid ongoing challenges.” In a December update, the university’s president attributed “considerable financial uncertainty” at the school to causes including higher utility costs and federal research award disruptions.

The “Just Like Selma” video will also be featured in a Martin Luther King Day service during the midwinter board meeting of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Los Angeles.

“Music is essential to movements,” said the Rev. David Peoples, president of the denomination, in a statement. “As the denominational home of Dr. King, PNBC is honored to collaborate to promote this timely addition to sacred music.”

Leon C. Lewis, the minister of music at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, said the message of resilience in the song is as relevant as it was in the past.

“I think that’s why we were able to garner so much support from our choir members to participate in it, because we’re still seeing the inequities in our states, in our world, in our cities,” he said. “Clearly, the message still resonates even now in 2026.”

On the Sunday before the MLK Day events, Williams plans to return to Wheeler Avenue Baptist to conduct the choir for a premiere performance during its two worship services. They are expected to draw some 12,000 people over two services in the church’s sanctuary and overflow rooms.

Williams declined to make predictions about how his new composition might endure, but he said it’s the right moment for the song to be sung.

“We need to be reflecting the times, and that’s not something that should just be in the streets — that’s something that should also be in the pulpit, in the choir loft, in the pews,” he said. “We have amazing artists now that create praise and worship music and gospel songs and all of that, … but a social justice hymn is not a common kind of thing, and it’s timely.”

This story has been updated.