Sojo: Opinion Reply to Sojo (ignored)

Betsy,

Thank you for the quick reply. I want to ask a direct question, and I hope you'll receive it in the spirit it's offered — which is the same spirit that brought me to Sojourners nearly two decades ago.

Jeremiah Wright wore the uniform before he picked up the prophetic mantle. That lineage — the veteran as prophet, as moral witness, as the person who has paid the cost the civilian critic has only narrated — is not incidental to the SecDef Hegseth conversation Adam's piece opened. It is the conversation. When Sojourners publishes the civilian-contra-military frame and declines the response from someone inside the military lineage, the question I cannot shake is whether the mission is being applied or performed.

I am not asking you to publish something you find unworthy. I am asking whether there is an editorial reason, one consistent with your stated commitments to "restorative justice" through "in depth exploration," that a response from a veteran, a member of a federally protected class, and a longtime contributor does not meet the standard Adam's piece was held to. That is a genuine question, and I think your readers and your donors would find it worth answering.

- brother logan