While our communities continue to be surveilled, detained, and disappeared, mothers still rise in resistance. Rizpah, like the madres and abuelitas of Argentina, reminds us that empire’s greatest fear is women who refuse to forget.

Even if not invested in war directly, much of our theology is steeped in violence. We hear it in Sunday school songs, see it in images of a triumphant Christ wielding a sword, and witness it in political leaders who stoke division with violent rhetoric.