A Season of Faithful Resistance and Collective Power

Blog written by Marqus Cole, Esq., Organizing Director for Georgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL). Marqus is pictured above with participants at GIPL’s Public Service Commission Power Hour(s) event at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Columbus, Georgia, on June 8, 2025.

Scripture is full of symbols, rituals, and prophetic actions that, at first glance, seem disconnected from the material world. But again and again, they become powerful witness—disrupting injustice, calling people back to truth, and reminding leaders that the divine is paying attention.

Whether it’s a prophet lying on their side for months, a widow offering two coins, or Jesus turning over tables in the temple, these moments carry weight not because they’re loud, but because they’re faithful.

Across faith traditions, we see this same truth: the quiet faithfulness of the Bodhisattva’s compassion, the Indigenous elder’s prayer for the land, the monk sweeping the temple floor in devotion.

Photo of prayer painting, painted by Jenny Miller, and members of the GIPL community during GIPL’s July 10, 2025 Climate Vigil.

Sacred power often moves in steady, unseen ways.

This summer, we leaned into that lineage.

We began with a virtual kickoff in May, grounding ourselves in purpose and equipping advocates across the state to take meaningful action.

In June, we brought that energy to the Public Service Commission through public comments and testimonies offered in love and lament. Later that month, we gathered in person for our PSC Power Hour(s) event in Columbus, breaking bread, learning together, and mobilizing our voices for a just energy future.

And in July, we closed this season with a 24-hour Climate Vigil. From sunrise to sunrise, people across Georgia took faithful action. In fasting, praying, and reflecting, we called on the PSC to lead with courage, equity, and care for our Common Home.

Then came the vote.

In late July, the Georgia Public Service Commission approved an energy plan that locks the state into an extended reliance on fossil fuels. The plan doubles down on outdated infrastructure and deepens our dependence on coal and methane gas at the very moment we should be moving forward. It was a disappointing decision. But it did not undo the work we did together.

We don’t measure faithfulness by worldly outcomes alone.

Photo of Marqus Cole with Unitarian Universalist Green Team members at GIPL’s July 10, 2025 Climate Vigil.

In a time when too many decisions happen behind closed doors, our visibility, our prayer, and our public witness is a victory. Naming injustice, bearing witness, and telling the truth, especially when it’s hard, is sacred work. And that sacred work has always been the soil where change begins.

Doing justice, loving mercy, and walking with humility is both the work and the reward of GIPL’s organizing and advocacy.

Let me be clear: this is not the end.

Our Summer of Advocacy stands on the shoulders of those who came before, and makes way for those who will carry it forward. As long as corporations prioritize profit over people and planet, we will show up. As long as policymakers put short-term interests ahead of long-term care for our shared sacred home, we will show up. We will organize. We will pray. And we will resist.

We know more fights are coming—fights like the proposed South System Expansion 4 (SSE4) methane gas pipeline project that threatens to carve across Georgia, Alabama, and parts of Mississippi all for the sake of shareholder returns.

But we say: Pipelines to the fossil fuel past don’t belong in Georgia’s clean energy future.

Let’s build real power—clean, renewable, and affordable power—that flows to the people, not corporate profit.