This message was delivered on Sunday, July 3, 2022 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Barbara Prose. Description: Our country stands on the edge of a precipice. It feels impossible that on the weekend that our nation celebrates its 246th birthday, some of the freedoms and rights we hold dear have been taken away and other rights and freedom are so vulnerable. In these extraordinary and urgent times, we declare that we dissent. Those who pursue authoritarian forms of power also provoke violence, spread disinformation, politicize independent institutions, corrupt elections and target vulnerable or marginalized communities. Voices of people in Oklahoma who are not being represented by local or national leaders must be heard across our nation as we insist on the importance of the separation between church and state and share our understanding of a God who always stands on the side of freedom and equality.