Ancient Greek had two words for time: kairos, meaning an opportune time, and chronos, meaning chronological or a set amount of time. Christian theology makes a big deal out of kairos moments. Jesus uses kairos for "time" when he declares in the Gospel of Mark: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." More recently, the Rev. William Barber took a leadership role at the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary in New York, from which he leads the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Three years ago, I felt a kairos moment that turned out to be more chronos.
I took the subway down from Union Theological Seminary—where I was a few weeks away from finishing my Master of Divinity degree—to Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters in Brooklyn. After months of trying to leverage every connection I had to get a meeting, the moment finally came in April 2016. I had high expectations for the Clinton campaign's commitment to religious outreach. After all, the candidate had spoken regularly of her political awakening coming from a church youth group trip to see MLK speak.
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