1 Corinthians 12:4-6 reminds us of this: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.” (NRSV)
When it comes to race, most white Americans are obsessed with two things: defending our own inherent goodness and maintaining our own comfort levels. Too often, this means white people assume that to be racist, one needs to be openly hateful and willfully discriminatory — you know, a bad person. And we know we’re good people, right? But you don’t have to be wearing a white hood or shouting racial epithets to be complicit in America’s racist history and its ongoing systemic inequality.
This month marks Women’s History Month. While there are many Presbyterian women who have made history throughout the years and deserve to be celebrated, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Women’s Leadership Development and Young Women’s Ministries is helping to generate a new crop of young dynamic women to lead the church.
The Rev. Dr. George Walker Smith, described as “a giant” who “could be the most humble person you’ll ever meet” by a longtime parishioner and personal secretary, died Feb. 15 in San Diego. He was 91.
Two friends living in Cincinnati — the Rev. Troy Bronsink, a white Presbyterian pastor, and Pastor Daniel Hughes, who’s a black United Methodist clergyman — have helped numerous Cincinnati-area residents to hold difficult, courageous conversations about race since 2017, when unrest in their city erupted following the death of an unarmed black youth at the hand of a white police officer.
The Presbyterian Campus Ministry at the University of Georgia (UGA) is not new. It’s been around since 1940 and housed in the current space since 1959, which served as a safe space for African American students during the tumultuous 1960s.
Alexis Presseau Maloof, who teaches English at a private Islamic school, is an engaged member of the United Presbyterian Church of Peoria in Peoria, Ill. Currently she is serving as a ruling elder in her church and was the co-chair of the Pastor Nominating Committee for a new pastor that just recently wrapped up. Maloof has also been a member of her congregation’s Missions Committee, taught adult education and led a racial justice book club discussion on Debby Irving’s book, “Waking Up White.”
A formal apology by the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy to African Americans for what the presbytery calls “the sin of slavery and its legacy” occurred this month following a “Journey of Reconciliation” last fall to two institutions in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to telling the stories of enslaved black people and those terrorized by lynching and humiliated by Jim Crow.
