A minister, social ethicist and scholar has been chosen to lead a new endeavor by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to repair the damage done by structural racism and white supremacy within the church and around the globe.
To the psalmist’s question “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” the Rev. Ron McKinney had a ready answer Wednesday during an online Chapel service for the national staff of the PC(USA): “How can we as Native Americans not sing our song? We are not in a foreign land. We are in our own land.”
Most Presbyterians know that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the influential “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” But few know of her time spent in Cincinnati, where she was awakened to the horrors of slavery as a young woman.
In the first paragraph of his new book “What Kind of Christianity: A History of Slavery and Anti-Black Racism in the Presbyterian Church,” Dr. William Yoo includes this question first raised by the Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon: “Where was the Church and the Christian believers when Black women and Black men, Black boys and Black girls, were being raped, sexually abused, lynched, assassinated, castrated and physically oppressed? What kind of Christianity allowed white Christians to deny basic human rights and simple dignity to Blacks, these same rights which have been given to others without question?”
Justice John Marshall Harlan, known as “The Great Dissenter,” wrote memorable U.S. Supreme Court minority opinions that today are in the mainstream of American jurisprudence as well as public opinion, especially on racial equity — despite being a slaveholder who opposed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Before the end of her final sermon as pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Teaneck, New Jersey, the Rev. Dr. Gloria Tate capped off her nearly 30 years in the PCT pulpit by urging the congregation “to finish the race” despite her retirement.
Many people — even many people of faith — think diversity and inclusion are the same thing.
They’re not, as the Rev. Samuel Son explained this week on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” hosted each week by the Rev. Lee Catoe of Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice, and Simon Doong of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program.
For the greater part of a decade, Gloria Klomsten has been traveling to the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota to spread love to Native American communities while working hand-in-hand with mission partners, such as Southminster Presbyterian Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Taking a break from pastoral responsibilities is sometimes easier said than done. With that in mind, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been offering a four-week program called “Learning to Live into the Rhythms of Sabbath” for Hispanic Latine pastors.