The Reimagining America Project (RAP), a grassroots effort of clergy, activists and local leaders in and around Charlotte, North Carolina, who are working to reduce the unjust impacts race has on the systems of our society, was the subject of an illuminating webinar recently offered by Union Presbyterian Seminary and two of its institutions, the Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation (CSJR) and the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership.
A recent Matthew 25 webinar provided inspiration and information about using effective strategies for eradicating systemic poverty, including banding together to build power.
Righting a wrong from its celebrated predecessor 60 years ago, when just one woman was invited to speak during the March on Washington, about three dozen women spoke Monday on the 60th anniversary of the original march during “She Speaks,” billed as “a virtual assembly to fight for the same demands that were made 60 years ago, demands that our nation’s leaders have yet to fulfill.”
Why are people poor in your area? How has poverty touched your life? Your community? Your faith community?
More than 150 people joined a recent Matthew 25 webinar on eradicating systemic poverty, which organizers called “Where Does Jesus Stand? Exploring Five Spiritual Practices to End Poverty.” The webinar explored these and more questions and invited participants to mull them further in small groups near the end of their time together.
The Rev. Denise Anderson, director of Compassion, Peace & Justice in the Presbyterian Mission Agency, had an hour-long conversation with an old friend last week and invited the rest of us to listen in.
As the speaker Wednesday for New York Avenue Presbyterian Church’s McClendon Scholar-in-Residence Program, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, who leads the PC(USA)’s Office of Public Witness and is the denomination’s advocacy director, spent the first half-hour talking about his book, “Unbroken and Unbowed: A History of Black Protest in America.” Read previous reports about Hawkins discussing his book, published in February 2022 by Westminster John Knox Press, by going here, here or here.
“We’re not going to have change or create change unless we vote,” says Lolita Watkins, a member of Saint James Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, North Carolina, in her opening statement for a Matthew 25 video posted to the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Facebook page on Nov. 3. Watkins, who is the co-coordinator of the social justice advocacy committee at Saint James Church, goes on to explain how voter engagement is key to her congregation’s embodiment of Matthew 25.
The Rev. Dr. Letiah Fraser, an ordained pastor with the Church of the Nazarene as well as a hospital chaplain, disability rights advocate, activist and organizer who also recently began ministry at The Open Table, got to appear alongside the organizer of the new worshiping community in Kansas City, Missouri, Nick Pickrell, on a recent broadcast of “Being Matthew 25,” hosted by Melody Smith, associate director for digital and marketing communications in the Presbyterian Mission Agency, and the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett, the PMA’s president and executive director.
As participants in Ecumenical Advocacy Days prepared to meet their congressional representatives with urgent pleas for human and civil rights, the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis directed participants to a sometimes-forgotten part of the crucifixion story.
