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racism
Some pastors of mostly white congregations are struggling to engage their members in the work of racial justice.
On Sunday at 10:15 a.m., we gathered for worship in the Sanctuary of LoveJoy United Presbyterian Church. It was one of the first beautiful spring weekends of the year. The church service was entirely ordinary, save that I asked the congregation to refrain from shaking hands during the passing of the peace. It was March 8, 2020, and it was the last time that we would worship together in the sanctuary for more than a year.
Like the prophet Nehemiah’s efforts to rally the people to work together to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, the nonprofit multi-ethnic, multi-faith justice organization Lee Interfaith For Empowerment (LIFE) has worked for the past decade to mobilize efforts of the faithful to address important justice issues in Fort Myers, Florida.
Every year since 1865, there has been one day that most Black people have held as a celebratory occurrence. On June 19, 1865, the last of the Black Americans who were in the condition of chattel servitude were freed. Texas, the last state to hold out on the edict of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years prior, had finally been forced into compliance. And so, it is this date in June that many Black Americans consider to be Independence Day and thus a cause for annual jubilation that we have titled Juneteenth.
The centuries-old Black struggle for freedom and equality in the creation of a better country, a better world, has erupted in Louisville. The Movement for Black Lives, powerful and undaunted community organizing by young people committed to racial and social justice, came into existence here and everywhere because it had to.
The very public way the apostle Peter is called out by Paul in Paul’s letter to the Galatians offers modern-day readers a model for confronting racism for the sake of the gospel.
A predominantly white congregation in Pennsylvania dug into its history to understand how to dismantle racism.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts charged a Maine man in federal court Thursday in connection with setting the Dec. 28, 2020 fire that destroyed the predominantly Black Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Presbyterian Church in Springfield.
Racism in South Africa was legally instituted and theologically justified by some churches. It has remained embedded in the fabric of society to this day, manifesting itself in many subtle ways that cause racial discrimination, inequality, violence and ridicule of the “other.”
The objective of this brief reflection is to explore the theological interplay between the Bible and racism. Being an African-Jamaican, I have embraced the Christian faith through Presbyterian missionary Christianity. For me, Scripture centers on being “the Word of the Lord.”
