'racism' Tagged Posts
Lament for Anti-Asian Hatred & Violence
In seminary Dr. Soong-Chan Rah taught me about the power of lament. If you haven’t already read Prophetic Lament, I highly recommend it. Lament is the proper response of God’s people to our anger and grief at injustice and tragedy in this world. We cry out to the God of justice to make all things new. We join with our sisters and brothers in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community today in lament over the grievous murders that took…
“To Become One” – Christena Cleveland
The relationship between racism and the church is a complex one. It touches on many aspects of our experience, from the sense of welcome we receive in the church, to our theology of the cross, to what we imagine the purpose of the church to be—and more. Christena Cleveland (PhD) is a social psychologist who has helped the church confront the ways we are divided by racism for many years. She is the author of Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the…
Lament for Ahmaud Arbery & Doug Lewis
Hey Roots Family, Just a few months ago, we were journeying through the season of Lent together with Isaiah 58 framing our thoughts. We focused on how God’s people are called not just to observe personal spiritual practices like fasting which are good, but that our worship of God is to form us into a people who have eyes to see injustice in society and that our love for God is expressed in our love of our neighbors. In that series,…
“Kingdom Hybridity” (Ephesians 2.11-22)
In the second half of chapter 2, Paul teaches that the cross of Jesus does more than just reconcile people to God, it also reconciles people groups to one another. Namely, Jesus’s life of self-sacrificial love shows us the way to peace and tears down the divisions between people of different cultures. The Way of Jesus creates an entirely new kind of human community. But, multiethnic churches might fall into the trap of thinking “multiculturalism” is what this text prescribes.…