A Distinct Voice

A Distinct Voice

In my last post I mentioned that the church's mission can't be reduced to or totally co-opted by any mere worldly movement or ideology. We co-labor with many people, movements, and institutions yes, especially for and with the marginalized, but we are always also to have a distinct voice coming from distinct motivations and with distinct ends in mind. I said this in response to many of our congregants who are asking for continued guidance on a faithful Christian response to all that is happening in our world, especially concerning issues of systemic racism and work for racial justice. I would like to continue providing resources in the weeks and months to come.

For today, I want to start in some foundational places, and that is simply to share that God and the Bible do very much care about systemic injustice throughout the world, and particularly the form it has taken through American slavery and ongoing racist structures in our country. To get to where God wants to lead us, we need to walk a path that looks something like this:

1) Understand God as the Just One, the Judge who's salvation is to undo all that is un-right-eous in our world and restore shalom. 

2) Pause what we are doing and thinking in order to grieve when there is injustice, and lament in co-suffering with those who suffer. 

3) Repent ("change our mind") for our own sins, faults, biases, and even inaction, inattention, and unfeeling for those who suffer, in order that we might find healing and, thus, hope.

4) Believe we can do all of this because Jesus (not "our" culture or personal history) is our origin, our bond, our shared body politic, our future, our hope, and he will not disappoint us –– he has promised to reconcile all things. 

5) Begin to develop new practices for ongoing reconciliation and deeper mutuality and love. I will be sending much more on this in the future. For now I invite you to read this book with me in the next month. We will have to ground this difficult work deeply in Christ, rooted in transformational prayer, growing in the good soil that is the gospel of Christ and his kingdo that is even now coming into the world.

Keep up the fight. Keep the faith. Maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. God is with us. 

Be All Manner of Well,

Pastor Jamison