This past January, the United Nations declared escalating state violence against African Americans a human rights crisis:
“Contemporary police killings and the trauma it creates are reminiscent of the racial terror lynching of the past. Impunity for state violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
The articles published in Covenant Quarterly 74:2 address this matter of urgency in varying ways. In the coming weeks we will focus on each of the following articles:
- Bo Lim, “Exile and Migration: Toward a Biblical Theology of Immigration and Displacement”
- Ramelia Williams, “The Evangelical Covenant Church’s Response to the Civil Rights Movement, 1963-1968”
- Douglas Cedarleaf, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done” (sermon transcription)
- Catherine Gilliard, “Watching, Not Waiting: A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent”
- “North Park Theological Seminary Faculty Statement on Race and the Justice System”
Cearleaf’s allusion to “black men . . . shot in the back” echoes in Gilliard’s lament that “a response, a look, a walk, or an action taken too quickly could cost a black or brown woman or man their life.” That this echo reverberates over half a century later, should convict and embolden the church. Two questions posed to the Covenant in 1963 remain as relevant and urgent fifty years later. Cedarleaf asks his congregation,
“Is it possible for us simply to sit here and hope somehow that maybe we will still be able, double-tongued as we are, to talk about the will of God while we have nothing to say about…a shot in the back?”
And from a pastoral letter to Covenant congregations, adopted two days later at the 1963 Ministerial meeting:
“In this Gethsemane of the church, shall we simply say, ‘Let this cup pass,’ without also adding ‘nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt’? Or shall we cast all our care on him and take council with our faith instead of our fears?”
And perhaps a third is in order: will these questions remain as relevant and urgent fifty years from now? Join us for dialog on these critical matters. [Access full issue comment here.]
