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Sep 10 2020

Black Scholars and Professionals Boston Women’s Group | Virtual Kick-off Event

A ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the vision of Black Scholars & Professionals (BSAP) is to see graduate students, professional students, and faculty of African or African American descent transformed by Christ, renewed in their academic pursuits or professional lives, and serving as agents of change within the African American and African community, the church, and the world through:

-Spiritual Formation
-Ethnic Integrity
-Church Participation
-Urban and Global Projects
-Work and Faith Integration
-Reconciliation in the African Diaspora
-Collaboration with Professional Associations

Join us for our virtual kick off event on Saturday, September 26 at 1PM as we welcome ladies seasoned and new to the community. We’ll be playing games, getting to know one another, and discussing what the group is all about.

In the meantime, please complete this brief community survey!
https://bit.ly/34cPsq4

Written by Andrew Walker · Tagged: blacklivesmatter, community, faith

Jul 12 2016

Boston Churches Respond to Racial Violence and Injustice

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction….
The chain reaction of evil —
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars —
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Strength To Love, 1963

The racially-charged events that have taken place the past two weeks are dizzying… Alton Sterling and Philando Castile killed during altercations with police officers, followed by a sniper killing five police officers in Dallas, Texas.  Then, yesterday, police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

In the wake of this violence, how do we as Christians respond?

It is right to be angry about the events, but we cannot lash out against others in our anger or fear. There is no one physical enemy we should be pointing to and we certainly shouldn’t be fighting against the innocent. Our tone as Christians must be peaceful instead of adversarial. We need to remember that it is symptomatic of deep human brokenness.

Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner William Evans joined hands in prayer at Morningstar Baptist Church. Image Credit: Boston Globe

One of the best things that we can do is to come together and pray for peace, remembering the model that Jesus shows us and His work on the cross that has reconciled us together beyond our differences.  A gathering at Twelfth Baptist Church last week brought together more than 50 pastors and ministry leaders for a powerful time of prayer. Another Boston Globe article indicated that this was “not an ordinary Sunday.”  Additionally,  Forest Hills Covenant Church is one of several churches setting aside this Wednesday, July 13, as a day of fasting and prayer. You are invited to join them for a Service of Prayer, Lament and Worship this Wednesday evening at 7pm in Jamaica Plain. Also, Rev. Liz Walker is having a special gathering at Roxbury Presbyterian this Thursday evening on our collective sense of grief and trauma as we struggle for hope. Additionally, I’d encourage you to listen to Rob Surratt’s sermon entitled “It’s Time to Mourn for our Nation” that he shared at River of Life Church last Sunday. Finally, click on this link to hear Pastor Bruce Wall, Pastor Bryan Wilkerson and Pastor Jua Robinson discuss race in America with Boston Praise Radio. 

Insights from national leaders on a recent conference call around racial justice emphasize that people need to hold in tension two complex narratives, one related to violence against young black men and the other related to violence against police officers. It is difficult for many people to do this, but an appropriate response requires that both of these narratives be heard and explored. They also recommended that to overcome fear we need to first communicate unto understanding, out of understanding comes respect, and respect trust. When and only when we have established understanding, respect, and trust, can genuine communication occur. Such communication overcomes fear and ignorance.

Pray With Us:

Here at UniteBoston, we are weeping with the events that have taken place this past week and the reality of racial discrimination and injustice within our nation. Please join with us in praying this powerful prayer of lament from a pastor in Kansas City, Brian Zahnd:

Jesus, we sit with you in lament for the land.
We lament the long history of injustice that has been upon this land.
We weep for the Native Americans who were killed and driven from their land.
We weep for the African slaves who were sold and suffered in this land.
We weep for Native Americans who continue to suffer injustice in this land.
We weep for African Americans who continue to suffer injustice in this land.
We weep for the families of black men who have been unjustly killed.
We weep for the families of police officers slain while keeping the peace.
We weep for our children growing up in this violent land.
But while we weep, lament, and repent…
We do not give in to despair.
We look to God, for our hope is in God.
The psalmist said, “The meek shall inherit the land.”
Jesus, you said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
Lord, teach us to be meek and trusting, not greedy and clutching.
Jesus, you bless those who hunger and thirst for justice.
We have a deep ache in the pit of our belly;
We have a searing thirst deep in our soul—
For this wounded land to see justice and be made whole.
But we don’t know exactly what to do—
So Jesus, we sit with you.
We sit with you to see the deep truth—
That God is love. And…
There is no them, there is only us.

Other good articles:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/33022/nine-provocative-reads-on-race-equity-and-urbanism/ – by Aimee Custis

What shootings and racial justice mean for the Body of Christ – by Russell Moore

After the shootings, Dallas clergy will pray, then advocate for change – by Adelle Banks

Time for white churches to speak out about police shootings – by David Waters

10 Things Every Racial Bridge Builder Should Know

Written by uniteboston · Categorized: Blog · Tagged: blacklivesmatter

Jul 08 2015

Race and Grace: A Boston Fellow Points the Way

This week, UniteBoston features Terrance Moore, who was a 2015 graduate of the Boston Fellows program . Terrance hosted a conversation at a local church on race – He suggests that each of us, regardless of ethnicity or culture, should:

1. Be prayerful in processing and acting. We are often too quick to act on serious issues without personal brokenness. To understand the hurt, ask the Lord to take you to the place of your own pain and brokenness when he saved you. Pray for: revelation, healing, growth, reconciliation, restoration, overcoming, humility, compassion, work, burden and conviction. Pray against: insensitivity, inconvenience/sleepiness, pride, self-righteousness. (Joel 2:13; Ps. 34:17-19)

2. Make the pain the priority; don’t ignore or minimize it. Whatever the details of any one case, America’s story includes 250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of separate-but-equal, 35 years of racist housing policy, and the current state of mass incarceration, police brutality and discrimination, and militarization of inner-city neighborhoods. #BlackLivesMatter is a response to the message that they don’t. Do not discount the pain. Hurt with your brothers and sisters. Approach the Father with it, with them.

3. Educate yourself to the nuance, depth, and perspectives outside of your own experiences on the issue. Ask black friends about their experiences, and listen with an open heart.

4. Embrace the inconvenience and discomfort of the matter; don’t opt out. This is hard work. We don’t feel qualified. It’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, scary, susceptible to conflict. The church must act in practical ways to restore justice. Sometimes this will mean engaging those who hold harmful and ignorant views on the issues, even close friends or relatives.

5. Don’t forsake the opportunity to minister through bearing burdens for the opportunity “to be right” in your opinion. Don’t try to prove that you “get it.” You can’t, not fully. And that’s the point, in part.

6. Actively participate, but be a guest by not taking the attention off the issue or the amplification of black voices. Ask. Listen. Give voice to people silenced and ignored.

“Overall, the state of racial relations in America is a very dismal one. Luckily, the Church must remember, God is in the business of resurrecting what seems dead. The process of reconciliation begins at the source of God’s salvation for us: compassion. If the Church can undertake America’s racial issues at a heart level where we compassionately seek to hurt, listen, walk, and work with its brothers and sisters of the black community under the healing lordship of our Father, we will be the restorers of justice God has called us to be. To do that, we have to move past intentions and obstacles and embrace the dirty and difficult work of reconciliation; just as Jesus did for us.”

*Note: Originally published in a Boston Fellows email; reprinted with permission

Written by jasonjclement · Categorized: Blog · Tagged: blacklivesmatter, bostonfellows, uniteboston

Jan 25 2015

Why Should I Care About Race? Aren’t We All Just Christians?


Photo credit: CS Monitor

This month, as we remember the life and death of Martin Luther King Jr., given up for reconciliation and racial justice, and as I read about Black Lives Matter protesters who tie themselves to concrete barrels and lay their bodies across I-93 rush hour traffic to wake the Boston area up to the fact that injustice is a greater problem than inconvenience, I’m struck again by Jesus’ unnerving call: “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Regardless of your politics and view on current protests, I think most of us can safely say that we have never put ourselves in the path of physical death in order to save the life of another–particularly someone who’s not “one of our own.” A professor recently reminded my New Testament classmates and me, “As you follow Jesus, your life will take on the shape of the Gospel narrative.” Martin Luther King’s death certainly reflects that.

I am also amazed, as I read through the New Testament this week, at just how radically committed the early church was to cross any racial and ethnic line, to preach the good news that Jesus is King of all. They did this against their own better, rabbinical judgment, against centuries of careful study of Torah, and against their own bloody history of protest to save Jewish identity from Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman colonization. And as they did so, they fought and squabbled about whose rules they would follow and which parts of whose culture to keep. Early Jewish Christians had a lot to lose, and they made very uncomfortable compromises to become “one in Christ” with Gentiles. (Note Acts 1:6: Even after Jesus’ resurrection, pre-sending of the Holy Spirit, the disciples were still imagining the Kingdom of God to be a Jewish political entity. The revelation of the true meaning of “Messiah” by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost opened up a theological can of worms. The New Testament attests to the apostles’ worm-wrestling over the next fifty years!). The insistence of Paul that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised to be “children of Abraham” was a hard-won battle that didn’t stick easily. Conversely, Gentiles took on some dietary restrictions in order to enjoy table fellowship with Jewish Chrsitians. Thus, the very strange unity of “Jews and Greeks” would have caught the world’s attention. Saying, “It’s Jesus, the Messiah from Nazareth, who does this… for everybody” in that atmosphere, would have been electrifying. His love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit changes our ability to really see and hear one another.

As I read Jesus’ commands, and read through the Acts narrative and its accompanying epistles, I don’t feel I’ve come anywhere near being faithful to the Gospel’s call to let my privilege and its accompanying insularity be crucified with Christ. But I have to wonder: today, in a country where Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week, where we have a centuries-long history of white Christians committing acts of terror against Black and Native people (among others), how can the Church live out a startling “Jew and Greek” unity? How do we knock the foundation out from beneath our very real dividing walls?

I do know that destroying strongholds of disunity doesn’t happen through ignoring differences like culture, race and class. The famous statement in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ,” in its context communicated a spiritual equality, not the loss of “Jewishness” and “Greekness.” Nor does unity happen by mildly “agreeing to disagree”; it happens when we have the courage to do whatever it takes to get close and embrace those whom God has called but we have failed to see.

Here are a few thoughts on practical ways to begin, and I share them with you that we might journey together in these things that I am just beginning to learn.

1) Visit a church where you feel uncomfortable.
Speaking directly to the white folks reading this: we sometimes don’t even know what it feels like to be “in the minority,” racially speaking. Given the huge role race has played in the history of our nation, we can’t afford to ignore this fact. Practice displacing yourself by attending a church where “the outsiders” (to your theology, to your ethnicity, to…) hold the microphone.

2) Ask the questions you’re embarrassed to ask.
Many of us assume we understand what it might be like to be in another’s skin, or, even more often–we’re too embarrassed to ask. We don’t know the rules. We feel silly for not knowing how to refer to another’s ethnicity (“Is it Native American? Indian? First Nations?…. I don’t know what to call them”), or not really remembering where someone is from (“somewhere in Africa”). That’s okay. Sensitivity and learning “what not to say/ask” is important, but embarrassment and apology-making is a big part of Gospel training. Do take the time to ask someone in the know, admitting your stupidity, and humbly asking for the honor of hearing another’s story, remembering it’s a great privilege to listen. Particularly for white folks: “Color blindness,” which is often our de facto orientation, does not honor the way persons of color often experience the world. It’s better to ask what might feel like an awkward question, like, “How have you been processing Ferguson?”, than to fail to love by our silence.

3) In 1 & 2, be prepared for the work of the Holy Spirit to change your rules.
The anger, lament, and sense of foresakenness of our brothers and sisters is the sound of the Spirit’s prophetic voice, and hearing these things should change us. It was inconceivable to Peter, when he was given the vision of the “sheet of unclean animals” in Acts 10:9-16, that God’s rules were changing. It was only by seeing the work of the Holy Spirit among Cornelius’ household that Peter was able to defend an amendment of the “circumcision rule” at the contentious Jerusalem council (see Acts 15:6-11 and context). We can talk about our brothers and sisters in theory, but until we witness the Spirit’s work in them up close, well–we’re missing out on the glory of the Gospel!

—
Hilary Davis is working toward her MDiv at Gordon-Conwell Seminary and learning to listen in her part-time staff position with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Native Ministries.
Her very occasional bloggings can be found at: hilarykdavis.wordpress.com
If you take issue with, or would like to ask any questions about, any of the above, Hilary can be reached at hilarykd@gmail.com

Written by jasonjclement · Categorized: Blog · Tagged: blacklivesmatter, ferguson, oneinchrist


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