Culture and Justice

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The end of May marked important anniversaries in the history of racial injustice. May 25 marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by officer Derek Chauvin. May 31 and June 1 marked the hundredth anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre. Below are some resources to help you reflect on these events and learn more.

Culture and Justice

I've been thinking about the word restoration a lot lately. It's a word that brings to mind healing, repair, making things right, and wholeness. As we pursue racial justice and reconciliation, what would it look like to put our focus on the idea of restoration?

The word restoration first jumped out at me during a sermon Pastor Scott Dudley preached on May 16.  He said, "God's kind of justice is always about restoration, not retribution and revenge… restoration of what was lost or stolen or broken or hurt or wounded for individuals, but also for entire communities."  What a beautiful way to think about justice!

Culture and Justice

By Heather Hedlund

Paul often compared the Christian life to running a race. In 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 he says, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." As we've learned in the last few months, God has given us the ministry of reconciliation. This is the race he has assigned us to run, and it's not a sprint, it's a life-long relay.

Culture and Justice

Have you ever had someone apologize to you, but you weren't sure they really meant it? Was that apology healing for you, or did it leave you angry and confused? I think John the Baptist may have felt this way when the crowds came out to be baptized by him. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming, he said, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:7-8) I think he was skeptical of the sincerity of their repentance. He challenged them to follow up their statement of repentance with actions that proved they meant what they said. We show the sincerity of our repentance when we work to fix what's broken.

Culture and Justice

by Heather Hedlund

I don't know about you, but I was really happy to say goodbye to 2020 and ring in a brand-new year. So many things in 2020 felt off-course, and the new year brings a chance to set a new course, a new trajectory.  The next step in our exploration of racial reconciliation is all about changing course.

We've been using the acronym GAPS as a framework for the important elements of racial reconciliation.  The G stands for "Go to the person you're in conflict with," and we talked about the importance of having relationships with people of races or ethnicities different from our own.  The A stands for "Admit your part of the conflict," and we looked at the importance of telling the truth about our history. The P stands for "Pray," and we've spent a lot of time on this section. 

Culture and Justice

In my journey to understand and try to live out racial reconciliation, there has been one step that I think was key to my progress: admitting my own racism. I remember vividly the moment it became personal. For several years, my understanding of the persistence of racism had been growing through personal relationships with people of color, through news reports, and through magazine articles and books, and I was starting to recognize that racism was a real thing that people of color were experiencing regularly. But I hadn't yet implicated myself.

Scripture and Justice

"How long, O Lord, how long?" is the opening refrain of many Psalms. This is the heart cry of lament. We've been exploring the steps to racial reconciliation using the helpful acronym GAPS, and today we're looking at the P, which stands for Pray. Prayer is at the core of racial reconciliation, and the first type of prayer we'll consider is the prayer of lament.

Scripture and Justice

Have you ever made a judgment about a situation and later realized you only knew part of the story? Did learning more details change how you thought about it? This has been happening to me a lot lately as I delve into the history of our country from different perspectives. We're in the midst of a series of articles applying the GAPS model for personal reconciliation to racial reconciliation. This time we're looking at the A in GAPS, which stands for "Admit your part of the conflict." Applying this to racial reconciliation, this means telling the whole truth about our history as a country. As I noted in the first article, this step requires white people like me to do the heavy lifting because we have inflicted most of the damage in the relationship.

Scripture and Justice

In our last newsletter, we looked at Pastor Scott Dudley's model for personal reconciliation, GAPS, and we applied it to racial reconciliation. Today, let's flesh out that first step. The G in GAPS stands for "Go to the person you're in conflict with."  In the context of racial reconciliation, this means we need to be in relationship with people of races and ethnicities different from our own. Let's look first at why this is important and then at how to do it.

Culture and Justice

It's that time of year. The Pumpkin Spice Latte returns to Starbucks and suddenly pumpkin spice products are popping up everywhere you turn. This year, you can even find Pumpkin Spice Mac & Cheese. Last year at this time, my son Erik was attending Confirmation Class at BelPres. His favorite week was when Anthony Ballard came to talk to the group about justice. Anthony was sharing that racial reconciliation is a popular term and it feels really good, but a lot of people don't really understand all that it involves. We tend to want to jump ahead to the part at the end where we all get along and skip all the work it takes to get there. At which point Erik coined the term "Pumpkin Spice Reconciliation." It's ubiquitous and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, but it's fleeting and there's not a lot of substance.

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