The cornerstone of a conversation about race is who we are and whose we are. We gather as community before a forgiving and loving God. As a church, we have made certain commitments of faith to God and with each other. It is within such commitments and such graces that we are able to have helpful conversations about race.
Increased knowledge of racial context leads to greater connection to this reality, and that leads to action. We take what we learn about racial context, deepen our soul connections to that racial context and grow our understanding of how race works in our society, our church and our world. We then circle back to learn even more about racial context and the racialized history of our nation, deepen our soul connection to those realities and watch for the opportunities the Lord brings to us to take action.
The most helpful conversations about race lead us to advocacy. All of this contextualizing and connecting helps not Christ’s church nor does it lessen human suffering if we do not also effectively advocate for racial justice!
This message is excerpted from “How to have helpful conversations about race in the church” by Inez Torres Davis, a 2016 resource of the Women of the ELCA.
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