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World Mission
In the atmosphere of celebrating International Women’s Day on March 26, the Presbytery of Kigali organized a daylong workshop to remind women church leaders to continue fighting against the pandemics of COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS. Forty religious leaders were invited from the Rwandan Muslim Association, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Association of Baptist Churches, the Reformed Baptist Church and the Free Methodist Church.
The year was 1903. The crowd was gathered on a street in Wilmington, Delaware. A Black man named George White had been arrested on charges of assaulting and killing a white girl. The man orating was a Presbyterian pastor named Robert Elwood. The mob broke into George White’s holding cell, dragged him out, then beat, hacked and burned him to death [a documentary about the lynching of George White, “In the Dead Fire’s Ashes,” directed by Stephen Labovsky, debuted at the Wilmington Film Festival in spring 2005].
This is it. The hard conversation. You’re prepared to lead your church group in the difficult work of antiracism. You’ve researched the perfect book. You’ve got the webinar cued up. You have your difficult but necessary questions prepared. But have you done your own work?
A webinar focusing on the current context of the Palestinian people, including disparity in access to COVID-19 vaccines, is scheduled from noon through 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, April 27. The event is hosted by Presbyterian World Mission’s Middle East and Europe office and the Office of Public Witness.
Racism in South Africa was legally instituted and theologically justified by some churches. It has remained embedded in the fabric of society to this day, manifesting itself in many subtle ways that cause racial discrimination, inequality, violence and ridicule of the “other.”
In a recent letter, the Rev. Nancy Smith-Mather, a mission co-worker, said one of the most difficult things about living in another country is the distance from family.
“I’m a Black Italian, a Black European, a woman who was born in Rome with Somalian roots,” said writer Igiaba Scego. She spoke out about herself after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in police custody in Minnesota after being pinned to the ground, and whose last words were, “I can’t breathe.”
Just when most young people were beginning to imagine what nontraditional instruction might look like during COVID-19, Sami Han set about picturing an even more nontraditional path.
She moved to South Korea with her parents.
The objective of this brief reflection is to explore the theological interplay between the Bible and racism. Being an African-Jamaican, I have embraced the Christian faith through Presbyterian missionary Christianity. For me, Scripture centers on being “the Word of the Lord.”
The first time I heard Shawnee-Lenape author and Indigenous-rights activist Steven T. Newcomb discuss “The Doctrine of Domination,” something clicked. I was familiar with the papal bull Dum Diversas, which facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa, but what struck me was his use of the word domination to describe the series of papal bulletins used to justify conquest, genocide, slavery, occupation and war. His articulation reveals the church as an architect, legitimator and apologist for domination.
