Presbyterian Mission Agency chattel slavery Archives

‘A really terrible period of amnesia’

Posted May 27th, 2022

Season eight of the New Way podcast from 1001 New Worshiping Communities finishes off with a distinguished guest, the Rev. Dr. Brian McLaren, who tells host the Rev. Sara Hayden what strikes him most about his tribe is that there is almost no self-examination about the history of slavery in the United States.

Minute for Mission: Juneteenth Reflection

Posted May 17th, 2021

Every year since 1865, there has been one day that most Black people have held as a celebratory occurrence. On June 19, 1865, the last of the Black Americans who were in the condition of chattel servitude were freed. Texas, the last state to hold out on the edict of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years prior, had finally been forced into compliance. And so, it is this date in June that many Black Americans consider to be Independence Day and thus a cause for annual jubilation that we have titled Juneteenth.

Minute for Mission: Race Relations Day/Racial & Intercultural Justice

Posted December 3rd, 2020

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Genesis 11:1–9 lately, or the story of Shinar and the so-called “Tower of Babel.” It’s a popular Sunday School lesson, an etiology we recount to children to explain why humanity is so varied in language and location. We don’t engage it as much when we get older. For that reason, how we read and are taught the story as children often stays with us well into adulthood.

There has been a more challenging July Fourth

Posted June 12th, 2020

Has there ever been a more challenging Fourth of July? With a worldwide pandemic, COVID-19 deaths well above 100,000, and a new realization that our nation remains a flawed and racist society, one can understand why we may not want to celebrate the red, white and blue this year.