“We’re not going to have change or create change unless we vote,” says Lolita Watkins, a member of Saint James Presbyterian Church of Greensboro, North Carolina, in her opening statement for a Matthew 25 video posted to the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Facebook page on Nov. 3. Watkins, who is the co-coordinator of the social justice advocacy committee at Saint James Church, goes on to explain how voter engagement is key to her congregation’s embodiment of Matthew 25.
Presbyterians and other people of faith are being encouraged to begin making plans to participate in a march and assembly of poor people and low-wage workers that the Poor People’s Campaign will hold this summer in Washington, D.C.
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said during his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, capping the March on Washington.
Almost six decades later it’s well past time. But two leaders engaged mightily in the struggle said during Monday’s online forum “God and Division” hosted by the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership at Union Presbyterian Seminary said religion has a significant place in the battle.
Just as they helped launch the nation’s first Truth & Reconciliation Commission in Greensboro, North Carolina, about 20 years ago, the Rev. Nelson Johnson and Joyce Johnson are making plans for a statewide effort they hope will become a national model.
The Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson has already announced her plan to transition as president of Auburn Seminary in New York City. So when she was asked this week during Leading Theologically about the work her soul must have, a famous question posed by the Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, Henderson was ready.
On Thursday morning, The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness (OPW) on Capitol Hill hosted members of the Texas Legislature who left the state last month to block passage of restrictive voting laws.
Singing freedom songs and fighting for voting rights and a living wage on Monday, women from around the country converged on Washington, D.C., for a march and season of action by the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) and its supporters.
The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, Associate Director of Advocacy in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), will be participating with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in four weeks of “Moral Monday” non-violent direct action events to call for voting rights and the $15 minimum wage.
