The past is often something people like to forget, preferring to focus their energy on what the future holds. For the Indigenous living in Peru’s Andean Highlands, though, the past and future are viewed differently. It’s there that old shamans, speaking the language of the Aymara tribe, remind future-forward thinkers that “the past is in front of us, and the future is behind us.” The Aymara word for “past” is “nayra,” which also means eye, sight or front. The word for “future” is “q’ipa,” which translates as behind or the back.
Much has happened in and to our nation since our observance of this historic day last year. We pulled out of Afghanistan, endured the pandemic, remained divided by competing ideologies vying for ascendance in our political system, grieved the lives of countless innocents whose lives were taken in mass shootings and entered a time of financial instability that threatens many of the poorest among us.
Rather than using critical race theory as a rallying cry for driving people to the polls, the 50-year-old theory ought to be taught as it was originally intended: in law schools.
The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness was part of a virtual Town Hall Wednesday aimed at getting federal reparations legislation to a congressional vote in the next few weeks.
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 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.”
There have been many prayers being lifted during the pandemic, among them prayers for wholeness, guidance, protection and peace. But perhaps the greatest request of all was that of healing — something that two Charlotte, North Carolina, congregations received quite unexpectedly. The COVID-19 virus opened the way for healing a post-Civil War wound between First United Presbyterian Church, a Black congregation established in 1866 that is located literally a stone’s throw away from tall-steepled First Presbyterian Church, which was established in 1821.
The C. Benton Kline, Jr. Special Collections is pleased to present A Window into the Breach: Theology and the Economy of Slavery at Columbia Theological Seminary, 1824-1899, a timeline consisting of 41 slides looking at racism and the institution of slavery in the 19th century as it relates to the history of Columbia Theological Seminary.
