How Can We Talk About Racism in Church?

Click here to download a PDF of the text chat from the event. 

Reformed Church Center to Explore How We Talk About Racism

(R)acism is part of a global system of dominance that is intertwined and embedded with an unjust economic system, ecological violence, and patriarchy. In the Accra Confession we declared, “Therefore we reject any theology that claims that God is only with the rich, and that poverty is the fault of the poor. We reject any form of injustice which destroys right relations—gender, race, class, disability, or caste. We reject any theology which affirms that human interests dominate nature.”

–from the World Communion of Reformed Churches, June 4, 2020

 This is a time for action and not just talk, especially from those who need not fear for their lives or their livelihoods because of their race, colour, or ethnicity . . . International leaders that have spoken out in solidarity with protestors, and with black people in the United States should also take this opportunity to address structural forms of racial and ethnic injustice in their own nations, and within the international system itself.

—from the United Nations Human Rights Commission, June 5, 2020

The subject of race and systemic racism in the United States as been pushed to the forefront of our consciousness in recent weeks, and Christians are being reminded that people of faith, and especially people of Reformed faith, have a gift and an obligation to stand against racism and work for justice. We are called to be at the center of this conversation.

For many of us, this raises the question of how we facilitate such a conversation, prophetically and pastorally, in our congregations?

On Saturday, July 18, at 10:00 am, the Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary hosted an online program, “How Can We Talk About Racism in Church?” Pastoral theologians will talk about this from their own roles and perspectives, using the World Communion of Reformed Churches statement Condemning Injustice and Racism and the United Nations Human Rights Commission Statement on Protests Against Systemic Racism in the United States as a starting point. Then they answered questions and engaged in discussion with participants.

	Karen Georgia A. Thompson is the Associate General Minister for Wider Church Ministries and Operations in the United Church of Christ and Co-Executive for Global Ministries with the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She provides strategic visioning and leadership for the programmatic ministries of Global Ministries, Humanitarian Aid and Development, Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Events and Scholarships Management and Archives, and for the joint United Church of Canada and United Church of Christ committee working on the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024), as well as working in other ecumenical settings like the World Council of Churches (WCC).
	Lisa Vander Wal is pastor of Lisha’s Kill Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York, and past moderator of the Commission on Christian Unity as well as past president of the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America (RCA). She has served on the Executive Committee of the World Communion of Reformed Churches since 2014, and as a Vice President since 2017, working with the Caribbean and North American Area Council.
	Thomas Song is a minister in Queens Classis, RCA. He has served on the General Synod Council and the Commission on Christian Unity and was a staff member for the Regional Synod of New York. He is co-pastor of Steinway Reformed Church in Astoria, New York, with his wife, Ock Kee Byun.
	Julie Johnson Staples is a Collegiate Senior Minister serving as Executive Director of Intersections International, Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York, an organization devoted to uniting disparate groups in global justice and global peacemaking. Throughout her career as a journalist, Wall Street executive, and Christian minister, social justice has been her passion and a unifying thread in her work and philanthropy.

This program is free and open to anyone who would like to take part, especially leaders in Reformed congregations—not just RCA, but any Reformed tradition. All participants must register by clicking here.  Those who register will then receive a link for the Zoom meeting. Feel free to contact the Reformed Church Center at jbrumm@nbts.edu if you have any other questions.