Sunday, October 03, 2021
Sunday Reflection: Faith and Race
Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series (which included the painting above) tells a remarkable story about movement and injustice and perseverance. It contains 60 paintings or so, and each one describes an aspect of the Great Migration of Black Americans from the South to the North in the 20th Century.
I've been rolling the images around in my head for a few weeks now. Part of the question before me is how the question of race fits into my theology. There is no question that the teachings of Jesus are for everyone; there is no racial bar there. The descriptions of slavery in the Bible are deeply troubling, but even at that they don't refer to the racialized slavery we saw in the United States.
I feel deeply that my faith compels me to work against racism. How does that derive from the teachings at the root of the faith? After all, Jesus did not talk about it.
What he DID talk about though, over and over, was about addressing the ways in which we hurt others. And that is what racism has done. In the context of our own time, our own nation... that is where the harm has been done.
