Monday, February 8
The author of 1 John 2:9-10 writes: “Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.”
Writing in the epilogue to her powerful 2018 history of post-Vietnam white power movement in America, Bring the War Home: the White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, historian Dr. Kathleen Belew writes: “Understanding white power as a social movement is a project both of historical relevance and of vital public importance. Knowledge of the history of white power activism is integral to preventing future acts of violence and to providing vital context to current political developments. Indeed, to perceive the movement as a legitimate social force, and its ideologies as comprising a coherent worldview of white supremacy and imminent apocalypse—one with continued recruiting power—is to understand that colorblindness, multicultural consensus, and a postracial society were never achieved.”
Last month the flag of the Confederacy was carried through the halls of Congress. Church leaders must struggle with Belew’s words and the scripture above in light of Belew’s conclusion, “that colorblindness, multicultural consensus, and a postracial society were never achieved” not in the world and not in the church.
Source: Wonder Media Network @ Twitter.com
Action step: today, with brutal honesty fearlessly ask whether you can face your creator and answer the question “do you live in the light?” How is it with your church? How is it with your community? Post-pandemic, returning into the architecture of your church, what changes are demanded by the question “do you live in the light.” A postracial society must first be an antiracist society, a postracial church must first be an antiracist church.
Prayer:
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.” ~ Matthew 5:14
We have seen ourselves as that light on a hill, O God of the ages;
we have believed ourselves to be the shining example of all that is good in the world.
But lately our light has been dim, and our good has been muddied by a hidden hate we try to deny.
We can’t help but wonder how the world sees us now,
We who have held a banner for rights and for equality,
We who have pointed fingers at those who abuse others,
We who have condemned acts of injustice in other lands,
How shines our light now?
Yet, despite our failings, our brokenness and our sin,
you still call us,
each of us and all of us,
to be the light of the world.
Even when we are ready to give up on us, even when our sin is too great to bear,
you still call us,
each of us and all of us,
to be the light of the world.
There is too little light around us and within us right now, God of mercy,
how can you still call us?
How can you still hope in us?
We long to be that light, Loving God. We long to be that hope.
Help us, now especially; help us bring light to a world roiling in the gloom.
Help us claim the hope that we can be light,
as a nation, as a church, as followers of the true Light of the World.
Help us find the way into the light. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Derek C. Weber, July 2020, this prayer was shared on July 22, 2020 by UMC Discipleship’s Praying for Change: Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism E-mail