Committed to Racial Justice and Reconciliation
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The Wales Window for Alabama, created by
artist John Petts, was a gift to the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church from the people of Wales, U.K., after the 1963 bombing. The Christ figure
is rejecting injustice with one hand and extends forgiveness with the other.
(Photo by Wendy McFadden)
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Fifty years ago, on April 16, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. released a letter from Birmingham Jail. The letter was written piece by piece on the margins of a newspaper. Later the Rev. Wyatt T. Walker put together the literary jigsaw puzzle. A reporter from Time magazine requested the letter even though the magazine later decided not to publish it. Many consider the Letter from Birmingham Jail as the most important written document of the Civil Rights Era.
In 2011, at its annual meeting in Birmingham, Christian Churches Together (CCT) made the decision to write a posthumous response to Dr. King's letter. A small group of leaders guided by Dr. Ron Sider, President of Evangelicals For Social Action, worked for two years to produce this document.
CCT's response to the letter is a common declaration of the churches recognition of its shortcomings in furthering the work and the vision of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. CCT's response includes confessions from the different church families (traditions). The following are two excerpts from the Response document:
"As the Historic Protestant family of Christian Churches Together...We confess that our churches have too often been characterized by unwelcoming pews, marginalizing traditions, and systems and structures that perpetuate inequitable power and privilege, rather than being a source of prophetic witness and extravagant grace. As a result, the reality of systemic racism as evidenced in the perpetuation of poverty, health and educational disparities, and a lack of policies that work in behalf of the common good continues without the benefit of a stronger Christian voice that heeds Dr. King's call for "an uncompromising stance of solidarity with the oppressed."
"As the Evangelical/Pentecostal family of Christian Churches Together, we confess with sadness and shame that we were at best silent and often even hostile when Dr. King led the historic movement against racial injustice. We also confess that it has taken us far too long, in the intervening years, to acknowledge pervasive racism in our midst and begin to repent and change. Even now our people often fail to grasp the complex realities of structural racism."
The Response also declares our churches commitment to address the present issues related to racial justice in our country. CCT has emphasized the importance of the human aspect of racial reconciliation as an integral component of its work, but also as important are the issues related to economy, education, health, mass incarceration, to mention a few.
As we prepare to gather in Birmingham, we are not deaf to the voices of many Christians in our country who doubt Christian Churches Together real commitment to racial justice. In the document, we confess that our churches have not lived up to God's calling for justice in this country. Our hope and prayer is that, together, we are able to overcome the past and, guided by Holy Spirit, create a different reality for future generations. A reality based on the biblical sense of justice, one that recognizes God given dignity of all.
May the Spirit of the risen Christ help us to overcome our divisions and empower us to do the work of the Kingdom together.
Rev. Carlos L. Malavé
Executive Director
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