Spotlight on Racial Justice

 Image courtesy of @munshots on Unsplash.com

REGIONAL Minister the Revd Mary Taylor examines the question: Why do Black Lives Matter?

"BLACK LIVES MATTER" has been said to be a discriminatory statement.
Yet as Amos Kasibante * writes (it) ‘is not an exclusive hashtag. It does not say that there are not other people who suffer or that all suffering is racial. Rather, it is an expression of solidarity and support for Black and Brown people, given the oppression they have suffered over centuries and which they still suffer at the hands of the police as through institutional or systemic racism. It’s also a commitment to see a stop to that oppression, to racial profiling, and to addressing historical injustices affecting Black people.’  
 
What does God want?
Micah 6v8 tells us The Lord God has told us what is right and what the Holy One demands: “See that justice is done, let mercy be your first concern, and humbly obey your God."
This means it's important for God’s people to hear the cry for justice raised by Black Lives Matter. Just like the fire brigade we know that all houses matter but the job right now is to attend the one with the fire. The reason for the cry of Black Lives Matter is to highlight a widespread injustice embedded in our history and in current life. As we speak and listen to fellow Baptists in Yorkshire we hear that cry. 
 
YBA Executive
In a statement from the Regional Ministers we had committed ourselves to continue to engage with the questions being raised for both church and society. As Regional Ministers we met with some BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) Yorkshire Baptists to listen and learn on 23rd June. We were especially concerned that our responses are both strategic and pastoral. Then last week the YBA Executive began a discussion of racial justice and our continued responsibility to examine our own structures and practices.
The time was short but the members of the Executive agreed to take part together engaging with the BUGB JustAware! resource at an autumn awayday, to reflect biblically together, to continue to learn and to identify where we need to change our thinking or processes in YBA life.
Nike Adebajo and Joe Kapolyo, who were with us for the Executive meeting, called us to listen and learn from people of colour in our churches, not falling into the trap of making them the object of our good ideas but shaping together the changes we want to embed.
  

Voices from BAME members of Yorkshire Baptist family

Joe Kapolyo, Retired Baptist Minister; member of Moortown Baptist Church, Leeds (right)
"The extra judicial killing of George Floyd, an unarmed civilian, by police in Minneapolis is very disturbing. Sadly, it is not the first and probably will not be the last. It is part of a pattern of such killings stretching back centuries to the dark days of the Transatlantic Slavery. We affirm that every human life, whatever their age, ethnicity, religion, nationality or sexual orientation, is made in the image of God and therefore worthy of respect, protection and justice. Systemic prejudice: racism, sexism, tribalism, elitism, etc, is reprehensible in all its forms and should be condemned in the strongest terms. Rioting and looting, while historically understandable as a way of enabling oppressed people to vent their anger, is a blunt and destructive instrument. It dissipates precious energy which should be galvanised and focussed more constructively as in the examples that Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jnr, Nelson Mandela and many others have so admirably demonstrated in the past, often at great personal cost. We call upon all people of good will to pray for peace on the streets of America and to act so as to remove this blight from human experience forever.
Joe has written a more extended article for Baptists Together magazine which will come out in September."
 
* Amos Kasibante, Incumbent of St Agnes Anglican/Baptist Church, Leeds; Racial Justice Adviser for Leeds Anglican Diocese
"I write as someone who drew much inspiration from the Baptist Church during my childhood in Africa. My father regularly bought a copy of the Negro magazine, EBONY, and I got buried in it from the age of 10. Not only did it improve my English knowledge and comprehension skills, it also opened up a broader world to me. I read about international sports, the works of comedians, both male and female, the war in Vietnam, about Jazz music, and about the condition and achievements of Black people in USA. I read about Mohammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay), above all, I read about the Civil Rights Movements, about Malcolm X and the Revd Dr Martin Luther King Jr. who was a Baptist minister and the son of a Baptist minister.
Martin Luther King Jr (right) used biblical, humanistic and the practice of non-violent protest in the Civil Rights campaign and against segregation. The Revd Jesse Jackson, another of that ilk, was also a Baptist minister. I began to read the Bible with new eyes through this influential Baptist minister. I would later in adult life fall under the spell of another Baptist minister and theologian by the name of Renita Weems when I studied in USA in the late 1980s. I understand that the Rev Al Sharpton is also a Baptist minister.  And when I worked with the Anglican Church in Wales as a tutor at St Michael’s Theological College, Llandaff, in Cardiff I was glad to make the acquaintance of the Revd Roy Jenkins – Baptist minister, broadcaster and champion of social justice issues. That makes me conclude that the Baptist Church has not only the Bible, but many models to draw from, where issues of social justice generally and talk about the Black experience and liberation are concerned. 
 
I don’t know the extent to which the Baptist Church in the UK has concerned itself with the BAME agenda and the history and politics of post-war immigration in this country, whether they have used their biblical and theological resources to reflect on that subject and whether they have seen it as an integral part of their theology of the church or as rather peripheral to church growth and evangelism. 
 
I think that the uproar, not only in USA but in Britain and globally, following George Floyd’s death might be a wake-up call to begin seriously talk about the issues. Being burden with a sense of guilt may not produce any good results and may only draw people into a position of defensiveness. But study and reflection about subjects such as the slave trade and slavery, colonisation and the legacy of those movements in the present might be a good starting point."
 

SUGGESTED RESOURCES

 
Here are some videos to open up our thinking on this subject. Some of what is said is challenging and you might disagree but all will help us to see and hear from another’s perspective.

• Why not run a series for your church to watch one a week and then reflect together on Zoom?
• As you would in a 3/thirds Bible study, use these resources to think about your own life and church.
• Look back at the past and consider what have been helpful or unhelpful understandings, attitudes or behaviour.
• What is God saying to the church right now? What Scriptures come to mind? Bring prayers of lament, repentance, compassion and commitment.
• What is God asking you to do in the next season of life and Church? What will you commit to do, asking others to keep you accountable?

Kanneh-Mason family Hallelujah, a musical tribute to families targeted by racism - article and video

Dion-Marie White (pictured) speaks with Revd Hayley Young about Black Lives Matter and what this means for the church - youtube video.
 
Bringing down racial and ethnic barriers in our congregations - Ben Lindsay - youtube video

BBC Windrush Sitting in Limbo - TV programme
 
CTBI and Baptist Union Webinar: The Hostile Environment – Distrust, Discrimination and Deprivation - webinar
 
Channel 4 BAME and Covid-19 - TV programme
 
BOOK
Or use this book which has questions at the end of each chapter:
Ben Lindsay: "We need to talk about race".
Link to Amazon. Also available from bookshops.

                                                   CHALLENGES

Here are some challenges from BAME Yorkshire Baptists for our churches:

1. Is our theological education and our preaching and teaching of the Christian faith too Euro-centric and lacking the voices and experience of all the diversity God’s people?
 
2. What do we preach and teach about? Where are our illustrations and stories drawn from? Are matters that are hurting people of colour the subject for church action and prayer?
 
3. Do we have diversity in our senior leadership? Do we work hard to support emerging leaders so they do not fail? Do our young people see leaders and role models who are like themselves?
 
4. It is uncomfortable to talk about white privilege. How can we let down our defensiveness to learn what this means in everyday life for people of colour? What will we do to make our churches be the best places in which to have difficult conversations?