Confronting the Racism in Our Midst

A Time for Commitment

We call all Christians, with God's help, into a new initiative to confront and transform racism wherever it manifests itself: in our hearts, in our congregations, in our communities, and in our nation and the world.   A living peace church does not have to be perfect. Rather, it needs a commitment to act to throw off the patterns of oppression and racial discrimination that infect its members and its congregations. In this we follow Jesus, who consistently confounded his followers and opponents by crossing lines of cultural taboo and exclusion, offering healing and grace and power.  We invite you to join with the On Earth Peace staff and board members in making a commitment to action.

We ask God for instruction in the secret chambers of our hearts, and for support to address situations and to build new relationships. The work of heart-change and relationship-building, both within and across cultural lines, may not be easy, but with God's help, we will meet one another on the holy ground of relationship. What is God calling you to be and do?

We seek to understand how habits of racial and cultural interaction affect us personally, and impact our congregations and communities. Are we living into the promise God offers us? Are there ways we need to stretch, challenge ourselves, and grow?

We will act, trusting the promise of God that, if we are unafraid, we will be able to overcome evil with good wherever racism reveals itself, whether as a habit of the heart, or as a practice of exclusion in our congregations (intentional or not), or as cultural divisions or oppression in our community or in our society.