By Mennonite Church Executive Board staff
Amid the recent events surrounding the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the latest fatal violence against African Americans, Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) joins in mourning and lament. We lament that this is yet another example of the simmering racial injustice that pervades America, and we pray for God’s justice to roll down like a mighty river within our communities.
This is not a time for Mennonites to be the quiet in the land. We call on our congregations to lament and pray together. More than that, we encourage you to stand in solidarity with communities of color, walk alongside them and, indeed, be led by them. This is especially needed as COVID-19 is unveiling the racial disparities in our systems.
Apostle Paul said that our struggle is with powers and principalities. Those powers and principalities are embodied in systems such as white supremacy*, institutionalized violence and police brutality that hang over our heads and attack the humanity of black sisters and brothers, as they have for generations.
Jesus confronted this violence on the cross, as he was unjustly executed by state power. As people of the cross, we stand with the crucified. We stand seeking Christ’s costly peace.
We, as Mennonites, seek to be a people who follow the Prince of Peace and his ways. We understand that many in our congregations and constituent groups likely have questions as we process recent events. These may include:
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Why do protests often turn violent?
Many of the local activists in Minneapolis and other cities have continued peaceful protests. They have taken to the streets out of grave frustration and grief. Some of the looting and lawlessness has been done by white supremacy groups and opportunists who are not listening to the strategic tactics of local black and people of color grassroots organizers.
We also should ask ourselves, what violence are we willing to critique and how are we defining the narrative? Are we willing to critique the white supremacy that goes unseen by those who benefit most from it and state violence, which threatens the lives of our sisters and brothers? Or, are we primarily concerned with property damage? Do we first want to reestablish law and order? Are we mindful that the status quo of law and order is the foundational violence that oppressed communities have sought to change for years?
When Jesus approached Jerusalem, he wept because the people did not recognize the things of peace, real embodied peace, and so their violence would destroy them (Luke 19:41-44). Violence was part of the order. Yet, at the same time, Jesus immediately went into the temple and forcefully drove out those who made this social, political and religious institution a den of robbers (19:45-46).
Violence is complex, and Jesus’ response was complex. We should not simply side with institutional violence because order feels like peace. Indeed, Jesus tells us to stand with the oppressed over the powerful. We must be careful not to normalize this order as peace. Jesus did not.
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Why is it inappropriate and tone deaf to say, “All lives matter”?
People of color in the Americas, starting with the indigenous brothers and sisters, have been marginalized since the first European colonists arrived up until the present day. Black people have experienced the consequences of a country built on chattel slavery, white supremacy, Jim Crow laws and mass incarceration. The statement #Black Lives Matter was an outcry after yet another violent racial killing of an African American, pointing out the pain and suffering of that specific group of marginalized people. To respond by saying, “all lives matter” in this context is to be dismissive of that pain and suffering. Certainly, all lives matter. All lives matter to us, and all lives matter to God; but do we live as if all lives matter? Institutionalized inequality means that all lives are not of equal value. It is important to center those who are counted as less (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).
We are called to love our enemies, but that love does not cancel out anger against injustice and those perpetrating it. The anger is real, and its expression is necessary. Scripture shows us over and again God’s anger at injustice. More than that, Scripture shows us that God is at work, bringing peace with justice for all people. Shalom is not an abstract concept, it is a social reality whereby all people have all they need to flourish as image bearers of God.
May we continue to pray for, seek out and lend our voices and bodies to God’s healing, justice and peace.
*White supremacy refers to “a political or socioeconomic system where white people enjoy structural advantage and rights that other racial and ethnic groups do not, both at a collective and an individual level.” Read more about white supremacy and racism from DRworks.
Read more on this topic from MC USA
A non-comprehensive list of resources
- Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a program tool of MC USA for assessing and developing intercultural competence
http://mennoniteusa.org/what-we-do/undoing-racism/intercultural-development-inventory/ - Roots of Justice, a nonprofit organization established to carry forward and broaden the work founded by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S. in the Damascus Road Antiracism Training Process
http://rootsofjusticetraining.org/workshops/damascusroad/ - “Jesus Wasn’t White,” a video produced by Mennonite Mission Network’s Peace and Justice Support Network
https://youtu.be/pOzU4qFfT3M - “Mass Incarceration and the Christian Mandate,” a video on mass incarceration from MCC and additional resources on mass incarceration
https://mcc.org/stories/why-are-so-many-people-incarcerated - “Ruby Sales: Hope for the Future,” a podcast recording of Ruby Sales speaking to MC USA’s Hope for the Future gathering
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-wil-laveist-show/ruby-sales-hope-for-the-future-eEGQRtVl8rm/
Books
- “The Trouble I’ve Seen” by Drew Hart
https://store.mennomedia.org/Trouble-Ive-Seen-P4634.aspx - “Set Free: A Journey Toward Solidarity Against Racism” by Iris De Leon-Hartshorn, Tobin Miller Shearer, Regina Shands Stoltzfus
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/Set-Free–A-Journey-Toward-Solidarity-Against-Racism-9780836191578 - “There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America” by Vincent Harding https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/532319.There_Is_a_River
- 1619 Project magazine
https://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/full_issue_of_the_1619_project.pdf
Worship resources
- Peace Sunday 2015 worship materials from MC USA and MCC https://www.commonword.ca/FileDownload/22743/PeaceSunday2015%20final.pdf
- “A Litany of Lament” by Joanna Shenk
https://themennonite.org/feature/a-litany-of-lament/ - “A Prayer of Lament Over Racial Tensions in our Country” from Transforming Center
https://transformingcenter.org/2016/07/prayer-lament-breathe/
Very well said. I like the concise ideas, but also thorough and most importantly, I like your comments about All Lives Matter. I agree-it downplays the real struggle and the fear that brown and black people live with at all times.
Thank you for this excellent and very clear statement on Jesus’ example of longing for peace and struggling for justice. May we be doers of the God’s good news and not hearers only.
Vincent Harding’s “The Beggars are Rising, Where are the Saints?” is highly appropriate for our time. This is a “speech/recitation” he presented at the Mennonite World Conference in 1968 (Amsterdam).
I strongly support this statement. I understand how important it is to be lead by communities of color.
Thank you. I am honored to be affiliated with a broad church community that understands problems beyond those of the majority and privilege and Jesus’s response to it.
I do support portions of this statement but am highly tired of the Peace and Social Justice stance and movement that has all but taken over our Churches. Of course we are to stand with our fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus but there are also other minorities within our fold, and to continue to project that only “black and white racial incidents is disingenuous and untruthful: this is a sin issue. Our Lord Jesus commissioned us to share the Gospel, the Good News of becoming reconciled to God through faith placed in Christ. If we really want to stop being quiet and declare a message that will change the world from by the Holy Spirit, working inside of a person and then bearing fruit outwardly, begin to stand with Christ and witness. For to long we continue to work to legislate love and God’s ways through protests, boycotts, and politics. I say no more, focus your energies as the people of God into bring the message of salvation through Jesus to all people regardless of oppressor or oppressed. God bless you all my Brothers and Sisters.
I want to correct a statement I made. It is meant to read:
to continue to project that only “black and white racial incidents” is disingenuous and untruthful: this is a sin issue, and therefore requires a means to overcome sin!
[…] Church USA has also provided a statement on racial injustice with resources to assist leaders during this time of social unrest: […]
Thank you for this clear and helpful and inspiring leadership!
I edited my statement above. Can you replace what is there with this better version, please? -Clair
This good strong statement represents excellent leadership now in our denomination and I support this 100%. Kudos to you, Glen Guyton and your colleagues! More could be said but it’s a great start. I also appreciate the excellent list of resources for further study among families and small groups in our congregations.
There are blind spots and racist traditions in our own Mennonite history that need acknowledgement (confession), repentance (turning away) and amends need to be made. Some of us are currently engaged in learning more from our people’s history, discovering attitudes and policies among the family of Mennonites that shock us now but which some considered “appropriate” during the rise and rule of Nazi Germany. We are reading and hearing things we need to learn from and for which we need to confess and repent.
If this interests you I invite you to tune into the Facebook group “Anabaptist Collective….” There we are discussing these matters as well as contemporary developments in our society from black and Anabaptist and especially Jesus’ perspectives. I appreciate it being a well-moderated source where respectful dialogue is maintained. We need more of that.