Dear Friends,
Over the last few months, I have been on a spiritual journey producing a struggle in my own faith.
I, like you, watched the media reports of rioting in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer.
I listened to the reports of Eric Garner being choked to death while being arrested by officers of the NYPD.
I attempted to comprehend what could have happened for Freddie Gray to suffer injuries leading to his death in the back of a Baltimore police van.
Over and over again I watched the video of Walter Scott being shot in the back as he ran away from a North Charleston, SC police officer
I was stunned by the images from a Texas pool party of an out of control police officer rapidly escalating an already tense situation.
I wanted to see each incident as unique. I wanted to say that this is not what law enforcement is like. And I don’t think it is, but I cannot deny that these events have happened and our nation reels because of them.
I wanted to process and look at each of these events in isolation from the other. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it because I saw and read the responses to the events from colleagues and church leaders. Men and women who have much more experience than I. Individuals far smarter than me. I saw these people standing in solidarity with the African American community as they demanded justice. The presence of these men and women, whom I greatly respected, standing on a different side of the debate gave me great pause. I began to question if I was not in fact wrong.
So I started to listen to myself. What I heard myself saying sounded an awful lot like the words of my white predecessors who spoke against the civil rights movement of the past and any efforts to change the status quo.
I knew then that I was wrong. But I did not know how or understand why. This realization was when my journey began.
Many of us are quick to quote Martin Luther King Jr. but would we have been so quick to quote him and stand beside him if we had lived through our nation seemingly being torn apart by the civil rights movement? What about today, as we watch our nation appears to be taking a journey down this path again?
I have been on a spiritual journey these past few months and in the next several posts I want to take you on that journey with me. I have many questions and very few answers.
Let’s walk together,
Pastor Stephen