| Over the years, I’ve attended, been a delegate to, or spoken at more conferences and conventions than I can count. I’ve concluded that a conference is a success if I hear a good speaker, learn of a good book to read, and meet a new friend. One of the first conferences I was part of was the “Theology in the Americas” held in the summer of 1980 at Mercy College in Detroit, Michigan.
I had just graduated from college with a degree in African history and been accepted into a three-year United Methodist mission program. As part of the orientation, our group was sent to the conference. Although I had grown up as the son of a pastor who preached love, grace, mercy, and justice and who was active in peace and civil rights struggles, I realized that summer how much more I had to learn.
Among the speakers at Mercy College was Ben Chavis, a pastor and one of the “Wilmington Ten” who had been unjustly imprisoned for a decade and electrified the conference with his commitment to justice and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Also present was Enrique Alvarez, born of the one of the elite 14 families that ruled El Salvador, but a convert to the cause of the poor and marginalized. When Alvarez was murdered four months later in El Salvador by extreme right-wing forces, it was the first time someone I had personally met had died for his convictions.
Like Theology in the Americas, many conferences have been formative for me including Ecumenical Advocacy Days and the NCC’s Christian Unity Gatherings. Last week, I participated in the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. The theme was “Look Around: The Cries Will Be Heard.” Among other highlights, William Barber preached, Jasiri X performed, Neichelle Guidry witnessed, and Fania Davis shared her story.
Among the more poignant moments for me was hearing from Lucia McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, the youth who was murdered several years ago in Florida, spoke to us on what would have been Jordan’s 21st birthday about Jordan and her efforts to end gun violence. Waltrina Middleton, who lost her cousin, Rev. DePayne Middleton, in the killings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, told us African Americans suffer not from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome but Protracted Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
Mitri Raheb, the pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine, reminded us that Christ lived and died under occupation. He said you can’t talk about Jesus without understanding occupation just as you can’t talk about Martin Luther King, Jr. without understanding racism. Mitri declared that Jesus came so that young Palestinians and young African Americans not only might have life, but that they might have abundant life.
Yvette Flunder critiqued Passivity Producing Apocalyptic Eschatology. She grew up in a church which believed most other people were not saved and whose members tended not to vote or express interest in politics because of a conviction that Jesus was coming at any moment. There were no expectations for this life, only for the next, and this produced resignation.
Further, her church believed the Lord was returning in order to destroy, maim, kill, and blow up all of creation in order to remove sin from the world. How, she asked, can we work for justice, peace, and the healing of creation if we simultaneously preach a gospel that peace is not possible, that any day an angry God will destroy all we hold dear?
She asked, “Where are the prophets of peace?” and reminded us it takes strength to be a peace prophet. She suggests the important question is not why God lets bad things happen, rather God wants to know why we let terrible things happen. Yvette declared if we work together we can put evil out of business. Hallelujah!
It seems to me that a courageous church full of peace prophets is more aligned with the God we see in Jesus than with other alternatives. Can we work together to put evil out of business?
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