Last week, while the website was in transition, the Cafe‘s Facebook page published links to a number of responses from bishops across the Episcopal Church, including the Presiding Bishop, to the decision of a Grand Jury not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Michael Brown dead in Ferguson this past summer.*
A week later, the conversation continues. A Twitter hashtag, #staywokeadvent, encourages churches and people of faith to keep talking about issues of race, class and inequality that threaten division in the church and surrounding communities.
Yesterday, Bishop Bill Franklin posted at his blog, Jerusalem Crossing, describing the work that the Diocese of Western New York intends to undertake:
Future conversations in our Diocese on these topics are important because of this dismal statistic: The Buffalo metropolitan region is the most thoroughly segregated region in the United States according to a Rochester Area Community Foundation study of December 2013.
That is a mark of humiliation. That must change.
…
For us, this is a Gospel concern. A Gospel society will be a just society where the dignity of every human being is respected. We need to start talking now about how to make this Gospel society a reality.
The Very Reverend Michael Kinman, Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, St Louis, has urged other cathedral clergy and colleagues across the church to join the conversation where they are. He said yesterday on NPR’s Morning Edition:
We’ve had people leave the congregation because we talking about this. We’ve had people join the congregation because we keep talking about this.
What did you hear (or preach) in your community this Sunday? What would you like to hear next?
*Statement of Bishop Mariann Budde and Dean Gary Hall of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington
Statement of Bishop Wayne Smith, Diocese of Missouri
Statement of Bishop Michael Hanley, Diocese of Oregon
Statement of the Presiding Bishop
Posted by Rosalind Hughes