Interim Religion & Race Exec Responds to Racist Attacks on D.C. Black Churches

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Christians around the world are celebrating the coming of our Savior Jesus, the Prince of Peace. We sing songs of heavenly peace, extol the gentle Mary and Joseph, and light candles in adoration of the Christ who is the center of our joy.

But last weekend offered no Advent peace for African-American members of our Washington, D.C. Christian family—specifically the Methodist family. On Saturday, racist mobs attacked Asbury United Methodist and Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal churches—two renowned, historically Black congregations in downtown Washington. 

The marauders, many of them armed, ripped down and burned church signs on sacred ground. The signs read “Black Lives Matter.” Responding to the attack, the Rev. Dr. Ianther Mills, senior pastor of Asbury UMC, reflected, “I was reminded of cross burnings,” which have been a signature terrorist tactic of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups since after the Civil War. 

Make no mistake: The people who assaulted these historically Black Christian churches last weekend were motivated and incited by our nation’s highest leaders—including self-described Christians—to attack Black American people who dare to claim their God-ordained humanity and equal right to life and liberty. But when People of Color dare to say “No!” to racism, we are too often seen as fair game for retaliation by those invested in maintaining the established order of self-described white Christians setting the moral, religious, social, and political priorities of our society. Especially when Black people who are also Christian have the effrontery to declare, “We matter; God says we matter,” we are accused of threatening white people and saying that they don’t matter. Then we busy ourselves prioritizing calming white discomfort rather than joining the fight for Black human life and bringing dignity to all people. 

This resistance to anti-racism efforts and institutional changes in our nation and in our church makes it clear that far too many white Christians—including United Methodists—continue to view the battle against racism and racial violence as a non-issue for them. Or we dismiss the fight against racism as divisive while refusing to prioritize confronting and dismantling the racism embedded in our own ecclesial structures. In other words, we cry and claim, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. 

But the call from the coming Jesus to stand against injustice of any form has always been clear, and it is just as clear in this moment. A faith community committed to transforming the world with and for Almighty God is a community that must stand on the front lines of denouncing and working actively against white supremacy and racial violence—and all forms of systemic bias and terrorism—in our midst. 

Like the people Jeremiah called out, we are at a crossroads. Turn one way, and we will—at last—walk the path to true justice, righteousness, repentance, and recompense in Jesus’ name. Turn the other way, and the U.S. United Methodist Church and Christian communions will continue the hollow trek toward reckless silence and irrelevance in the building of God’s peaceable kin-dom.

Which way will you choose?

Garlinda Burton serves as Interim General Secretary of the United Methodist General Commission on Religion and Race. This article is republished from the commission's website.