Theological language might seem out of place from an organizer in a secular union, but faith has been a constant piece of the campaign in Bessemer. While the first vote was a loss for Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the historic effort offers important lessons for the relationship between faith, labor organizing, and the struggle for racial justice.
For Nathan Cartagena, a critical race theorist and assistant professor of philosophy at Wheaton college, conservative Christians’ growing belief that CRT is a threat to the gospel poses a pedagogical challenge: How do you teach students to understand an idea that they’ve been told is fundamentally anti-Christian?
Two important promises I’ve made to myself: I will never again watch a video of a person being lynched by the police and I will not allow my writing to be used in a way that makes Black pain a spectacle.
By now the ritual is regrettably predictable. A public official approaches a podium emblazoned with an official seal, perhaps flanked by the flags of their city and state, and maybe the U.S. flag. Just outside the frame, the shutters of a dozen cameras snap, capturing the official’s somber expression and ever-so-gently bowed head.
At Darbar-E-Khalsa, a large celebration of Guru Gobind Singh Ji in Southern California, I invited members of the community to tell me about their struggles and triumphs as Sikh Americans. These are their faces and stories.
Brenda Blackhawk, a congregational organizer for racial justice with the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said her initial reaction to the verdict was one of relief.
“That’s what the community really needed to see and hear, especially in the midst of another young Black man [Daunte Wright] being murdered,” Blackhawk told Sojourners. “This is just holding one person accountable — and that’s important, that’s a good piece of justice, but there is so much work left to be done to change the system as a whole.”
In a statement, Bishop Reginald Jackson, who oversees Georgia's African Methodist Episcopal churches, said Home Depot had rejected requests to discuss the new law.
Given that people of color are most likely to die from COVID-19, will those of us who are white Christians choose to get the vaccine in order to practice the selfless love Jesus demonstrated for his disciples? If we’re following Jesus, then the answer to the question of whether or not to get vaccinated must be yes.