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“Black lives matter.”– Gabe Horton
Gabe Horton is a
student at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., and a pastoral
intern at Belle Meade United Methodist Church. I don’t know Mr. Horton’s
ethnicity, but his thoughts seem worthy of consideration in light of recent
events in the U.S., events carried out in the streets and in court rooms.
“The three
words ‘black lives matter’ are disputed by the systems in U.S. society that
continue to function as if black and brown lives do not, in fact, matter.
“When police violence
is exercised dispro-portionately against people with darker skin, for instance,
black lives do not seem to matter. When news organizations gloss over some
colossal number of deaths incurred during a civil conflict in Africa, black
lives do not seem to matter.
“When we send
black people to prison at an unbelievably higher rate than white people, for
equal or lesser crimes, our justice system says that black lives do not matter.
“When a lack of
access to quality education disproportionately sends black and brown children
on a pipeline to prison, our education system says that black lives do not matter.”
Blame is a
wasted endeavor here, according to Horton. “The system is the way the system
is, and we are all a part of it, through no fault of our own,” he asserts. “But
like the alcoholic who is responsible for recovery but cannot be blamed for her
disease, we are responsible for helping to heal a system we did not create.”
Horton says the
same question is before those of us who profess faith as individuals, as
congregations, as The United Methodist Church or whatever group with which you
affiliate, including the Church universal: What are we going to do about it?
Horton points
out that John Wesley famously asked three questions at his early conferences:
- What shall
we teach?
- How shall
we teach?
- What shall
we do?
“Today, we have
the chance to affirm as a Church that black lives matter,” Horton emphasizes.
“I do not discount the efforts of individual churchgoers and pastors today and
during our history, but as the Church universal, we have all too often been on
the wrong side.”
Horton proposes
that something be done, as The United Methodist Church, as congre-gations,
as Sunday School classes. He says lots of opportunities exist to join the
prophet in asking, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of
injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to
break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).
“We can attend
educational events sponsored by local organizers. We can visit those in prison
and let their stories speak louder than statistics. We can get involved in the
political issues that speak directly to the realities of injustice. We can
learn how the gentrification that is renewing our cities also has the unintended
effect of forcing people out of their communities.”
Our church is committed to the idea that the rights and
privileges a society bestows upon or withholds from its inhabitants indicate
the relative respect in which that society holds particular persons and groups
of persons. We affirm all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God and
therefore work toward societies in which each person’s value is recognized,
maintained, and strengthened.
Restorative Justice asks:
Who has been hurt?
What are their needs?
Whose obligations are they?
