Church leaders vow to fight racism, support Black lives
The Westminster Ministerium, an ecumenical group of pastors and church leaders from the greater Westminster area and Carroll County clergy feel a pressing need to respond meaningfully to our current global struggle for the justice and freedom of all Black lives.
As Christians, we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves — even in ways that radically challenge who we might understand our neighbors to be. While all lives matter because all lives are created in the image of God and all lives are loved by God, the Black Lives Matter movement has arisen to expose pervasive systemic inequalities disproportionately affecting Black and brown lives in the United States. We believe that all lives don’t matter until Black lives matter.
As Christians, we are called to free oppressed people. Because systemic racism is oppression, Christian faith demands Christian action, action that is based on the teachings and life of Jesus Christ. God asks us to value the lives of the oppressed; we confess as individuals, as pastoral leaders of churches, and as community leaders that we have been complicit in systemic racism.
In Carroll County, we live in a culture where white lives are normalized in ways that separate us from our Black brothers and sisters. We confess we have not made Black lives a priority in our white culture. We have ignored our interdependence with one another and we have been too slow to listen and take action. Because we hear the cries of Black lives and seek to uphold the sacred dignity and value of Black bodies; together, we covenant to purposefully respond to the unjust treatment of our Black neighbors.
We invite you to join with us as we choose to: normalize conversations about race in our white communities; turn toward our complicity; offer resources that show what it looks like to be anti-racist; create broad forums deliberately engaging systemic racism in our churches, schools, municipal agencies, and social organizations.
Please join us as we listen more deeply and learn from Black lives about our privileged white lives — and talk less; support Black-owned businesses; introduce and support institutional policies dismantling systemic racism in our churches, schools, municipal agencies, and social organizations.
We believe dismantling racism requires that we steadily identify and describe what racism looks like. In our movement toward one another, transgressing lines that divide us, the kingdom of the heavens comes alive in our midst revealing our sacred interdependence and profound need of one another. In this way, we understand no one is free until we all are free.
MariBeth Brainerd, M.Div.; Manchester; Rev. Sam Chamelin, Westminster; Rev. Amy Williams Clark, Finksburg; Rev. Kevin Clementson, Westminster; Rev. Martha Clementson, Westminster; Chaplain Kevin Dayhoff, Westminster; Pastor John Dean, Westminster; Rev. Cristopher Frigm; Taneytown; Rev. Matthew Glasgow, Westminster; Dr. Gerald Hanberry, Manchester; Rev. Dr. David Highfield, Westminster; Rev. Dr. Marty Kuchma, Westminster; Bryan Lyburn, Westminster; Rev. Glenn McCrickard, Westminster; Brenda Meadows, Westminster; Rev. Tiffany Patterson, Sykesville; Pastor Lou Piel, Westminster; Sarah Ramsland, Westminster; The Rev. David S. Schafer, Westminster; Rev. Erin Snell, Westminster; Pastor Mark Sparks, Westminster; Rev. Dr. Malcolm Stranathan, Westminster; Rev. Dr. Douglas D. Tzan, Sykesville; Rev. Robert Wellman, Sykesville; Pastor Debra Peters Wilcox; Pleasant Valley
Federal troops in our cities a wake-up call
A follow-up to Dean Minnich’s opinion piece (”American ideals are trashed in a glimpse of our possible future,” July 23), what is the matter with the residents of our cities and towns?
Are we so fearful that we cannot protest on our streets against federal troops being dispatched in our cities to “keep the peace” when not requested by the governor of the state?
For heaven’s sake, people, wake up, pay attention and act.
Charlotte C. Diedrich
Westminster
President must vow to accept election result
The news today is far from good, but just focusing on the election, Joe Biden should ask, “Will you, Donald Trump, accept a confirmed vote that shows that I am the winner?”
In light of the current “speculation,” I think that’s a question that should be asked and answered now, and lacking the current president’s answer of “Yes,” the United States might as well join the banana republics and dictatorships of the world and our Constitution would just be a relic of former days.
Wallace Wolff
Westminster