Jody Pierce: Christian neighborhood: This Ash Wednesday, let’s finish our separation from love

This coming week, on Ash Wednesday, the Christian neighborhood marks the start of the Lenten season of fasting, reflection and repentance.

We come to this second within the Christian calendar amid a local weather of rising acts of hate towards our buddies and neighbors within the Jewish, queer, immigrant, Asian and BIPOC communities. The pastor, management, and congregation of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church condemn this resurgence of hate all over the world, in our nation, in our state and in our neighborhoods. We condemn all who perpetuate hate-fueled photographs, concepts, and behaviors — in political campaigns, on social media and in on a regular basis life — and stand with the oppressed within the struggle to eradicate the sin of hate.

Critically, we pause additionally to mirror and repent on the Christian neighborhood’s and church’s roles within the white supremacist roots of those acts of hate. As believers in a God of affection, we’re offended about and deeply sorry for the hateful rhetoric and acts of violence, and we decry Christian complicity with techniques that slow-walk and deny justice for the oppressed and marginalized.

Ash Wednesday is a reckoning with the inescapable attain of loss of life, however a loss of life that can provide method to a brand new life constructing genuine love, justice and inclusion for the scorned and other-ed within the right here and now. On this Lenten season, we invite all, particularly these within the Christian neighborhood, to hitch us in ending this separation from love that acts of hate create.

Jody Pierce on behalf of the pastor, management, and congregation of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church

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