The statement, signed by nearly 1,000 believers, condemns Christian nationalism and ‘ongoing persecution of people of color in our country.’
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
DALLAS — A coalition dubbed Salt & Light Resistance has collected nearly 1,000 signatures on an open letter warning of “a great spiritual danger facing all Christians in the United States today.”
Authored by Collin Packer, Jerry Taylor and Mark Hamilton, the 975-word letter details concerns about “clear evidence of great evil,” including the “deliberate and ongoing persecution of people of color in our country — a persecution that is intensifying, not receding.
“We see the removal of migrants without due process of law or regard for the danger those removed may face,” write Packer, director of strategic development for Dallas-based Let’s Talk Race Ministries; Taylor, retired founding director of Abilene Christian University’s Carl Spain Center on Race Studies and Spiritual Action; and Hamilton, a professor in ACU’s Graduate School of Theology.
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“We see the steady erosion of hard-won civil rights and even basic respect for African Americans and other people of color, including our fellow Christians,” the letter adds. “And we hear the church’s deafening silence as confused or self-deluding white Christians blithely throw away the good news of Jesus Christ in favor of the bad news of Empire.”
The co-authors characterize the statement as “An Open Letter to a Beloved Fellowship,” written by “Christians with affiliations to Churches of Christ and the American Restoration Movement and as partisans of the kingdom of God.”
This story appears in the May print edition of The Christian Chronicle.
Photo by Audrey Jackson
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