Social Gospel, part deux.
So, being the confused soul that I am ~ I stopped reading pret' near at the point where the dude is telling me a Holy Roller is no different than a Lutheran or Dutch Reformed or any other sort of Evangelical.
Yep, here is the Rev. Beard weighing in with this fragrant little theological turd:
Religious leaders seek racial healing
May 2, 2012 | Cincinnati Enquirer
When the Rev. Troy Jackson looks ahead at the next six months leading to the presidential election, he sees a littered landscape with toxic partisan politics and vicious tactics and one real loser – the democratic process.
That’s why Jackson, pastor of University Christian Church, University Heights, has worked for two years to help build a coalition of religious leaders and ministers pull the political discussion back toward the poor and society’s responsibility to its most vulnerable members.
Friday, more than 300 religious leaders will participate in the summit “United by Faith.” Scheduled from 9 a.m. through 4 p.m. at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the event will feature speakers and culminate with congregations signing onto the “Racial Justice Covenant.”
The featured speaker is Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colored Blindness,” (New Press, 2010).
The covenant will call for all of Greater Cincinnati to be a place that “treats all people as sacred, justly stewards public resources (and) is dedicated to including and elevating the least among us.”
“When we call our clergy to pursue civic engagement, we do so out of our faith community and refuse to get co-opted by political parties and labels,” Jackson said.
A two-day event started Thursday when 100 religious community leaders met at a Forest Park church, Word of Deliverance, to officially institute an organization called Ohio Prophetic Voices. Clergy are organized into committees that will confront human trafficking, jobs for ex-offenders returning to society, food access and neighborhood safety. The concept is based on Hebrew prophets who relentlessly called for society to care for its most vulnerable.
“It is time to chart a new faith-rooted course as we unite unusual suspects – Evangelicals, Catholics and Protestants, Caucasians, Latinos and African-Americans – to work together courageously for racial equality and Biblical justice,” said the Rev. Chris Beard, pastor of First Christian Assembly of God, Corryville.
The Amos Project, a federation of congregations from various religious denominations, is promoting the covenant and a racial justice agenda that includes passage of Ohio’s proposed Collateral Sanctions Reform bill, which would open up access to employment for many of Ohio’s 1.9 million people with felony or misdemeanor convictions.
“We needed to start identifying and naming racial injustice and inequality and build a racial justice agenda to close the gaps,” said Paul Graham, Amos Project executive director.