“Brokenness, disunity, and hatred are evident all over the planet. The world needs the witness Belhar calls the church to live out in the world. The church’s primary responsibility is to love God so fully that God’s saving presence shines through her like light in the midst of darkness. The church then becomes a beacon of hope, a lighthouse on the shore of a storm-tossed sea. By confessing, internalizing, and living out the principles of Belhar in her own experience, the church positions herself to become what Henri Nouwen calls, ‘a wounded healer.'”
Mark Lomax
Lenten Reflections on the Confession of Belhar
Christ is risen! Christ’s proclamation that God loves us and Christ’s call to love God and one another provide words of hope in this broken and fearful world.
This Lenten season have used a new resource to explore the Belhar Confession: Lenten Reflections on the Confession of Belhar, edited by Kerri N. Allen and Donald K. McKim. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in which I serve as a teaching elder (pastor), added the Confession of Belhar to our Book of Confessions in 2016. This confession came from the Dutch Reformed Mission Church during its historic struggle against apartheid in South Africa. I am grateful to Kerri and Donald and all the authors.
See you along the Trail.
“… Belhar claims the one God, revealed in Jesus Christ and present through the Holy Spirit, will be present and active when human lives are demeaned, threatened by violence, hemmed in, and held down by law, tradition, and institutional racism.”
“The calling upon our lives is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Yet how can we do this when evil besets us, injustices overtake us, and the lives of black and brown folk are under attack? As we wander in the wilderness with Jesus during this Lent, there is a litany of names we could call right now as we wrestle with the militarization of the police–the names of boys and girls, and men and women who have been killed by police officers; and the names of unarmed people whose crime was being black. Additionally, the violence in our nation and the unattended spiritual and mental care of folks has precipitated last summer’s killing of police officers and members of the LGBTQ community at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida. … Belhar offers us insight on how to facilitate reconciliation and stand in solidarity with the oppressed.”
“The church is not gilded sanctuaries, stained glass windows, padded pews, cushy carpets, table, and font. The church is people from every nation, culture, and ethnicity who (1) call on and believe in God through Christ; (2) are consequently filled with God’s Spirit and led by God’s word to light candles in the shadows of life; (3) live among and act in unity with people who’ve been abandoned, pushed to the margins of society, and disenfranchised; and (4) advocate for justice on the steps of the courthouse or the statehouse, serving the present age in ways that reconcile disparate peoples and groups.”
“If we do nothing, singing along with the strains of subjugation, we are complicit with the sins of an unchristian ideology and doctrine. Worse yet, we compose new refrains that reinforce the symphony of domination by pretending that all is well.” With what voice is Christ’s church called to sing?
“We’re called to witness against the powerful and privileged by living as Christ wanted us to live–by sitting with those whom no one wants to sit with, by opening ourselves up to the hurt and pain that are caused by those who control and harm others. We must do this to make the church reflect the diversity of the world around us. We must work to dismantle that ability to control and harm others.”
“It is not difficult to know where the Lord stands. The witness of Scripture is clear, consistent, and compelling. Psalm 82 says what Torah, prophets, Gospels, and epistles say: The Lord stands with the weak and the orphan, the lowly and the destitute, the week and the needy. Those are not the only ones the Lord stands with, but they are the ones most likely to be ignored and exploited, the ones least likely to possess the power to withstand mistreatment and manipulation. It is not difficult to know where the Lord stands, but it is often difficult to know where the church stands.”
“Like hurricanes and floods, God’s justice should uproot systems of oppression established by our political, religious, and economic prejudice. It should cleanse the world of all its racial, xenophobic, and gender-based violence. God’s justice should wash through our hearts and minds, like the waters of baptism, reforming us into new creations dedicated to fulfilling the law of love and justice for all people.”
“… we usually retreat into judgement instead of mercy, and indifference instead of justice. We are happy to prescribe Micah’s prophecy to others rather than learn it and act accordingly. God created us for connectional living; and those connections cannot thrive when we stay silent in the face of evil and injustice. God wishes to teach the church to do what is good and right–and to do it now.”
Along the Graybeard Trail 