Lincoln Area Faith Leaders Stand for Racial Justice

Statement adopted by Faith Coalition Board, June 24, 2020.

For immediate release:

As faith leaders who are called to serve and heal families and communities, we join with those who seek to expose and uproot the systems and cultures of racism and inequality that continue to infect the progress of our great nation and of our community.  Racism and inequality were enshrined as original sin in our nation’s founding documents and remained formally codified in federal law until a mere 55 years ago. For the sake of our collective well-being, both spiritual and communal, we must seek to repair this breach, confront our history, and confess and change those practices that have enabled the benefit of some at the expense of others. We are each one another’s keepers.

As faith leaders, we acknowledge that recent protests reflect generations of frustration and pain caused by systemic and personal racism, brought to the forefront most notably by the recent unjustifiable killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. We join with African Americans and other people of color and marginalized communities in grieving this abuse of power and all expressions of racial hatred.  

As faith leaders, we acknowledge the rich history and experience of many spiritual and faith congregations and communities who have stood throughout time with marginalized peoples seeking freedom and opportunity. Across the country and around the world, our communities are on the front lines advocating for social justice and directly providing education, healthcare, and social services to many at-risk populations. Spirit and faith have nourished hope and skillful action in struggles for justice across the world for millennia.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “There is a power within us that is greater than the power of bullets.” As faith leaders, we strive first and foremost to tap into that power in order to build and support a beloved community and nation that has as its first priority a respect for the preciousness of all humanity. Today, many current practices in our education, health, economic, and criminal justice systems perpetuate an unfair playing ground, and reflect and perpetuate past exclusionary practices rather than a concern for the most vulnerable that is called for in our great faith traditions. We see the ongoing effects of historic systems, structures and cultures of racism and inequality upon the lives of friends and neighbors—children, neighbors, colleagues, and ministry partners. In issuing these words, theirs are the faces we keep foremost in our minds and hearts.  

As faith leaders of Lincoln, Nebraska, we commit to continuing the call for racial justice, and to joining with our African American neighbors and others to continue to expose and dismantle the structures and attitudes of racism, “othering” and inequality in our community.  May we all breathe together for justice, opportunity, and equality.