Presbyterian Voices for Justice 

A union of The Witherspoon Society and Voices of Sophia

Welcome to news and networking for progressive Presbyterians 

Home page Marriage Equality Global & Social concerns    
News of the PC(USA) Immigrant rights Israel & Palestine
U S Politics, 2010-11 Inclusive ordination Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan
Occupy Wall Street The Economic Crisis Other churches, other faiths
    About us         Join us! Health Care Reform Archive
Just for fun Confronting torture Notes from your WebWeaver

What's Where

Our reports about the 219th General Assembly, July 2010

ABOUT US

The Winter 2011 issue of
Network News
is posted here
- in Adobe PDF format.

Click here for earlier issues
Adobe PDF  Click here to download (free!) Adobe Reader software to view this and all PDF files.

News of Presbyterian Voices for Justice
How to join us

CONNECTIONS

Coming events calendar 

Do you want to announce an event?
Please send a note!
Food for the spirit
Book notes

Go to  Amazon.com

LINKS

NEWS of the Presbyterian Church

Got news??
Send us a note!
Social and global concerns
The U.S. political scene, 2010-11
The Middle East conflict
Uprising in Egypt
The economic crisis
Health care reform
Working for inclusive ordination
Peacemaking & international concerns
The Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan
Israel, Palestine, and Gaza
U. S. Politics
Election 2008
Economic justice
Fair Food Campaign
Labor rights
Women's Concerns
Sexual justice
Marriage Equality
Caring for the environment
Immigrant rights
Racial concerns
Church & State
The death penalty
The media
OTHER CHURCHES, OTHER FAITHS
Do you want regular e-mail updates when stories are added to our web site?
Just send a note!
The WebWeaver's Space
ARCHIVES
JUST FOR FUN
Want books?
Search Now:

 

Coalition Gathering 2003:
Jin Kim on evangelicals and racism

From the Coalition Gathering

Korean pastor says he'll stay - because racism is the issue, not sex

by Doug King
[posted 10-7-03]

David Hackett of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship has sent a note amplifying some of this report.

Portland, OR - October 7, 2003 - The strongest applause in Tuesday morning's sessions came not for the "stay and fight" statements or for the "gracious separation" ones. Instead it was the Rev. Jin S. Kim, Moderator of the Coalition of Korean American Ministries, president-elect of PFR, and organizing pastor of a new multicultural congregation in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, who drew the clearest attention and appreciation of the roughly 200 people in the audience.

Beginning with a picture of a United States in the year 2050 in which the majority of people will be non-white, he then contrasted "evangelical" and "conservative." Those terms are often linked, or even used a synonyms, he said, but they're not. Conservatives, he said, "are people who want to go back to the past - the good old days of the 1950s and '60s when you couldn't keep people out of the churches, and conservative churches were strong. Those days may look good to white people, he added, but not to others. For people of color, those were not good days. They were the days when black people were beaten and murdered for seeking their rights, when most Asians were not allowed to move into this country.

Also, he went on, the word "conservative" is not found in Scripture, but "evangelical" is a deeply Biblical term. So, he concluded, "if you want to be evangelical I'm with you. If you want to be conservative, to go back, you can go without me."

He then turned to the issue of race in our church and our society. "We evangelicals," he said are fond of Christ's image of the sheep and the goats, with the goats (all those liberals) being sent to the left, while the sheep, the evangelicals, are welcomed into paradise. That's too easy, though. In fact, he said, it's often the conservatives who are most self-absorbed, concerned with their own salvation.

In contrast, he pointed to the early Presbyterian missionaries in Korea - the Moffetts and the Underwoods and all the rest - who "preached the orthodox Gospel, but who also built hospitals and started schools (even for women, which was unthinkable to Confucian Koreans), loving and caring for people who were not Christian, without making conversion a condition for receiving the church's help.

So, he went on, "let's build a church which is truly cross-cultural, because the Gospel transcends our cultural idolatries of race and class." That's hard to do, though, in our monocultural communities and churches. There's no church in America, he added, that is exempt from the need to talk about racial issues, for we exist in a society with a very sophisticated caste system, where even property values shift according to the racial makeup of a neighborhood. An all-white neighborhood may have stable values; a few black people moving in will lead whites to move out, values will drop, and the blacks will lose what they have invested. Asians may live in a neighborhood without seriously reducing values, although North Asians will be less of a problem than South Asians.

And, he asked sharply, "what are we evangelicals saying about that - with our Gospel that's for all people?"

This led Kim to state why he cannot support any proposal for separation: If it happens, he said, the new evangelical denomination will be 99.9% white, and the rest will remain perhaps 96% white - not terrific, but better than the other one.

But there is another reason for refusing to separate: "For us people of color," he explained, "sexuality is a luxury debate. We're dealing with issues of justice: jobs, housing, immigration laws. And the evangelicals are silent - and devoid of racial-ethnic people. We agree with you about sex, but not about justice. As a leader in the Korean church I am not going to support separation."

Only a multicultural church, he said, can enable us to resist our "idolatries of race." For this to become possible "we need contextual orthodoxy, which embraces the different ways people understand God, within the framework of orthodox Christianity."

He went on: "We need the Lord to show us the way. But the way we are going now is the blind leading the blind ... The enemy is not them, it is us."

And he concluded by saying that racism is the "mega-idolatry" of America, and "if we evangelicals continue to model for the world our racism, we have no claim to the name 'evangelical.' "

Visit our lively
new website!

GA actions ratified (or not) by  the presbyteries   

A number of the most important actions of the 219th General Assembly have now been acted upon by the presbyteries, confirming most of them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

We provided resources to help inform the reflection and debate, along with updates on the voting.

Our three areas of primary interest have been:

bullet Amendment 10-A, which  removes the current ban on lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender persons being considered as possible candidates for ordination as elder or ministers.  Approved!

bullet Amendment 10-2, which would add the Belhar Confession to our Book of Confessions.  Disapproved, because as an amendment to the Book of Confessions it needed a 2/3 vote, and did not receive that.

bullet Amendment 10-1, which  adopts the new Form of Government that was approved by the Assembly.   Approved.
 

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep Voices for Justice going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Presbyterian Voices for Justice" and marked "web site," to our PVJ Treasurer:

Darcy Hawk
4007 Gibsonia Road
Gibsonia, PA  15044-8312

 

Some blogs worth visiting

PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

You can post your own news and views, or initiate a conversation about a topic of interest to you.

 

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

After fifteen years of scholarship and activism, Voices of Sophia presents a blog. Here, we present the voices of feminist theologians of all stripes: scholars, clergy, students, exiles, missionaries, workers, thinkers, artists, lovers and devotees, from many parts of the world, all children of the God in whose image women are made. .... This blog seeks to glorify God through prayer, work, art, and intellectual reflection. Through articles and ensuing discussion we hope to become an active and thoughtful community.

 

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

Theological and philosophical reflections on everything between summit to shore, including kayaking, climbing, religion, spirituality, philosophy, theology, politics, culture, travel, The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), New York City and the Queens neighborhood of Ridgewood by a progressive New York City Presbyterian Pastor. John is a former member of the Witherspoon board, and is designated pastor of North Presbyterian Church in Flushing, NY.

 

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

A Presbyterian minister, currently serving as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, Tenn., blogs about spirituality, culture, religion (both organized and disorganized), life, evolution, literature, Jesus, and lightening up.

 

Got more blogs to recommend?

Please send a note, and we'll see what we can do!

 

To top

© 2011 by Presbyterian Voices for Justice.  All material on this site is the responsibility of the WebWeaver unless other sources are acknowledged.  Unless otherwise noted, material on this site may be copied for personal use and sharing in small groups.  For permission to reproduce material for wider publication, please contact the WebWeaver, Doug King.  Any material reached by links on this site is outside the control and responsibility of the WebWeaver and Presbyterian Voices for Justice.  Questions or comments?  Please send a note!