We believe that each person brings unique gifts. We recognize the unique beauty in every person. As such, we do not pretend to be colorblind. Rather, we celebrate diversity and we are a richer community when every person can fully and safely live out who they are and what makes them come alive.

 

We commit to unity. We have experienced the energy that comes with living in unity. Together, we seek to live into the Christian ethic of love: love of God, love of neighbor, love of self, and even love of the one we would otherwise label as enemy. It is only in unity that we can live as the peaceable kingdom. 

We believe that Black Lives Matter. After 400 years of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, racial profiling, and other forms of systemic racism, our nation continues to act in a way that does not value Black lives. We speak out against that to affirm the worth, the potential, the accomplishments, the creativity, the generosity and the irreducible human value of Black lives. As a people of faith, following the example of Jesus, who placed himself among marginalized peoples, we unite our voices to unequivocally state that Black Lives Matter. 

We believe abundant life is God’s will. Jesus stated that he came so that all people would have life and have it abundantly. However, we live in a community where Black babies are three times as likely to die from infant mortality, Black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated, Black women make .62 cents on the dollar, and People of Color are five times as likely to be hospitalized with the coronavirus. As Dr. King taught, we live in an interconnected web of mutuality, where injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 

We have a responsibility to be vocal witnesses to the injustices we see in the world. Jesus modeled for us an example of service when he said that he came to serve, not to be served. In particular, Jesus said what you do to "the least of these" you do to Him. Therefore, we believe we as a society and a nation will and should be judged on how we treat the weakest, the most oppressed, the most vulnerable, the most despised and the most discriminated against of our community. That includes victims of systemic racism, immigrants without documentation, children living in poverty, LGBTQ peoples, and all others who are assigned lesser worth within our nation's power structure. We commit to speak out whenever we see public servants, from police officers to government officials, whose actions do not align with this value. 

We dedicate ourselves to the continued work of racial justice. As the United Methodist Church for All People, we seek to be a safe place where people can have difficult conversations. As one of the most diverse churches in the country, we will share the lessons we have learned with other communities so they can experience the giftedness that comes in living in diversity and unity. The Bible teaches that those who have been marginalized must be restored and made whole. We believe that values cannot live in the absence of action, and that social justice cannot be achieved without also addressing economics. Therefore, we support efforts to address, repair, and repay the historical and the current economic exploitation of People of Color..