The Racial Healing Ministry has grown out of St. Paul’s embrace of the Becoming Beloved Community initiative of The Episcopal Church, a long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society. This initiative regards the vision of beloved community as a guiding star, “where all people are honored and protected and nurtured as beloved children of God, where we weep at one another’s pain and seek one another’s flourishing.”
The ministry’s first initiative was offering two sequences of The Episcopal Church’s Sacred Ground course, a closer look at the profound challenges presented by race and racism in our country. In small study circles (8 to 14), participants walked through chapters in America’s history of race and racism, weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. The powerful curriculum draws on documentary films and readings that focus on the intersection of Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories with European American histories. Sacred Ground enables participants to recognize the divisions in White America and in themselves, and it offers support for the difficult dialogue we must have with each other about those issues as we strive for racial healing, reconciliation, and justice.
Because Sacred Ground requires a six-to-eight-month commitment and a demanding curriculum, we also offered two sequences of The Episcopal Church’s Church Next program. This introductory course explores systemic racism in the United States and in the Church and begins a conversation about what the Episcopal Church is currently doing to embody more clearly its inclusive values. It offers clear guidance on learning from this history and building what Presiding Bishop Michael Curry describes as “the Beloved Community of God.” The curriculum consists of short videos watched as a group and followed by guided conversation. St. Paul’s has offered this 6-week program following the Sunday 10:00 service.
The most recent initiative of the Racial Healing Ministry has been the Sacred Space Book Club. This book club meets monthly to discuss works of both fiction and non-fiction about Black Americans, Asian Americans, Indigenous Americans and Latino Americans, readings which further our understanding of racial inequity and strife in our country. Participants help build the list of books to read and take turns facilitating the discussion. It is not necessary to attend every meeting to participate. Books read so far include Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Cane River by Lalita Talemy, Pachenko by Min Jin Lee, and American Dirt by Jeannine Cummins.
Currently a group of members of St. Paul’s Church has been working with members of our long-time partner Temple Sinai to develop an Anti-Bias Coalition in our community. We are currently exploring what anti-bias programs are currently active in our area so that we can identify the need(s) we can respond to and define our mission more concretely. While its focus will be not only on racism, but also on antisemitism and all forms of prejudice and bias, we expect that this initiative will engage people active in the Racial Reconciliation Ministry.