{"id":12928,"date":"2022-03-03T16:37:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T21:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.presbyterianfoundation.org\/?p=12928"},"modified":"2024-07-24T13:22:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T17:22:13","slug":"using-a-blacklight-to-point-out-and-clean-up-our-messes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/resources\/news\/using-a-blacklight-to-point-out-and-clean-up-our-messes\/","title":{"rendered":"\ube14\ub799\ub77c\uc774\ud2b8\ub97c \uc0ac\uc6a9\ud558\uc5ec \uc9c0\uc800\ubd84\ud55c \ubd80\ubd84\uc744 \uc9c0\uc801\ud558\uace0 \uc815\ub9ac\ud558\uae30"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Rev. Melanie C. Jones<\/div>\n

Multiple pandemics over the last two years, including COVID-19 and efforts to bring about racial justice in U.S. communities \u2014 even among communities of faith \u2014 have benefitted from a blacklight that highlights and helps clean up the messes that justice-seeking activists are asking the church to work on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we begin to think about the journey to the cross\u201d during Lent, the Rev. Melanie C. Jones told the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty Wednesday during his Leading Theologically broadcast, \u201cnot only is there repentance to be done, but there is also this sense that we can no longer just say we believe in Jesus who cares about the oppressed.\u201d Even justice activists operating outside the church \u201care spiritual, and they are calling out some of our own hypocrisy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones, the director of the Katie Geneva Cannon Center for Womanist Leadership<\/a> at Union Presbyterian Seminary<\/a>, was the guest Wednesday of Hinson-Hasty, senior director of Theological Education Funds Development for the Committee on Theological Education and the Presbyterian Foundation<\/a>. Listen to their 30-minute conversation here<\/a> or here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A trained womanist and ethicist, Jones is a third-generation Baptist preacher. \u201cI have a commitment to how our congregations are really living into the call for justice, in word and in deed,\u201d Jones told Hinson-Hasty. \u201cCOVID-19 is a seismic shift. I think the church is being called to a new horizon, and I hope to help scholars, practitioners and everyday folk live into that call for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice-seekers are sometimes forming outside the church \u201cto ask new questions and questions that need to be reckoned with that the church has been reluctant to ask and answer, or has ignored the question,\u201d Jones said. Redefining discipleship and rewriting our liturgies as a reaction to, for example, the increased frequency of online worship \u201cis not going away. This really is the way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the questions to be answered: What does it mean \u201cto hold space with one another, to be concerned about persons made in the image of God who may not look like us?\u201d Jones asked. \u201cIt\u2019s 2022, and we are still in pandemics. These reckonings are not temporal. They are questions we need to continue to ask and answer, and they will radically alter the way we do church.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term \u201cwomanist\u201d comes out of a Black Southern colloquial expression used as a way for Black mothers to talk with their daughters, Jones said. The author Alice Walker defined the term in her 1983 nonfiction collection, \u201cIn Search of Our Mothers\u2019 Gardens<\/a>.\u201d Today, womanism is \u201ca prophetic social movement that takes seriously the liberation and survival of Black women while advocating against all forms of oppression,\u201d Jones said. Womanists \u201cwant to do this in a way that dismantles oppression for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never just one thing we are after,\u201d Jones said, whether it\u2019s dismantling racism, patriarchy or poverty. All are intersectional and multidisciplinary, Jones said. \u201cHow do we dismantle systems and forces even as they show up in multiple ways?\u201d<\/p>\n

We can start by not dismissing the people we encounter daily. A common Zulu greeting, Jones noted, is, \u201cI see you; you see me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see you in all your humanity,\u201d Jones said. \u201cYou were made in God\u2019s image just as I was. I see the ways I have infringed on our freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it mean,\u201d Hinson-Hasty asked Jones, \u201cto lead as a womanist?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the number one question I love to answer,\u201d Jones replied. Black women are \u201camong the best assets of the community and the church,\u201d and yet often their leadership is not recognized, \u201cand their gifts and talents have not been embraced.\u201d Furthermore, \u201cmany of the Black women we see out front [of movements], we often see many who are stressed out and burned out and have no spaces to recharge and refill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Center that Jones leads \u201cis to nurture the soul of Black women.\u201d Attending to Black women\u2019s spirituality and equipping Black women with what they need \u201cis the way to ensure that leadership continues,\u201d Jones said. \u201cCommunities are ultimately transformed by these women \u2026 People can find us as a go-to place to recharge and refill.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rev. Melanie C. Jones discusses the continuing push for justice and action within the church…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":12930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46723,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12928\/revisions\/46723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/presbyterianfoundation.louderstaging.com\/ko\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}