After accepting the newly created DEI Graduate Assistant position, I took a moment to reflect on how I would approach this work. Listening closely to what stirred in my body, I remembered a phrase I heard from Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas and her example of vulnerable leadership in the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, “If seminary is a seed bed for God’s moral just future, then we also have to prepare our students to be those transformative agents in the public square… If we are ever going to know justice, then that movement towards justice has to start with those who have experienced it the least or not at all. Otherwise, we begin to confuse justice with the privileges that have indeed come from an unjust society” (Black Theology and White Terror: A Union Conversation). At a school like the CSTM, where both academic and spiritual formation are upheld, so too must we know and live out justice.
This is why the Committee on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) created “Formation for Racial Justice”. This website gives us the opportunity to draw from these wells of wisdom located within communities who experience justice the least - if at all. In our embrace of synodality, the website can also serve as a structure of accountability that reminds us of our need to be attentive to the movements of the Holy Spirit in and throughout the global church. I invite you to explore the newly refreshed “Formation for Racial Justice” website which contains a plethora of resources including book/movie/documentary/music/podcast recommendations, pedagogical tools, and prayer resources.
I would like to thank the generations of CSTM students, faculty, and staff who opened the door for conversations concerning the intersections of faith, justice, and belonging here at the CSTM. I would particularly like to thank Shin Jae Lee and Shannon Murphy for developing the first iteration of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Bibliography and the “Formation for Racial Justice” website.
Explore the website here: https://sites.google.com/bc.edu/stmformationforracialjustice/home?authuser=0