News from the Pews

 Over the past several months, many of us who work on behalf of justice and an end to the conflict in Israel-Palestine, have been particularly concerned with the possibility of unilateral annexation.  Annexation is the extension of Israeli sovereignty over significant portions of Palestinian land in the West Bank. 

In my area land rights violations and abuse have escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Abusers have taken the weak structure and desperate situation communities are experiencing as an opportunity for exploitation. Land grabbing and displacement is prevalent in communities and institutions that have not formalised their ownership (such as the church). If the churches are also erased, what remains in the social and moral fabric of society that will hold it together for future generations?

I spend some of my time volunteering with the Christian Reformed Centre for Public Dialogue doing advocacy in creation care, and with this call comes some strange experiences. A few months back I had a discussion with a friend (who has no relationship to the church), and I mentioned my “hobby”. Though she was impressed with our efforts, she was also perplexed by my motivation. She explained that in her experience, Christian faith is fundamentally about human salvation, and that it is hard to see how this motivates change.

Recently, I spoke on the phone to one of my neighbors who was terminally ill. She was excited to hear my voice though from afar due to COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing is a necessity as we have to abide by preventative measures.  But support for those in need, in person, is our social safety net - especially in the African culture. Support, care and encouragement from others is a critical piece in life.  At the end of the conversation, I could hear from her feeble voice, “Yes,” to Christ’s lordship. She was introduced to Christ.

You can be forgiven if you find yourself not thinking about treaties very often.    After all, it is 2020 and for most Canadians, the term “treaty” conjures up ideas and images that seem to be part of a long-forgotten high school History or Social Studies class.   The relevancy of treaties to our everyday, ordinary lives seems non-existent.  Treaties – well, they tend not to make the news very often.  So, it is easy for us to assume they do not matter.

Dear Church,

As I write this letter, I find myself in a place of lament. I lament the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and many black lives taken by the grasp of white supremacy. I lament the numerous blacks lives that are being taken by this pandemic. 

In the middle of a pandemic of their own, the characters in Albert Camus’ The Plague are weary. The quarantine, disease, and death are enough to exhaust anyone. But -- of course -- the painful things that existed before illness struck are also still present: broken relationships, aching memories, questions of meaning and suffering, and deep injustice. 

As I’ve grown in my journey in the fight for social justice, it has been difficult for me to forgive the shames of my own past. Today, I am passionate about pushing ideals of racial equality, gender equality, criminal justice reform, etc. forward. But this was not always the case. Just eight short years ago, in my freshman year of high school, I began a slow descent into alt-right and supremacist ideologies online.

“We were at the Guatemala-Mexico border for three months. When the UN rights groups came to clean the showers every few weeks, we would rush for the showers so we could clean our kids. Later they gave us one diaper for our two kids, un pañal por dos niños!!!” she said, roaring in laughter, looking to her nephew in his late teens, who laughed along with her. 

“17.2 million people leaving their homes because of climate disasters is not a change.” This was a sign I saw as I first stepped off the metro in Madrid, Spain in early December. I had just arrived for the COP25 (Conference of the Parties), the global climate negotiations conference hosted by the United Nations. As I walked out of the metro to the conference center, more signs lined the hallway with startling statistics, many of which I had heard before. However, in the week ahead these statistics would become real people with real stories.