Reparation isn’t simply a side project of the church, or even primarily a political question. For the American church today, reparation must be one of our primary tasks.
In the name of Jesus, we the church spent the very centuries we became a global institution fabricating a racial hierarchy and continuing a patriarchal one to violently oppress a global majority through colonization.
This is an odd endeavor for a religion that claims its origin in a poor, oppressed man crucified by the Roman Empire for healing outcasts. Yet, in the United States, with Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery, American White settlers felt divine authority to engage in systematic genocide of Indigenous peoples to take their land, while building its economic power off the brutal enslavement of human beings from Africa. Christian texts and tradition, assumed as the dominant religious authority, justified the suppression of women, the continued segregation and oppression of Black people, the lack of recognition and rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, various military adventures, and the environmental destruction of the planet itself.
Yes — churches have done good, providing community and pastoral support and service, and building hospitals and establishing schools. Also, this history is nuanced by the African American church’s role in liberation movements and immigrant churches providing community.
However, there is no honest telling of American history that doesn’t acknowledge the major role of the predominantly White church institution in partnership with American governments and culture in damaging countless lives here and abroad. If we church people are to have any integrity, we must be a part of the Spirit’s movement to repair our own harm, especially in light of the rise of White Christian nationalism threatening democracy itself. Just as the Confession of 1967 emphasized the ministry of reconciliation, reparation may be the call of our time.
If we church people are to have any integrity, we must be a part of the Spirit’s movement to repair our own harm, especially in light of the rise of White Christian nationalism threatening democracy itself.
As a Presbyterian pastor in Oregon, I was one of the church leaders involved in an act we named “in the spirit of repair and healing toward the Indigenous community.” Earlier this year, the Presbytery of the Cascades finalized a transfer – technically a $1 sale – of the land of a former Presbyterian congregation to a local Native coalition to build Barbie’s Village, a tiny-home village for Indigenous families experiencing homelessness. That local Native coalition, Future Generations Collaborative (FGC), will also build out children and family programming as well as a general hub for FGC’s public health work and cultural gatherings.
The vision came from FGC, in honor of Barbie Shields, a Native volunteer whose family experienced being unhoused and was deeply concerned about Indigenous families lacking a home “on their own land,” as she often said. The transfer came after years of intentional bridging work, and even then, we saw how actualizing reparation versus the ideal is messy and can still cause harm. We church people had to learn to see beyond ourselves, not as the main character, struggling in a tangible way to let go of privilege and power.
But in November, the presbytery voted 135-24 for the transfer. Early childhood programs and community gatherings have already begun in the building. Plans are being made for children and families to have a roof over their head — led by and for Indigenous people. I have been told multiple times by Indigenous leaders that this was the first time they have felt “allies had our community’s back.”
And the truth is, my experience of working with FGC on Barbie’s Village shows that reparative work is incredibly healing and hopeful for the church, too. As a pastor, this work has renewed my own sense of call, particularly as a Filipino American minister in the church complicit in my ancestors’ colonization. Church people in the area took up, as part of their ministry-building relationships, with neighbors of Barbie’s Village as a welcome committee to dispel “not in my backyard” sentiment. We have all made new relationships across race, culture, and class — previously unthinkable, given our histories.
May we consider how reparation work can be healing for us all. May we listen to ways we can move with the Spirit toward repair.
