General Assembly -- Day 5
No matter what else happens today at the first session of actual votes, nothing is more significant than the passage of the Belhar Confession of Faith, adding the first the new creed to the Book of Confessions since 1989.
This confession binds peoples together, recognizing and celebrating the liberating power of Christ in the face of human atrocity, oppression, and bigotry. It is a creed born in the death of apartheid. It is a creed that was part of a resurrection of a nation from unimaginable darkness--a confession flowing from the new-found freedom of all South Africans from the darkness of enforced prejudice. But it is a creed that immediately rises beyond its context. It is a great cry for justice. It is a great hymn to the power of Christ to claim every single human life--all 7 billion of them--as a wondrous, glorious child formed by God, breathed into life by God, and kept by God in mercy, no matter what color they are, what orientation they are, or what language they speak. It is a celebration of humanity as the Image of God, without the stain of human sinfulness--not that we are sinless, but rather that we are redeemed, made new, raised up by the power of God, overcoming every other power imaginable.
You begin to see why for me this action to accept this creed trumps any and all other actions taken, no matter important they might be. This simple statement of faith is what we are as followers of Christ. It is what we are to be about as God's children. It is what we are to be as we seek to embody the compassion of Christ within the world.
So, tonight--I keep this post brief. Just take in the momentous power of this acceptance as an affirmation of what we can be as a fellowship Christ.
We are free.
We are loved.
We can love others into freedom.
May it be so.
This confession binds peoples together, recognizing and celebrating the liberating power of Christ in the face of human atrocity, oppression, and bigotry. It is a creed born in the death of apartheid. It is a creed that was part of a resurrection of a nation from unimaginable darkness--a confession flowing from the new-found freedom of all South Africans from the darkness of enforced prejudice. But it is a creed that immediately rises beyond its context. It is a great cry for justice. It is a great hymn to the power of Christ to claim every single human life--all 7 billion of them--as a wondrous, glorious child formed by God, breathed into life by God, and kept by God in mercy, no matter what color they are, what orientation they are, or what language they speak. It is a celebration of humanity as the Image of God, without the stain of human sinfulness--not that we are sinless, but rather that we are redeemed, made new, raised up by the power of God, overcoming every other power imaginable.
You begin to see why for me this action to accept this creed trumps any and all other actions taken, no matter important they might be. This simple statement of faith is what we are as followers of Christ. It is what we are to be about as God's children. It is what we are to be as we seek to embody the compassion of Christ within the world.
So, tonight--I keep this post brief. Just take in the momentous power of this acceptance as an affirmation of what we can be as a fellowship Christ.
We are free.
We are loved.
We can love others into freedom.
May it be so.
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