Very proud to be a student at North Park Seminary! Heres the faculty and staffs statement in response to our national racial crisis: As faculty and staff of North Park Theological Seminary we join our voice to those of our university, denomination, neighborhood, city, and nation and declare unequivocally: Black lives matter. We affirm the dignity of every human being as made in the image of God, created to flourish physically, emotionally, spirituality, socially, culturally and economically. As one body in Christ, if one part of the body suffers we all suffer; if one part of the body cannot breathe, none of us can breathe. The outcry heard on our campus and our streets demonstrates that the body of Christ cannot breathe. Violence against Black lives without sufficient cause or accountability points to a broken system and demands justice. We affirm the biblical witness that God desires justice on earth (Gen 18:19; Deut 16:19–20; Amos 5:15–24), that Christ himself is the servant who proclaims justice to the nations (Matt 12:18–21; cf. Isa 41:1–3), whose gospel puts to death hostility between races (Eph. 2:14-16), and that the Spirit intercedes as we pray that equality before the law be realized (Rom 8:26–27). When our institutions – especially our justice system – do not align with these values, the systems, and not the values, are at fault. As a seminary we support non-violent forms of civil disobedience that show solidarity with victims of power abuses and which refuse to perpetuate the very cycles of violence that spawn injustice. We commit to striving toward creating safe places for dialogue and conversation on the topic of racial justice in co-curricular activities, in our classrooms, in our community life. We, as the faculty and staff, acknowledge that the toil for justice is arduous and long. Nevertheless Christians must not ignore any injustice, therefore we are committed in our vocations as educators to teach and embody Gods heart for justice on our campus, in our city, and in the world.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 23:21:28 +0000