The institutional Church has a vitally important responsibility to call out sin embedded in our human-created structures, particularly when it has been complicit in such sin, whether overtly or through silence. During Lent, a large group of Christian leaders in the US issued a document, “A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis.” These leaders, among them our own Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, are deeply concerned about certain trends in American society, involving racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, among other sins. These attitudes are particularly heinous when perpetrated and supported by some who consider themselves Christians, using rather tortured interpretations of Scripture that run absolutely counter to the “love command” of Jesus: “Love one another, as I have loved you,” (John 12:34). They believe it is past time for the Church to stand in prophetic witness against such sinful attitudes. This document, an expression of the “Reclaiming Jesus” movement, is an important declaration for our time and an example of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church.
