After a week of protests and riots following George Floyd’s death, hundreds of Christians and hip-hop artist Lecrae gathered in Atlanta with hopes of calling out for the end of racial violence.
On Monday, the OneRace Movement held an event at Liberty Plaza outside the state capitol building in downtown Atlanta. The movement is a Christian coalition that exists to “displace the spirit of racism and release a movement of racial reconciliation across Atlanta, the Southeast, and the nation.”
Coalition Of Christians
OneRace co-director, Josh Clemons told the crowd, “Today, we are not here to talk about the protests. We are not here to talk about the riots. We are not here to talk about the looting. What we are here to talk about today is the injustice in our land.”
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Further, he said, “I think this is a moment for the Church, for you, for me to cry out: Enough is enough! It’s time for a change. It’s time for reform and it’s time for the church to lead the way.”
Several Christian leaders and pastors joined the coalition and released an official statement on the movement. They called it “The OneRace Statement on Righteousness and Justice: A call to end Racial Violence.”
“The Christian Community must engage this issue spiritually & civically,” the statement reads. “This engagement must begin with understanding the deep history of racism in our nation, then owning that history as our collective spiritual responsibility, and then engaging in our spheres of influence constructively to change the story for future generations.”
Lecrae
Also, Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae spoke in the news conference.
“My burden [is] my mother marched in the ‘60s and ‘70s and protested these issues of systemic racism and injustice,” he said. “She took me to my first march after Rodney King was unjustly beaten. I marched and protested in Ferguson for Mike Brown, … for Sandra Bland. Here we are four years later in the same situation doing the same thing. Something different has got to happen. There has to be a change.”
Then he pointed out, “I am all for the idea that the Gospel is what changes hearts. But the Gospel is both explicit and implicit. The Gospel is in the form of the cross. The cross is vertical but it is also horizontal. So there has got to be some horizontal implications in what you believe, taking action in your churches, in your communities and in your jobs.”
OneRace Movement
More so, the OneRace statement encourages believers to “work to end racially-motivated acts of violence” by “voting in local elections for candidates that uphold our values of equity and dignity toward all races” and serving “in our communities across racial lines.”
They are urging Christians to “speak up and participate in nonviolent protest whenever we see the injustice that demands our attention” as well.
“We all have varying degrees of power, position, and privilege,” said the statement. “In following the example of our Savior as described in Philippians 2:3, we must count others as more important than ourselves, exercising our power, position, and privilege for the betterment of those not like us.”
Additionally, OneRace movement leaders announced during the news conference about their plans of having the “March on Atlanta.” And they are inviting tens of thousands of people to participate on June 19.
Source: The Christian Post
