Throughout the last few weeks in January, we have been exploring what it means to reset and resist while learning and growing in our faith in connection with the Social Principles of The United Methodist Church. As Pastors Suzanne and Todd have shared in their sermons, these Social Principles, along with our Baptismal vows to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves,” have been embedded in our United Methodist history, theology, and collective narrative for some time. Through the work of John Wesley as he cared and advocated with the poor, imprisoned, and vulnerable in society, to the current work of the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church in Washington D.C., we are tied to United Methodists around the world in this fight for justice and equity in the name of the Gospel.
Evil, injustice, and oppression are all interconnected in our Baptismal Vows for a reason: because our society has interconnected them. Through policies, laws, leadership, and history, we see that there are many examples of how evil, injustice, and oppression have presented themselves as a cornerstone for most discriminations in the United States. Our Environmental Community, our Political Community, our Social Community, and our Economic Community all experience the effects of these realities, and it is important for us as people of Christian faith to understand how to dismantle these atrocities.
This Sunday, we will explore how to reset and resist oppression in conversation with the Economic Community in the Social Principles. Oppression and economics are just as layered of social issues in the United States as the other topics we have discussed, but I want to ask:
How do we live into and speak out against devastating injustices like Jesus did when Jesus says tells us to love our neighbor or to turn the other cheek if our neighbor is actively oppressing another?
How do we live into and speak out against devastating injustices like Jesus did when maybe we’re contributing to the oppression of another?
How do we live into and speak out against devastating injustices like Jesus did?
Join me on Sunday as we wrestle with these questions.
Meredith Menius
Director of Connecting and Discipleship Ministries