Black lives rising: Black Lives Matter symposium
Black people can eat at most lunch counters and travel across state lines without being consigned to the back of the bus. But the fundamental right to life continues to be haunted by white supremacy.
The Black Lives Matter movement that has unfolded in cities and on campuses across the nation is writing a new chapter in black people’s struggle for liberation. We asked writers to reflect on what the movement has accomplished, where its energies should be focused, and what implications it has for churches. (Read all responses.)
Black Lives Matter is the Jesus event of the 21st century. The social and moral crucifixion of black life in the United States instigated the millennial imaginations of Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi to make the bold proclamation that now reverberates throughout the nation and world: Black Lives Matter. Responding to the incoherence of the criminal justice system and its July 2013 acquittal of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s assassin, these three black queer women found their voice and launched a resistance movement through social media.
While transcending the boundaries of religious orthodoxies as a transtheistic and sometimes nontheistic humanist movement, a womanist theo-ethical appraisal understands Black Lives Matter to have christological significance. It is precisely its afro-annunciation of the simultaneity of a “this day” reality that is “not yet” that is at the heart of its kerygma. Black Lives Matter reveals that though black lives (the temple) will be destroyed, they will also raise up (John 2:19).
