‘I can’t breathe.’

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and an international surge of the Black Lives Matter movement, how might we lament together, seek healing, and find hope for a unified witness?

It’s time to stop perpetuating the idea that we have to choose between believing ‘Black lives matter’ or ‘all lives matter’. Time to move past the tired binary of systemic injustice versus personal responsibility. Time to stop playing the blame game while nothing changes, sitting in silent collusion.

Like the prophets of old, we need eyes to see through the flames to ‘the fire that has been raging for over 400 years, consuming successive generations of Black lives’, as Bishop of Willesden Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy so vividly reminds us. We need ears to hear in the riots the cries of the unheard, as Martin Luther King Jr declared a generation ago.

This is not simply someone else’s issue. As Azariah France-Williams revealed in his book Ghost Ship, institutional racism continues here in the UK, requiring reform among Christians so the whole UK church can truly become a place of Black flourishing.

We all agree, racism is evil and an afront to God. So how will we play our part? And what practices on our frontlines will support this overdue reformation?

It’s time to come together as equals at the foot of the cross on which Christ was lynched and find healing. It’s time to discover a hopeful witness foreshadowing the racial unity-in-diversity of a world made new.

Recorded on Zoom on 25 March 2021.

Timings:

1. Liturgy with Denis Adide – 16:11
2. Address from Chine McDonald – 30:08
3. Q&A – 1:09:06