First Presbyterian has signed a joint statment by New Orleans Faith Leaders rejecting the separation of families at the US border.
The statement originated with the Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott of St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church. This week clergy will meet to share this statement broadly and talk about action steps in addressing the present border crisis of separating families.
12 June 2018
A call to welcome from faith leaders of New Orleans.
As leaders of faith communities, we walk with families every day through joy and suffering. The joys are certainly easier to bear than the struggles, but our task is to be present in both as we hold sacred space and offer words of peace, hope, love, and kindness. We do not simply embrace what is easy and ignore what is difficult as our task is not that of keeping peace. After all, our work is not just living out faith on behalf of our people but calling on our congregations to embody their faith traditions in the large and small moments of life. We tell our sacred stories again and again in hopes that we are being shaped and formed for our world that we might work together toward its healing.
It is time for faith leaders of all traditions to stand together with prophetic challenge for our people in the face of immoral actions being made by the leaders of our nation. Now is the time for faith leaders of all backgrounds and traditions to stand together in a moral moment facing the nation we call home.
We reject the inhumane treatment of separating migrant families at the United States borders. We reject the isolation and terror being inflicted on vulnerable children. We reject the trauma being added to already traumatized families who are fleeing danger, persecution, violence, and despair. We reject the political strategy of false narrative that speaks of migrants as animals and children as dangerous. We reject these practices coming from the highest offices of power, even if these practices are legal.
We call on people of faith to stand together in the face of hate and fear-mongering with a message of love. We call on people of faith to contact state and federal political leaders to speak sincerely as one’s sacred stories inspire—of holy welcome and radical hospitality, of human beings made in the Divine image, of integrity, hope, and loving kindness.
In this moment, we will stand as people of all faith traditions and no faith traditions, as neighbors and parents and friends and citizens, to grab the moral arc of the universe with a lasso and bend that thing toward justice. We will welcome deeply without classifications of worthy or unworthy. We will love because love is our command. We will take prophetic action, rooted in the ancient traditions of our faith communities. We will stand together in the face of corrupt power to protect the strangers in our midst.
Signed,
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott, St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church
Rev. Darcy Roake, Community Church Unitarian Universalist
Rev. Buddy Noel, Ecumenical and Interreligious Office, Archdiocese of New Orleans
Rev. Callie Winn Crawford, United Methodist Church
Rev. Sarah Chancellor-Watson, St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church
Rev. Shawn Anglim, First Grace UMC
Rev. William Thiele, School for Contemplative Living
Dr. Minka Shura Sprague, Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana
Rev. Dr. Jay Hogewood, Rayne Memorial UMC
Rabbi Matthew Reimer, Temple Sinai
Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn, Temple Sinai
Sister Alison McCrary, SFCC
Rev. Juanita Ramos, First Grace United Methodist Church
Rev. Oscar Ramos, One Love United Methodist Church
Rev. Dr. Cory Sparks, St. Mark's UMC
Rev. Fred Kammer, S.J., Executive Director, Jesuit Social Research Institute/Loyola University New Orleans
Rev. Susan Lassalle, United Church of Christ
Rev. Michaela O'Connor Bono, Mid City Zen Buddhist Community
Rev. Rachel Ringlaben, Misión Luterana Mesa Abierta (ELCA)
Clarita Bourque, MSC
Greta Jupiter, SSF
Claire Regan, SC
Liz Ferguson, OP
Dolores Maguire, CHF
Nancy Hale, CHF
Pauline O’Reilly, CHF
Janine Beniger, MSC
Joyce Hanks, MSC
Joanne Ladwig, SCC
Mary Faist, SSND
Suzanne Brauer, OP
Babara Hughes, CSJ
Ellen Poche, CSJ
Rochelle Perrier, MSC
Jeanne Moore, OP
Maura O’Donovan, CHF
Kevin Cahalan, Pax Christi New Orleans
Sr. Greta Jupiter, SSF, Congregational Leader Sisters of the Holy Family
The Session, First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans
Rabbi Alexis Berk, Touro Synagogue
Rev. Sharon Potts Carroll
