Asking the Clergy: How does your congregation engage with Black Lives Matter?

Black Lives Matter continues to inspire activism from Long Island’s streets to its houses of worship. This week’s clergy discuss how their congregations address such issues as racism, white privilege and reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

The Rev. Monte Malik Chandler

Senior pastor, Assembly of Prayer Baptist Church, Roslyn Heights

The Black Lives Matter movement has always been a part of the Black church because Black liberation and social justice are inextricably tied to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We fully embrace the BLM movement because it affirms the lives and constitutional rights of everyone, especially Black people.

Historically, the Black church was at the forefront and front lines for freedom, and this has not changed. Our goal is to follow the call of Jesus Christ even when it demands turning over tables in the temple, courts of law, schools and corporate America. We cannot call ourselves Christians and not demand justice for those who have suffered from the systemic effects of white supremacy.

Sitting on the sidelines will never be our posture. Ancestors, like Nat Turner, provide for us the strength and inspiration to fight for Black liberation, Black reparations, Black education, even in the face of death, because there is no greater love than to lay down our lives for our Black brothers and sisters.

The Rev. Nancy Rakoczy

Pastor, St. John Lutheran Church, Bellmore

In my sermons, as a white pastor, I have been encouraging my congregation to consider that even if we are the “world’s nicest people” (my words), we still benefit from a hierarchy that places whiteness always at the top. This hierarchy is in our bones. That doesn’t mean we are hate-filled people, just often oblivious. Yet our obliviousness is not innocent since it comes at a cost to persons of color.

In one of my sermons, I gave an example in which I told a story on myself of suddenly waking up to an interaction in a supermarket where I assumed since I was white, I should go first. I reined myself in just in time! Who knows how many times I’ve done this and just assumed my position in the hierarchy?

For our brothers and sisters of color, that is a daily dose of death by a thousand paper cuts — small interactions that reinforce the hierarchy of color. We need to awaken to our own part in creating and maintaining an unequal society.

In another recent sermon, I said it’s time for us nice white people to take ourselves off the hierarchy and repudiate the hierarchy itself. As white people we can defeat evil by disowning it. We can do this action by joining hands in friendship with people of color in an authentic way.

Faroque A. Khan

Chairman, Interfaith Institute of the Islamic Center of Long Island, Westbury

The Quran says, “That whoever kills a person — it is as if he killed the whole of mankind; and whoever saves it, it is as if he saved the whole of mankind.” (5:32)

In his final sermon delivered in AD 632, Prophet Muhammad emphasized that race/ethnicity does not reflect a person’s character, it’s his/her actions and piety that matter. He preached racial equality and justice for all. Prophet Muhammad advocated by deeds and policies his anti-racist policy, against covert and overt systemic racism that usually results from arrogance.

We as Muslims are taught to speak out against injustice by words, deeds and action, even such injustice by our close family members. The well-documented killings of Black people by law enforcement authorities points to a systemic/cultural problem of racial injustice and a criminal justice system with disproportionate incarceration of young Black men. This needs to be corrected.

I support the Black Lives Matter movement, which was launched to address racial injustice. The Interfaith Institute plans to host programs over the next few months focused on racism/white skin privilege, criminal justice/mass incarceration/policing, education and housing disparities on Long Island and reparations for African Americans.