2013-2015 — A Decisive Turn Toward Racism

In 2013, Theology & Peace made a decisive turn toward addressing the systemic and sacrificial nature of racism. That year’s conference, “Lynching, Scapegoating & Actual Innocence,” was held in North Carolina and featured Black theologians — Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, and Dr. Julia Robinson who joined our Board. Local activists Christine Mumma of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence (NCCAI) and Vince Bantu from the Christian Community Development Association also joined us.

That conference coincided with the first weeks of Moral Mondays, which began on the steps of the Raleigh state capital in protest of the New Jim Crow. Organizers of those protests joined us in the evenings for prayers of support.

From that point on, Theology & Peace began to recognize that it was being called into a larger purpose.

In 2014, we returned to North Carolina to focus again on racism. The conference, “Barriers to Compassion,” featured Dr. Angela Sims, Professor of Ethics and Black Church Studies, who has written extensively on lynching.

In 2015, we went to Chicago to address racial violence and unjust economics. “Compassionate Economics: Can It Go Viral?” featured Brian McLaren and included our first presentation on mass incarceration, given by Andrew McKenna.