We've been talking about our value of Creative Liberation — a value at the heart of God's work on the earth. Yet, so often we have read the scriptures from a location of privilege and have failed to see that this gospel is good news to the poor. We must decolonize our faith and decenter whiteness, for the Biblical narrative is largely written from the perspective of those who are oppressed. I believe we must reclaim a faith where our conversion to God demands our conversion to our neighbor. Theologians like James Cone, Gustavo Gutiérrez, William Jennings, Miroslav Volf, Renita Weems, and many others can help us understand liberation as a central theme of the Biblical narrative. One of the gifts of graduate school is being introduced to many different perspectives, ideologies, and thought leaders, and I've been ruminating on the intersection of gospel and culture.

Does the gospel of Jesus Christ transform culture? Many Christians today believe in a gospel that transforms the soul but not society. This question then lies at the heart of a Christian’s socio-political understanding. For me, it is a resounding “yes.”

For if the arc of scripture begins with the goodness and shalom of Creation and ends with its restoration in New Creation, then it follows that we are to be participants in this work of transformation. “Can the conclusion be avoided that not only is shalom God’s cause in the world but that all who believe in Jesus will, along with him, engage in the works of shalom? Shalom is both God’s cause in the world and our human calling.”[1] Shalom is the underpinning for a socio-political understanding that seeks human flourishing, justice, and right relationships with God, self, neighbor, and creation. This vision of human happiness and wholeness found in the inseparable love of God and neighbor informs my belief in a Christ who transforms culture.

Ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr’s models for Christ and Culture prove helpful here. [2] Two of the most predominant approaches today hold moral weight, Christ Against Culture and Christ Of Culture. The former offers a faith deeply committed to preserving holiness and a counter-cultural life. The latter offers an engagement with culture and an ability to contextualize faith in the language and forms of the day. Yet, one without the other offers a misshapen gospel. I believe that Christ Transforming Culture demonstrates an incarnational model that holds these two together — in love of God and neighbor, piety and justice, love incarnate in the neighborhood for the flourishing of all. We need a "radical evangelicalism [that] offers a tradition and a trajectory that is biblically based, Christ-centered, and socially involved—a gospel that embraces forgiveness and holiness for individuals and redemption and wholeness for the world." [3]

It is a travesty that piety has been separated from justice in the sociopolitical sphere. For politics is nothing more than the interrelationships between people and how power is shared, a realm ripe for the preservation of salt, liberation from oppression, and restoration of communities.[4] This kingdom liberation does not locate itself in the kingdoms and empires of this world – either in confusing God’s kingdom with a political agenda or in hopes of gaining worldly power or dominion. Rather, it is located once again in the justice and shalom of “right relationship” or “righteousness.” It is in the explicit call of scripture to care for the most vulnerable and needy in our communities, “not in rights asserted against one another” [5] but in responsibilities of humanity’s covenantal bond and “inescapable mutuality.”[6] Faith without works is dead, and a religion that has largely failed to address the injustices of our times is an impotent one. “Christians have not done enough in this area of conversion to the neighbor, to social justice, to history. They have not perceived clearly enough yet that to know God is to do justice.” [7]

2020 was an apocalyptic year, a year of revelation. Amidst pandemic and protest, the deep seeds of racism and white supremacy were exposed in ways that captured our attention. The brutal violence white people’s privilege had distanced them from now played over and over on screens. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder that catalyzed demonstrations all across our nation, it was increasingly difficult to believe that racism was a part of our ugly past.[8] Though this was nothing new for black, latinx, or asian american communities, many white folks awakened to the systemic and persistent evil of white supremacy. This was a time of grief, outrage, and protest amidst the tide of police brutality against black and brown bodies. The prophets cried out, “I can’t breathe.” [9]

You can be sure that God heard their cries. For our God is a God on the side of the oppressed — those who are crushed, degraded, humiliated, exploited, impoverished, defrauded, and enslaved. Yet what was the response of God’s people? Did the Church hear their cries?

Many did not. Many chose to stay clear of the “politics” of the day in a Christ Against Culture stance. Others became even more entrenched in the particular ideology of their political party both right and left, unwilling to converse with the “other” in a Christ Of Culture approach. The polarizing divides were profound — splitting apart families, friends, and churches.

Similar to previous times of civil unrest, there was “the appalling silence of the good people” within the white church, who professed their love for all lives, denied their culpability, and proved to be a “great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom.” [10] There was a refusal to see, let alone address, the systemic nature of racism, resorting once again to a gospel that sanctions the personal over the social. The roots of this bifurcation go back to our country’s inception in the doctrine of the "spirituality of the church." This spirituality attempted to extricate the church from addressing the social evils of slavery, promoting a “Christianity [that] could save one’s soul but not break one’s chains.” [11] Yet, this hideous distortion of the gospel repeats in response to the outcries to value black lives. “Where were the saints trying to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves [oppressed communities], but to do away with slavery [the systems that brutalize and oppress communities]?” [12] Who was listening to the black and brown prophets of the day?

Fortunately, there is a remnant of Christians who believe that Christ Transforms Culture in the sociopolitical sphere. Those who were willing to repent of America’s greatest sin, white supremacy, offering more than “thoughts and prayers.” They listened deeply to a perspective that contradicted their own. They learned a hard and grievous history. They stood in solidarity with the oppressed in protests and vigils. They followed the prophetic witness of African American, Native American, Asian American, and Latinx theologians and church leaders, engaging in civil action. They spoke out against white supremacy in their pulpits and among their peers not without cost, insisting that all created in the divine image share in equity and justice. They wrestled profoundly and lamented their complicity, beginning to find ways to take up the cause of the oppressed, amplify marginalized voices, and elevate black lives.

Yet Christians today must commit to the long, hard road of a lived repentance, “for our conversion to the Lord implies this conversion to our neighbor” — a radical transformation where we come to know “Christ present in exploited and oppressed persons.” [13] “We are not to stand around, hands folded, waiting for shalom to arrive. We are workers in God’s cause,” [14] joining the Spirit’s work of peace-making, justice, and liberation on the earth.


by Jessica Ketola


[1] Nicholas Wolterstorff, “For Justice with Shalom”, in Until Justice and Peace Embrace: The Kuyper Lectures for 1981 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 72.
[2] Reinhold Niebuhr, “Types of Christian Ethics,” In Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture, Glen H. Stassen, Diane M. Yeager, and John Howard Yoder (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 15-29.
[3] Donald W. Dayton, Rediscovering an Evangelical Heritage (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 200.
[4] Matthew 5:13, Isaiah 58: 6-7, 12
[5] Karen Lebacqz, “Implications for a Theory of Justice,” in From Christ to the World: Readings in Christian Ethics, eds. Wayne Boulton, Thomas Kennedy, and Allen Verhey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 257.
[6] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr, 1963, 1.
[7] Gustavo Gutiérrez, “Liberating Spirituality,” in Spiritual Writings (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2011), 49.
[8] “‘I Can’t Breathe’: The Refrain That Reignited a Movement,” Amnesty International, June 30, 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/i-cant-breathe-refrain-reignited-movement.
[9] Jessica Ketola, “A Time of Reckoning, Revelation, Repentance, and Reformation: The Epiphany of America’s Greatest Sin,” Medium, January 12, 2021, https://medium.com/interfaith-now/a-time-of-reckoning-revelation-repentance-and-reformation-7003c588875b.
[10] King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 4.
[11] Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019), 38.
[12] Kathleen Jorden, “The Nonviolence of Dorothy Day,” in From Christ to the World: Readings in Christian Ethics, eds. Wayne Boulton, Thomas Kennedy, and Allen Verhey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 443.
[13] Gutiérrez, “Liberating Spirituality,” 48.
[14] Wolterstorff, “For Justice with Shalom,” 72.

The deep seeds of racism continue to bear hate in our community. We must disrupt, overturn, and till the soil of systems that are perfectly designed for the results we are getting now with gross inequities and racial violence and terror.

People ask — how do we work for change? The answer is that change happens on the ground — in the very soil that has been cultivated and then stolen from our black and indigenous siblings. The battlegrounds are our neighborhoods. And this is being played out in vivid color here in the Ridgecrest neighborhood as a black, middle-school activist is being threatened by numerous racist neighbors. And it seems Shoreline Police are responding as the system is designed to — by favoring imagined threats from white folk and dismissing real threats from black folk. We must decide whose streets these are. Are these streets for the white, the privileged and the power-brokers or are these streets for everyone?

We have been told that we have little power to affect change and have thus given up the gift of what it means to be a citizen, to love our neighbor, and to be responsible to a place and to the flourishing of all the diverse people who live here. We must pick up our God-given vocations to be cultivators, creators, and architects of our own places. The power to create a new foundation of equity lies here on the ground.

Decisions that affect our entire community are being made by a small group of people - in school board rooms and city planning meetings. Decisions that shape and affect our lives together here — decisions about zoning and who owns the land, small businesses, walkability, parks and sidewalks, human services, mental health, and policing. If we do nothing, the powers of greed, white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism will continue to wreak havoc all while singing us a siren song. We must WAKE UP and SHOW UP. We must no longer abdicate our power. We must begin to tear down and dismantle systems that are not working for all. And we must reimagine together a new future. One that I believe Dr. King imagined as God's dream for the Beloved Community and one that The Practicing Church embraces wholeheartedly.

If you live in Shoreline, I urge you to follow Black Lives Matter - Shoreline (or the chapter in your community) and show your support. Get involved, give, write emails, and attend rallies and protests. Use your voice to amplify the voices of black and indigenous leaders already on the ground doing good work in your neighborhood! Support courageous and passionate neighbors like these Shoreline youth who are putting their hearts, souls, and bodies on the line to reimagine a new future!

Together we can lean into the radical way of Jesus to love our neighbor, dismantle oppression, disrupt empire, and fight for justice!
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Won't you join us?
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by Jessica Ketola

This week has been a week like none other. We are collectively experiencing great upheaval, grief, and trauma across our nation. As we continue to be in lock down due to a global pandemic with almost 110,000 deaths in the U.S., we are simultaneously watching the whole country ablaze with outrage and protest in the wake of the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others. It is heavy. These apocalyptic times seem to be unveiling all the deep wounds of racism, violence and white supremacy in our country in a way that seem to have our attention.

And so amidst the grief and the lament, a stubborn hope persists. For right alongside the disturbing images of demagogues, contortions of faith, and military police using excessive force in the face of peaceful protestors, I see so many beautiful displays of repentance and solidarity. Sustained protests in all 50 states, made up of every shade of black, brown and white, coming together to see justice roll like a river in our streets. Profound images of protestors and officers taking a knee, crowds singing in unity, and children chanting in the streets. And while it will take much more than symbols or prayers to disrupt systemic racism and many rightly criticize a false peace, I pray that this movement toward one another continues.

For it is empire that wants to divide and conquer. It is a system of scarcity where violence, greed and fear reign. We fight one another and in turn, we all suffer. And in a time of extreme polarization and division across our country, we are all bearing the brunt of our fragmentation.

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Structured racism MUST be abolished but we can't stop there! A tree has roots and so does the current American dilemma. The root of our problems stem from a warped Western worldview that values hierarchy over the dignity of every voice, binary choices over living in wise compromise or becoming comfortable with tension, and individualism instead of community ethics for the common good..." -Randy Woodley

Saint Paul said it like this, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." -I Corinthians 12:26

​My prayer of repentance begins with acknowledging that as a white woman of privilege, I have not suffered with my black and brown siblings who are suffering.

Distance is a privilege that we must surrender. -Sunia Gibbs

My prayer is that we will LEAN IN.

Lean into the discomfort. Lean into the learning. Lean into the listening. Lean into the grief and the horror of solidarity. For those of you like me who are white, you may just be waking up to your complicity in these systems of oppression. You may be struggling to know how to join the fight for justice. I too struggle. What I can say is that we must lean in. Repentance looks like giving up the privilege of distance and listening to the black and brown leaders who have been in this work a long time.

Racism is traumatic. Black people are experiencing a collective trauma. Being heard is necessary to our healing. ⁣ -Latasha Morrison

Know that this is a costly and arduous journey that must go beyond toxic tears and social media spurts void of true repentance. As followers of Jesus, we are called to repent, to live another way, and to join in the revolution of love. So let's roll up our sleeves, do our work, and lean in.

Know that The Practicing Church is committed to the long road of repentance, the dismantling of white supremacy, and the co-creation of the beloved community. Though we admit our profound ineptitude and ignorance to do so, we fall upon the leading of the Spirit who alone can bring the transformation needed in our hearts and our communities. And over the coming weeks and months, we will commit ourselves to journey together.

And so as you lean into your own discomfort this week, as you perhaps attend an anti-racist webinar, or dive into your anti-racist book, attend a protest, or have hard conversations, I leave you with this blessing from writer, pastor and author, Dominique Gilliard who contemporized this classic Franciscan prayer for this kairos moment.

May God bless you with holy anger at white supremacy, police brutality, and racial oppression, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from systemic racism, xenophobia, and anti-blackness, so that you may sacrificially reach out to them in love, learn how to stand in solidarity with them, and work alongside them to transform broken systems and structures.

May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we really CAN make a difference in this world, so that we are able, with God's grace, to help the Church do what others claim cannot be done: truly become an interconnected Body, where when one part suffers, every part suffers with it. -Dominique DuBois Gilliard


by Jessica Ketola