{"id":3599,"date":"2013-01-24T20:58:08","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T00:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/?p=3599"},"modified":"2013-01-24T20:58:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T00:58:27","slug":"how-the-beloved-community-can-heal-communities-samuel-atchison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2013\/01\/24\/how-the-beloved-community-can-heal-communities-samuel-atchison\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Beloved Community Can Heal Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Editor\u2019s Note<\/strong>: As I was traveling this week, I\u2019m especially grateful for a few guest posts. The below is from Rev. Samuel Atchison<\/strong>, who supervised my work in prison chaplaincy for about three years (first as a seminary internship, and then in a volunteer capacity). He wrote a piece appropriate for MLK Day, so I apologize for publishing this late.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0*<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.\u00a0 He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord\u2019s favor and the day of vengeance of our God\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>\u2013 Isaiah 61:1-2a<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>For the past year or so, I\u2019ve been revisiting the works of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and wrestling with his notion of the Beloved Community and whether it might point a way toward healing in our society. \u00a0For Dr. King, the Beloved Community was a healing community.\u00a0 The Beloved Community was not a utopian vision of what God\u2019s people would become in the \u201csweet by and by.\u201d Rather, the it is what we are called to be in this life as the arm of God extended to the world.<\/p>\n

In evangelical terms (though King was not an evangelical), the Beloved Community is a community of the Redeemed (because without redemption we remain stuck in our own pain)\u00a0through whom God affects healing to our community.\u00a0 To borrow a phrase from my friend, the late George Gallup, Jr., the Beloved Community is made up of \u201cthe saints among us.\u201d\u00a0 For Gallup, the saints among us are those for whom the reality of God in their lives has an impact for good in the lives of those around them.<\/p>\n

Thus we come to the text in Isaiah 61 where the prophet, because of the presence of God in his life, is able to speak healing to his generation.\u00a0 What is interesting about Isaiah\u2019s situation is that he is speaking at a time when the leaders of his nation were living ungodly lives and were thus making ungodly policy decisions that had a negative impact on the nation.<\/p>\n

Isaiah\u2019s prophecies thus reflected divine chastisement, for as we say in the black church, \u201cGod don\u2019t like ugly.\u201d\u00a0 Sin, as the Scriptures make clear, is a stumbling block to any people.\u00a0 Yet even in the midst of chastisement, God gives a vision of hope for the future: \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor\u2026to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim [both] the year of the Lord\u2019s favor and<\/span> <\/em>the day of vengeance of our God.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, though chastisement is necessary, an end to the suffering is in the offing.<\/p>\n

How then can we make the reality of God in our lives affect healing in the lives of others?\u00a0 How can the Beloved Community become a healing community?<\/p>\n

In my hometown of Trenton, NJ, a group of us have been wrestling with this issue.\u00a0 In recent months, an uptick in violent crime \u2013 much of it gang-related \u2013 has led to a near-record number of murders and set the city on edge.<\/p>\n

Our group, made up of a coterie of pastors and laypeople from area churches, quickly came to the conclusion that we, as members of the faith community, had to have an effective response to this problem.\u00a0 After all, many of the perpetrators and victims of these crimes were in some way connected with our congregations.\u00a0 Moreover, research has shown that the faith community, when engaged, can have a tremendous impact on a broad range of dysfunctional and even criminal behaviors.<\/p>\n

Thus, through a seed grant provided by the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation<\/a> as part of a national project called \u2013 ironically \u2013 \u201cHealing Communities<\/a>,\u201d we conducted a four-week series of workshops that examined the church\u2019s role in addressing such issues of crime, incarceration, prisoner re-entry and victimization.<\/p>\n

Among those who attended the workshop series were former criminal offenders, the families and friends of crime victims, the parents of current gang members, several local pastors, and a senior prison official.\u00a0 The dialogue between this eclectic mix of people proved both enlightening and cathartic, as they shared information, personal stories and tears.<\/p>\n

To be sure, the violence hasn\u2019t stopped \u2013 yet \u2013 but the conversation has begun to change.\u00a0 Perhaps that\u2019s where healing begins \u2014 where the Beloved Community, the community of the redeemed, opens its arms to those the world considers unredeemable, and invites us all to an open table where we can see one another as human beings deserving of grace and truth.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

NOTE: Adapted from a sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Trenton, NJ, for Martin Luther King, Jr., Sunday, January 20, 2013.\u00a0<\/em>Rev. Samuel K. Atchison is the president of the Trenton Ecumenical Area Ministry (TEAM)<\/a> and the site director of the Trenton Healing Communities Program. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: As I was traveling this week, I\u2019m especially grateful for a few guest posts. The below is from Rev. Samuel Atchison, who supervised my work in prison chaplaincy for about three years (first as a seminary internship, and then in a volunteer capacity). He wrote a piece appropriate for MLK Day, so I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":3600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,371],"tags":[1164,1165,1163,1162],"class_list":["post-3599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race","category-social-justice","tag-beloved-community","tag-healing-communities","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-samuel-atchison"],"yoast_head":"\nHow the Beloved Community Can Heal Communities - Philosophical Fragments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Editor's Note: As I was traveling this week, I'm especially grateful for a few guest posts. The below is from Rev. 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