{"id":362,"date":"2014-10-14T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/10\/an-open-letter-to-bishop-charles-e-blake-and-the-church-of-god-in-christ.html"},"modified":"2014-10-14T22:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T22:00:00","slug":"an-open-letter-to-bishop-charles-e-blake-and-the-church-of-god-in-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/10\/an-open-letter-to-bishop-charles-e-blake-and-the-church-of-god-in-christ.html","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to Bishop Charles E. Blake and the Church of God in Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
The 107th Holy Convocation of the Church of God in Christ will be held from November 3-11, 2014\u00a0in St. Louis, Missouri and as a concerned progressive Christian of the millennial generation, I implore you that during this week of meetings, worship services and workshops that you lead this aggregation of people\u00a0outside of the Edward Jones Dome toward the seats of governmental power in the city of Ferguson, the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri and demand justice on behalf of the family of Michael Brown.<\/span><\/div>\n
Growing up in the institutional Black Church, I understand that as an institution that it was instrumental in the liberation of Africans enslaved on these shores both in the visible and invisible church as well as the liberation of the descendants of these same African slaves who never experienced the emancipation of their own bodies from the bondage of white racism and chattel slavery. \u00a0I also understand that the Black Church, as an institution, has held the nexus of pneumatological power from the inception of this country as well as possession of a prophetic voice that produced both a Martin Luther King and a Bishop Charles Mason, a Malcolm X and a Bishop Gilbert Patterson, a Jarena Lee and a Jacqueline McCollough, a Prathia Hall and a Gertrude Stacks, a Thomas Dorsey and a Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.<\/span><\/div>\n
To plan\u00a0a national convention that\u00a0provides an\u00a0economic boost to the city of St. Louis as much as $35 million in years past<\/a>, but potentially\u00a0miss the power of your presence to be in the city of St. Louis at such a time as this is the equivalent of Peter missing the Holy Spirit multiple times leading toward the conversion of Cornelius; to potentially ignore\u00a0the plight of your\u00a0own brothers and sisters a mere\u00a012 miles away in Ferguson is tantamount to standing at the foot of cross and watching Jesus suffer not just a spiritual crucifixion, but a political lynching and say nothing\u2013and do nothing! \u00a0We sit in churches week after week and hear about our own sisters and brothers succumbing to oppressive systems of politics and education, race and religion and we do nothing\u2013we say nothing. \u00a0Bishop Blake, et. al., now is your time and your opportunity to do something about it.<\/span><\/div>\n
The time is now to utilize the power of the Holy Ghost and the possession of the prophetic voice to turn the world upside down.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 107th Holy Convocation of the Church of God in Christ will be held from November 3-11, 2014\u00a0in St. Louis, Missouri and as a concerned progressive Christian of the millennial generation, I implore you that during this week of meetings, worship services and workshops that you lead this aggregation of people\u00a0outside of the Edward Jones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Open Letter to Bishop Charles E. 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