Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rev. Jarrett Kerbel is rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and a member of DTL’s east regional steering committee.
“So what is the ‘church’ reason for getting involved?” When a community organizer asks to meet with me, that is my first question.
I may be in complete agreement that something political, economic or social needs to be reformed. To take your issue to my congregation, however, I need to articulate the particular theological case for church engagement.
The objection typically arises that the church should not engage at all. To that rejoinder I simply ask, “Would you have said the same to the churches when they were deeply engaged in the abolition movement, the women’s suffrage movement or the civil rights movement?”
We could also include the Prohibition movement, which had profoundly mixed and ambiguous motivations while being rooted in the church’s concern for vulnerable women. In the case of the civil rights, abolition and suffrage movements, it is hard to argue that the church was wrong to mobilize against evil enshrined in law. So why not continue in that fine tradition?
Simply put and expanded below, the church is called to be engaged — to lend voice, moral authority, resources and organized effort — to resist evil and to reorder our common life in ways that protect the most vulnerable and enhance human dignity for all people.
Read more at https://drawthelinespa.org/citizen-stories/why-i-see-gerrymandering-as-a-sin-that-people-of-faith-should-oppose.
Leave a Reply