BLACK LIVES MATTER

At ThreeHouse Collaborative Campus Ministries, with the Lutheran Campus Ministry, we are called to “Do Justice, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with God” (Micah 6:8). ThreeHouse/LCM affirms that all people are Beloved Children of God who have a place in our world and our community. The inherent human dignity of all of God’s children must be recognized and held sacred. When our society systemically and continually fails to honor that inherent dignity and value of each of God’s beloved children, we cannot remain silent. We hear the historical legacy of trauma, frustration, pain, courage, and legitimate indignation behind the cry “Black Lives Matter.” And we are joining in. ThreeHouse hears, understands, affirms, and asserts unequivocally that Black Lives Matter. 

 

Do Justice:

  Justice requires speaking out and fighting against systemic practices and policies that perpetuate and sustain oppression. It requires gaining knowledge, learning from the experiences of the oppressed and challenging habits and practices of ignorance. It requires joining in to help raise the volume so that the voices of the too long marginalized and unjustly silenced can be heard. Failure to do so would be to remain complicit in perpetuating the sins of the past.

 

Love Mercy:

In loving mercy we are called to witness the power of love, generously and freely given, and to share in God’s abundant goodness by affirming the fundamental value and dignity of all creation. In a spirit of radical hospitality we are morally obligated to create a place where all are welcome and accepted as they are. As a Christian community we are a people bound to love others, and we aim to sow seeds of love and acceptance in all our endeavors.  

 

Walk Humbly: 

Humility calls us back to examine and name our own past and participation in these very systems and to evaluate how well we are living up to our own ideals. We recognize that, despite our professed values, we remain a predominantly white organization and that our own practices reflect the systemic injustices that are built into our broken society. We are called to use our privilege to be allies and combat social injustice. We resolve to change our practices in the future to become more authentically inclusive in a way that better exemplifies our core values.  

 

As Parker Palmer says, “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” Life is telling us that it’s time to say resoundingly and clearly that we are an organization that believes that Black Lives Matter. We have heard the stories call us. It’s who we want to be. It’s who we are.