JULY 6, 2020 | by Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, NCNW National Chaplain and President of Skinner Leadership Institute
God of our weary years and silent tears, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand so that no one can withstand you. We, your children of color – African Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, and Asians American–come boldly to your throne of grace, to seek the power to resist and crush evil forces of racial bigotry and systemic injustice that have long stained our nation.
We have been magnificently created in your image and deserve to be treated with all the dignity and divinity in which you lovingly fashioned us. Instead, we have suffered the weighty power of systemic racism driven by greed for our land or our free labor used to build wealth and influence by those in power. In exchange, Lord God, we have received contempt and white supremacy-contrived measures, shaped into laws, policies, and practices that, for centuries, have crushed and dehumanized our people. Two hundred forty-four years after America’s Independence, these laws are still manifest in systematic disparities in health, housing, wealth, criminal justice, banking, education, and other areas of life that impact people of color.
Lord, you do not show partiality, and love all your children so much that you sent the Redeemer into our world to forgive sins and grant us the blessing of eternal life. Yet, human courts issuing unjust laws continue to fail us and sustain injustice. So, we appeal to you, the Chief Justice of the high courts of heaven, to rule from heaven so that earth must respond to the social and racial justice that freedom and equality now demand. Thank you, God, for answering the fervent prayers of our ancestors, and our prayers, by responding to the marching feet of multi-generational and multi-racial protesters demanding a re-constituted America where “we the people” includes your children of every hue and background. In your powerful and precious name, we pray, Lord God. AMEN.
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