Refusing to Outsource Justice

McCormick The­o­log­i­cal Seminary

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Wes Pitts, McCormick The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary student

Where I am from, churches do not do social jus­tice. At best, they sup­port non-profit orga­ni­za­tions, which do the jus­tice work for them. Social jus­tice is farmed out to the sec­u­lar world, while churches focus on spir­i­tual formation.

My view of the role of church changed when I arrived at McCormick The­o­log­i­cal Seminary.

McCormick rep­re­sents the pro­gres­sive side of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.), but our stu­dents are all over the map. We have con­ser­v­a­tive and lib­eral stu­dents; women and men; queer and straight; Korean, Puerto Rican, Colom­bian, White, Black, and mul­tira­cial stu­dents; folks from Pres­by­ter­ian, Pen­te­costal, Uni­tar­ian, Bap­tist, and Catholic tra­di­tions. The list could go on. Diver­sity of this breadth means our com­mit­ments to jus­tice are equally diverse. McCormick pro­vides space through the class­room and beyond to engage in con­ver­sa­tion about our dif­fer­ences and sim­i­lar­i­ties, and to sim­ply learn from one another.

Being located on the South­side of Chicago pro­vides another lens through which our stu­dents view jus­tice. Chicago is one of the most racially seg­re­gated cities in the nation and has strug­gled with gang vio­lence in the poor­est neigh­bor­hoods (which also hap­pen to be neigh­bor­hoods where peo­ple of color pre­dom­i­nantly reside). No mat­ter our racial her­itage, socioe­co­nomic sta­tus, or cul­tural back­ground, our stu­dents are com­mit­ted to racial, sex­ual, and eco­nomic jus­tice. This means we have to, at the very least, acknowl­edge and talk about racism, sex­ism, and classism.

Our stu­dents have cre­ated a vari­ety of groups to open dia­logue among these jus­tice lines. These include, but are not lim­ited to: Acts 10:15, an orga­ni­za­tion which dis­cusses LGBTQ con­cerns; Eco-Justice, dis­cussing envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice; KASA, for Korean stu­dents; PASO, for African and African Amer­i­can stu­dents; and AELM, for His­panic stu­dents. While most of our stu­dent groups focus on the issues par­tic­u­lar to their social loca­tion, each pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties for the entire stu­dent body to par­tic­i­pate. Just this year our stu­dent groups have pro­vided the McCormick com­mu­nity with oppor­tu­ni­ties to dis­cuss sex­ual the­ol­ogy from a Pauline per­spec­tive, hear a ser­mon on the trans­fig­u­ra­tion from a trans­gen­dered per­spec­tive, par­tic­i­pate in work­shops on anti-racism train­ing, travel to Spring­field to lobby for a min­i­mum wage increase, and share meals with our stu­dents of dif­fer­ing cul­tural her­itage. Stu­dents have also been active in the Occupy move­ment and in demon­stra­tions for racial jus­tice sur­round­ing the death of Trayvon Martin.

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As a child of the South, it seemed odd to me that a church would fight for issues of justice—where I am from, non-profit orga­ni­za­tions do that work and the church nom­i­nally sup­ports them. Since being in this city, I have seen churches and pas­tors fight­ing for immi­gra­tion pol­icy change, cre­at­ing shel­ters for home­less LGBTQ youth, and being the cen­ter for
neigh­bor­hood revi­tal­iza­tion.
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Stu­dent involve­ment in issues of jus­tice is not lim­ited to extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties, how­ever. Our class­rooms are built upon them. McCormick is ded­i­cated to being Cross-Cultural, Ecu­meni­cal, Urban, and Reformed—not an easy task. McCormick offers sev­eral degrees (Mas­ter of Arts in Urban Min­istry, Mas­ter of Arts in Dis­ci­ple­ship Devel­op­ment, and Mas­ter of Divin­ity) for those who want to be involved in lead­er­ship in their com­mu­ni­ties of faith, to fight for jus­tice, and to share the peace of Christ with all.

Within these pro­grams, McCormick offers courses that lift up min­istries of jus­tice. Some of these classes include: The Church and Social Change, Food (focus­ing on food jus­tice), Reli­gious Plu­ral­ism and Min­istry, Sex­ual and Domes­tic Vio­lence, The Bible & Eco­nomic Jus­tice, Love & Jus­tice: Chris­t­ian Ethics of Bon­ho­ef­fer & M.L. King Jr., and Cul­tur­ally Atten­tive Ministry. Our pro­fes­sors are just as diverse as our stu­dent body and come from many dif­fer­ent back­grounds and are well qual­i­fied to facil­i­tate these dis­cus­sions. McCormick is proud to have a Jew­ish New Tes­ta­ment pro­fes­sor and a Mus­lim adjunct pro­fes­sor who deepen our aware­ness of the world in which we live and help fos­ter a pas­sion for inter­faith dialogue.

As a first year stu­dent, I am still in the begin­ning stages of my dis­cern­ment process. I do not know yet whether parish min­istry is right for me. How­ever, being in Chicago has been a real eye-opener. As a child of the South, most churches I expe­ri­enced were not con­cerned with issues of jus­tice. Enter­ing sem­i­nary it seemed odd to me that a church would fight for issues of justice—where I am from, non-profit orga­ni­za­tions do that work and the church nom­i­nally sup­ports them. Since being in this city I have seen churches and pas­tors fight­ing for immi­gra­tion pol­icy change, cre­at­ing shel­ters for home­less LGBTQ youth, and being the cen­ter for neigh­bor­hood revitalization.

If I do go into parish min­istry my hope is to bring the expe­ri­ence I have had at McCormick and in Chicago to that con­gre­ga­tion. I would want to work with a con­gre­ga­tion of folks who have never taken part in jus­tice advo­cacy, and develop a min­istry focused on pro­vid­ing a micro­phone for the silenced, shel­ter for the home­less, food for the hun­gry, water for the thirsty, and hope to the hope­less. I still have two years before grad­u­at­ing to think about how this will work out, or if it will at all. McCormick is a place where many of the skills I will need are avail­able if I just seek them out, and for that I am very thankful.

My hope is that the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) becomes a church for those in need—both spir­i­tu­ally and mate­ri­ally. Jesus called us to be part­ners in his jus­tice: “I give you a new com­mand­ment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how every­one will know that you are my dis­ci­ples, when you love each other” (John 13:34–35). Love is not easy or con­ve­nient, but we must be a church of love, not just for our­selves and our com­mu­nity, but with all of God’s good cre­ation. The Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) can achieve this by seek­ing jus­tice in all that it does. This is the call for us as the peo­ple of God and the body of Christ.

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