My spiritual lineage has is a pretty straight line back to the earliest days of the Anabaptist peace movement… often referred to as the “radical reformation” within Christianity. The older I grow the more I appreciate aspects of my heritage. Case point is the latest curriculum being released by the Mennonite Church USA.
According to MC USA Executive Director Glen Guyton, the curriculum was developed in response to calls from Anabaptist clergy and congregations for a peace-tradition response to the continued brutalization of Black, Brown and Indigenous people, as witnessed by continued high profile police shootings across the United States.
“As Anabaptists, we are called to extend God’s holistic peace,” said Guyton, “even when the state sanctions violence and injustice. As our police force adopts the tools and tactics of our military, we as peacemakers need to think deeply about the intersection of our theology and our view of community policing.”
Glen Guyton, Mennonite CHurch USA Executive Director
Sue Park-Hur, Mennonite Church USA’s denominational minister for Transformative Peacemaking, will host an introductory webinar on the curriculum on April 29 at 7 p.m. EDT, that’s 4:00 PM for us in the Pacific time zone, featuring a panel discussion with the program’s authors. Register here.
The interactive course is positioned as “an initial guide for congregations who are desiring to begin or continue their reflection on what it means to engage the forces of state, their commitments to non-violence and how to act to end policing and police brutality.”
Rooted in scripture, the curriculum utilizes audio and video storytelling, hands-on activities and discussion prompts to explore topics, such as:
- Individual and community safety
- The purpose and history of policing
- Transformative justice
- The integration of policing in daily life
- Ideas for moving from education to connection and action
Peace, dwight
