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A month ago, I was in the San Francisco Bay Area for my sort-of-annual visit to the place where I lived for 37 years, to connect with lots of old friends. As usual, I attended the church where I had been a member for a long time before leaving for New York City, First Congregational Church of Oakland. You may have seen an article about them in the Washington Post. My old congregation is, as we speak, going through the soul searching and preparation to wean themselves from using the police to solve problems that may come up in the building – or as my guest on this program, Nichola Torbett puts it, “We will no longer outsource our violence.”
Lately, it seems that often when people call for police help to take care of someone who’s mental state has made them belligerent, or who refuses to leave, or is simply an African American male, someone winds up
dead. This congregation realized that if they were going to not be complicit, they’d have to change their relationship to violence and to the police. We’ll hear about their process in reaching these decisions and how they are being implemented
Nichola Torbett is a lay leader in this lay-led United Church of Christ church. She’s part of the worship team and does spiritual development work. Up until a few years ago, she led Seminary of the Street, which offered lay people a chance to study and experiment with integrating a gospel of justice into their lives.
Be sure to go to LoveInADangerousTime.net, and check the show notes to find the news stories about First Congo and links to books and organizations that are mentioned in the interview.
So let’s go to Oakland, California, the town of my roots, for this very interesting talk with Nichola Torbett.
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First Congo’s Holy Week Declaration:
NO MORE STATE-SPONSORED CRUCIFIXIONS IN THE NAME OF “SAFETY”
SURJ Faith Campaign inviting congregations to think about their relationship to policing. Here’s the link to that campaign landing page: http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/community-safety-campaign.html
Press Articles: Washington Post, SF Chronicle
SeminaryoftheStreet.org
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