On the City and Congregation Workgroup, Part 2

Posted on December 27, 2015 by PLT Staff

Presentation given by Jennifer McBride at the Conference on Lived Theology and Civil Courage in Charlottesville, Virginia. McBride reflects on the City and Congregation Workgroup and attempts to construct a theology for the city of Charlottesville. She summarizes the meeting’s events, which aimed to foster much needed dialogue, storytelling, and redemptive remembering by listening to the perspectives of citizens, community activists, and pastors.

Excerpt: “The concrete word of God must break the silence and be spoken today in the language the church knows best, confession and forgiveness. The Congregation and City Workgroup provides one forum for the inclusion of many interlocutors and creates space for what Bonhoeffer calls ‘the community of the cross,’ the fellowship of confessed sinners bearing the burdens of each other’s sin and the sin of Charlottesville’s past and present, and in turn becoming a vehicle of transformative power.”

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