Professor Drew Hart of Messiah University held a racial reparations summit at Assembly Mennonite Church on Saturday. The summit was attended by 115 participants from a wide swath of ages and represented more than 15 area congregations.
The event was planned by Karl Shelly, pastor at AMC; Ben Bouwman, pastor at Walnut Hill Mennonite Church and Julia Gingrich, pastor at Eighth Street Mennonite Church and has been in the works for several years. This group also took inspiration from the work of the Elkhart County Regional Repair Network.Shelly emphasized that though this particular event has only been in discussion for a relatively short period of time, Black and Indigenous communities have been calling for reparations for centuries.
Shelly said, “It is an old call to repair the harm caused by theft — a massive, multigenerational and murderous theft of power, of agency, of wealth, of land, of hope and of the very truth about Black and Indigenous lives in this nation.”
Though many think of this harm as being in the past, it has ramifications that echo into the present moment — visible in injustices such as the wealth gap between Black and white families in America. The average Black household has 10% of the wealth of the average white household.
“This violent theft of Black and Indigenous labor, land, and freedom left a debt, both moral and financial. The Summit was an invitation to churches to finally respond to the call to repair,” Shelly said.
One of Shelly’s main takeaways from the summit was that “Repentance requires restitution; which is the act of making things right. This is why restitution is not an act of charity; rather, it is the discharge of a debt. That’s what reparations are all about.”
The group hopes to have a county-wide reparations fund in existence by 2026. This fund would allow for contributions from individuals, congregations and businesses, half of which would go to Black reparative work and half to Indigenous reparative work. The fund would be distributed every January with the total gathered from the previous year.
Shelly said, “The vision is that the funds will be used to redress both past and ongoing harm from centuries of white supremacist policies and practices. To minimize white control of this fund, the disbursement decisions will be made by a committee made up of BIPOC individuals.”
The organizers hope that this summit will spark further conversations and work from congregations in the years to come. Beyond that, they also hope that this can be a part of the beginning of changing the narrative around the work of American Christians.
“Imagine if people started to associate repentance and repair for white supremacy with what Christians are about, rather than the regressive politics Christians are currently known for,” Shelly said.
The summit was described as both informational and a call to action to help dismantle the culture and legacy of white supremacy in America. Reparations are only a part of this work, but they can act as a way for congregations to begin to atone for the harm that has come to and continues to affect BIPOC communities in the U.S.
