Positive Protest: Organizing to Promote God’s Gift of Flourishing Life

Fri 1 PM | Landing

Jennifer E. Copeland

We must always remember that our faith is in God; our faith is not in nations, government systems, elected officials, or economic structures. Those things are all tools we use in pursuit of God’s claim on our lives—the command to love God and love neighbor. Clearly some systems enable us to do that better than others, but we must always start with God’s claim. When we organize to protest unjust policies, we should ground our work in God’s gift of life and the lives of those created in the image of God. We should encourage systems that allow people to flourish into the fullness of that God-given life—specific and unique to the life of each individual. When we focus on the issue as refracted through the lens of faith, we start our discussion from a very different place and we might craft a policy that comes out with a very different ending than those offered by the polarizing possibilities at work in our current climate.

Jennifer Copeland

The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Copeland is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Council of Churches, which makes its mark by privileging matters of justice as refracted through the prophetic voice of the Old Testament and the Gospel witness of the New Testament. To this end, Jennifer and the Council often find themselves on the forefront of where society and the church eventually end up. Jennifer has been a church pastor, college chaplain, and non-profit leader. She is a native of South Carolina, ordained in The United Methodist Church, a graduate of Duke University several times over with a BA, MDiv, and PhD. She is the author of, Feminine Registers: The Importance of Women’s Voices for Preaching and an editor of the volume, Preaching Gospel: Essays in Honor of Richard Lischer. Jennifer has two children: Nathan, a software developer who lives in Durham, NC, and Hannah, a student at the University of Tampa.
www.ncchurches.org

Sessions:
247 Positive Protest