It is with deep lament that I find myself inviting the church into prayer for the family of Tyre Nichols and the community of Memphis, in the wake of the video footage released yesterday of the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers. On January 7, Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old man, was brutally beaten by five Memphis Police Department officers and died in the hospital three days later. Another Black man has died at the hands of police. Another mother grieves the untimely and tragic death of her son. Another video summons our outrage and our cries for moral clarity and action. As Rev. Yvonne Gilmore, Interim Administrative Secretary of the National Convocation shared in her statement, “Abuse of power and violence dehumanizes and destroys us all.”
I have been in communication with Rev. Dr. Christal L. Williams, Tennessee Regional Minister, as she supports our pastors and communities across the city of Memphis. I encourage the church to join them as Rev. Dr. Williams encouraged in her message yesterday, “our faith gives us hope when confronted with systems beyond reform.”
We are the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world—we cannot be whole while violence pervades our systems of justice. We cannot be whole while Black men die at the hands of the police. We cannot be whole while communities fear the very people charged with protection.
We must pray and act. When people see love in action, they can know that the limitless love of God exists. Prayers mean nothing unless we pray with our feet to build an alternative future. I encourage the church to redouble ourselves to our commitment to be an anti-racist, pro-reconciling church in moments like these, so that we might continue the holy and just work of becoming the church we say we are.
Rev. Teresa “Terri” Hord Owens
General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada
