We Keep us Safe.
Imagine a world where
all people are safe.
Imagine a world where
no one’s safety depends on increased violence or harm for others.
Imagine a world
where WE keep us safe.
We are living in times that call for prophetic imagination and a courageous willingness to “practice the world we wish to see,” as adrienne maree brown says in Emergent Strategy. These times also call for honest reflection on the ways we as white people participate in the perpetuation of white supremacy, particularly through our reliance on policing, and a willingness to repent, to turn, to transform, and to go a different way.
In that spirit, we have created a robust toolkit for white faith/spiritual leaders and congregations to examine our relationship to policing and police violence, and to practice new ways of creating safety within our own congregational contexts. This project is an act of accountability to people of color who are asking white people to join them in imagining and taking action toward a world without policing. This project is also an act of love for all of us, because we know that policing does not work to keep any of us safe.
In order to stop relying on police as faith/spiritual communities, we are asking questions like:
How do faith/spiritual communities legitimize and reinforce the “need” for policing?
How are faith/spiritual institutions tied to institutions of policing?
How can faith communities act to disrupt the prison and ICE pipelines?
What might alternatives to policing look like for congregations?
What might community safety look like without relying on policing, and
how might faith/spiritual communities participate in that work?
Ultimately, how can we invest in each other, believe in each other,
trust each other and the rhythms and cycles around/within us,
and overall relate to each other differently as human beings?
Who do we want to be?
Sign up to receive the link to the toolkit!
This will also add you to our mailing list to get updates as well as
invites to our Building Congregational Community Safety Community of Practice.
Read the Project Description and FAQ for more!