Rooted strongly in a 10-year partnership, The Episcopal Church and Moravian Church are poised to dig further together into the truth about their racial histories with three fall webinars that will also be available for pre-Advent church forums during three weeks in November.
Developed by the Moravian-Episcopal Coordinating Committee following a 10th Anniversary Celebration of Full Communion between The Episcopal Church and the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church, the webinars will examine the narratives the two churches have told about their racial histories.
The webinars will cover periods from pre-colonial times to the Civil War; Reconstruction to Jim Crow; and civil rights to the present. The approach comes from work on narrative that the Southern Province of the Moravian Church has done with scholar-practitioner David Hooker.
“You have to address the narrative, find the truth, then move to repentance and reconciliation,” said the Rev. Neil Routh, a Moravian member of the racial reconciliation working group that is organizing the sessions.