But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ― Amos 5:24

As we reel from the effects of multiple viruses—systemic racism, COVID 19, and environmental devastation—we look to our Church and its understanding of Jesus’ call to us. At Holy Comforter, we seek to build and become a Beloved Community, respecting all people as “made in the image of God.” In alignment with the National Episcopal Church, Holy Comforter’s Becoming Beloved Community ministry is our multi-generational commitment and journey to growing a community of reconcilers, justice makers, and healers. Questions about Becoming Beloved Community? Contact us at: BBC@holycomforter.com.

Billi’s family returns to China under the guise of a fake wedding to stealthily say goodbye to their beloved matriarch—the only person that doesn’t know she only has a few weeks to live. The movie is streaming on Amazon Prime, Hulu, and other services. Watch the movie in advance. We’ll discuss over Zoom. Questions? Contact Peter Brownrigg. Join the Zoom discussion HERE.

Join Kenya J. Finley-Jean, Supervisory Park Ranger, Civil War Defenses of Washington, who will share insights from the National Park Service.

A few years between Reconstruction and the beginning of the Jim Crow era, African Americans rode a wave to reform some of the most important political offices in the land. Roughly 2,000 Blacks took office on the state, local, and federal level, and nearly a dozen former slaves served in the House of Representatives and the Senate. These trailblazers faced mistreatment and intimidation from both the public and their fellow lawmakers, but they also served as some of the nation’s most prominent advocates of racial equality. From a former manservant to a little-known Civil War veteran, meet five men who rose from slavery to become part of the United States’ first generation of Black congressmen.

The riveting 1965 debate between two writers—one white, the other black—held at the Cambridge Union. The motion: The American dream is at the expense of the American Negro.

The Doctrines of Christian Discovery (DoCD) originate with 15th century Papal Bulls that were issued by the Vatican and implemented by Monarchies, sanctioning the brutal Conquest and Colonization of non-Christians who were deemed “enemies of Christ” in Africa and the Americas. These Papal Bulls were a continuation of what had been going on since at least the 8th century from Charlemagne, through the Crusades, the Inquisition, the war on witches, to the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1823, the “Doctrine of Discovery” was first articulated as a legal formulation in U.S. Supreme Court case, Johnson v. M’Intosh in 1823. As this case fundamentally defines international property law today, it continues to be used by multi-national corporations and Nation-States in their extraction of resources in indigenous territories around the world. The global scale with which the DoCD expressed itself in the “Age of Discovery”—first in Africa, then the Americas, and beyond—created a unified Christendom, which became the opposing force against the great global plurality of cultures. This Doctrine governs United States and international law today and has been cited as recently as 2005 in the decision City Of Sherrill V. Oneida Indian Nation Of NY. (Source: HERE)

Growing up, Dorothy Davis was not welcome in the “other” Episcopal Church in her rural Virginia community—the White one. When their bishop many decades ago tried to integrate Black and White Episcopalians, Davis recalls, her fellow Christians balked. So, Davis, now 86, wept this fall when the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia voted to repair its centuries-long break with Black members like her. Read The Washington Post article HERE.