In a speech June 11, the Rev. Dr. Mark Tyler of Mother Bethel Church, rightly called out and named the hypocrisy of St. Peter’s clergy and congregation in 1770. The hypocrisy of praying to the God who created and loves all people, while being involved in, benefiting from, promulgating, the enslavement of black people. While literally having enslaved people sitting in the congregation (though segregated into the back gallery).

The Rev. Dr. Tyler is exactly right. It is painful to acknowledge, and it is the truth. St. Peter’s benefitted from, still benefits from, white supremacy. From a system that privileges whiteness and is designed to keep it that way. There are no words that can atone for this past, that can erase this pain.  It is something we must look at unflinchingly, it is part of who we are, it is our truth.

We (St. Peter’s and the larger institution of White Christianity) must repent for this sin, our sin, of racism. And we can, we must, do all in our power to become people who practice what we proclaim; do all in our power to become an anti-racist congregation comprised of anti-racist people. We must work to dismantle the systems that privilege us.

~Rev. Claire Nevin-Field, rector of St. Peter’s Church