54 Quotes by Soong-Chan Rah

Lament leads to petition which leads to praise Gods' response to the petition.

The language of lament is the language of humility.

The United States of America has a white majority that remembers a history of discovery, opportunity, expansion, and exceptionalism.  Meanwhile our communities of color have the lived experiences of stolen lands, broken treaties, slavery, Jim Crowe laws, Indian removal, ethnic cleansing, lynchings, boarding schools, mass incarceration, and families separated at our boarders.  Our country does not have a common memory.

Throughout the twenty-first century, many white Christian leaders in the US have frequently expressed the anxiety that the United States of America has lost its Christian values, even fearing that Christians in our country are facing persecution.  This embedded fear and anxiety often drives many Christians in the US to seek out comfort through partisan politics and to embrace the heresy of Christendom.

We have embraced the stories of success and exceptionalism rather than engaging the narrative of suffering and oppression.

The fact that America calls what Columbus did 'discovery' reveals the implicit racial bias of the country - that Native Americans are not fully human.

American exceptionalism embraces a work-centered soteriology, believing that the United States of American has earned a special status before God, attaining favor through her exceptional actions. This assumption stands in stark contrast to the humility and dependence on God revealed in the book of Lamentations.

The difficult topic of racial reconciliation requires the intersection of celebration and suffering.

An important aspect of Lamentations is the challenge to accept historical reality and to embrace God's sovereignty over history. We are called to lament over suffering and pain, but also to recognize God's larger work.