All posts tagged: Reconciliation

RNS: Vatican statement repudiates Doctrine of Discovery

April 6, 2023
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Reconciliation

The Doctrine of Discovery was the theological justification for the atrocities that Western nations and church (including the Church of England and later on in the US, the Episcopal Church) committed against the indigenous people living in North and South America. It was first expressed in the middle of the 15th century by popes during the age of Discovery, as Western Europeans were coming into first contact with these existing civilizations.  The Episcopal Church repudiated […]

Statement regarding the new statue of Blackstone in Pawtucket

August 25, 2021
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Reconciliation / Rhode Island

My statement regarding the statute of the Rev. William Blackstone in Pawtucket RI: It was with surprise that we learned today of the William Blackstone statue erected in Pawtucket. It is regrettable that such a monument would be approved and given municipal funding without seeking more input from our Indigenous neighbors. Colonizers like Blackstone are a troubling feature of our American history, and we would do well to reflect on the opinions of those who were on this land […]

Love is the way to a more perfect union

November 1, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Sermons and audio

Is there something for the Church to say to the Nation in this moment? The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Michael Curry preached a stem-winder of a sermon that does a pretty great job of answering that question. In the second part of the sermon he says: We don’t think of it this way very often but love for each other is a value on which our democracy depends.  On the […]

Crusty Old Dean: The Episcopal Church’s Lost Causism

September 18, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Reconciliation / Rhode Island

A friend, Episcopal priest, seminary professor and writer, The Rev. Thomas Ferguson, has a searing essay posted about the historical denial of our denomination’s participation in the evil of White Supremacy: Crusty Old Dean: The Episcopal Church’s Lost Causism: Thankfully, there have been a number of really great histories written in the past 25 years, efforts to correct the systemic racism in how we have told our history:  Prichard’s “History of the Episcopal Church,” Hein […]

President Obama’s words to all of us today

July 30, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs

President Obama, giving the eulogy at Congressman John Lewis’s funeral today, said (in part) the following: [T]his country is a constant work in progress. We were born with instructions: to form a more perfect union. Explicit in those words is the idea that we are imperfect; that what gives each new generation purpose is to take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further than anyone might have thought possible. John Lewis […]

Can God still use a people such as us?

July 3, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs

John Meacham writes in his 2006 book “American Gospel”: ”A tolerant, pluralistic democracy in which religious and secular forces continually contend against one another may not be ideal, but it has proven to be the most practical and enduring arrangement of human affairs — and we must guard that arrangement well.” As we celebrate a difficult anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this weekend, fully aware of the flaws in our foundation and the shortcomings […]

Statement from the Center for Reconciliation

May 30, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs / Reconciliation

The Center for Reconciliation celebrates the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd in all their fullness, beauty,  and complexity, along with all those murdered by white supremacy. We deeply grieve their loss, and we deeply grieve the insidious  persistence of racism and racial violence throughout the fabric of American law, culture, and society. We cannot bring them back from the dead and restore them to their families and friends, but we can raise our […]