2nd Opinion: Why white ministers must insist, ‘Black Lives Matter’

Less than 24 hours after a sniper murdered five police officers here in Dallas—on the heels of two more fatal police shootings of black men in other cities—a group of black and white Christians from throughout the area got together to pray. Nothing unusual about that. Every time a crisis hits, every time racial conflict emerges, every time a mass shooting rips across the headlines, people get together to pray.

Mark WingfieldThe Friday night prayer service, held July 8 at a prominent black megachurch in South Dallas, was led by black, white and Hispanic clergy and drew an ethnically mixed congregation—folks like me who were perhaps overly eager to greet people of another skin color to demonstrate that we, unlike others, are not full of hate.

Read the full column at Faith & Leadership.

Mark Wingfield is associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.