Carla Clark | For The Republic The keynote speaker the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, holds a copy of his book, “A More Perfect Union,” during the 2023 Annual William R. Laws Peacemaking Lecture at the First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ind., Sunday, May 7, 2023.
A leading national social justice leader on Sunday carefully outlined the reality of political and racial division in the United States — and also his still determined hope of unity shaped by what the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called the beloved community.
The Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners and a Virginia Christian pastor, presented those two extremes and more in his message “Where Do We Go From Here? Toxic Polarization or Beloved Community?” He spoke before an estimated 150 people as part of the Annual William R. Laws Peacemaking Lecture Series at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Columbus.
Taylor regularly appears as a speaker at colleges and universities, denominational meetings, faith conferences, and other gatherings. The Christian-based Sojourners outlines part of its mission as “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable” in society.
The local lecture series is named for the longtime and high-profile First Presbyterian pastor who served from the 1950s to the mid-1970s and was a leader on a range of social justice issues from race to poverty.
Taylor’s remarks were based upon his book “In a More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community.” He highlighted a myriad of threats to King’s vision of the beloved community. Taylor said those threats include the rise of white nationalism and violence against minorities and others plus new barriers to minority voting in states such as Texas and Georgia.
Some of his most pointed remarks came during a question-and-answer session with First Presbyterian Pastor Felipe Martinez after Taylor’s address. Taylor was asked if there is space for a view of America as mostly white and Christian. The question was especially interesting because Taylor is a person of color, but one who admittedly couches his worldview on Scripture in order to love and value all others, no matter their persuasion, “as made in the image of God,” as he repeatedly put it.
“I believe that some of those (political) voices need to be overwhelmed and overcome and defeated at the ballot box,” he said. “But I believe that if we continue to embrace agape love, then we can see people change their minds.”
Much of his speech focused on a series of what he called beatitudes needed to create a beloved community “where everyone is valued and accepted, and where diversity is seen as a strength and not a weakness.” He said King saw that “as a moral compass.”
“And (for King), that beloved community was so much bigger and so much deeper than just civil rights,” he said.
Taylor boasts a lengthy record involvement in global social justice.
He previously led the Faith Initiative at the World Bank Group and served as the vice president in charge of Advocacy at World Vision U.S. and the senior political director at Sojourners. He has also served as the executive director of Global Justice, an organization that educates and mobilizes students around global human rights and economic justice.
Ann Jones, among the attendees, said she has been quite concerned about issues such as the rise of white nationalism and voting limitations pressed upon minorities in some parts of the country.
“I really agree with his statements about the overall importance of saving our democracy,” Jones said. “I think that we are at a real turning point there. I just wish he would put even more emphasis on the danger of white nationalists.
“That issue is probably my biggest fear.”
