By Aaron Weaver and Carrie McGuffin
“Salvation is about healing and wholeness. Now our broken world could use some of that,” said Jim Somerville, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., as he addressed the topic of salvation in light of the tragic shooting at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Somerville’s devotional message came Friday evening during the final worship service of the 2015 Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Dallas.
“We need to hear their names,” he said, speaking aloud the names of the nine victims.
Somerville reflected on his life growing up in Lowndes County, Ala., just outside of the historic city of Selma, and on the racism that he witnessed as a young boy with a father who was a United Methodist pastor. He vividly recalled a cross that was burned on his front lawn because his father refused to give the opening prayer at the meeting of a local chapter of the White Citizens Council, relating his father’s response that “he didn’t think Jesus would say the opening prayer at the White Citizens Council.”
The “gaping wound of racism,” Somerville said, borrowing the term from Jon Stewart, “is what our world needs to be saved from. Let’s build a bridge over that. But what do you do, where do we start?”
Somerville shared with attendees the advice he had shared with his daughter, a resident of Charleston, S.C., when she asked what she could do in response to the deadly shooting. Sitting in silence can be misinterpreted, he told her.
“Get up the nerve, get off your couch, and go into your community to embrace one another and weep with one another,” Somerville encouraged the crowd. “That’s what you do to build a bridge across the racial divide. That’s how healing begins. That’s how wholeness begins. That’s where salvation begins.”
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