When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, North Park Theological Seminary faculty and staff collaborated on a Post-Election Statement identifying our concerns about the political environment and naming specific experiences of vulnerability and terror among the most marginalized. While it was written for our students, our statement was signed, in a slightly adapted form, by over a hundred Christian institutions of higher learning and many hundreds of faculty across the country.
In light of the January 6 assault on the US Capitol—enabled by lies promoted by both political and ecclesial leaders—we reiterate our 2016 statement with renewed resolve. Unity cannot exist without honesty and truth-telling. The idolatrous pairing of Christ’s name and cross with symbols of hate has been seen across the nation and world, compromising the witness of the gospel and underscoring the complicity of a false gospel. As members of a higher education community affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, we once again condemn violence and all abuses of power. We join our voices with colleagues at schools such as Wheaton College. We decry the baseless lies about election fraud. We recommit to uprooting sins of racism, white supremacy, misogyny, nativism, economic disparity, and idolatry within ourselves and our institutional structures.
In unanimity,
North Park Theological Seminary Faculty & Staff