By Elijah Zehyoue
Dear Alliance Family,
This week the Supreme Court made decisions to regress the hard fought progress and negatively affect the lives of many already marginalized and vulnerable people in our country. Within two days the Supreme Court upended Affirmative Action, threw out student loan forgiveness, and said it was legitimate to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. These decisions are disheartening, disappointing, discriminatory. And unjust! They reflect the worst instincts within American life that are quickly becoming our norm. And as people of faith and good conscience we condemn these decisions and what they mean for the direction of our country.
At the same time they show us why the Alliance of Baptists remains necessary and vital in our world today. As an antiracist, LGBTQ+ affirming organization that is theologically conscious of God’s preferential option for the poor, we are aware that we are called to continue to raise our voice in solidarity with all people affected by these decisions. We call on you to join us and support the movements that struggle against these injustices and work to liberate our society from the forces of fundamentalism, exclusion, and racism. While we know this is a long road, we are comforted by the fact that we are on it together and we are guided by our freedom-loving ancestors and the Holy Spirit. We pray that bleak moments like this will reorient us to the pressing work of justice that our God demands. We remain faithful to this work and hopeful that while the arc of the moral universe is indeed long, we will play our part in bending it toward justice.
Reverend Elijah R. Zehyoue, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Alliance of Baptists
Reverend Elijah R. Zehyoue, Ph.D. serves as the Co-Director of the Alliance of Baptists. In this role, he is leading them through an effort to become an anti-racist organization. As a historian, theologian, pastor, preacher, and professor, Elijah is committed to using his many gifts to help people of all walks of life do the head, heart, and soul work required for our collective liberation. He is a graduate of Morehouse College (B.A.) and the University of Chicago (M.Div.) and Howard University where he earned his Ph.D. in African History. His dissertation focused on White Supremacy and its impact on the Origins of the Conflict in Liberia. Additionally, Elijah teaches African and African American Studies at the university level. Prior to coming to the Alliance, Elijah served on the pastoral staff at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Elijah is originally from Liberia, West Africa and grew up in Baton Rouge, La.
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