At February’s congregational meeting, Pastor Randy called our attention to the presence of a stained-glass window honoring Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general, located in the History of Presbyterianism window in the east transept of ELPC’s Sanctuary. In the window, Jackson is depicted in a Confederate soldier’s uniform and holding a sword. ELPC commissioned the window during the first half of the 20th century, a time when—well after the end of the Civil War—huge numbers of Confederate monuments were being erected nationwide in a revisionist-history effort to glorify Confederates as cultural heroes, rather than violent defenders of white supremacist ideology.
In an effort to seek a faithful and robust response to this problematic symbol of white supremacy—and to other troubling aspects of our church’s history with regard to racial justice—the ELPC Session created a task force comprised of representatives from the Peace, Property, and Facing Systemic Racism Committees, as well as volunteers from the congregation. For several months, the task force has prayed, researched, and deliberated about how to address the window and the larger issues it represents, understanding that a faithful response cannot simply be to erase them from our history or collective memories. We seek to meaningfully respond—with justice and faithfulness—to a range of ways that ELPC has participated with white supremacy; for instance, the church building stands on ancestral lands of multiple Native nations, and the church has often benefited from inequitably-applied government policy.
The task force will soon offer its recommendations for action, repentance, and education to the ELPC Session, and also hopes to engage the congregation in conversation and action. Please stay tuned for more updates and the opportunity to be involved!