WHITE CHURCHES ACT ON REPARATIONS

WEARY OF WAITING FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO COMPENSATE BLACK AMERICANS FOR CENTURIES OF SLAVERY, FAITH GROUPS HAVE STARTED THEIR OWN PROGRAMS

- JULIA DUIN

On the Sunday before Juneteenth, the Rev. Ryan Marsh stood in front of about 50 mostly white parishioners to announce a "reparations distribution" program for the church.

Marsh's congregation at Salt House, a young Lutheran church in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, is among dozens of churches that in the last two years have begun taking the initiative in making reparations for centuries of slavery that many religious leaders, at the time, justified on theological grounds.

These faith-based groups are giving donations to Black-led organizations, gifts to Black individuals (not necessarily church members) and royalties for Black musicians each time a congregation sings a Black spiritual. Salt House dedicates 1 percent of the church's budget-roughly $6,000 annually-to reparations efforts and encourages parishioners CHRIS to donate for a reparations fund that distributes money through lotteries held twice a year, on Juneteenth and in December. Applicants can use the money for anything they need.

"The white American church has AAGO C always been complicit in the evils of white supremacy," Marsh, who is white, told the congregation. "Reconciliation requires both repentance and repair ...and the church cannot wait for governments to act justly."