The Evanston 2nd Act Players has been blessed with a theater home at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Northwest Evanston for the past four years. We have always found the members of the church to be open, inviting and progressive, showing concern for all those around them and throughout the area.
So we were saddened in November when the Black Lives Matter banner the church had erected was defaced. Thankfully, many neighbors responded quickly to show their support for the church, bringing their own BLM signs to the church to reinforce the message that being a Christian means loving your neighbor, regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, gender identity or religious affiliation. The Christian Bible does not include qualifiers when Jesus tells followers to love their neighbors as they love themselves.
Northminster’s ruling body, known as The Session, put it much more eloquently when it said in a statement about the banner:
“We proclaim with this banner the theological truth that black lives matter to God. Through it we also prayerfully point to the work that we must do as a church, as individuals, and as a society so that, according to God’s vision, a day will come when every life – already valued and beloved by God – will be equally valued by all of God’s children. This all-embracing love of God is what we seek to proclaim in our world.”
The church has a new banner (see the photo here) now to replace the one defaced in November. And the signs brought by neighbors reman as well and have proliferated.
The Evanston 2nd Act Players stated its support for the church on Facebook when this incident happened and want to reaffirm that support here on our blog. At a time when the term Christianity is all too often held hostage by people filled with hate and anti-Christian ideologies, we are proud to be associated with such a truly Christian entity as Northminster. We again thank its pastors and congregation members for hosting us as guests these past years.