"LOUISVILLE — A minister, social ethicist and scholar has been chosen to lead a new endeavor by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to repair the damage done by structural racism and white supremacy within the Church and around the globe.
The Rev. Anthony Jermaine Ross-Allam, the former associate pastor for Social Justice at Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, will serve as the first director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Center for Repair of Historical Harms".
“I am overjoyed that the opening of the Center for Repair of Historical Harms is the PC(USA)’s announcement to itself, to God and to the world God loves and sustains that we are, in fact, in the business of being moved by God who moves mountains — especially mountains of settled public opinion and habit,” said Ross-Allam, a doctoral candidate in social ethics at Union Theological Seminary. It is “an honor to have the opportunity to roll up my sleeves and take up this sacred work with all of you.”
The Center, which is under development, is the result of an 18-month strategic planning process by the PMA that stretched across the denomination and is part of the 2023-2024 Mission Work Plan approved by the 225th General Assembly last summer.
“The Center exists so that the PC(USA) can have an organized way to go about the business of repairing the harm that the PC(USA) has done to Indigenous peoples and to African Americans and to other groups,” said Ross-Allam, a native of Willis, Texas, who will serve as deployed staff. “One of the things that we hope is that by doing this work of repair that is specific to the relationships within the PC(USA), we will also be witnessing to people throughout the country and around the world that repair is an absolutely necessary thing to do but that it’s also right and that it’s very possible.”
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