In 2020, following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd—and the resulting call for racial justice in America—several Pentecostal scholars felt the call to respond to the urgent need to contribute to a biblical, theological, and historical understanding of race and racism in North America to assist our Church in responding to justice issues.
The Pentecostal Justice Coalition, founded in June of 2020, began as a partnership between the William Joseph Seymour Foundation and the Alliance for Black Pentecostal Scholarship to challenge racial injustice in all its expressions across the world. It has expanded to include Pentecostal believers committed to this vision.
Pentecostal Justice Coalition Manifesto for Racial Justice
One of our first efforts was to invite a diverse group of Pentecostals to work together on a Pentecostal Manifesto for Racial Justice. Over a year-and-a half in the making, the Manifesto posted on this site is the result of conversations about and for racial justice between scholar-colleagues and friends, most of whom have been involved in the Society for Pentecostal Studies (SPS) for many years.
The Manifesto working group presented a summary of our work to date at the 2022 annual conference of the Society for Pentecostal Studies in Costa Mesa, California and released it on May 25, 2022, on the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd as a renewed call for a Pentecostal response to racial injustice.
