As one of the ministers of the communities of faith of The United Church of Canada here in Kelowna. I come here with a heavy heart to join in this vigil. I come to add our local voices to the growing chorus of outrage and dismay crying out across this land in the aftermath of the senseless deaths in London, Ontario just 7 days ago. This attack is but the latest in a long string of violent discriminatory attacks nurtured by a system of embedded racism and hatred.

The United Church of Canada decries a white supremacist system and culture that allows feelings of racial, cultural, and religious superiority to flourish and that enables such heinous hate crimes to occur. The church’s anti-racism policy declares that “we believe that we are all equal before God.” The United Church therefore reaffirms its commitment to anti-racism, to engaging in interfaith dialogue, and to speaking out against violence and discrimination rooted in racial superiority, including Islamophobia. ^[1]

As local ministers, we join you in your grieving, share in your tears, for you are our siblings in faith. We lament the unnecessary loss of innocent lives, lives cut short by ignorance, hate and phobia. There is no room for this in our world; no room for this in God’s world. 

As people of faith, as members of the human community, we are called to love one another, to show compassion for one another and to always seek for God’s justice. This world in which we live continually displays the diversity of Creator-God in how we look, how we dress, how we worship; such diversity is representative of a God who knows no boundaries and cannot be placed in any box of human construct, no matter how large or how small that box may be. God is diversity. God is the goodness in every one of us and so, today, we stand with you, the Muslim Community, grieving the senseless loss of lives, supporting you in love and compassion and seeking God’s justice for this world, today and always.

May it be so!

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^[1]     https://united-church.ca/news/united-church-condemns-attack-muslim-family-london