Restorative Actions and the power of a single conversation

Part II in a series on Restorative Actions

It all started with a conversation during a two-and-a-half hour car ride in the winter of 2016. Rev. Anthony Jermaine Ross-Allam and Jim Koon were driving to a men’s retreat for members of Oak Grove Presbyterian, a predominantly white church in Bloomington, and talking about things they cared about.

Five years later, as an outgrowth of that conversation, Oak Grove is testing a model for faith communities to surrender wealth in recognition of the historic and ongoing harm done by Christian churches to Indigenous and Afro American communities. Oak Grove itself is surrendering $267,000, or 16 percent of its wealth — in land, property and financial assets.

Organizers hope their model, called Restorative Actions, will catch on with other congregations and secular communities.

Moral reckoning: A Presbyterian Church tests model to surrender wealth to Afro American, Indigenous communities

Part I in a series on Restorative Actions

There’s a growing understanding and desire among mainline U.S. Protestant churches to make repairs – acts that go beyond mere words – for their role in the theft of Indigenous lands and the stolen labor of African slaves.

Yet churches struggle to figure out the nuts-and-bolts of how to do it, particularly around financial payments.

Oak Grove Presbyterian, a predominantly white church in Bloomington, is now the testing ground of one such effort, called Restorative Actions. It sits at the intersection of theology, justice, and economics.

“It seeks to answer the question, ‘what can we do?’ by providing one avenue to work toward decolonizing wealth,” the Restorative Actions website says.