Riots and Destruction

On May 19, 2019, Concordia College New York (LCMS) held its Celebration of Service. The College honored “Servant of Christ” Hawk Newsome, the Chairperson and Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York.[1]

The sun shone on May 19 as Concordia celebrated 325 graduates and their families, alumni, community members and special friends with events that highlighted the College’s remarkable diversity and its commitment to engaging across difference.

At the morning’s Celebration of Service, the Servant of Christ award was bestowed upon . . . Hawk Newsome ’03, President of Black Lives Matter Greater New York.  , , ,

President John A. Nunes’s charge to the graduates implored students to channel their “justifiable dissatisfaction” with the world, and “to wake us up, to shake things up, and make this planet a better place.”[2]

On February 12, 2020, Tomi Lahren interviewed Newsome on Fox Nation’s “No Interruption.” In an article about the interview, Matt London wrote that Newsome: “argued that his organization and others like it are justified in using destruction to call attention to their grievances with American society.”[3]

Newsome said, “The riot is the language of the unheard.”[4] He compared present day riots to the Boston Tea Party. “For a country that drops bombs on people, for a country that incarcerates people, for a country that enslaves people – to criticize us for vandalism is preposterous,”[5] Newsome said.

In the “President’s Message” on the CCNY website, the college’s president, Rev. Dr. John Arthur Nunes says, “The College has chosen Civics and Civility as its theme for the 2019/2020 academic year.”[6] In the interview with Lehren, Newsome said, “It is a tool of white supremacy to say if you want freedom, then you get it by protesting peacefully.”[7]

Newsome took a group of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York to Minneapolis during the riots in the last days of May 2020. “When the fires were burning, and people were chanting, I just felt liberated for a brief moment, and I felt for one of the only times in my life that the government had no control over me,” said Newsome.[8]


[1] Post, Concordia College New York Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/concordiaNY/posts/10157084130252707, accessed June 15, 2020.

[2] “Where Worlds Engage: Concordia College Holds Commencement Ceremonies for its 138th Academic Year,” May 20, 2019, https://www.concordia-ny.edu/about/news/1660017/where-worlds-engage-concordia-college-holds-commencement-ceremonies-for-its-138th-academic-year, accessed June 15, 2020.

[3] Matt London, “Black Lives Matter leader justifies rioting in interview with Tomi Lahren,” February 12, 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/media/black-lives-matter-president-riot, accessed June 15, 2020.

[4] London, op cit.

[5] Ibid.

[6] John Arthur Nunes, “President’s Message,”” https://www.concordia-ny.edu/about/presidents-message, accessed June 15, 2020.

[7] London, op cit.

[8] Stephen Maugeri, “NY Black Lives Matter leader speaks on protests, riots after returning from Minneapolis,” 6 News WRGB Albany, June 2, 2020, https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/local-black-lives-matter-leader-speaks-on-protests-riots-after-returning-from-minneapolis, accessed June 15, 2020.

17 thoughts on “Riots and Destruction

  1. The LCMS has lost control of their schools and universities.

  2. So Portland is not the end of our troubles…

  3. The LCMS needs to flush CCNY. It’s a drain on the LCMS and produces almost no church work students. The academic bar is pretty low for this institution.

    The LCMS needs to close all but one or two colleges and make them first and foremost colleges that produce church workers. CCNY like Selma and Portland produced almost no church workers for the LCMS. Instead they have become hotbeds for radical lefties and promote anti-Biblical positions (e.g. gay club at Portland)

  4. If I ever needed another reason to “dis” my old school (grad ’71) completely – this is it!

  5. The only reasonable way to deal with institutions supported by the LCMS is to grade them on their support of the LCMS Church’s goals, foundation beliefs and religious doctrine. Less than an A+ should be a concern to the Synod and to all member churches.

    In my view, the BLM is anti-biblical.

  6. Several of our CUS schools would like to be less accountable to the LCMS by having more appointed members of the Board’s of Regents or even making them self perpetuating boards altogether. Remember stories like this when those ideas come up again.

  7. I agree that schools that don’t support the doctrine of our church should be disbanded. The LCMS needs to focus on training teachers and pastoral candidates to be the best they can be in their positions. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have people enrolling for degrees in other fields, but our focus is upon the teachings of Christ and the Church. Heaven help us and pray for the young man and the college.

  8. Nunes should be forced to resign for just that photo of the girl holding the communion cup.

  9. My question above was not rhetorical. I really want to know if the LCMS believes that being a “servant of Christ” means it’s ok to burn down a city if someone believes he or she is “justifiably dissatisfied” ? Where is it in Scripture that if one doesn’t like something that violence is justified? I remember reading something that says the opposite. And does President Nunes also endorse this when he tells students so “shake things up and make this planet a better place” and then honors a man who believes that the way to do this is to deliberately commit arson and finds this liberating? “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.“ 1 John 2:15

  10. Quite disturbing. And to think my LCMS church had/invited John Nunes and his wife preach from the pulpit earlier this year. She doing the preaching through sort of a sing-song as she walked around in front of the congregation and part way down the aisles. It’s time to wake up, and shore up what remains (Rev. 3:2) and pray that we can hold fast until He comes.

  11. The Synod is abandoning Scripture in the face of this Satanic attack cloaked as tribal strife.

    https://concordiatheology.org/2020/06/lutheran-voices-on-racism/

    These unfaithful pastors barely touch on Scripture, choosing instead to focus on Marxist talking points. A few choice quotes:

    “If you don’t like looting or rioting, well that was created by racism”

    “My grandpa was a black man in Panama, and let me tell you. America exported racism to Panama.”

    “We get caught up in words, and words prevent us from action.”

    More and more each day, I am thankful that the Synod is toothless. The idea that President Harrison and the false teachers in his midst could enforce this garbage is a threat that will never be realized.

  12. Mr. Halvorson (and Pr Scheer): Thank you for this article.

    It’s better to be falsely called a “racist” than truly called faithless.

    I’m done with the Missouri Synod per se. Hoping though to find a congregation that stands up against evil.

  13. And now Black Lives Matter is burning the Bible. Nunes and Newsome would be better off serving in the Ex-Lutheran Cult of Apostasy which I left. “Servants of Christ” would now take sides with those who burn His holy Word?

  14. Oh, my goodness! I have wondered who was the first person to start all this trouble in our country. Now I know. It is not something to be proud of or to venerate a person who is responsible for inciting destruction of personal, private, and historical property. Why are Black Lives Matter rioters being given accommodations for civil unrest that are not given to other groups? Case in point, the big BLM painted logo on a busy New York street. The church cannot and must not align itself with this kind of movement, just as Martin Luther disavowed himself from the destruction and murder that was conducted in his name. Most of all, I am very worried for the children who see this as a viable option to express your concerns and frustrations with your life.

  15. A year later… NYC a disaster and CCNY closed. Well done Hawk and Nunes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.