Home » Rev. Josh Pawelek

A Tale of Tragedy; a Tale of Possibility

02/10/19 by

Rev. Josh Pawelek

On Sunday, January 13th, we began celebrating our congregation’s 50th anniversary year. For our service the following week, ‘Martin Luther King Sunday’—which we cancelled due to inclement weather—I had planned to preach this sermon on what was happening in terms of race and racism within the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) fifty years ago; and to name parallels with what is happening within our faith today. I’m grateful to Martha Larson who agreed to postpone the service she’d been planning for this morning so I could bring this sermon. It’s an important 50th anniversary reflection with implications for who we are as Unitarian Universalists today.

A caveat: the story I will now tell you focuses on relationships between White UUs and African American, African Diaspora and Black UUs. That is, the racial dynamics in the story have to do with the place of African Americans in our larger White denomination in the late 1960s. The risk in telling this story is that we forget that Black people are not the only People of Color within Unitarian Universalism. There are Native American, Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern, South Pacific Islander UUs, not to mention biracial and multiracial UUs. Their stories aren’t in the story I am about to tell. I’m naming this simply so that we don’t forget our denominational story about race is not an exclusively Black-White story.

The story of race in our faith from 1967 to 1970 is complex. It’s the story of a historically White denomination encountering its own institutional racism when it wasn’t prepared to do so. It’s the story of people dedicated to a vision of racial integration and the nonviolent principles of the Civil Rights movement coming into conflict with people dedicated to the Black Power movement and the principle of Black self-determination. It’s the story of the democratic principle at the heart of our faith coming into conflict with the justice principle at the heart of our faith. In the words of the historian of African American Unitarian Universalism, the Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed, it’s a tragic story.

During the “long, hot summer of 1967,” more than 150 riots broke out around the country. The rioters were primarily Black people, angry at institutional racism, at entrenched poverty, at police violence; angry that the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts had not fundamentally altered the racist structures of American society. They rioted out of deep pain and frustration. I’m mindful of Dr. King’s phrase, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

Over the first weekend of October,1967, the UUA convened an “Emergency Conference on the Unitarian Universalist Response to the Black Rebellion.”[1] 140 delegates from around the country gathered at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. 37 of them were Black. As the conference got underway, 30 or so Black delegates withdrew into a private room, forming what eventually became the Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus. They created a list of nonnegotiable demands which they presented to the Emergency Conference, asking that they be accepted or rejected without debate. The core demand was that the UUA create a Black Affairs Council and fund it for four years at $250,000 /year (that’s over $7 million today). The Black Caucus would select the Black Affairs Council members who would have complete control over the money.

What began as a racially integrated (though largely White-led) effort to outline a UU response to the 1967 riots ended as a Black-led action against the UUA. “Divisive” is an understatement. Black UUs had never organized in this way, had never made all-or-nothing demands, and had never demanded this level of funding for programs they would control exclusively. Black Caucus participant Henry Hampton later described their experience as tense, exhilarating and passionate. “Black UUs … long accustomed to the role they played in their congregations explaining The Negro to the white majority … for the first time … were exploring their identity as religious liberals with one another, black to black.”[2]

As for the remaining Conference participants, some left in dismay. Many who were used to certain norms for the conduct of meetings were unnerved that the Black Caucus had upended those norms. Many who, just a few years earlier had joined Dr. King in Selma for the Voting Rights march, and who had dedicated their lives to the Civil Rights movement, were bewildered that young, Black UU activists critical of Dr. King and the limits of nonviolence had overtaken their agenda. Some of those Black delegates who refused to join the Black Caucus reported feeling criticized and pressured for their decision.

Nevertheless, the tactics worked. More than two thirds of the conference delegates supported the demands and agreed to communicate them to the UUA Board. Black Power had arrived in Unitarian Universalism. UUA President, Dana McClean Greeley, wrote “They wish to form a Black Power organization … within the denomination. This will not be a perfunctory or easy discussion.”[3] Sure enough, later that fall the UUA Board rejected the idea of a Black Affairs Council and proposed a much less ambitious approach to Black empowerment. The Black Caucus countered with a call to congregations to stop paying their denominational dues. Tension grew throughout the year, but the Black Caucus never altered its demands. The following May, at the 1968 UUA General Assembly in Cleveland, just seven weeks after Martin Luther King’s assassination, after extensive, painful debate, delegates adopted a resolution creating the Black Affairs Council and funding it with $250,000 a year for four years. The vote was 836-347.

This was an extraordinary victory for Black Power within Unitarian Universalism. Once it was established, the Black Affairs Council began funding black-led organizations around the country that were addressing political repression, economic exploitation, and what they called educational and cultural nondevelopment. The list of organizations is long: the Black Community Fund of Philadelphia, the Center for Black Education, Washington, DC, the Coordinating Committee of the Black Community, Lawrence, KS, the Malcolm X Center of Los Angeles, Malcolm X Liberation University, Greensboro, NC, National Democratic Party of Alabama, the National Association of Afro-American Educators, the Congress of African People, and many more. Through the Black Affairs Council, Unitarian Universalist money and people reached deep into the heart of radical Black America.

The victory didn’t last. There were countervailing forces. UUs who were committed to pursuing racial justice work in a more traditional, racially integrated way had established their own organization in early 1968, Black and White Alternative or BAWA. They also wanted UUA funding. Black Caucus leaders understood this trend, I think correctly, as the unwillingness or inability of some White UUs and some Black UUs to embrace the goal of Black Power and Black self-determination; or worse, as the need of some White UUs to maintain control over racial justice efforts. The Black Caucus warned that if BAWA received funding, they would disaffiliate from the UUA. The divisions were bitter. People describe strong-arm tactics, name-calling, even spitting in opponents’ faces.

The 1969 General Assembly in Boston was highly contentious, including allegations of racism, the commandeering of the microphones and a walk-out by the Black Caucus and its White allies. In the end, delegates voted to continue funding the Black Affairs Council but not BAWA. The margin was slim: 798 to 737. Too slim. As Morrison-Reed has written, Black Power “won again and, in that moment, lost.” The UUA could not “move ahead when half [the delegates were] moving one way and the other half another.”[4]

Later that fall, facing a funding crisis, the UUA Board reduced the Black Affairs Council annual allocation, spreading it over five years. In response, the Black Affairs Council disaffiliated. At the 1970 Seattle General Assembly, delegates voted to discontinue funding entirely. Although the Black Affairs Council received funding from other sources and functioned for a few more years, the promise of the 1968 Cleveland vote went unfulfilled. Many people of all racial identities left Unitarian Universalism in response to these events. The pain, anger and heartbreak still reverberate through our faith fifty years later.

In 2012 Morrison-Reed wrote: “all sides felt victimized and misunderstood; they defended principles while others betrayed them. Integrationists felt they were being asked to repudiate their earlier actions and long-term commitment to equality…. They were shocked that there was no longer room to hold a different opinion and follow another path, and still be in fellowship. Institutionalists felt they were staving off ruin and preserving the democratic process. The BAC and its supporters felt as though whites were unwilling to put justice first or to trust African Americans with power…. The result and further tragedy is this: No one who was involved feels understood or appreciated, much less honored.” He then says “It is time to honor the passion, fervor, and commitment to principle of all who were involved—and to thank them for caring so deeply.” [5]

I don’t know how I would have responded had I been there. It would have been excruciating to witness the disruption of our democratic process. It also would have been excruciating to recognize that Black UUs felt so frustrated and enraged at the lack of vision, urgency and engagement on the part of the larger institution that they needed to assert themselves and demand Black Power.

For such excruciating moments, Martin Luther King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail has become scripture for me. To the moderate clergy who were urging him to be patient, King said: “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”[6]

Democracy is a deeply-held, sacred principle for us. That doesn’t mean the democratic processes we use are perfect. There are times when our processes may actually limit our vision, curtail our thinking, and exclude certain voices. Sometimes it takes a disruption to realize this. When people who live under some form of oppression gather together, organize and say ‘this is what we need,’ even ‘this is what we demand,’ I’ve learned not to react defensively but to remember MLK’s words. “‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’” If we’re being called to act for justice now, let’s act now. There are risks, yes. But for me, that’s accountability. That’s solidarity. That’s honoring the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That’s justice, equity and compassion in human relations. And though it may disrupt our current democratic process, hopefully it will inspire us to evolve our process, to make it more responsive to the pain, suffering, needs and demands of oppressed people.      

That’s my interpretation of what happened at the 1968 vote; and what essentially failed to happen in 1969 and 1970. That’s also my interpretation of what happened on October 14th, 2016, when the UUA Board of Trustees agreed to provide $5.3 million to Black Lives of UU (BLUU).[7] BLUU’s mission is threefold: To expand the power and capacity of Black UUs within our faith; to provide support, information and resources for Black UUs; and to promote justice-making and liberation through our faith.[8] The Board did not explicitly state that its 2016 decision was an attempt to fulfill the promise of the 1968 Black Affairs Council resolution, but 1968 was in the room. Board member Greg Carrow-Boyd acknowledged “we are fulfilling a promise [the General Assembly made] fifty years ago.”[9]

The BLUU story is still unfolding. In critical, if uncomfortable ways, BLUU is impacting power dynamics within Unitarian Universalism. It’s raising an important question: Can White UUs and White UU congregations truly hear and respond to the aspirations of Black UUs and other UUs of Color? And at a deeper level, BLUU is building a visible, robust, faithful, exciting, and permanent home for Black Unitarian Universalist identity and spirituality. 

Here’s how I believe we here at UUS:E are called to respond:

First, let’s continue our work with Moral Monday CT, our primary Black Lives Matter organizing partner.

Then, BLUU has asked that UU congregations provide space to Black-led social justice organizations. Let’s take this seriously. I’m proud to announce that we are beginning to build a relationship with the Manchester-based Minority Inclusion Project, an organization that helps non-profits address institutional racism.[10]

Then, to reach the $5,3 million funding goal for BLUU, the UUA has asked all congregations to participate in a program called “The Promise and the Practice of our Faith,” which raises $10 per congregational member. We began our participation in that through our community outreach offering in January. We’ll need further conversation about how to fully meet this goal, which the UUA understands as a commitment to countering our own White Supremacy culture.[11]

Then, for the fiftieth Anniversary of the Black Affairs Council, Mark Morrison-Reed has written a new book called Revisiting the Empowerment Controversy. As part of our fiftieth anniversary year, let’s read this book as a congregation this spring. I will also recommend, at the suggestion of Ollie Cohen, that we read the Beacon Press book and New York Times bestseller, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

Finally, I’d like to help establish a People of Color Caucus at UUS:E. It would admittedly be a small group, but with the right support and funding, I think such a caucus could generate some amazing ideas for the future of this congregation. It would be a shame for those ideas to never come to life.

The struggle continues. Let’s be in it. Amen. Blessed be.

[1] I’m basing my retelling of this story on the UUA’s 1983 Commission on Appraisal Report, “Empowerment: One Denomination’s Quest for Racial Justice,” and Carpenter, Victor, “The Black Empowerment Controversy and the Unitarian Universalist Association, 1967-1970, both in Unitarian Universalism and the Quest for Racial Justice (Boston: UUA, 1993); Ross, Warren R., The Premise and the Promise: The Story of the Unitarian Universalist Association (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2001) pp. 41-56; and Morrison-Reed, Mark, “The Empowerment Tragedy,” UU World Magazine, January 16, 2012, see: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/empowerment-tragedy.

[2] Quoted in Unitarian Universalism and the Quest for Racial Justice, p. 26.

[3] Quoted in Unitarian Universalism and the Quest for Racial Justice, p. 102.

[4] Morrison-Reed, Mark, “The Empowerment Tragedy.”

[5] Morrison-Reed, Mark, “The Empowerment Tragedy.”

[6] King, Jr., Martin Luther, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963. See: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.

[7] McCardle, Elaine, “UUA Board of Trustees commits $5.3 million to Black Lives of UU,” UU World Magazine, October 17, 2016. See: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/board-commits-5-million-bluu.

[8] Explore the BLUU website at http://www.blacklivesuu.com/.

[9] McCardle, Elaine, “UUA Board of Trustees commits $5.3 million to Black Lives of UU.”

[10] Explore the Minority Inclusion Project website at https://ctmip.org/.

[11] Learn more about “The Promise and the Practice of our Faith” at https://www.uua.org/giving/areas-support/funds/promise-and-practice.

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Community Conversation on Black Lives Matter — October 30th, 2:00 PM

10/18/16 by

dsc_2065The congregation of Unitarian Universalist Society: East (UUS:E) in Manchester will hold a community conversation on Black Lives Matter on Sunday afternoon, October 30th at 2:00 PM at 153 West Vernon St. in Manchester. All are welcome.

The UUS:E congregation voted earlier this year to support the Black Lives Matter movement.  Unitarian Universalists have a strong tradition of social justice engagement and a commitment to civil rights for oppressed peoples.  The national Unitarian Universalist Association has also committed numerous times to supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. 

#BlackLivesMatter is a liberation movement responding to Black peoples’ collective experience of oppression in the United States today. Co-Founder Alicia Garza says, “when we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about [all] the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence. It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people … locked in cages in this country—one half of all people in prisons or jails—is an act of state violence.  It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence.”

“As majority White Unitarian Universalists, we can at the very least understand that far too many Black people and other People of Color feel unheard, disrespected, forgotten, marginalized, penalized, wounded and, far too often, killed by our systems,” said Rev. Joshua Pawelek in a sermon earlier this year.

At the October 30th community conversation, Rev. Pawelek and others will discuss what the congregation’s commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement means, and then entertain questions and dialogue.

 

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Manchester DTC hosts Black Lives Matter Forum — Thursday, Feb. 18th

02/17/16 by
Black Lives Matter activists with Moral Monday CT interrupt rush hour in Hartford, June, 2015.

Black Lives Matter activists with Moral Monday CT interrupt rush hour in Hartford, June, 2015.

Manchester’s Democratic Town Committee is sponsoring a forum on Black Lives Matter in observance of Black History Month. The forum takes place on Thursday, February 18, 2016 from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM at Lincoln Center, 494 Main Street, Manchester, Connecticut.

Panelists include:

Kyle Anderson: Former City of Hartford Councilman

Rev. Bruce Carter: Pastor of Temple of Restoration

Rev. Ashley Johnson: Minster and Community Activist

Rev. Josh Pawelek: Minister of Unitarian Universalist Society: East

Arvia Walker: Planned Parenthood

Andrew Woods: Executive Director of Hartford Communities that Care, Chair of My Brother’s Keeper/ Violence Free Zone Coalition

The moderator is Darryl E. Thames, Manchester Board of Education, Manchester Democratic Town

Event is Free and Open to the Public. For further information or accommodations, contact DTC Chair Mike Pohl at 860.983.4804 or [email protected]

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January 2016 Minister’s Column

12/31/15 by

Hallelujah

Dear Ones:

By most accounts, January takes its name from the somewhat obscure, ancient Roman god, Janus. Scholars refer to Janus as the two-headed god, the god of beginnings, the god of transitions, the god of doors and entryways. The Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea once said that the doors of Janus’ shrine were kept open in times of war, and closed in times of peace.

If I have my facts correct, Janus is one of the older gods in the Roman pantheon, and there is little written about him that survives to this day. Thus, much of what scholars and others say about him is speculation. Nevertheless, there he is—at least in the name of our first month—presiding over the transition from one year to the next. One could argue—and many do—there is nothing particularly special about January 1st, that the transition from December 31st to January 1st is no more significant than, say, the transition from March 2nd to March 3rd, or the transition from August 27th to August 28th. There’s an arbitrariness to the assignment of New Year’s Day to January 1st. As the Rev. Kathleen McTigue has said, “The first of January is another day dawning, the sun rising as the sun always rises.” New Year’s Day could have been any day, really.

But maybe that isn’t the point. Maybe the point is that transitions matter whenever they happen. Maybe the point is that we ought to pay special attention to the big transitions in our lives, because they have a spiritual—even sacred—quality to them. Contemplate the major transitions in your life: moving from one location to another, choosing when and how to be educated (or not), choosing a career (or not), getting married (or not), having children (or not), ending a marriage, watching children come of age, watching children leave home (or not), experiencing the death of a loved one, changing one’s world view or values, changing one’s religion. Transitions shake us up, force us to encounter the world differently, wake us up to aspects of reality we may not have noticed before. They require us to grow, sometimes in painful ways—ways we just as soon would rather avoid. We certainly carry ourselves with us across the major thresholds of our lives, but we’re never entirely the same person when we finally arrive on the other side. That change, that growth, that transformation of ourselves is what feels spiritual and sacred to me. So let’s pay attention to how we are changing. It matters.

This puts me in a prayerful mood. Hello January, beginning of the year. Hello Janus, god of beginnings. Hello Janus, god of doorways. Hello Janus, god of transitions. Hello Janus: if nothing else, you are the symbol of all the hopes and fears we attach to the transitions in our lives—those we’ve faced in the past, those we face today, those we know we shall face in the future. Hello Janus: if nothing else, you are a reminder that our lives, as much as we may love them, will not and cannot stay the same forever. As this new year dawns, may we welcome the transitions of our lives with grace and dignity. May we embrace the transitions of our lives with courage and strength. May we enter into the transitions of our lives with faith that though we may be different once we’ve arrived on the other side, we will also be wiser and more compassionate for having crossed. May we transition well.

Amen and blessed be.            Rev. Joshua Pawelek

With love,

Rev. Josh

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Rev. Pawelek Featured on NPR’s “On Point”

07/07/15 by

UUS:E’s minister, Rev. Josh Pawelek, had the privilege of being a panelist on National Public Radio’s “On Point” program, Monday morning July 6th. Listen to the podcast here. The show was entitled, “Politics, Tragedy and Religion in the Public Sphere.” It was guest-hosted by Michel Martin.

President Barack Obama speaks during services honoring the life of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Friday, June 26, 2015, in Charleston, S.C., at the College of Charleston TD Arena. Pinckney was one of the nine people killed in the shooting at Emanuel AME Church last week in Charleston. (AP)

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On Ancestors, Slavery, and Religious Dissent

05/24/15 by

Rev. Josh Pawelek

“Heroes of faith in every age, far seeing, self-denying, wrought an increasing heritage, monarch and creed defying. Faith of the free!”[1]—words from 20th-century Unitarian minister Vincent Silliman. I wanted us to sing this hymn before this sermon because it points to a dynamic in our faith that at times proves confusing both to Unitarian Universalists and to those who observe us from outside. Liberalism in the United States has both political and religious roots, and continues today to express itself both politically and religiously. In both politics and religion the American liberal tradition—at its best—orients us towards freedom, liberty, justice, equality, inclusion, human rights and, I add today, environmental sustainability. In both politics and religion the American liberal tradition—at its best—calls us to protest, to dissent, to offer prophetic witness when we encounter barriers to freedom, when we encounter injustice, inequality, exclusion, human rights violations and threats to environmental sustainability. The “faith of the larger liberty” is both political and religious. It is “monarch and creed defying.”

What occasionally causes confusion is the way our religious yearnings blend with our political concerns. We might come to worship on Sunday morning looking for explicitly spiritual sustenance, and suddenly the service takes on a political tone or reflects on a political issue. How is this religious? some might wonder, forgetting that this blending is an aspect of our liberal tradition. It might happen on a Sunday morning, but it also happens at the state capitol or, as it did for me last Monday, on the corner of Barbour and Westland Streets in North Harford, advocating with other clergy and Governor Malloy for drug policy reform.

Recall that the Puritans who founded colonial New England—the Puritans from whom our Unitarian ancestors were directly descended—were both political and religious. They were religious dissenters at a time when religious dissent had immediate political implications. And of course, for their dissent they were persecuted. As children many of us learned the Puritans left England in search of religious freedom. This idea of the free church would eventually become a centerpiece of not only the American liberal tradition, but of American democracy itself. The 20th-century Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams said that in America “the conception of the democratic society is … a descendent of the conception of the free church.”[2]

That’s likely overstated, but there is a connection between the Puritan quest for religious liberty and the later American quest for political liberty. What I always find ironic is that, had they had our word ‘liberal’ in their vocabulary, they would have rejected it. They were anything but liberal. They were coercive theocrats who adhered to strict Calvinist doctrine and who could not conceive of the separation of church and state. Politics and religion were completely intertwined. They established a state church and levied taxes on all citizens to pay for it. They enforced attendance at Sunday worship. Though they originated as dissenters, they could not tolerate dissent within their own society, and often confronted it with state violence.

The Puritans brought the traditions of religious freedom and dissent to the New World, but they were not responsible for carrying them forward. Throughout the colonial era, individuals, groups, sects—including eventually Unitarians and Universalists—continued to rise up in defiance of Puritan religious orthodoxy and political rule until the congregational church was dis-established in the 1800s. One such new sect which formed in the late 1600s was the Rogerenes, named for their founder, John Rogers, whose father, James Rogers, a wealthy New London, CT merchant, was the 8th Great Grandfather of UUS:E member, Fred Sawyer. Oh yes! This is the sermon James Rogers’ 21st-century Unitarian Universalist descendant purchased at last year’s UUS:E goods and services auction!

Fred leant me a copy of Allegra di Bonaventura’s 2013 book, For Adam’s Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England.[3] (She’s an assistant dean at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Yale.) Di Bonaventura weaves together the stories of five colonial New London families—the Winthrops, the Livingstons, the Hempsteads, the Rogers (who founded the Rogerenes), and the Jacksons who were slaves of African descent. The book provides an intimate and rare portrait of slavery in colonial New England—a story not often told. It also offers an intimate and rare portrait of colonial New England family life, marriage, romance, death, work, commerce, politics, law, punishment, religion, religious dissent, and religious activism. I highly recommend it and I am grateful to Fred for suggesting it.

Fred is interested in his ancestors, the Rogers, and what lessons their lives might hold for us. For me it has always been an important spiritual practice to take time to remember that we are here because others came before us and bequeathed to us, if nothing else, the gift of life. It is important to look back and honor our ancestors—both our blood relatives, and our spiritual forebears—those “heroes of faith” about whom we sing in “Faith of the Larger Liberty.”

What happens, however, when we look back and discover some difficult fact about our ancestors? For example, white people who discover that their ancestors owned slaves. Given what we know about slavery—countless lives lost, bodies violated, families separated, work stolen, language and culture assaulted—and given the reality that we still live with the legacy of slavery and witness in, for example, our criminal justice system, attempts to reinscribe it through polices that lead to mass incarceration of people of color, learning that one’s ancestors held slaves can be very disconcerting. Upon learning that the Rogers held slaves, Fred seemed not troubled, but accepting and curious. What do we do with this information? He’s interested in understanding not only what it meant to hold slaves in this era, but also what it meant to set them free. Many Rogerenes ultimately freed their slaves and, in later generations, became outspoken opponents of slavery. While the historical record isn’t entirely clear on why they began freeing their slaves, and while they did it slowly and with some ambivalence, we can make some claims about it with a high degree of certainty. First, their religious experience led them to oppose slavery. Second, there were great risks involved in such opposition. Di Bonaventura points out that Puritan clergymen, as town leaders and moral arbiters, “led in slaveholding as a group, owning bondsmen in greater numbers than did their parishioners.”[4] To oppose slavery was to oppose the theocracy itself.  Religious yearnings blending with political concerns.

The Rogerenes were adept at opposing the theocracy. Who were they? They were a religious sect responding to an ongoing experience of the Holy Spirit. The founder, John Rogers, son of James Rogers, became acquainted with an English sect known as Seventh-Day Baptists or Sabbatarians in Newport, RI while on business trips there. Sabbatarians worship on Saturday. Rogers took to it wholeheartedly, and started a Sabbatarian church in New London. Once he had converted his father and some of his siblings, he broke off from the Newport church and started his own sect which eventually became known as the Rogerenes. Described as fanatics and outlaws, they worshipped not only on Saturdays, but any day of the week and—worse—they engaged in menial labor on Sundays. They refused to pay taxes in support of the established church. They called for the separation of church and state. They welcomed men and women of every background as full congregants—African slaves, free blacks, Indians, Europeans, rich poor, men, women, children—they were truly egalitarian in this sense. They lived together, ate together, worshipped together and baptized each other in the Thames river. Di Bonaventura speculates that their experience of egalitarian spiritual community is what led them to become uncomfortable with slaveholding. It was difficult to proclaim spiritual equality while continuing to benefit from a profound social, political and economic inequality. Over the years they provided emotional, spiritual, legal and financial support to their slaves, most notably to John and Joan Jackson who were involved in 45 lawsuits in CT and MA over a period of decades, starting with John’s attempts to win Joan’s freedom, and then in their combined attempts to win their children’s freedom.

Although di Bonaventura doesn’t mention it, I’m reminded of that well-known passage from the Christian New Testment book of Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[5] They seemed to be living a version of this vision.

The Rogerenes hid nothing. they seemed undaunted by Puritan power. This is likely due to the fact that they were wealthy themselves, and as much as the Puritan hierarchy detested them, it needed their wealth to fund the ongoing development of New London. In a sense, the Rogerenes could afford to be provocative. Even so, the Puritan authorities did not sit idly by. They had the Rogerenes arrested, fined, publicly punished, incarcerated. Here’s a passage from For Adam’s Sake that gives a sense of how both sides operated. In this passage, local authorities have caught John Rogers and his brother-in-law, Samuel Fox, eel fishing on Sunday and convict them of ‘sabbath-breaking.’

Fox paid his fine…. John Rogers was not so compliant. He refused to pay and was imprisoned in the makeshift New London jail.

The Sunday after her brother’s incarceration, Bathshua (Fox’s wife) staged a protest…. She entered the meetinginghouse in the midst of Mr. Saltonstall’s morning service and loudly announced before the assembled congregation that she had performed menial labor in violation of the law. Authorities seized her immediately and put her in the stocks. The commotion of her outburst and apprehension … allowed her brother to escape. When Saltonstall later began the afternoon service, John Rogers appeared back in action—thrusting open the meetinghouse doors pushing a wheelbarrow. It must have been quite a site when the Rogerene leader rolled up toward the pulpit, shrilly calling out his wares (the wheelbarrow almost certainly contained shoes of his own making; the wealthy merchant had taken up the humble craft of cobbling as biblically sanctioned manual labor)…. Members of the congregation pounced on Rogers… Town authorities [then forced] the Rogerene leader to stand fifteen minutes on a ladder with a rope around his neck…. The exercise made little impression on Rogers and they flung him back in jail.

From his crude confinement, John Rogers hung a handwritten “Proclamation” out a window, declaring his opposition to “the Doctrines of Devils”…. For this … the authorities charged him with blasphemy, an accusation that led to his transfer to a more secure imprisonment in Hartford, where he awaited trial and certain conviction in the General Court…. At his sentencing the court required Rogers to submit a bond to secure his good behavior. Rogers deemed the order a sacrilege and refused to comply, so he remained in prison.

[He] ended up serving more than three years in prison at a time when long-term incarceration was extremely rare and highly impractical…. Once Rogers finally did finish out his term, Saltonstall, whose delicate pride had been wounded in the attacks on his sermonizing, brought a civil suit against him for defamation. Saltonstall also served on the bench of the court that determined the outcome—a conflict of interest which the colonial court blithely tolerated—so it was no surprise when the plaintiff-judge won a spectacular and highly retaliatory damage award of six hundred pounds.[6]

In discerning what the Rogerene story may mean for us 300 years later, I want to make three points. First, I don’t support the interruption of someone else’s worship service. You may recall that anti-abortion activists invaded a UU service in New Orleans last July and that I was appalled. To some degree I feel for Mr. Saltonstall’s flock. But the Rogers lived in a different era, where there was no separation of church and state, where the religious and political authority were the same, where the minister was also the judge who heard his own case and decided that case in his own favor. In such a society where alternative religious viewpoints are illegal, interrupting Sunday worship may be the only option when political and religious freedom is at stake. What resonates for me is their willingness to speak out, their willingness to accept consequences in order to express their deeply held convictions. As Unitarian Universalists we are not formal heirs of the Rogerenes, and yet something in their story, their spirit, their courage, their willingness to speak and act on their truths, their concern for freedom both religious and political—something in them resonates with our UU spirit, our UU convictions, our UU principles. They swim in that same great river that eventually became the American liberal tradition we have inherited.  They are kindred spirits in this “Faith of the Larger Liberty.”

Second, the Rogerenes apparently achieved something that was remarkable and difficult in their time, something which remains remarkable and difficult today and yet which we are called to achieve: a diverse, egalitarian, beloved spiritual community. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female.” We might add: there is no longer gay or straight, trans or cis, young or old, documented or undocumented, rich or poor, imprisoned or free, addicted or sober, mentally ill or mentally well—at our core we are all one, we are all connected, we are all worthy of welcome, respect and love.

Finally, the Rogers family held slaves. They clearly benefitted from holding slaves—it was one source of their wealth. And yet their religious convictions caused them to become increasingly uncomfortable with slaveholding. I said earlier we continue to live today with the legacy of slavery in America. We continue to live in the midst of extraordinary racism. I feel blessed to inherit a liberal religious tradition that calls me to examine and confront this legacy, to confront it within the church, to confront it within the halls of government, to confront it on urban and suburban streets, to confront it with that New England spirit that is both monarch and creed defying.

While we UUs are not formal spiritual descendants of the Rogerenes, I’d like to suggest that we share some of the Rogerene religious and political DNA. We might say we both descend from a common ancestor–a common free church, free faith liberal spirit. We encounter in them not only a distant cousin, but a spiritual ancestor swimming in that great river that gave rise to the faith of the larger liberty, and whose memory we can invoke as we endeavor to build that land where justice rolls down like waters, and peace like an ever-flowing stream; where all are one, all connected, and all worthy of welcome, respect and love.

Amen and blessed be.

[1] Silliman, Vincent B., “Faith of the Larger Liberty,” Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press and the UUA, 1993) #287.

[2] Adams, James Luther, in Stackhouse, Max, On Being Human Religiously (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976) p. 9.

[3] Di Bonaventura, Allegra, For Adam’s Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2013).

[4] Di Bonaventura, For Adam’s Sake, p. 32.

[5] Galatians 3:28.

[6] Di Bonaventura, For Adam’s Sake, pp. 49-51.

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On Being/Becoming Generous People

03/22/15 by

Rev. Josh Pawelek

Our ministry theme for March is generosity. We choose this theme for this time of year quite intentionally. March is the month and today is the day we officially launch our annual appeal during which we ask each of you to make a generous financial pledge for the coming fiscal year. I know I don’t have to sugar-coat this. We’ve talked enough about money, giving and financial stewardship over the years that I’m confident all of us (except those who are very new to the congregation) know that we—and by we I mean you, the members and friends of this congregation, and me, the minister, and the rest of the staff—we, all of us, want all of us to be as generous as possible when we make our financial gifts to this congregation. We take giving very seriously here, and I hope and trust each of you is reflecting now on what UUS:E means to you, and the financial gift you can pledge for the coming year.

Of course, generosity is important no matter what time of year and no matter to whom or to what institution or cause you are directing your generosity. I want us to be generous to UUS:E with our time, talents and treasure; but it is also my hope that we will be generous in all aspects of our lives—generous to our families, our friends, our neighborhoods, our towns or cities, institutions we care about, people in need, people who are suffering, people next door, people on the other side of the planet and, indeed, the planet itself. I want us to be generous people. And I want us to be people who are always becoming more generous. With this in mind, and mindful we are launching our annual appeal, I offer three reflections on generosity:

My first reflection, perhaps somewhat oddly, is about not being generous. It stems from the recognition that at certain times I experience myself not as a generous person, but as something else. I don’t want to admit I sometimes experience myself as selfish, stingy, closed-off, but sometimes that how it feels. I don’t want to give money to everyone who approaches me with an outstretched hand. I don’t want to say ‘yes’ to every idea everyone wants to pursue with my help, or to every worthy cause everyone wants me to support. I don’t always want to call my legislators or the Governor’s office every time someone asks—that could be a full-time job if I made every call I’m asked to make. As much as I love my parents, my wife, my brothers and their wives, my kids and my nephews and nieces, I don’t always want to spend time with them. I don’t always want to help out with the PTO, chaperone the field trip or coach soccer. I don’t want serve on yet another board. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t. And, often, the act of saying “no” or “I don’t want to” or “I’m sorry, I just can’t do it,” or “I’m sorry, there’s no cash in my wallet,” makes me feel incredibly guilty, selfish, stingy, closed. To this day, I’m not entirely sure where this comes from—especially the guilt, since it wasn’t part of my religious upbringing. But guilt is often the first thing I feel when I refuse the invitation to practice generosity.

I’ve learned to remind myself that all spiritual values have their limits when human beings put them into practice. There are practical limits to our compassion, love, wisdom, creativity, hospitality. Generosity is no exception. We cannot respond to every need. We cannot make every wounded person whole. None of us has infinite financial resources, infinite time, infinite compassion, infinite love. This is not a scarcity-mentality. It is a realistic assessment of our capacity. As much as we might want to, we cannot donate a second kidney. We cannot say “yes” to everything no matter how worthy. When we do, we risk exhausting ourselves, impoverishing ourselves, losing ourselves. We risk stressing out, checking out, burning out, disappearing, fading away. We risk becoming resentful, bitter, discouraged, depressed.

It is possible to be generous in an ungrounded way, in a way that potentially does harm to the one being generous. Over the years I have watched people impoverish themselves emotionally, spiritually and financially by giving endlessly to others. We might call them selfless, we might admire them for their sacrifice—sometimes it is truly beautiful—but more often than not, as they deplete their resources, their own life grows more and more tenuous, and their generosity loses its effectiveness. There’s a metaphor that keeps popping up in my life these days, the instructions one receives on an airplane: if the cabin loses pressure and the oxygen masks drop down from the ceiling, put your own mask on first, prior to putting your child’s mask on. If we want our generosity to be as effective as possible, and if we want it to be sustainable—that is, if we want generosity to be an ongoing, deeply-rooted part of our identity—then we need to put our own mask on first. We need to trust that saying “no” doesn’t have to be a sign of selfishness. Saying “no” may simply mean “I’ve reached my current limit.” Saying “no” in some situations sustains us for those situations wherein we say “yes.” Saying “no” in some situations enables us to be ready for and effective in those situations wherein we say “yes.” I’m talking about self-care, which includes saying “no,” and enables us to offer grounded and sustainable generosity to those people, institutions and causes that are most important to us.

My next reflection is about spontaneous generosity or random acts of kindness. Our middle school “Popcorn Theology” class recently watched excerpts from the 2007 film, Evan Almighty, in which actor Steve Carell plays Evan, a newly elected congressman who wants to change the world, and actor Morgan Freeman plays God. God convinces Evan that he must build an ark, just like Noah did in Genesis. Evan asks God if he really intends to flood the earth and start over. God doesn’t answer the question fully, but he indicates his intent isn’t as Biblical as it may seem. In protest, Evan says, “I don’t even know where I would begin.” “Well, I hear that a lot,” says God. “People want to change the world, don’t know where to begin. You wanna know how to change the world, son? One act of random kindness at a time.” Spoiler: ‘ark’ is an abbreviation for ‘act of random kindness.’

Whether we say ‘acts of random kindness’ or ‘random acts of kindness,’ this is very familiar language in our culture, to the point where it has become a hyper cliché. If you know me at all, you know I am underwhelmed by moral and spiritual guidance delivered through clichés. I actually don’t agree that one act of random kindness at a time, even when carried out by millions of people, will change the world. I happen to think the problems facing the world—climate change, poverty, violence, war, and so on—will not evaporate in the face of widespread kindness. I happen to think solving the problems facing the world today requires not random, but highly organized, large-scale, strategic interventions aimed at transforming the local, regional, national and global social, political and economic structures that currently perpetuate those problems. Such interventions cannot be accomplished by kind individuals acting randomly on their own, but rather by multinational, multicultural, multigenerational movements acting in visionary, courageous and sustainable ways over the course of decades. Since change of this sort requires conflict, not all of it will be kind. The world needs more than random acts of kindness.

Having said that, I don’t want to become known as the minister who urged his congregation not to commit random acts of kindness. If you were getting ready to post that message on Facebook, or tweet it, please hold off. Almost all of us have opportunities—many, many opportunities—every day to be kind, compassionate, generous. And we don’t have to go far out of our way to find those opportunities. Offer an encouraging word, a compliment, an affirmation—or just ask, “how are you today?” and really mean it. Reach out to a friend or family member you haven’t heard from in a while. Say “hello,” “I’ve been thinking about you,” “I miss you.” Let the other person have the parking space, even though you got there first. Let the other person cut in front of you in the traffic jam. Lend a hand, hold a door, offer a ride, help with a project—painting a room, raking leaves, shoveling snow, packing for a move, cleaning a garage, attic or basement. Ask, “Is there anything I can do?” and, if the answer is “yes,” do it. Mentor, tutor, coach, counsel, guide. Help with homework. Remember a birthday or an anniversary—the anniversary of a marriage, a death, any significant milestone in a person’s life. Remember with a card, a phone call, a gift. If you discover someone is lonely, talk to them, take them seriously. If someone is overwhelmed, assist them. If someone is grieving, comfort them. If someone is in pain, soothe them. If someone needs to be left alone, let them be alone.

And then there’s the giving of money. So often we encounter people who need money for any number of reasons. And yes, giving money to someone in need can be tricky. When you have money to give and another needs it, it invariably creates an imbalance in the relationship, which can be hard to talk about, hard even to acknowledge. At the risk of minimizing the complexities money brings to human interactions, my hope is that in those times when we have it and others need it, we can give it with humility, with grace, with no strings attached, with no regrets. Having money to give does not make a person better or more worthy, but it does give one an avenue for kindness and generosity that can make a huge difference in another’s life. My hope is that, when we have it to give, we will give it.

Offering our generosity through random acts of kindness won’t change the world. But what a difference it can make, not only in the lives of those who receive our generosity, but in our own lives. What a difference there is between a life in which we close ourselves off to the needs of those around us, compared to a life in which we reach out, make ourselves available, offer a kind word, give money when we have it to give—thoughtfully, carefully, always within our means—but freely, without reservations or misgivings. Generosity honors life, strengthens life, builds life up. Yes, church ought to enable our participation in those larger movements for social, economic, political and environmental change, but it also ought to inspire us to be generous in our face-to-face, human interactions. What a difference generosity makes.

My final reflection, then, brings generosity back to church. Again, I want us to be generous people. And I want us to be people who are always becoming more generous. This certainly means I want us to give as generously as possible to our annual appeal. And it also means I want us to be as generous as possible in all aspects of our lives. So, what is it about church—this particular church—that creates a generous spirit in us, that keeps us not closed but open to those around us, that inspires us to give? I read to you earlier an excerpt from a chapter from Anne Lamott’s Travelling Mercies, called “Why I Make Sam Go to Church.” Sam is her son. She describes how the people of the church welcomed Sam as soon as they found out she was pregnant, and how they continued to welcome him and support their small family through hard times once he was born. She writes of receiving gifts of clothes, casseroles and baggies full of dimes. She writes of the deep and genuine love the people of the church feel for Sam and the deep and genuine love he feels for them. This story jumped out at me because it’s about multigenerational bonds within a church community. What I’ve come to recognize during this congregational year—more fully than I’ve ever recognized before—is that for multigenerational communities to work well the members must be open—intentionally and purposefully open—to a whole range of needs and gifts unique to each generation—open to the needs and gifts of elders, of our children, of our youth and young adults, of parents and of non-parenting adults;  open to all these needs and gifts, learning how they complement each other, how they conflict with each other, and how we can mash them up into a beautiful whole. Multigenerational community demands openness. And I’m convinced the more open we are, the more generous we become.

Last year many of you were able to increase your financial giving, which enabled us to support a very intentional process of enhancing the quality and experience of our multigenerational community. We have been working closely with our interim religious education consultant, Barb Greve and we are finally beginning to introduce some innovations: Everything from the new children’s nametags, to increasing the number of non-parenting adults volunteering or subbing in the children’s religious education program, to inviting small groups of adults to attend children’s worship, to piloting a variety of techniques for multigenerational worship. This spring we’re going to experiment with having children present for the beginning of adult worship on a much more regular basis, and we have many more ideas for making full-week faith a reality over the coming year. The bottom line for me is that we are slowly increasing the opportunities for interaction across the generations. This requires a new degree of openness to change and new relationships. I’m starting to see it—perhaps you are too—and I love what I see. The more open we are, the more generous we become.

Generosity is one of the most significant spiritual values we can cultivate in ourselves and our children. So much of what we do here at UUS:E seeks to instill generosity in us by opening us up—opening us up to the world around us, to pain and suffering and need in the world, to the complexity and beauty of the world, to possibilities, creativity, joy and love: Sunday morning worship, religious education, opportunities to serve—as leaders, as committee members, as stewards, as caregivers, as teachers—opportunities to participate in social justice movements, opportunities to participate in environmental justice movements, opportunities to mark and celebrate life’s milestones—birth, coming of age, marriage, death—opportunities for us to be safely and fully who we are, opportunities to share the details of our lives, to hear and be heard, to see and be seen, to know and be known, to hold and be held, to shape and be shaped, to challenge and be challenged, to soften and be softened, to care and to be cared for, to bring and receive gifts, to love and be loved. All of it opens us up, enables us to be generous people, enables us to continue becoming more generous people.

For your generous gift to this year’s annual appeal, thank you. For your generous spirit, thank you. For all your efforts to become more generous people, thank you.

Amen and blessed be.

 

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#BlackLivesMatter — a 2015 MLK Sermon

01/18/15 by

Rev. Josh Pawelek

Tomorrow the nation pauses for its annual observation of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. It will also be day 368 in Houston, TX, day 355 in Southfield, MI, day 337 in Bastrop, TX, day 332 in Iberia Parish, LA, day 186 in Staten Island, NY, day 170 in Baltimore, MD, day 167 in Beavercreek, OH, day 163 in Ferguson, MO, day 160 in Los Angeles, CA, day 160 in San Bernadino County, CA, day 153 in St. Louis, MO, day 60 in Brooklyn, NY, day 58 in Cleveland, OH, day 48 in Phoenix, AZ.[1] You likely aren’t familiar with all of these references—I wasn’t aware of most of them until I looked them up—though I suspect Ferguson, Staten Island, and Cleveland stand out to you. These are references to police killings of unarmed People of Color—almost all of them Black men and boys—over the past year. Some of these cases, we know, ended with grand jury decisions not to indict the officers who fired the shots or performed the choke holds. Other cases are under investigation or pending. Some of the officers are on administrative leave. In the Bastrop, TX case the officer was indicted on a murder charge. The U.S. Department of Justice is looking for possible civil rights violations in some of the cases. Some of the families of the deceased have filed wrongful death suits. In Ferguson, MO, where community activists have been protesting daily in various ways, in various places since the death of Michael Brown on August 9th, they mark the days. This is day 162. Tomorrow is day 163.

These police killings have exposed the often harsh reality of daily life in urban and even some suburban Black communities that years and years of books, new stories, statistics, documentaries , sermons and newspaper editorials have not been able to communicate fully to people who don’t live or work in these communities. Perhaps we know, intellectually, about mass incarceration, about the war on drugs, about poverty, about failures in the education system, about race-based health disparities, about how all of it impacts People of Color communities negatively—but suddenly on television, or streaming across smart phone and computer screens, is disturbing video evidence of a profound callousness toward people in these communities, an apparent disregard for life, a too-easy-willingness to ‘take him down,’ a too-easy-willingness to shoot and, in some cases, a horrifying lack of interest in obtaining medical care once the “suspect” is lying prone in the street, bleeding, not breathing, dying. Maybe finally we’re ‘getting it’ not just in our heads but in our hearts.

People of all racial identities are waking up to this harsh reality, to the point where there is now an active, organized and growing racial justice movement in the United States. I don’t call it a ‘new’ movement, mainly because there have been racial justice movements ever since Europeans first began colonizing the western hemisphere. This movement isn’t new, but it is in resurgence. It has been re-catalyzed. People all over the country who were silent six months ago are now saying, “no more.” St. Louis and Ferguson, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Washington, DC, Oakland, Los Angeles, New Haven, Hartford and many more have witnessed vigils, marches, rallies, nonviolent demonstrations, disruptions of commerce, especially retail commerce around the holidays, disruptions of traffic—the ‘taking’ of streets—disruptions of campus life, actions at police stations, at city halls, at state capitols, at federal buildings.

The movement has a name: Black Lives Matter. Of course, many Americans now recognize this phrase as one side in a war of competing social media hashtags, with #BlackLivesMatter on one side and #BlueLivesMatter (or #PoliceLivesMatter or #CopLivesMatter) on the other; while at the same time the more inclusive-sounding #AllLivesMatter asserts itself as well. [For those of you who aren’t familiar with hashtags, just know that typing a hashtag (a pound sign) in front of a particular phrase in a message directs that message to a common online space—for example, a common space on Twitter or a common space on Facebook—where anyone following that particular phrase can find and read your message. I find it fascinating—and I suppose it makes sense—that in our era a social media hashtag like #BlackLivesMatter can become synonymous with a social movement. About the creation of this hashtag which is also a movement, Alicia Garza, a community organizer in the San Francisco-Oakland area wrote: “I created #BlackLivesMatter with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of my sisters, as a call to action for Black people after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was post-humously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed. [Remember, that was 2012.] It was a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society and also, unfortunately, our movements. Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”[2]

There’s a lot more to this story, and I commend to you Garza’s article, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement.” My point here is that #BlackLivesMatter is a liberation movement emerging in response to Black peoples’ collective experience of oppression in the United States today—not fifty years ago, but today. Although this movement is immediately focused on reforming the ways police relate to urban Black communities—calling for an end to police use of excessive force, calling for justice for the victims of such force, calling for greater citizen oversight of police departments, better cross-cultural and antiracism training for police, body cameras for police, an end to police racial profiling, and an end to the militarization of police—the movement is about much more than police. Garza says, “when we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about [all] the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence. It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people … locked in cages in this country—one half of all people in prisons or jails—is an act of state violence.  It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence.”[3]

As such, #BlackLivesMatter is fundamentally different than #BlueLivesMatter, which is not a liberation movement, but an understandable social media reaction to the criticism police have been receiving in response to the deaths of Brown, Garner, Rice, etc. Blue lives do matter. It is a tragedy every time a police officer is killed or wounded in the line of duty. No reasonable person disputes this. It feels really important to me to name that today is also “day 30” since New York City officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were murdered in Brooklyn by a man who had posted earlier on his Instagram page that he was seeking revenge for the killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. It feels really important to me to name that 121 police officers died in the line of duty in the United States (including Puerto Rico) in 2014—47 of whom were fatally shot in encounters with crime suspects.[4] And I am mindful that many people who live and own businesses in neighborhoods where police violence is endemic are themselves victims of crime—robbery, rape, etc.—and thus they still appreciate and desire a strong police presence in order to feel safe where they live. #BlueLivesMatter.

Having said that, it wouldn’t make sense to suggest that police are somehow an oppressed class, or that police are ‘targeted for demise’ in some systemic way. ‘Black’ is a racial identity. Blue is the color of a uniform worn by people of all racial identities. Black people and other People of Color experience elevated incarceration rates, elevated unemployment rates, health care disparities, educational disparities, housing disparities and a long history of state-sponsored, vigilante and drug war violence. Police don’t. #BlackLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter aren’t equivalent and don’t belong on opposite sides of our national discourse on race and racism. In fact, I’m convinced that the vast majority of police do not want to perpetuate racism through their policies and procedures. And I’m convinced that including police in concerted and sustained efforts to address racism will ultimately decrease tensions between police and people in urban Black communities, and will thereby make police work safer. Alicia Garza puts it more succinctly: As “Black people get free, everybody gets free.”[5]

Similarly, #AllLivesMatter is not a liberation movement. It’s certainly a true statement. I hear it as equivalent to the first Unitarian Universalist principle, “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” or, as we said earlier with the children, “each person is important.” It’s the principle at the heart of the Biblical admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.[6] But all lives aren’t under assault. All lives don’t have to deal with racism the way Black lives do. The critique of #AllLivesMatter is that, while true, when inserted into the struggle against racism, it erases the unique experience of Black people, and it erases White society’s role in perpetuating racism. Garza says, “Progressive movements in the United States have made some unfortunate errors when they push for unity at the expense of really understanding the concrete differences in context, experience and oppression.  In other words, some want unity without struggle. As people who have our minds stayed on freedom, we can learn to fight anti-Black racism by examining the ways in which we participate in it, even unintentionally, instead of the worn out and sloppy practice of drawing lazy parallels of unity between peoples with vastly different experiences and histories.”[7]

A dear colleague of mine—a Black minister pastoring a Black church—summed it up for me when he said, “I’m tired of #AllLivesMatter, and I’m tired of people telling me how everyone’s justice issues intersect with mine. I was with women on reproductive rights. I was with gays and lesbians on marriage. I was with Hispanics on immigrants’ rights. But when we see young Black men being gunned down or otherwise killed by police, vigilantes or gangbangers, by poverty, a broken health care system or the drug war, who is with me? Right now, it’s time—long past time—for #BlackLivesMatter.”

I am committed to the principle that all lives matter. And I am committed to the principle that blue lives matter. But when I prioritize my personal social justice commitments, and when, as your minister, I prioritize the social justice commitments I envision our congregation making, as well as the social justice commitments I envision Unitarian Universalism making; and when I prioritize the social justice initiatives I am committed to supporting, promoting and, when asked, leading in the Greater Hartford region, my accountability is to #BlackLivesMatter.

What might that mean over the next few years? For one, it means that we as a congregation ought to continue the antiracist social justice work we’re already engaged in through the leadership of our Social Justice / Anti-Oppression Committee. We ought to continue specifically with our efforts to reduce the mass incarceration of People of Color through drug policy and criminal justice reform. We ought to continue our work on environmental racism which culminated a few years ago with the passage of Connecticut’s environmental justice law. But what stands out to me the most—and what is new for us as a congregation—is that we can count on organized, nonviolent civil disobedience coming to Hartford, and possibly some of the surrounding towns. It’s just around the corner. Our region has its share of racial disparities. In fact, the Hartford region has some of the worst racial disparities in the country when it comes to education and poverty. It has its own history of police violence against young Black men. And it has young people in urban areas and college campuses, as well as local clergy and community activists, who are beginning to organize. Nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience is coming here.

When I first learned of this I admit I was surprised, and initially resistant because I have invested so much time and energy over the years in working “within the system,” talking to legislators, talking to city leaders, talking to police, advocating for changes in the law, testifying, witnessing, lobbying, organizing prayer breakfasts, holding public meetings, talking, talking, talking, talking. I suppose I have a passion for talking. But someone asked, “with all our talking, have we really made a dent in racism in our region?” Have outcomes for People of Color—Black people in particular—changed in any appreciable way as a result of all our talking? I didn’t have a good answer. I still don’t have a good answer. And because I don’t have an answer to that question, I’m persuaded that non-violent civil disobedience may be precisely what we need at this moment. I’m persuaded that figuring out creative ways to disrupt ‘business as usual’ can make a difference, can bring the right pressure to bear on the people who have the power to make change real.

Large-scale, nonviolent civil disobedience like the actions we’re seeing in other parts of the country would be new for our region, something we haven’t seen in recent times—certainly not in my memory—though we have seen it on a small scale with the “Fight for Fifteen” movement. As a predominantly White, liberal, suburban congregation, I hope in the very least we can understand why reasonable people would to move in this direction, to cause disruptions, to take arrest if need be, to send a message that all is not well in Black America and we are no longer willing to play the talking game. I would hope in the very least we can understand that far too many Black people and other People of Color feel unheard, disrespected, forgotten, marginalized and penalized by our larger social, political and economic systems and they don’t want to live that way anymore. And not only do I hope we would merely understand, but that, mindful of King’s first principle that nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people, we would be actively supportive, figuring out the best ways possible for us to participate, for us to be part of this resurgent racial justice movement, for us to say clearly, proudly and courageously—not only in word but also in deed—Black Lives Matter.

The movement is here friends. May we care—I know we care. May we understand—I know we understand. May we be supportive. May we find ways to participate. May we be courageous.

Amen. Blessed be.

[1] Juzwiak, Rich and Chan, Aleksander, “Unarmed People of Color Killed By Police, 1999 to 2014,” Gawker.com. See: http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349.

[2] Garza, Alicia, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” The Feminist Wire, October 7, 2014. See: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

[3] Garza, Alicia, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” The Feminist Wire, October 7, 2014. See: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

[4] See Officer Down Memorial Page at http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014?ref=sidebar.

[5] Garza, Alicia, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” The Feminist Wire, October 7, 2014. See: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

[6] Mark 12:31a.

[7] Garza, Alicia, “A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement,” The Feminist Wire, October 7, 2014. See: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/.

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Four Reflections on Atonement

10/05/14 by

Rev. Josh Pawelek


A Reflection on Atonement: Teshuvah For UUs?

Our October ministry theme is atonement—making amends for whatever pain or hurt, large or small, we have caused in others; acknowledging our imperfections; correcting our mistakes; offering genuine apology; offering forgiveness to those who apologize to us; moving back across the borders that have kept us separated and isolated from each other; seeking reconciliation with whatever it is we regard as most holy. We select this theme at this time of year in part as a way of seeing and valuing Judaism and Jewish tradition. The Jewish High Holy days—the “Days of Awe”—occur in late summer or early autumn every year. This year they concluded yesterday, October 4th, with Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement.” In a message to children about the “Days of Awe,” author and Rabbi Malka Drucker[1] says, “these are delicate days, when people look at the year that has passed and face up to their mistakes, errors in judgment, or wrongdoings. This is called teshuvah, which means return.”[2] I understand return in this sense to mean a return to right relationship, a return to community, a return to God. Teshuvah is also often translated as repentance meaning, again, making amends, offering apology, seeking forgiveness for wrongdoing. 

I also understand the experience of teshuvah during the Days of Awe as an opportunity for Jews to not only repair external relationships, but to repair the relationship one has with oneself—to return to one’s true self, to regain grounding, to regain wholeness, to once again recognize and speak one’s own voice. It seems repairing one’s relationship with oneself and repairing one’s external relationships are intertwined. We might say it is difficult to forgive others if one hasn’t forgiven oneself. I found a poem from Rabbi Burt Jacobsson entitled “Prayer Before Yom Kippur,” which expresses this aspect of teshuvah: “I now prepare / to unify my whole self— / heart / mind/ consciousness / body / passions / with this holy community / with the Jewish people everywhere / with all people everywhere /with all life and being / to commune with the Source of all being. / May I find the words, / the music, the movements / that will put me in touch / with the great light of God. / May the rungs of insight and joy /that I reach in my devotion /flow from me to others / and fill all my actions in the world.”[3]

I mentioned in my October newsletter column that it’s somewhat of a cliché for Unitarian Universalist clergy, myself included, to point out at this time of year that we UUs don’t have a spiritual practice akin to teshuvah.  We don’t have a set of rituals for atonement, let alone a Day of Atonement. In saying this, I don’t mean to suggest that we ought to somehow copy what Jews do. Generally speaking, Unitarian Universalists are not rigorously ritualistic in our collective spiritual life, and it may be too out-of-spiritual-character for us to create and engage in such rituals.  But not having such a ritual should in no way imply that we don’t need a practice of atonement in our lives.

It is indeed part of the human condition to find ourselves from time to time—and sometimes for extended periods of time, if not permanently—out of right relationship with family members, friends, work-colleagues, neighbors; out of right-relationship with ourselves;  and indeed, out of right relationship with whatever it is we regard as most holy. It is part of the human condition to find ourselves bearing grudges, unable to let go of past hurts, harboring anger, resentment, hatred. It is part of the human condition to find ourselves feeling isolated, separated, alienated from whatever it is we regard as holy. And, odd but true, we can and do dedicate enormous energy to keeping our broken relationships broken. This is not new to the human condition. It is an ancient human experience. It makes perfect sense to me that the ancient Hebrew priests would place rituals of atonement at the center of their highest holy day. It makes perfect sense to me that we modern Unitarian Universalists would recognize the importance of cultivating religious and spiritual identities that invite us to atone in response to those moments when we falter.  

How can we return to right relationship given our inevitable propensity to miss the mark, to make mistakes, to hurt others’ feelings, to misunderstand, to react out of anger?” That’s the question I feel we are continually called to answer in our own lives, in our congregation, and in the world. It’s a question that has gone missing from the public sphere. An obvious example is the politician who refuses to acknowledge an ethics violation, even as they walk through the prison gates; or perhaps the spate of recent revelations of professional football players behaving abusively towards spouses and children. I wonder if such high-profile unwillingness to admit wrongdoing sets a tone for the wider society, or if the wider society has somehow set an “I did nothing wrong” tone for its leaders and celebrities to adopt. Either way, the question has gone missing. How do we bring it back and cement it in our spiritual lives? How do we say I’m sorry when I’m sorry is what’s really needed?

A Second Reflection on Atonement: On Avoiding Conflict Avoidance 

I’ve mentioned before from this pulpit that I’m an adult child of an alcoholic, an ACOA. As I think many of you know, one of the unfortunate and false lessons children sometimes learn in families in which one or both parents struggle with addiction is that nothing can go wrong. That is, as long as nothing goes wrong, the family system won’t get out of control, won’t become dangerous, won’t become embarrassing, etc. That’s a general statement. It’s always more complicated than that, and I don’t want to suggest for a minute that as I child I never did anything wrong. But in looking back on my childhood—especially my adolescent years—through the lens of ACOA literature, I recognize I was one of those kids who was motivated to do well in school and extracurricular activities in part because I didn’t want to upset the family system. I didn’t want to be the cause of any extra stress. I didn’t want to rock the boat.

I also became the kind of kid and, eventually, the kind of adult, who’s instinct in the event that something did or does go wrong, is to smooth it over as quickly as possible. Make it go away. It’s dangerous. Today I joke that I wish my own kids would be more like this—start showing a little more motivation; stop adding undue stress to our family system; and when something goes wrong, please, please, please show me you’d like to see it smoothed over—at least a little. Please? But I also know that if a child lives in a home where they can’t make mistakes, where they can’t miss the mark, where they can’t hurt others’ feelings, where they can’t be a jerk from time to time, it’s much harder for them to learn the use of those two blessed words, “I’m sorry.” Effective parents don’t raise children who never misbehave. Effective parents raise children who, when they do misbehave, know how to take responsibility for their actions and apologize.

For the person who’s learned to avoid conflict for whatever reason, or the person who has learned to make conflict go away as quickly as possible, it strikes me that this these character traits—at least as I encounter them in myself—make it challenging to accept and live with the inevitability of disagreement and conflict in human communities. I can see this now, though I remember when I began in ministry, despite having conflict management training, I really thought my job was to just make conflict go away. So, instead of always trying to ensure that nobody’s feelings get hurt in the first place, I’ve come to understand it is much more healthy, much more life-giving, much more spiritually sound to embrace the reality that we may hurt each other from time to time. This means that knowing how to apologize is an essential skill. When we enter into conflicts, we need to do so fully expecting that at some point along the way we will either be offering an apology, offering forgiveness or both.

We need the possibility for atonement.

The absence of any possibility for atonement makes human conflict terrifying. The presence of that possibility makes human conflict palatable and even productive.

In the absence of any possibility for atonement, we are forced to conclude that broken relationships will remain broken, separation will remain separation, isolation will remain isolation. The presence of that possibility assures us that broken relationships can be restored, separation and isolation can be overcome.

In the absence of any possibility for atonement, our first chance, it turns out, was our only chance. There is no new beginning. But in the presence of that possibility, we get second chances. We can keep trying until we get it right. We can always begin again in love. 

A Third Reflection on Atonement: “Micro-Atonements”

I’m calling this reflection “Micro-Atonements,” but I originally called it “I Didn’t Mean It That Way,” in reference to that gut response we may sometimes have when someone informs us we’ve hurt them or crossed some line they find problematic.

“What you did hurt me.” “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“That’s a racist thing to say.” “Oh, no, not at all. You don’t understand what I mean.”

“That was harsh.” “Well, I didn’t intend to be harsh.”

“You didn’t do what you said you were going to do.” “Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

“Your response sounds sexist.” “Oh please, I don’t have a sexist bone in my body.”

“Stop making fun of me.” “I’m not trying to make fun of you.”

“Ughh, please don’t keep saying that. You’re making me angry.” “That’s not my intent.”

“It just feels homophobic to me.” “No, you’re not hearing me correctly. This isn’t that.”

“Ouch, that stung.” “That’s not how I meant it.”

When you tell me I hurt you, it is quite possible that my gut response will be to deny that I hurt you, to try to absolve myself of any wrong-doing before you’ve had a chance to explain. I don’t experience myself as a hurtful person, so it just isn’t possible that I hurt you. I know I didn’t intend to hurt you, so clearly you’ve misunderstood, misheard, mis-interpreted what I’ve said or done. My intentions are good, so your hurt isn’t justified. Frankly, it isn’t even real. Get over it. Surely, if I explain that I didn’t mean it that way, your hurt will go away.

This gut response comes from multiple sources. In me, it may have something to do with the way our society socializes boys to turn away from emotion. It may have something to do with being an ACOA and wanting to make any negative or difficult emotion vanish as quickly as possible. It may have something to do with being a perfectionist, with not wanting to admit that I, too, can make mistakes. I’m sure it also has something to do with being white, male and heterosexual in a society that privileges white, male, heterosexual people, and thus not fully understanding how deep racism, sexism and homophobia go, or how they are experienced in the tiny things we say and do that we don’t know we’re saying and doing. By the way, the term for those tiny sayings and doings is ‘micro-aggressions.” They are indeed small—“no big deal,” we might say in our own defense—but they add up through the course of a day, a year, a life.

If this gut response to defend exists in you, it may have similar origins to those I am describing for myself. It may have other origins. Regardless of where it comes from, in my experience, most of us say these kinds of things from time to time when confronted with the negative impact we’ve had on someone else, no matter how unintentional. “You hurt me.” Well, that wasn’t my intent.”

But in this gut response lives the seeds of more hurt, the seeds of distance, separateness, isolation. It took me a long time to figure this out—and I am still figuring it out: the fact that I didn’t mean to hurt you, doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt. The fact that it wasn’t my intent to cause you pain, doesn’t mean your pain isn’t real. Telling you “I didn’t mean it that way,” is equivalent to saying “your feelings are wrong.” It’s an attempt to end the conflict without actually doing the work of reconciliation. When someone is hurt, before we explain ourselves, we need to tend to the hurt. Those two blessed words, “I’m sorry,” spoken with love and care, more often than not, will be sufficient to begin repairing the breach. But not “I’m sorry” with sarcasm, not with a rolling of the eyes, not with a huff and a sigh, not with a tone that suggests I’m only saying this because I know you need to hear it but I don’t really feel it; and not “I’m sorry, but….” And not, “I’m sorry that you misunderstood my intentions.” Just two words: “I’m sorry.” Let’s call this micro-atonement.

I know this isn’t a perfect science, but I’ve come to trust that when we acknowledge and honor another’s feelings, when we say “I’m sorry,” they have a much better chance of hearing and believing that causing pain was not our intent. And we also have a much better chance of learning how our words and actions have power beyond our intent.

A Final Reflection on Atonement: If We Must Go To War

The United States of America and its allies are at war with a barbaric and, in my view, pathological enemy calling itself the Islamic State. I won’t rehearse here the events that led to this war as I trust they are widely known in this room. What I hope to do in a few minutes is describe my own struggle to come to terms with the idea that this war is necessary.

I am deeply suspicious of American war-making in our era. My suspicion emerges when I detect the possibility that American or multinational corporations stand to profit from our war-making. I don’t agree that innocent people anywhere ought to suffer—that is, have their cities or villages bombed, lose their homes, lose all their worldly possessions, be driven into mountains, deserts and swamps, driven across borders, driven into refugee camps, experience starvation, dehydration and disease, lose limbs, see friends and family members die—simply because a corporation’s interests are threatened or because a corporation stands to make a profit. Whenever there is a justifiable reason to go to war, i.e., ending fascism in Europe and Japan or stopping genocide, I know there will always be those who profit—some corporate entity must produce the weapons used in fighting the war. But all too often I fear our leaders allow the discernment process to go in reverse: the lust for profit comes first, and the moral (and often thin) justification for war (recall Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction) comes second.

I don’t feel suspicion toward our war against the Islamic State. I feel fear, anger and sadness, but not suspicion.  I feel fear particularly when I learn of the arrest of a cell of Islamic State operatives in Australia who were planning to conduct random kidnappings and beheadings. I wonder: was that really what it was? It’s not completely clear. But if that’s what it was, I wonder further: have such cells already formed in Europe, in the United States? I wonder also about the Khorasan Group—not part of the Islamic State—whose base near Aleppo, Syria the United States bombed last week, citing the presence of an imminent threat to the United States. I want to believe these threats are not so real, that this talk is an inflation of a much more distant threat. The word “threat” raises suspicions for me. Is this just the government and the media attempting to build public support for the war—by frightening us into believing there is a direct threat to us? I also know that when the government and the media talk about threats to the “homeland” from radical Islamist groups, there is almost always an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment and a violation of the civil rights of Muslims in the United States. Allegations of threats are immensely complicated. I never quite believe they are as imminent as we hear. But my heart also remembers: it’s happened before. What if the threats are real this time? And I feel fear.

I feel anger at the litany of atrocities the Islamic State has committed—killing, raping, disfiguring, destroying sacred sites, attacking religious minorities, viciously silencing opposing viewpoints, enslaving women, marrying girls to multiple fighters at a time, and lying again and again about the teachings of Islam. I fully accept that people across the Middle East are angry at the United States, other western nations, and corrupt Middle Eastern regimes for a century of colonial oppression. Fight if you must—I get that. But the wonton slaughter of innocents invalidates the grievances you have against perceived enemies; and it demands a principled response from the global community.

I feel deep sadness that we are dropping bombs again on Iraq and anew in Syria—sadness in response to the loss of life, especially the innocents who will become our collateral damage statistics; sadness in response to the money and resources we’re dedicating to war-making that are so desperately needed in our own nation; sadness about the long-term psychological and spiritual damage American war-making does to us, let alone the damage it does abroad; and sadness at the thought that I hate war, that I take to heart Dr. King’s warning that “returning violence for violence multiplies violence.”[4] And yet when I weigh every fact I can learn about this situation—and I acknowledge I don’t know all the facts—I come to the heart-wrenching conclusion that we cannot abandon the millions of people who live in Iraq and Syria to this barbarous tyranny; that there is no solution other than to meet these atrocities not only with every available economic and diplomatic tool, but with resounding military force. I can barely imagine myself saying such a thing; but a chaotic, relentless, brutal and unfeeling spirit drives the Islamic State. I know of no word to name it other than evil. I am not suspicious of our intentions in this new-old war. I am fearful, angry, sad and resigned. The fact that so many traditional antiwar voices on the American left have not spoken out forcefully against this war leads me to speculate that there are many others who feel similarly.  

War, more than any other human endeavor, destroys relationships, creates separation, dehumanizes, murders. What I long to be assured of now is that there will be some way to atone for the violence we are perpetuating.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran minister and committed pacifist who joined a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler said this about his own embrace of violence to confront evil: “The ultimate question for a responsible [person] to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation shall continue to live.”[5] I don’t know enough about this quote to say for sure what Bonhoffer meant by it, but it speaks to me today about this war that feels so tragically necessary. If we must pursue it, let us do so in a way that minimizes the killing of innocents—let that be our first principle of engagement. If we must pursue it, let it not define us as a people. Let it not become who we are as a nation. Let it not obscure and decimate our vision of a more just, peaceful and fair world. Indeed may that vision—not this war—serve as the moral foundation for the coming generations; and may we who live now do everything in our power to make it so. In this way, may we begin to atone for all the wrongs that will surely come with this  new-old war.

Amen and blessed be.

 

[1] Malka Drucker’s website is at http://www.malkadrucker.com/.

[2] Drucker, Malka, The Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994) p. 5.

[3] Jacobson, Burt, “A Prayer Before Yom Kippur,” is posted at Velveteen Rabbi, http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2014/10/before-yom-kippur.html.

[4] King,Jr., Martin Luther, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968) p. 62.

[5] Carroll, James, “Who Is Jesus Today? Bonhoffer, Tillich, and the Future of Jesus Christ” Harvard Divinity School Bulletin (Summe/Autumn 2014) p. 46. See: http://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/summerautumn2014/who-jesus-today.

 

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Ring Them Bells!

09/14/14 by

Rev. Josh Pawelek

In her 2012 Huffington Post article, “The End of Church,” author and historian of American religion, Diana Butler Bass, says “Something startling is happening in American religion: We are witnessing the end of church or, at the very least, the end of conventional church.”[1] She refers to studies that reveal an increasing disenchantment with organized religion, not just within Roman Catholicism or the aging and typically more liberal mainline Protestant denominations, but also within the more evangelical and conservative denominations such as the Southern Baptist Conference. People are leaving church. She refers to the distinction Americans are increasingly making between being religious—which means being part of an organized religion—and being spiritual—which, in Bass’s terms, means having some kind of visceral experience of faith. People are much less inclined today than just a decade ago to identify themselves as “religious,” and much more inclined to identify themselves as either “spiritual and religious” or “spiritual but not religious.” I notice the famous—to some, infamous—“New Atheist,” Sam Harris, is about to publish a book entitled Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.[2] New York Times columnist Frank Bruni said Harris’ book caught his eye “because it’s so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion.”[3]

When I hear about trends in declining church membership—especially membership in evangelical churches—I admit I often find the news hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday we were hearing about the rapid growth of Christian Fundamentalism, thousands of new mega churches, and the unprecedented political power of the Religious Right during the presidency of George W Bush. Could all that really be declining? Could a new generation of Americans really be rejecting that kind of religiosity which seemed so prevalent and permanent just a decade ago?

Well, there were numerous articles just this week about the Seattle-based, mega church, Mars Hill, being forced to close some of its fifteen branches and lay off 30-40% of its staff due to budget constraints.[4] These articles cite multiple reasons for Mars Hill’s problems, including financial mismanagement, plagiarism, hyper-homophobia, hyper-sexism, and ongoing negative media attention. This seems consistent with Bass’findings about the emerging negative view of churches in general. In the popular mind churches appear increasingly unresponsive to the spiritual and material needs of the world. They seem wrapped up in their own internal affairs, institutional governance, politics, financial challenges; they often seem unethical; they seem stuck in patterns of congregational life and organization that don’t mesh with the life experiences of real people, especially young adults; they seem unfocused, unclear, and adrift when it comes to having a positive impact on the wider community. Of course, in Bass’ view, the rapid emergence of the “spiritual and religious” and the “spiritual but not religious” identities is ultimately positive. She says it “expresses a grassroots desire for new kinds of faith communities, where institutional structures do not inhibit or impede one’s relationship with God or neighbor. Americans are searching for churches—and temples, synagogues, and mosques—that are not caught up in political intrigue, rigid rules and prohibitions, institutional maintenance, unresponsive authorities, and inflexible dogma but instead offer pathways of life-giving spiritual experience, connection, meaning, vocation, and doing justice in the world.”[5]

When I read sentences like that last one I confess I always have the same gut reaction: that’s exactly what Unitarian Universalist congregations are trying to do and, in many cases, have been doing for generations: offering “pathways of life-giving spiritual experience, connection, meaning, vocation, and doing justice in the world.” I don’t think I’m alone in that reaction. I think we UUs have tendency (at least historically) to read articles like Bass’ and then to assume the warnings of decline don’t apply to us because somehow we’re getting it right. I remember hearing the term ‘spiritual but not religious’ for the first time in the late 1990s, and saying to myself, and probably to others, “this bodes well for Unitarian Universalism.” Afterall, we were ‘spiritual but not religious’ long before it came into vogue. We were skeptical of religion long before such skepticism became hip, so much so that we have been known in some quarters as the ‘religion for the non-religious.’ And aren’t we the one place in America where atheists, Humanists and agnostics can gather for worship on Sunday morning and be welcomed and embraced in their theological views? So, we’re not like other churches. Right?

Well, we are certainly distinct from other churches, but the reality is we’re not immune from the wider trends in American religious life. I find myself forced to own up to my earlier naiveté in assuming that the prevalence of the ‘spiritual but not religious’ identity would lead automatically to growth in Unitarian Universalist congregations. It hasn’t. Exhibit A is an article in the summer issue of the Unitarian Universalist World magazine by the Rev. Dr. Terasa Cooley entitled “Into the Beyond.” In it, she points out that “Unitarian Universalist congregations seemed for a while to have bucked these trends, but our U.S. membership has slipped each year since 2008.”[6] In that regard, we’re just like other churches.

Rev. Cooley is the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Program and Strategy Officer. She says her job is to “scare all of us, at least a little bit, because if we don’t pay attention to these trends, we could end up like those near-empty or abandoned churches that are increasingly becoming part of our landscape.”[7] Like Bass, she cites a number of recent studies that give some credence to her warnings. For example, earlier this year the Barna Group, an Evangelical Christian polling firm, found that only 2 out of 10 millennials (adults under 30) feel churchgoing is important.[8] She also cites a 2012 Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project finding that nearly 20% of Americans have no religious affiliation whatsoever.[9]

One of the messages in Rev. Cooley’s article which a few of you found unsettling enough to want to talk to me about it is her discussion of the ways people access and practice Unitarian Universalism beyond the local congregation. She names the reality that there are many people in the wider world who agree with our principles and values, who share our commitments to environmental stewardship, antiracism, and civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, who will partner with us on social justice initiatives, and who may even call themselves Unitarian Universalists, but who, for any number of reasons, can’t or won’t attend or join a UU congregation. Do we ignore them since they aren’t going to be part of our congregation? Or do we figure out how to be in relationship with them? Rev. Cooley leans toward relationship, not only for her work as a UUA staff-member, but for us as well. “Creating new ways for people … to connect, serve, and deepen their spirituality with others, with or without a congregation,” she says, “must become a major shift in the UUA’s mission and also in our congregations.”[10]

“How can people connect to Unitarian Universalism and claim a Unitarian Universalist identity without being part of a congregation?” That’s her question. And while I know the UUA isn’t abandoning congregations, it leads me to ask: if participation in American congregations is declining across the board, and if our denominational officials are looking for ways to reach out to people beyond congregations, then what’s a congregation to do?

I was excited when Dorothy Bognar suggested that she and Tom Chung would sing Bob Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells”[11] for us this morning. Dylan wrote this song for his 1989 album “Oh Mercy.” I don’t claim to know what Dylan meant by any of the lyrics in this song, but he clearly isn’t happy with the church. He refers to the bride running backwards—bride being a reference (I assume) to the church as the “bride of Christ.” He refers to the sun “going down upon the sacred cow.” He sings “Oh the shepherd is asleep.” I find it intriguing to compare his discontent with the church to that of the legions of Americans who today say they have no use for organized religion. Remember, although Dylan is Jewish, he became a born-again Christian around 1980. So when he criticizes the church, he’s writing as an insider who seems to care deeply about the church. He finds the church ineffectual in the face of a general moral and social breakdown in society: “Oh the lines are long and the fighting is strong / And they’re breaking down the distance between right and wrong.” He’s upset about what he encounters in the world and he’s critical of a church that seems unresponsive to it. But instead of abandoning the church, instead of throwing up his hands saying, “I have no use for you anymore, I’ll get my spirituality elsewhere,” he’s pleading with the church: Do something! Make a difference! Assert your moral authority! Ring them bells!

That’s the sentiment I want to borrow and channel in response to the question, “What’s a congregation to do? When participation in American churches is declining across the board, and as our denominational officials are—rightly, I think—looking for ways to reach people beyond the traditional, local church, what’s a congregation to do? Ring them bells!

Before you start thinking I’ve lost my mind, please know I know, at least in this building, we don’t have bells. So, I don’t mean we should literally ring bells. Furthermore, I realize one could take this plea to “ring them bells” as a call for the church to just make more noise—to keep being ineffectual, but to do it more loudly. That’s not what I mean either. And furthermore, some commentators have argued Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells” is literature in keeping with the ancient Near-Eastern apocalyptic tradition meaning that the bell is ringing out a warning: “Repent! The end of the world is nigh!” And while I do think religions have a role to play in warning about the consequences of human greed, arrogance, hatred and ignorance, especially when it comes to the climate crisis, the church that only rings its bells to warn of impending disaster is offering a very thin slice of what it requires to fully nurture peoples’ spiritual lives.

I think our spiritual lives are assaulted constantly. I know I don’t have to convince those of you gathered here that prominent aspects of our wider culture and economy lead countless people into boredom, anxiety, exhaustion, isolation, desperation. I don’t have to convince those of you gathered here that prominent aspects of our wider culture and economy tunnel our vision, leave us bowling alone,[12] train us to think in sound-bites, offer trivia in place of truth, and speak to us constantly of our fears so that divisions abound and engaging difference becomes taboo. I don’t have to convince you there is a climate crisis. I don’t have to convince you there are food, water and health crises, or a money-in-politics crisis. I don’t have to convince you there is racism, homophobia or sexism, all of it driving people further and further apart. But given all of it, I do want to say this: church matters! That’s the bell I want us to ring. Church matters immensely, and this Unitarian Universalist congregation matters immensely. In the midst of a culture and economy that drive people apart, that obscure any deeper sense of meaning in our lives, that blunt our sense of vocation, that discourage us from organizing for a more just community, churches, if they choose to use it, have incredible power to counter the daily assault on our spiritual lives: to connect us to each other, to help us find meaning, to help us discern our vocation. Churches have the power to bring us together to organize for social and economic justice. And churches have the power to offer us life-giving spiritual experience.[13] Those are the bells I want us to ring. Not just bells of warning, as important as those are. But bells that proclaim a beloved spiritual and religious community exists here, bells that invite us to shape that community as a powerful response to all those forces in the world that would drive us apart.

Churches and denominations may be in decline these days. But there is still a genius to the idea of people gathering faithfully, week after week, united around a set of common principles, giving thanks for the blessings in their lives, caring for one another, teaching their children, hearing the wisdom of their elders, searching together for truth and meaning, and working for a more just, peaceful and loving world. That’s my vision for this church. If that’s religion, then call me religious, and show me where the bell is, ‘cause that’s a noise I want to make!

Amen and blessed be.

 

[1] Bass, Diana Butler, “The End of Church,” is at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-butler-bass/the-end-of-church_b_1284954.html?ref=religion.

[2] More information about Harris’ new book can be found at his website: http://www.samharris.org/waking-up.

[3] Bruni, Frank, “Between Godliness and Godlessness,” New York Times, September 7, 2014. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-between-godliness-and-godlessness.html?_r=0.

[4] See the Associated Press report at http://www.thestate.com/2014/09/09/3669748/mars-hill-megachurch-closing-branches.html?sp=/99/132/.

[5] Bass, Diana Butler, “The End of Church,” is at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-butler-bass/the-end-of-church_b_1284954.html?ref=religion.

[6] Cooley, Terasa, “Into the Beyond,” UUWorld (Summer, 2014) pp. 22-27. See: http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/295275.shtml.

[7] Cooley, Terasa, “Into the Beyond,” UUWorld (Summer, 2014) pp. 22-27. See: http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/295275.shtml.

[8] See “Americans Divided on the Importance of Church” at https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/661-americans-divided-on-the-importance-of-church#.VBBtXPldWSr.

[9] See “Nones on the Rise” at http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/.

[10] Cooley, Terasa, “Into the Beyond,” UUWorld (Summer, 2014) pp. 22-27. See: http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/295275.shtml.

[11] Watch Bob Dylan perform “Ring Them Bells” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-gZooq3Ylc.

[12] This is a reference to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).

[13] This list riffs off of language Diana Butler Bass’ uses in “The End of Church” athttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-butler-bass/the-end-of-church_b_1284954.html?ref=religion. She says Americans are looking for “pathways of life-giving spiritual experience, connection, meaning, vocation, and doing justice in the world.”

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