2017 Berry Street Essay: The Reverends Ashley Horan, Mel Hoover, Marta Valentin, and Rev. Drs. Kristen Harper, Adam Robersmith,

What Does it Mean for Religious Leaders to Speak Truth to Power?
What Would it look like to Authentically Move that which has been Marginalized Closer to the Center?
What Does Centering that which is Marginalized Look Like?
197th Berry Street Essay
Delivered by Panelists The Reverend Ashley Horan, The Reverend Doctor Kristen Harper, The Reverend Doctor Adam Robersmith, The Reverend Mel Hoover, The Reverend Marta Valentin
New Orleans, LA
June 21, 2017

Scribal Remarks

Rev. Dr. Kate R. Walker, scribe since 2015

Good afternoon gathered members of the Ministerial Conference in Berry Street, I’m Kate Walker your humble scribe. My duties as Scribe require I convene the Executive Committee of the Ministerial Conference in Berry Street, which in turn is charged with nominating the essayist.  The Executive Committee is Barbara Coeyman, Mark Morrison-Reed, and Mitra Rahnema.  The members of the Conference are you, due to your presence today. I now declare the 197th Ministerial Conference in Berry Street in session.

We begin today by diverting from the norm.  Our selected essayist for 2017 was Sofia Betancourt, who accepted the invitation with due reverence and respect, however, she was subsequently called to another duty, as Interim Co-President of the UUA.  Seeing as her energy and attention were focused elsewhere, she needed to withdraw as the 2017 Essayist.

The Executive Committee and I soon pulled together a panel of five trusted colleagues, who despite two months notice, all graciously agreed to serve.  They will be introduced later.  Our normal pattern is to not give any subject parameters to the essayist.  However, given the circumstances of not having 15 months to anxiously, or calmly, ponder their topic, the Executive Committee wanted to avoid having five disparate reflections with no connective tissue.  So, we gave the panel the following broad questions:

What does it mean for religious leaders to “speak truth to power”?

What would it look like to authentically move that which has been marginalized closer and closer toward the center? Or What does centering that which is marginalized look like?

We also gave them the freedom to interpret these questions as broadly as they deem necessary in order to bring their wisdom to this body.

We set the program to allow each speaker to have 10 minutes to respond.  The floor will not be opened for questions.

Also normative to our Conference proceedings is for me to request a nomination from the floor for a Moderator.  We’re not going to do that either.  We needed a Moderator early to help gather our panel in their deliberations over the past two months.  We were very pleased that Leslie Takahashi agreed to be our moderator.

Today, you are all witnesses to an unprecedented Conference in form and function, as well as content.  You are present for the first Conference that is focusing on the issues of power, marginalization, racism and ethnic oppression. In my preparation for my Scribal remarks, I looked at essays for what our colleagues of the past might have to say on such topics as: race, racism, blacks, negros, whites, slavery, emancipation, abolition, nationalism, civil war, voting rights or civil rights.

At first I started with just the civil rights era, then expanded to the civil war, and finally returned to the Black Affairs Council (BAC), Black and White Action (BAWA) split in the UUA during the late 1960’s. In those three eras, I found almost nothing (pause for implication), I then expanded my research to ALL the essays we have on record.  We do not have all the essays, however I found eleven referenced one of those key areas as being of concern to their primary topic. In this small window, I found an inconsistent history with obvious gaps.

For example, working backward in time, during the BAC, BAWA split, little was said about civil rights, however in 1970 Frank Gentile, referenced the BAC and BAWA vote as example of misdirected intent:

“I voted “yes” on the BAC and “no” on BAWA and the Chicanos.

“The BAC vote was wrong because the appropriate function of a religious society is not that of a social work agency, political party, labor union, or united community chest.  Its proper function is the worship of God.”

In 1968 Frank Holmes, lamented how racism is a re-occurring reminder of aggressiveness, yet failed to write about Martin Luther King’s assassination one-month prior.

In May 1865, Henry Whitney Bellows wrote on the need to stand together in association, but there was no mention of slavery, emancipation, or the ending of the civil war the preceding month.

What are we to make of this rather slim and privileged history?  Even if we compensate for our 21st century lens, it is troubling to look back at our Berry Street History. Perhaps it is yet another white wake up call inviting us to reexamine our claims of being a progressive religious movement.  Certainly a deeper analysis is needed.

Our panelists for 2017 are:
Rev. Dr. Kristen Harper
Rev. Mel Hoover
Rev. Ashley Horan
Rev. Dr. Adam Robersmith
Rev. Marta Valentin

The Reverend Ashley Horan
Ten Commandments for Relevant, Reparative Ministry: A reinterpretation of the Hebrew scriptures for those of us who are white.

1.) And God spoke: “I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD. YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BUT ME,” or, The freedom and flourishing of all people is our ultimate concern, and our highest loyalty.

Our faith’s central premise is that we must shape the world so that every person can fulfill the promise of our inborn capacity for wholeness and love. But such a world, in the words of Langston Hughes, is “The land that never has been yet—and yet must be.”  As we grapple with the white supremacy in our tradition’s DNA, and the magnitude of injustice in our society, we know it is a leap of faith to commit our lives’ work to building another world with no proof of its possibility.  And yet, it is the only thing worthy of our deepest allegiance.

2.) YOU SHALL NOT HAVE GRAVEN IMAGES, or, We shall not worship the structures of our faith over its spirit.

Unitarian Universalism is a core set of beliefs and values, enshrined in institutions and practices.  And it is heartbreakingly clear that our current incarnation prevents us from living out our deepest commitments.

When we worry more about the financial risks of making reparations to Black Unitarian Universalists than about the spiritual costs of not making them; when our congregations refrain from taking bold moral stances because members might quit; when we are more committed to preserving our institutions and culture than to creating a world in which all of us are free, we commit idolatry—the sin of mistaking that which is finite for that which is ultimate and most worthy.

3.) YOU SHALL NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD IN VAIN,

or, We shall not claim to be allies without being transformed.

My friend Caitlin Breedlove regularly poses the clarion question of her former organization, Southerners on New Ground: “Are you willing to be transformed in service of the work?”

Our hearts yearn to say “yes” to this question, individually and congregationally.  Yet it will require us to engage in surrender, a spiritual practice at which we white people are largely novices.  But when we decide that what what the world needs us to be is more important than what we are comfortable being, we will exchange our fear and fragility for the deep belonging and belovedness of collaboratively building a different reality.

4.) YOU SHALL HONOR THE SABBATH, or, We shall engage in practices that prepare us to show up.

Our faith—and our world—need us white people to bring thick skins, tender hearts, and real skills.  We’re being asked to take our shifts for the revolution; the question is whether we’re ready to clock in.

So it’s time for some intensive spiritual training.  What are we doing, individually and congregationally, to strengthen the muscles of resilience that will allow us to hear and believe hard truths from people of color, even when they’re delivered in a tone we don’t like?  How will we become humble and courageous enough to say “yes,” even when we don’t know that we will be either safe or right?

5.) YOU SHALL HONOR YOUR MOTHER AND FATHER, or, We shall claim our history in its fullness.

Whiteness robs white people of our sense of belonging to the arc of history and the web of humanity. When we awaken to the white supremacy culture that has shaped us, our instinct is often to further dissociate ourselves, because owning our lineage also means owning the sins of our forebears.

But we must reclaim our ancestors and our history—both that which nurtured death, and that which planted seeds of life.  Susan B. Anthony’s fierce feminism and her intense racism; our congregations’ civil rights work and our white flight; our denominational commitments to becoming anti-racist, and our defunding of the very work to do so.

Our history is not our fault, but it is our responsibility.  In accepting this, we will find a sustaining connection to our ancestors who resisted; who struggled; who passed along the unfinished work of their lives to us.

6.) YOU SHALL NOT KILL, or, We shall refrain from doing harm, and make amends when we do.

We have a rosy theological anthropology, which one might sum up as “from love we are, and to love we shall return.”  But our rightful resistance to religion that told people they were sinful and unloved has left our theology, our rituals, and our leadership ill-equipped to respond effectively to behaviors that are sinful and unloving.

We know intent is less important than impact—it matters more that your foot hurts than that I didn’t mean to step on it. Our ministry as, and with, white people, then, is to both do less harm in the first place, and when we do, to help our people engage in rituals and processes of confession, atonement, and repair—long before we seek absolution.

7.) YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, or, We shall be faithful to those whose personhood is most consistently dismissed and denied.

Liberation theology reminds us of God’s preferential option for the poor. “Liberation universalism” might say, the only hell is here on earth, where we are called to both save and be saved by one another.

This theology requires that our deepest loyalty be with those who are farthest from the center of power—many of whom will never be Unitarian Universalists.  The dynamics of power mean that we cannot credibly side with both the system of policing and the Movement for Black Lives; we can’t prioritize both “including” Trump voters and telling our undocumented trans congregant that her life is of supreme worth.  We have to choose whose vision we affirm and follow, because a world in which we are all safe and free is better for all of us.

8.) YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, or, We shall learn to take up less space, and hoard fewer resources.

The payoff for doing scary things in public is not that we will be seen as special, but as trustworthy.  When we show up at the Black Lives Matter vigil or the ICE protest, will we leverage our privilege and introduce the reporters who want to talk to “the yellow shirt people” to the Black and Brown organizers who put the event together? How are our sanctuary congregations also giving away money from our endowments and giving meeting space to community organizers and accompanying the undocumented to deportation hearings?

9.) YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBOR, or,

We shall trust those who have known oppression.

Many of us who are white respond to the lived experience of our siblings of color with incredulity and interrogation.  But—simply—when those whose humanity is regularly denied tell us that they have been harmed, we must stop…  listen…  and believe them. When we are de-centered or confronted with anger, our discomfort is not equivalent to the trauma of living within a system designed to diminish and destroy our siblings of color.

10.) YOU SHALL NOT COVET, or, We shall trust that our needs will be supplied.

For those of us who are white, our ministry now is to preach the good news that yes—everything is falling apart.  But as it does, the possibility of transformation is born. We shall not be neutral and non-anxious—neutrality is fiction and anxiety is inevitable.  Rather, we shall be faithful, trusting that we can harness courage and clarity while we are anxious; that we decenter ourselves without disengaging; that we can wield our faith in service of the grand enterprise of collective liberation and universal salvation.

Thank you, dear ones, for the privilege of sharing these commandments, all learned from gracious teachers and comrades of color.  My prayer is that they help us to receive the gift of my co-panelists’ wisdom here, and help those of us who are white to be worthy of this faith that our siblings of color, against all odds, have proclaimed worthy of redemption.  May we all be instruments of bringing a faith—a world—“that has never been yet,” into glorious being.

 

The Reverend Doctor Kristen Harper

When I arrived at Meadville/Lombard Theological School in the fall of 1995, I was not prepared for the racism I would experience from my fellow classmates.  I was not prepared for the blatant hostility and mistrust of me by a group of people who were training to lead our faith and would eventually be colleagues. I was told by people in their third or sixth year journey into Unitarian Universalism, that I didn’t belong in this faith that had been a part of my family for generations. I was called a quota filler—a nigger.  I had classmates that would get up and move when I sat down next to them in chapel. I was told that it would be easier if I weren’t there. I was maced by a white student who saw me walking behind her as threatening. It is no surprise to me that we have come to this point in our association’s History.

At the end of my first year when the students of color attempted to bring in outside help from colleagues, we were told to stop whining—we were “pioneers”, “sacrifices” for the next generation. I don’t believe in sacrificial theology so I almost didn’t finish seminary but with the help of Danielle Gladd—one of our amazing cradle Black UUs, and Rev. Abhi and Lalitha Janamanchi, I did graduate. Others were not so lucky.

We have not reached the “promised land,” but there is hope.  I think some of you are seeing some of us for the very first time.  We aren’t all invisible any more.  I’m witnessing some of you listen to the pain and the rage and not turn away, you’re not saying we are “misunderstanding” or that we are “overreacting” or even more common, we are “lying(at least not most of you).” Some of you are beginning to acknowledge our stories as part of the larger UU narrative.

Alice Walker wrote, “We are a people.  A people don’t throw their geniuses away. If they do, it is our duty as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children. If necessary, bone by bone.” There are other stories that belong in our narratives. In 1981 The Rev. Dr. Yvonne K. Seon became the first Black woman to receive fellowship and ordination with the Unitarian Universalist Association.  When I graduate in 1999, eighteen years later, only seven Black women had followed her.  In 2000-there were only 26 black UU ministers. Today there are over 110 ministers of color (2017 Minns Lecture, The Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed).

I must acknowledge that Black women were not the first women of color to be fellowshipped and ordained UU. Rev. Diane Arakawa, the senior minister of the Niantic Community Church, a UCC church in CT, was fellowshipped and ordained in 1978 & 1979. Theirs are stories we should know. We should be able to rattle off their names—as easily as we do Olympia Brown and Cecilia Burleigh, as easily as we do Egbert Ethelred Brown and Joseph Jordon, as easily as we do John Murray, Hosea Ballou, William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson. We owe a debt of gratitude for these ancestors who taught and continue to teach all of us about resilience, forgiveness and the hope for transformation.

When I decided to enter the ministry, a well meaning, now, colleague told me that “Our congregations are not ready for you.” I believe he was speaking the truth as he saw it and what he saw was that no Black woman had ever been called through the regular settlement process to a UU congregation as a senior or sole minister.

In 1999 two of us, Rev. Adele Smith-Penniman and I entered search and were called to congregations as sole ministers. That was 18 years ago and since that time only a little over a dozen women of color and Indigenous women ministers have entered search and been called to UU congregations as senior or sole ministers.  Twice that many UU women ministers of color have been called to work with our Theological Schools, our Association, as chaplains, executive directors, and in other community ministry settings.  And for the past three months the Rev. Sophia Betancourt has served as our first female president of the UUA.

I was speaking with Rev. Abhi Janamanchi recently about the irony of where some of us ministers and religious professionals of color stand today.  We were once the “radical, loud, in-your-face, champions” for racial justice.  We organized and protested and pushed for funding. We spoke “truth to power” and were “stars” for the year—until we were no longer willing to be used or no longer usable. In the end we did sacrifice—our physical and emotional health, our sense of of belonging, and, in some instances, our faith.  And while, I do hope that by our dedication and love, we helped move the Association a little bit closer to the beloved community—I do not want anyone else to pay the same price we did.

And yet, I feel out of place in this conversation about White Supremacy. It’s not that I don’t understand what it means in academia, but I also know what it means to many in the congregation I serve.  I know what it means to the outside world.  I know what it means to the White Supremacists—the ones who kill people because of their race, their ability, their religion, their gender identity, their sexual orientation. And, I feel afraid that saying this will mean I will never belong or worse I will be forced to leave the faith I have stood by my whole life.

I’ve served two churches since receiving fellowship, one for 3 years and one for 15 years. I’ve learned some important things about this work.  People will not change without relationship building.  Calling your colleagues names, yelling at them, belittling them, which some of us have been doing, will not change any hearts or create greater understanding.  We are letting the fear, frustration and anger in our world work its way through us and create more barriers. How do you center what is marginalized without marginalizing that which has been centered.  That might not be the right question but I care about the answer.  Our faith calls us to be better than than we are being.  To meet people where they are; to walk forward with them and stand present when they step back. We are the faith that as Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed says, “will drag the last unrepentant sinner kicking and screaming into heaven.”

The second thing I’ve learned is that people cannot change without a process of forgiveness. The racism I experience hurts—because I care.  I care about how I am treated.  I care about belonging.  I care about you.  Our Universalist Heritage calls on us to be forgiving and expand the understanding of God’s grace and redemption to everyone. And yet we show each other none.

And finally, we will not go forward with only one path.  I feel that we are being too dogmatic—too orthodox; if you are not using our language, our process, than you are perpetuating White Supremacy or suffering from internalized oppression.  I believe there are multiple paths to God, to salvation, to wholeness. However, if I’m wrong and it takes me longer to get to the promised land, I hope you will be there waiting patiently with open arms to welcome me when I arrive.  As I will be for you.

Thank you for listening!

The Reverend Doctor Adam Robersmith
Beyond “both/and”

I have spent much of my life and all of my ministry thinking about formation. How do we become who we are? How do we become the Unitarian Universalists that we are? How do we form communities and institutions, and how do we make sure they embody our best ideals and values?

I go back to Emerson and bell hooks, Sharon Welch and Maria Harris and Bill Jones who remind us that how and what we are taught actually determines who we will become and how we will act. They tell us that formation is a process of development sustained and limited by the ways we frame our theology, ethics, and language. I don’t think we spend enough time examining what shapes us and whether or not it is appropriate to or adequate for this holy task. If we did spend enough time on it, I don’t believe we’d be where we are right now.

For example: when I was in seminary, it was the exciting thing to ask people whenever they heard someone preface a phrase with the word “but…” to say “and!” There was a lot of “not either/or, both/and!” — which has now become our common, often unexamined, frame. By using that language, we teach ourselves that we can either distinguish between things or include everything fully, but we can’t be inclusive while distinguishing what is important in a given moment. I think that is a mistake.

I want to go beyond the “both/and” into a larger collection of possibilities. I don’t just want an agreement of opposites. I want an interconnection of layers and options and truths that make room for the changing needs of our people and our world and our faith.

I come to this as a parish minister, formator, and spiritual director, a multiracial person who is often misinterpreted as white a queer person who is often misinterpreted as a gay man (sometimes by my own self) a behavioral and ecological biologist a weaver, spinner, knitter, and creator of interconnection a person who has been disappointed by the institutions and people  of our faith, and also held and uplifted by the institutions, and the people, and the faith itself.

When I look at all the things that I am and the experiences I’ve had, both/and isn’t enough to describe it. Both/and is too small. Frankly, it doesn’t do enough to encourage us to go beyond the kinds of binary thinking that produces winners and losers. In the life of faith, when there are winners and losers, we all lose.

I want a frame that includes intersectionality, focus, and fluidity. A frame that acknowledges

•   intersectionality: the presence and interrelatedness of many, many things all at once;

•   focus: the understanding that those many, many things each need direct attention; and

•   fluidity: the ability to notice when it is the right moment to concentrate our attention in one place now, and another place when needed, while still holding to what requires our attention most.

I see this occurring in practice in the work of Black Lives of UU. In her essay, “Will We Repeat Our Sins?” Lena Gardner writes: “…we are harnessing and tapping into the energy of a global movement for Black empowerment and using it to work not just for Black liberation, but in solidarity with many groups across a stunning array of issues for our collective liberation.”

She points out that even as BLUU is focused on the empowerment of Black Unitarian Universalists and Black people overall, that BLUU has “also contributed an immense amount of organizer time and resources to the #ReviveLove Tour, put boots on the ground at and contributed material donations to the #NoDAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) Standing Rock protest encampment & the #CharlotteUprising, partnered with and sent people to the Women’s March on Washington and endorsed the Vision for Black Lives comprehensive policy platform.”

I also recognize this intersectionality, focus, and fluidity with the members of my parish—Second Unitarian Church in Chicago—who have been active with Black Lives Matter and the fight against police brutality; and then, when people were gathering at airports to protest the attempted travel ban of Muslims to the US last January, saw no problem with heading to the airport to protest loudly, and then come right back to keep organizing with the Movement for Black Lives.

Often we talk about focus though the language of centering. It’s a good word. Yet, when we talk about centering people or issues or ideas…and we use the image of a circle with an inside and an outside, we miss real complexity. When we say that we need to draw our circles wider and larger, we still are stuck with something that has an in and an out, a center and a margin. We miss the truth that we exist in sprawling networks of interconnection. We marginalize people because we are formed to create and recreate a world with margins.

I often wonder what would happen if we thought ecologically, instead. In high school, I performed an ecological survey of a plot of land, exploring the connections between animals, plants, fungi, soils, water, and weather. What became clear was how complex the system was, how many relationships existed, and how few of them I was able to understand.

I continued to study ecology, and it became a religious experience for me. Nature leaves me awe-struck with its intricacy. Each piece of the world is intimately and necessarily connected to the others, each affecting the others, changing them, supporting them in the process of living. Within it are the ideas from which we build meaning and belief: life and death, time and the seasons, the elements, the relationships, the interconnectedness of everything. Ecology has given me a framework and language far beyond both/and: many layers and relationships, communities and individuals, all interconnected, all intersecting in ways we understand and in ways we don’t. When one part of that system is out of balance, the whole suffers.

Our theological, institutional, and social systems – our own ecosystems – are out of balance. I believe a significant part of why we are so far out of balance is that we have allowed ourselves to be formed by win/lose binaries, by our willingness to create margins and push people to them. I believe that we need to expand our religious and liberatory imaginations, expand our vision and then figure out how to shape ourselves to meet that expanded framework.

An example: I grew up as a Universalist in a Lutheran home. I was formed, in part, by parents who told me “God is love. God doesn’t throw anyone away and neither do we.”

We need to stop throwing people away individually and systemically – when they don’t believe what we wish they did, or do things that we don’t agree with, or when they are inconvenient, or when they need to learn and aren’t quite there yet, and especially when they are saying important things that make us uncomfortable and aware of our failings. We need to stop throwing people away, pushing them to margins that are artifacts of our own malformation, our either/or both/and thinking.

I wonder who we would become if we took our Universalist heritage seriously…if we understood it as demonstrated by an ecology that shows the interconnectedness of all things. Who would we become if we chose to embody and make earthly the love of a God who would restore all people to itself in love made tangible, made just?

Imagine how we would be formed if we held one another in our ecosystems, in our networks, insisting on movement toward health and justice, recognizing that where our focus for empowerment and wholeness must be at any moment may shift or swell or subside for a time to dismantle oppression. Who would we be if we truly understood that our collective existence is not binary, not circular, but networked, intersectional, multiple?

The Reverend Mel Hoover

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