Religion and Politics

Archbishop Oscar Romero, the assassinated Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, once observed that when he attempted to feed the poor he was called a saint but when he started asking why people were poor he was called a communist.

Religious motivation informed by belief in a God of love and in human dignity and equality can lead people to actions which others think as political, especially when the "immediate relief" option is passed over in favour of the "change the system" option.  Any individual who is motivated by faith to do something will have to make choices based on opportunity, resources, and temperament -- this might mean, for example, trying to educate oppressors and their community; trying to educate the oppressed and their community; trying to meet immediate urgent needs;  trying to change the rules and structures that create/perpetuate an injustice; or, for those who believe that prayer can be effective, to withdraw from the world and try to pray effectively -- just to list a few options.

Unitarian and Universalists are not alone in seeing a strong bond between religious ideals and human rights, but we are one group which has seen the struggle for the expansion of human rights as a religious struggle.  In Britain, Unitarian use of the toast, "to civil and religious liberty the world over" goes back at least as far as the French Revolution.  In the United States, Unitarians and Universalists (still largely 'white' skinned in an increasingly mixed society) were not just sympathetic to the struggle for 'black' empowerment and freedom, they were active in marches, sit-ins, political action, publicity, and many other areas of sometimes dangerous personal and community witness.  The UUA continues to witness to the religious and political values of the human equality of women and gay people in society and in their churches.

A recent report from Sri Lanka is merely one report out of many in our current world --  so many, in fact, that these reports often do not get any publicity outside their own communities.  The UU Association of Sri Lanka has called attention to its government's recent regulations requiring ethnic Tamils in the North to register (again) but not requiring ethnic Singhalese to do so.  The UUASL points out that this bears uncomfortable resemblance to the Nazi registration of Jews in territories it ruled, preparing the ground for isolation and control, possibly leading to systematic destruction.  This is obviously a political issue but at the same time a religious issue.

So while the Western media are focused just now on the economic turmoil caused by unregulated and under-regulated financial speculation; on wars and refugee hardships; on natural disasters; and on political debate (Kenyan and Zimbabwean election followup, both the USA and Canada national elections in the next several weeks, South Africa and Israel in the next few months); countries like Chad and Myanmar slip down the list of editorial priorities, while Sri Lanka and Chechnya appear only in regional media until the next atrocity grabs a headline.

One of the interesting issues grabbing some headlines in the USA just now is the decision by a group of clergy (mostly theologically and politically conservative) to challenge a law which forbids churches recommending particular candidates in elections.  These churches/ ministers want to assert the right of the church to witness to its values without interference from the secular authorities; the law wants to maintain a distinction between political action and religious witness.   It will be fascinating to see how this resolves in the US courts.  

JCC

Knoxville Shooting Aftermath

“Knoxville” a sermon by Rev. Brian J. Kiely

Unitarian Church of Edmonton September 21, 2008

Chalice Lighting

We are safe.

We are together.

We are loved.

And so it will be.

-Brian Griffin DRE TVUUC

Sermon

The facts of the Knoxville tragedy itself are simple and sad and are not the main point of this sermon. But we must begin by acknowledging what happened. During a summer service featuring excerpts from “Annie” by young people from a church camp, a stranger walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation carrying a loaded 12 gauge shotgun. An older man, an usher named Joe Barnhardt stood in front of him barring entry. Mr. Barnhardt died in the first blast. A mother In the quiet room nearby quickly barred the door putting herself between the shooter and the children. Fortunately, she was not noticed. The man walked into the sanctuary and fired again wounding seven including Linda Kraeger, visiting from another nearby UU congregation. She would soon die of those wounds

Jamie Parkey thought the blast was part of the play his daughter was helping putting on. Then he saw blood on another parishioner behind him and saw the gunman.

“He had the gun leveled in our direction,” Parkey told television reporters a day later. “That’s when I pushed my mother and daughter to the floor and got under the pew. When I saw the men rushing him was when I got up to join them.”

The men led by Dr. John Bohstedt, father of another of the performers, subdued and disarmed the shooter who was soon taken away by police.

In many ways, those few terrifying and scarring moments were merely the start of this story, a story of strength and courage, of compassion and community, of solace taken from core liberal values that stand at the center of our faith. And most of all it is a story of healing begun amidst an ocean of love. That’s the story I wish to share today, the story of how our religion and our people helped one another through tragedy.

Within hours other Knoxville UU congregations had thrown open their doors for informal services and pastoral care. Within a day the various faith communities came together to hold services, to raise funds, and provide food. In the great tradition of the south, casseroles, pies, salads, cookies, and every other kind of food started pouring into TVUUC for the victims, the volunteers and the workers.

Within a day the Unitarian Universalist Association had a well-trained crisis intervention team on site, including a very dear friend of mine, Police Chaplain Rev. Lisa Presley. They and government provided grief counsellors stayed in the church for over a week organizing group debriefings and providing personal care for any who needed the chance to talk. The support is now continuing in other ways, including a relief fund of over $40,000.

The evening after the shootings, there was a multi-faith candlelight service held at the Presbyterian Church next door. The crowds of mourners overflowed.

During that first week the fire department’s hazmat team came in and cleaned the church and the Sanctuary. My friend Lisa remarked in a message to colleagues how gentle, kind and efficient they were. Within a day the only sign of the event were the shotgun pellet holes in a fire door you may have seen in the video. There was some talk of replacing the door, but congregational leaders put a hold on that. “We don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen”, they said.

Four days later Annette Marquis, the District Executive for the region of UU churches that included Knoxville published the following:

I have never been so proud of being a Unitarian Universalist (UU) as I was yesterday in Knoxville. It started when thirty or so people, some from... (the church and the sister congregations), some from the Red Cross, some from the local mental health agency, some from our own UU Trauma Response Team, several local UU ministers, gathered together to plan the day, or should I say, the day after. The meeting was chaotic, disjointed, and disorganized—yet our task was clear. What needed to be done ... to begin the healing process in the wake of Sunday’s devastating tragedy?

After only a few minutes, one subgroup broke off and began planning the critical incident stress debriefing sessions that would be held from 5 to 7 p.m. that evening, sessions that were age and situation-appropriate: those who witnessed the attack and those who did not, those from TVUUC, those from the other UU congregation, children and adults who had been in the cast of "Annie, Jr.", pre-schoolers, first and second-graders, second and third graders, and on and on. Another group created a master list of all the decisions, all the tasks, all the work that needed to be done this week, from getting the damaged pews out of the sanctuary and into storage to planning the vigil that was happening that night, to imagining a re-dedication of the sacred space that is the TVUUC building.

Within a couple short hours, amidst all the heavy hearts in the ...(church) that day, a plan to start the healing process was born...

“I made my way up the hill to Second Presbyterian Church, a congregation literally right next door to TVUUC, a congregation that provided blessed refuge for our children on Sunday morning, a congregation that generously offered to host our debriefing sessions and our public vigil that night...Starting the service with an emotional rendition of Spirit of Life, Rev. Chris Buice, minister of TVUUC, gave the opening words and identified the “power in this room.” “The presence of so many people from so many faith traditions being here for our church means so much to us," he said.

Rev. Bill Sinkford helped those gathered try to accept that it was not possible to make sense of such a senseless act but that by owning our feelings of anger, grief, hurt, helplessness, and pain, we could work through this together. His clarity about how the strong social justice tradition of the congregation will not let it retreat in the wake of this tragedy brought tears to my eyes. He said, "None of us can allow our pain and anger to keep us from living our faith, from welcoming all people, from standing on the side of love. We will not let that happen. We will continue our commitment to welcoming all people."

Rev. Mitra Jafarzedeh, minister of Westside UU Fellowship, closed the service (with). “Go forth in light,” she said, “be daring and audacious enough to have hope. Let nothing silence us.”

“Proud of my faith” does not even begin to describe my feelings, Annette concludes.

In my role as President of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists, I was able to reflect from afar:

The news of the recent shootings ... was at once troubling, saddening and in an odd way, encouraging.

It was deeply troubling in that one human soul so could become so sick and twisted that he felt he had to try and kill complete strangers solely because they support liberal religious and social positions. This gunman apparently felt that all the things wrong in his life could be blamed on people with progressive points of view. Unitarian Universalists were convenient symbolic targets.

For U*Us in many parts of the world this attack on our faith so deeply shocking as to be almost beyond comprehension. Yet I am mindful that for a good many of our brothers and sisters in too many parts of the world this act of violence, while still terrible, is not so rare or shocking. Our hopeful, loving faith exists in the midst of violence, lawlessness and political unrest, in the midst of warfare, in the midst of deeply dangerous circumstances. Perhaps those U*Us have a better understanding today of what our Tennessee sisters and brothers have experienced this week. Still, for me, fortunate to live in a fairly peaceful place, the news was terribly shocking.

One member of our local Edmonton church suggested that as with 9-11, there are a lot of people from our communities feeling a little less safe in their churches today. That is troubling.

And of course, these events leave deep feelings of sadness for the victims, their families and friends. Only people who have been through that kind of experience can begin to grasp what the families must be enduring. I feel blessed that I have never had to face such events. All I can write is that I feel tremendous sympathy for the members and friends of the Tennessee Valley UU Congregation as they grieve their losses and try to find ways to feel safe again in their church.”

The video clip from Bill Moyers Journal (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/watch.html) showed Rev. Chris Buice, someone whom I had just met at our recent CUC meetings. He was not in church that day. Like me he was on vacation in July. Chris was present throughout the days and weeks of aftermath and by all reports did amazing work. I have listened to and was deeply moved by his remarkable series of August sermons stemming from the incident on the church website. They included the clips we heard a few moments ago. I commend them to you.

At the sanctuary rededication service seven days after the shooting, Chris spoke. There was sadness and grief of course, but overall his remarks were filled with passion, courage and hope, and his homily was interrupted many times by applause, even cheers. He said,

“There are many names for the power of healing, and we have felt that power in this congregation this week. This has been a time of paradoxes. Last week a man came into this sanctuary with the intention of inflicting terror and he inspired quick and decisive acts of courage. Reports say that he had been told that liberals were soft on terror. He had a rude discovery.”

“He came into this space to... do an act of hatred, but he has unleashed unspeakable amounts of love. A man tried to strike a blow for of intolerance and by so doing he inspired ...gatherings...throughout the week of Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, believers and unbelievers, crowded in the aisle, sitting on the stage, gathered outside in the rain, holding, hugging and helping each other to heal.

A man tried to divide us...divide us into liberals and conservatives, gay and straight. Instead his actions united us making us more willing to listen to each other, care for each other, respect each other, support each other.” And referring to the tangible southern minister of the casserole he added, “And let’s be honest ....feed each other...in body and spirit...Our (larger)community surrounded us with love.”

“He came into this space to inflict death and he took away the lives of two precious people, wounded six others, traumatized our community, but strangely at the same time reminded us of the preciousness of our children, the sacredness of life and this moment of time, the true value of friendship and family and how much we need good neighbours.”

In a later sermon Rev. Buice shifted to the reasons for the attack: that we Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists profess a liberal faith and that the Tennessee Valley congregation has a strong justice seeking history.

“Liberalism is an easy target... (because we agree with Voltaire who said), ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Buice suggests that it is an idea that leads some to think we are weak and easy targets, that we won’t respond in kind. He said, “You can call a liberal all sorts of terrible names and a liberal will still defend your freedom of speech... of the press... of religion. Contrast that with how others might react.”

He then led a guided meditation of a sort asking people to imagine themselves in a local bar late on a Saturday night. He invited them to imagine mounting the stage, taking the microphone and calling all in the room traitors to America giving comfort and succour to the enemy. He then surmised that anyone who did such a thing would soon be joined on stage by any number of people strenuously pointing out the error of that statement.

“We are peaceful, tolerant and understanding people. We are open to listening to opinions that are different from our own. We are committed to non-violent social change, therefore it does not take a lot of courage to verbally assault a liberal.”

From the first day after the shooting, this has been the message of the church President, of Rev. Buice and UUA President Bill Sinkford. Each issued strong and faithful statements. They declared that our liberal approach will not be altered or changed by this tragedy. They spoke of love and compassion, not hate and revenge. In the midst of this tragedy, the people found new strength and resolve. They are finding positive meanings in this terrible event.

I concluded my ICUU Presidential letter with this: “We who choose a liberal and principled approach to faith can expect to be tested in that faith from time to time, though seldom is the test as shocking as that Sunday in Knoxville. It is at moments like those that we look to those Principles and to our understanding of the divine working within us to pull us through. May our Knoxville sisters and brothers find the strength they need in their time of grieving. May we all join them and find new reasons to renew our own commitment to our UU faith.

I leave the last word today to Tennessee Valley member Jim Elsaesser. He wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper a few days after the Monday candlelight memorial service.

“For the last segment of the services, the children of the cast of "Annie" took the stage of the sanctuary. After receiving counselling for the events they had endured, the children had asked their musical director, if they too could sing at the memorial service ... and they did, before a weeping, cheering, shouting church full of mourners ... all singing their grand finale, "Tomorrow."

It is worth noting that out of this tragedy, the children of that church led their congregation in singing, again, a song of hope, a song of healing.”

Canadian Director demits office in September

Mary Bennett, Executive Director of the Canadian Unitarian Council (Conseil Unitarien du Canada), and the CUC have announced that Mary is demitting office in mid-September.  Mary has seen the organisation through eight years of great change.  During this time the relationship with the Unitarian Universalist Association fundamentally changed.  There was a shift in delivery of almost all services to congregations from the UUA to the CUC with the need for substantial infrastructure development as well as programme expansion.  Under Mary's leadership, at the same time all this 'internal' work was going on, the CUC strengthened its international witness and has become a strong supporter of ICUU.

Thank you, Mary, and best wishes for the future.

Disasters, natural and unnatural

Not all disasters are "natural" -- many of us were shocked when a gunman killed two and injured several others during worship in the Tennesee Valley UU church in Knoxville, Tennessee USA on 27 July.  Trauma experts and other help from both UUs and civic authorities were sent to the stunned congregation immediately.  The initial shock at a 'random' event by some madman with a vague grudge against life and liberals had to give way to a more reflective response as it became known that the gunman had had previous contact with UU events, including at least one in his home some time before.  

Many of us will remember that almost exactly three years ago rains caused severe flooding in Transylvania, causing extensive damage including Unitarian churches and homes, and the Transylvanian Unitarians from 'dry' areas rushed to give practical assistance.  Only a few years before that the swollen Danube flooded central Prague causing severe damage to the Unitarian church there.  Unitarians around the globe raised funds and sent encouraging messages. Earthquakes have hit Unitarians (among many others, of course) in Indonesia in the past few years and the coast of the USA from about Texas around to South Carolina is periodically hit by hurricanes and severe storms, damaging homes and public buildings including Unitarian Universalist ones.  Florida is bracing itself for a "hit" even as I write this.  And the pictures on British television of the flooding in Northern Ireland where one month's rain fell in a few hours yesterday, are heart breaking. 

In Indonesia, the Unitarians there, members of the ICUU member group Jamaat Allah Global Indonesia, rushed aid to their stricken citizens, non-Unitarian as well as Unitarian.  Many Unitarians and Universalists around the world contributed to an Appeal, publicised by UUSC to help them do this.  When earthquakes hit Pakistan a couple years ago the very small Unitarian community there also strived to provide practical assistance to their fellow citizens, many of whom hate Christians and don't bother to make an exception for Unitarians.  American UUs were active in providing both short- and long-term support to residents of New Orleans after Katrina and will no doubt assist as they can if aid is needed after the current emergency in Florida.  We, like decent people of all religions and cultures, respond to disasters as quickly and generously as we can.  Organisations like the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Oxfam, UNESCO, Tearfund, and others, while receiving government funding, depend on the generous responses of the public to do the emergency relief work that they are set up for.

One bit of good news: No one was killed in Northern Ireland by the floods yesterday and no homes or churches of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland (the religious liberals closely connected with British Unitarians) were directly affected -- in fact, amidst the turmoil of roads closed by floods and landslides they still managed an ordination!

Why do bad things happen to good people?  What, you don't assume that Unitarians and Universalists are good people?  Very insightful, but the fundamental question remains.

Universalists have long held that the best motivation for good behaviour is a response of love to being loved, rather than the traditional motivation based on fear of punishment for being bad.  It was a hard struggle in many lands to get the changes in public policy that this theological understanding implied, from education to public health, from prison reform to worker and child protection.  That reforming battle continues.

There may be a temptation to see good behaviour as a kind of protection against evil things happening, and perhaps some people do contribute to disaster relief as a kind of insurance policy, but the truth is that if reality were so constructed that well behaved people were rewarded with good health, long lives, and wealth, while bad people had brutish existences, then many fewer of us would behave badly.  

We will each have our own resolutions to the question of why a God of Love would not build goodness into the structure of the way things work --  in fact some take the intentional evil done by both individuals and communities as proof that a God of Love cannot really exist.  I share my conviction that it is precisely because goodness and justice are not built into the way the physical world operates that we have the obligation to do our best to build goodness and justice into our human community.  To the extent that we are successful in this never-ending struggle, goodness and justice will exist; to the extent we fail, goodness and justice will not exist.  

Meantime, we will be subject to the same range of natural and unnatural disasters as everyone else and will continue to need to respond as open-heartedly as we can to immediate needs even while we engage in fundamental reform of our ways of thinking, perceiving, and acting.

JCC

Connectivity

I've just received an invitation from a UU in Kenya to join an instant community that they are already a member of.  This is actually the second such invitation I've received from a Kenyan Unitarian Universalist in the past couple months.  It reflects growing access to computers and internet connections in Africa and perhaps even growing ownership of computers as they drop in real price and as they become more available.

I'm not sure how many such communities there are on the web.  I'm already a member of three, Skype, SightSpeed, and MySpace, and am not sure I want to start developing this aspect of my connection to the web just now, but the variety of means by which we can link and communicate to each other seems to grow daily.  I suppose that in one sense there is competition between these 'instant connection clubs' to sign up the most members.  At least, one of the promised benefits of joining is the number of potential people to whom one will have instant links.  And they work -- at least from personal experience I can say I located my niece in Australia via MySpace and I use Skype at least weekly to talk with family and friends around the world and I use SightSpeed occasionally with a friend who can't seem to get Skype to work.  Video calls, audio calls, even quick text conversations are great ways to communicate and as computers and connections increase in power and decrease in cost many more of us will be dependent on these to supplement our decreasing ability to drive and fly around the world to see people.

But how do you respond to a plea for greater connectivity from someone you have only met once or maybe may even have never met?  Apparently Barack Obama has over one million such connections -- this is understandable I suppose because he is a major politician.  But for ordinary mortals like me there is the conflicting tension between not wanting to reject or insult (on the one hand) and trying to keep the 'instant' dimension of contacts within a manageable number.  I like the fact that when I am on Skype (for example) I can see when one of my contacts is also online, permitting a very quick 2 minute conversation -- either purely social or for a quick Q&A -- but then I've only 30 something contacts on Skype.  I also understand that when I am logged into Skype, part of my free RAM is used to make the system work and I am willing to pay this price for the benefit I perceive.  Some of these 'instant contact clubs' include the opportunity to be bombarded with ads -- a price I'm reluctant to pay although I do like the ability to contact people easily and cheaply.  But then, email does this well when an instant reply is not needed.  And telephone charges are actually dropping.  The soup of communication methods we now have available perhaps contains too many standards and too many options to use its potential usefulness.  I long for the day when some universal standard (such as obtains with DVDs) permits really easy and cheap communication.

These somewhat random thoughts were sparked by the invitations I received from Kenyan UUs but the bellows feeding oxygen to the sparks was an article in today's online Observer,

 link:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/03/internet.email

that reports a study confirming the widely held belief that the average number of degrees of separation (people connecting you in a chain with a particular stranger) is 6.6.  Microsoft analysed its records of usage (30 Billion electronic messages) and came up with this average length of chain of names connecting any two people.  Add to this the numbers of text messages sent by mobile telephones and countless normal emails, that is one whale of a lot of connection even for the number of folk on this planet.  

So who is doing the work while we are all busy communicating?  

I haven't yet seen any comments clarifying the most common question for instant messages, but I have seen the most common question for mobile phone messages: 'Where are you?'  

Perhaps with computers a more useful question will be: 'What should you be doing now?'

Brief recent items from around the world

From Hong Kong: The world body responsible for internet classifications (.org, .net., .com, etc) is about to make a major opening up of classifications and one of the groups taking advantage of this is the UU group in Hong Kong, called the Spiritual Seekers Society.  They have had an internal consultation about what sort of registered names might be most useful in the future and they have decided to take out registrations on three endings: sss.org.hk; uuhk.org; uucn.org (for a future UU group in China).  Note that they are posititively thinking about future witness in mainland China!

From the Khasi Hills, India:  A recent report from their General Secretary, Rev Helpme Mohrmen, describes their plans for continuing the education of their church leaders within the contexts both of their strong local democratic conditions and their recognition of a more professional approach to ministry being required in the modern world.  Their first training session was well received and they hope that these training sessions will help leaders to develop skills that they need for doing ministry in their respective churches.  They have found that the previous training was able to boost the leaders' confidence and also empower them. The training was on leading worship, conducting rites of passage, basic Khasi Unitarian beliefs, and pastoral care.

Their Executive has also decided to start a review of partner church relations and has set up a Cell to oversee all matters involving partnerships.  Two members of their leadership were able to attend the recent UUA General Assembly and meet with American UU Partner Church Council members.

From Chennai, India:  The Madras Unitarian Church, partnered with the Glasgow and Edinburgh congregations in Scotland for the past 18 years, is just about to rebuild their 200 year old church.  The old building will come down and a modern replacement built.  The new building will be better able to serve the local community needs which the congregation tries to meet.  Professional advice has been taken and substantial financial help from an Appeal organised by the Scottish Unitarians will supplement local efforts.  The existing bell tower (separate from the main building) will be retained.

From Lagos, Nigeria:  The building of the First Unitarian Church in Lagos was recently under immediate threat because of irregularities in the planning and registration procedures when it was constructed many years ago.  The UUA International Office and ICUU have provided an emergency grant to enable rectifying procedures to be completed.  One of only three Unitarian churches of any duration in Africa, it would have been a great blow to the congregation to have lost it.

From South Australia: The small single-room Shady Grove Unitarian chapel in the hills outside Adelaide will celebrate its 150th Anniversary in October.  It has served isolated farming communities both as a chapel and a school house over the generations and still lacks electricity and power.  It does have a pedal organ, however, along with a continuing small congregation and a part-time leader based in Adelaide.

Michael Servetus Back from the Ashes and in English

Mr. Sergio Baches, the incumbent Secretary of the Michael Servetus Institute in Spain, has informed us that Michael Servetus' main work, and which took him to the stake in Geneva under the accusation of heresy, Christianismi Restitutio (The Restitution of Christianity), is now available in English.

According to Mr. Baches:
As the Michael Servetus reported in its previous communication dated 14 October 2007, Dr. Alicia McNary Forsey initiated the project to translate into English the main work by Michael Servetus, Christianismi Restitutio, already some years ago.

Under her coordination, as Managing Editor and Project Director, Christopher A. Hoffman and Marian Hillar made the first translation of the first part of the "Christianismi restitutio" entitled "De Trinitate" (On the Trinity), which was released in September-October 2007 under the title: "An English Translation of Christianismi restitutio, 1553, by Michael Servetus (1511-1553). Translated by Christopher A. Hoffman and Marian Hillar" (Lewiston, NY; Queenston, Ont., Canada; Lampeter, Wales, UK: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2007).


The purpose of this new communication is to inform you that the Second Volume (composed of two books) of the translation of "Christianismi Restitutio" has just been released this July.

You can obtain further information on the books in www.servetus.es.