Morality Plays

James Arness’ death brought back many memories of his TV show “Gunsmoke.” I think of that show as one of great morality plays and typifying the morals of the Greatest Generation. Share the movie or TV program that exemplifies the morality of your peer group.

 

Tribal Praise

The current post on Carol Howard Merritt’s blog TribalChurch.org has a lot of links to reviews of the book we’ll be reading for next time at Greenfield Group, Reframing Hope. The blog is worth reading in its own right, taking an eponymous title from her previous book about ministry to Gen X.

 

BEYOND TOLERANCE

Historically, the U.S. has always had a degree of pluralism, a quality that has helped Americans, as a whole, work through their religious differences. Former New York Times religion reporter Gustav Niebuhr’s new book, Beyond Tolerance, is a testament to everyday efforts put forth by those often left out of headlines. [More...]

Jim Wallis on the story behind Pastor Terry Jones’s change of heart:  It is easy to believe that hostility toward Muslims is on the rise in America. Media coverage of the battle over the proposed Islamic community center in New York, together with the hateful rants of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who threatened to burn Korans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, paints a picture of tension between faiths. [More...]

 

INTERFAITH Or interfaith

UU’s were behind the “Dude, you have no Koran,” gig.  See:

While this UU group is working with many other faith groups, it is also countering another faith group.  Is this, then, an interfaith action?

Frank

 

The Spirituality Bridge

Chris Mooney’s article USA Today’s Web site proposes that spirituality may be the bridge that the exploration of spirituality might take the edge of the Science/Religion debate. Mooney’s reasoning causes me to consider the possibility that spirituality may also serve as a shared area for inter-faith dialogue. What might happen if the conversation shifted from what we believe to what we experience? Find Mooney’s article at: Spirituality Can Bridge Science Religion Divide

 

Interfaith Press Conference

For those of you who missed the great Interfaith Press Conference Sept 7 and would like to view the conference to hear what was said please click on the link below.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/295331-1

For the test of their statement:

http://www.isna.net/articles/News/Beyond-Park-51-Religious-Leaders-Denounce-Anti-Muslim-Bigotry-and-Call-for-Respect.aspx

Also, I just watched DemocracyNow! which had a good discussion on the threat of book burning Gainesville.  One of those interviewed is with the Gainesville Muslim Initiative.  See: http://www.plantagoodword.org/

Peace be upon you this day!

Frank

 

hostile responses to faith communities.

In my work to address anti-Muslim hysteria, I’ve come across this group with their took kit:

URI (United Religions Initiative) is an internationally recognized interfaith network active in 75 countries with its global office in San Francisco, California. We cultivate and connect grassroots change-makers across religious, cultural and geographic boundaries, harnessing their collective power to take on religiously motivated violence and social, economic and environmental crises that destabilize regions and contribute to poverty.

TOOL KIT for working on hostile responses to faith communities.

http://www.uri.org/files/resource_files/URI%20TOOLKIT%20Interfaith%20Responses%20to%20Islamophobia.pdf

 

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

This summer I went to San Francisco to attend a friend’s wedding.  I took the opportunity to see some of the city and surrounding area.  One of the best things I did was take a guided walking tour of murals in the mission district, led by a non-profit in the neighborhood that brings art to the people and keeps the murals painting tradition alive.  This was one of the murals I saw.   As we continue our discussion, I hope we remember that all faith and all religion is a response to life and the big questions of life, not an esoteric intellectual exercise.  Our principles and our values draw us into action, reasoned and measured action, but we are called to act.  If we choose not to decide, we still have made a choice. This is never more profoundly true than in the great moral struggles of our time.  We are just as human and fallible as Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but isn’t that the point of the struggle? Respecting the human dignity of all, legal or illegal? Black, brown or white?  When we start asking for people’s papers based on the color of one’s skin we’ve strayed from that and it’s more than just and right to call our common attention to that fact.   Sometimes a picture is worth, well, a lot of words…

 

Further Response to Keith’s Critique

Hi Everyone:

I wrote this a week ago but somehow it never posted, so I’m trying again. This is my effort to continue the conversation in response to Keith’s critique of the UU civil disobedience actions in Phoenix during the National Day of Non-Compliance on July 29th.

–Josh

Keith:
Thanks for continuing to push on this question of theological reflection and depth. You clearly think and feel very deeply about this. Your writing is wonderfully clear. I am curious about the suffering you speak of. I can’t tell if you’re referring to something in your personal life or in your professional life. Perhaps both. I realize I need to hear more of your story. That hearing is one of the great blessings of the Greenfield Group!

I confess I am concerned about your ongoing characterizations of our presence in Phoenix as “angry” and “wrathful.” I’m not sure what evidence you have to support this, other than that some of the media highlighted some of the more aggressive folks (not UUs)on the fringe of the crowd. I wonder if you’re referring to the young Hispanic women and men with bullhorns who were leading hip-hop infused chants all day long. Yes, I suppose they are angry given the way their lives are completely disrupted by the Maricopa County Sheriff Department’s policy of racial profiling, but it was much more than anger. I found it deeply soulful, passionate, spirited and, in a deeper way, sorrowful. I also remember singing “Love Will Guide Us,” “Spirit of Life,” “Comfort Me,” and others outside the Madison St. Jail at 11:00 PM on the 29th. I remember UUs bringing bottles of water to the cops who were dressed in black, full-body riot gear in 110 degree, humid weather. I can’t speak to everyone’s internal spiritual and theological state at the time. But as a group we talked about loving the enemy. And we talked about loving Sheriff Joe. Yes, we named his humanity. Those conversations were not absent from our preparation time. In fact, they were at the center of it. And you would’ve been hard-pressed to find anger and wrath. We were angry at the conditions in Phoenix. But anger was not the core motivation for us.

So, I guess I don’t understand why our proclamations of love don’t rise to the level of a well-grounded spiritual or theological principle in your eyes. What test did we fail? What other evidence are you looking for? Should the General Assembly have had this conversation? Should one of us have published “A letter from a Phoenix Jail?” Would that have proved some greater depth of theological reflection? How can we prove that Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray is a spiritually and theologically grounded civil rights leader?

In this conversation we’ve been citing the examples of Jesus, Ghandi and King (although the Hispanic community in Phoenix looks primarily to Chavez), as if any of us might possibly be able to live up to those examples. We are not claiming to be perfect in our actions, certainly not in our love, but we did more than express wrath and defame Sheriff Joe.

Love requires truth-telling. We went to Phoenix to try to tell the truth about how the tactics of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department impact the lives of the people who live there. We were trying our best to hold the Sheriff and the system accountable to a different vision of the United States of America. And the vision we expressed in Phoenix was not simply a white liberal vision. It is a vision that comes out of our emerging relationship with the most vulnerable in Phoenix. We were trying to be accountable to that vision. Is that not part of a well-grounded spiritual principle for an upper middle class white liberal religion? Accountability to and solidarity with the oppressed, centered in love?

Sheriff Joe happens to be the leader of what is likely an unconstitutional military police state in Phoenix. So, of course, he ends up becoming a target of some of the chants and of the legitimate anger of the people (and their allies) who have to live within the system he has built in Phoenix. But nowhere in that statement is the belief that he is not worthy of love. Our efforts at trying to hold him accountable should not be construed as wrathful and unloving. If you could have seen the UU contingent marching to the Wells Fargo building and singing as they prepared to take a position at one of the intersections, I don’t think you would continue to describe it as not grounded in  love. If you could have seen Rev. Frederick-Gray speaking to the crowd at the Episcopal Cathedral that morning, along with a huge, diverse contingent of local religious leaders, I can’t imagine you would continue to describe the events as wrathful.

Finally, you make the argument that the nation hasn’t rallied to the cause of the people of Phoenix, and thus our actions may have hardened political lines, may have made things worse. And if our goal was to solve this problem in one weekend, then you would be right. But keep in mind that Selma in the 1960s really isn’t the correct analogy. It’s more like Selma before Brown vs. Board of Ed., before the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. If King had gone to Selma–or anywhere in the south–in the 1940s, his movement probably wouldn’t have gained the sympathy of the nation either. But, if that were his time, would that have been an excuse not to go, not to try, not to begin? I don’t think so. And that’s another way to describe what we were doing: beginning. Perhaps our actions lacked the grace and depth of thought and prayer that characterize the actions of the great non-violent civil rights leaders of our time, but how many times did they get it half-right or wrong before they started to get it right? We have to start somewhere.

Unitarian Universalism has begun a partnership with new immigrants to the US. And we’ve begun it in Arizona. For us, it’s the beginning of the struggle, although we are relative latecomers to it. Maybe this time around (July, 2010) we didn’t really help change the national sympathies. But perhaps we planted seeds, developed expectations, deepened relationships. In the very least, we helped demonstrate to the nation and the world that there are people of faith who don’t agree with the prevailing anti-immigrant sentiment. If we can grow this movement, maybe the tenth time around–or maybe at GA in 2012–we will start to have an impact. This is a long-haul relationship in the midst of a long-haul struggle.

The fact that we are still beginning also assures me that there is time to hear critiques like yours. There is time to hone our UU theological rationale for being in these kinds of relationships and working towards that different vision of the United States. There is time to take it deeper, as you are requesting. I look forward to that. I hope and trust you do too!

With Love,

–Josh

 

Fall 2010 convocation

Books for Greenfield Convocation November 2010

Required

Prothero, Stephen. God is not One . The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World and Why Their Differences Matter, Harper One, 2010.

Eck, Diana. Encountering God. A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras, Beacon Press, 1993.

Mortenson, Greg & David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea. One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…. One School at a Time. Penguin Book 2006

The Little Book of Cool Tools for Hot Topics (Kraybill & Wright), Good Books 2006

Supplemental and Recommended

Sacks, Jonathan. The Dignity of Difference, How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, Continuum, 2002

Smith, Jane. Muslims, Christians and the Challenge of Interfaith Dialogue Amazon 30.00 used

Heim, Mark. Salvations

Heim, Mark. The Depth of Riches:  A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends,

Lederach, John Paul. Building Peace:  Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies.

Gopin, Marc. Healing the Heart of Conflict.

“Dark Passages”. Boston Globe article by Philip Jenkins available on web site

Wright, Robert. The Evolution of God

Mortenson, Greg. Stones for Schools

Kung, Hans. Christianity and World Religions

Hoehler, Harry. Approach to World Religions book available through UUCF

Hecht, Jennifer Michael. Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson (Paperback) $40 – up Amazon

Ariarajah, S. Wesley . Not Without My Neighbour: Issues in Interfaith Relations (Risk Book Series, No. 85) (Paperback) Geneva: World. Council of Churches, 1999.

$3.50- 6.00 Amazon