Contemporary Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Morrison Reed writes: “The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all. There is a connectedness, a relationship discovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others. Once felt, it inspires us to act for justice.
“It is the church that assures us that we are not struggling for justice on our own, but as members of a larger community. The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done. Together, our vision widens and our strength is renewed."
The concept was at work in Susan B. Anthony’s and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s time, the mid-late 1800s to the early 1900s, although it was framed in a more general movement within Protestantism called the social gospel, which stressed the relevance of Christianity to the socioeconomic realm and demanded that Christian ideals be realized in the economic relations between individuals and classes. According to David Robinson, in his epic resource book “The Unitarians and the Universalists, “the rise of the laissez-faire capitalism accentuated the moral and ethical implications of economic power…. The period following the Civil War was one of enormous economic and geographic growth for the nation but also one of scandal, strife, labor unrest and mounting agrarian and urban problems. The social gospel addressed those issues, combating with a message of compassion, hope and reform the increasingly unfair distribution of wealth and … the Puritan legacy of “the American’s basic contempt for poverty.”
This unfair distribution of wealth and the contempt for and insistence on keeping a certain population in an inferior and unjust position continues today. And as it was then and as it is now, people of conscience work to create a more just and equitable world. It is a large movement, as described by Paul Hawkins in his 2008 book "Blessed Unrest," that is functioning under the radar and could be the largest social justice movement of all time.
People of all faiths and in particular Unitarian Universalists are reaching out and joining forces.
Just this week, we received two requests to add a certain consciousness to our service. The first one came in the form of an email from a fellow seminarian who is involved in reproductive justice.
She writes: This weekend (October 16-18), the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is asking congregations around the country to offer a prayerful affirmation of reproductive healthcare workers. Please consider incorporating a prayerful affirmation into your congregation's regular service—before a moment of silent prayer or meditation, in "joys and concerns," or any other part of the service where it would be appropriate.” Visit http://www.rcrc.org/ for more about this initiative.
In the mail was a request from the Teen Class of Buckman Bridge Unitarian Universalist Society in Florida to help them take action in the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that our country – along with almost 200 other countries agreed to at the turn of this century. These eight simple goals are all aimed at eliminating extreme poverty by 2015. They ask that we make time in our service to invite members and friends to “stand up” and read a short pledge of support for the MDGs. The pledge has two parts: the first part is read by all participants all over the world, the second part is personalized by each participating group. While the congregation is standing up, they ask that we take a digital picture, so it can be emailed to the organization. The second part is to take action and they have some suggestions on how we can do that: we can encourage our country to keep its promise and do our part when we Stand Up-Take Action on October 18; we can continue to give money and food to the local food pantry; we can write our representatives to make good on the global promise to end extreme poverty by 2015, some six years from now.
The pledge reads: “We are standing now with millions of people around the world on this historic day, to show our commitment to the fight against extreme poverty and inequality. We only have six years left to the 2015 deadline to realize the Millennium Development Goals. Today we stand up together to say to our leaders: act now to achieve and exceed the Millennium Development Goals. We commit to:
We will continue to Stand up, not just today but every day, to say: No more excuses, end poverty and Inequality Now!
For more go to www.standagainstpoverty.org
And lastly, we received is an invitation to participate in the International Day for Climate Action on October 24, which is a series of events being held throughout the globe and it centers around reducing the level of carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. People in more than 1,000 communities around the globe have already announced plans—there’ll be school children planting 350 trees in Bangladesh, scientists hanging banners saying 350 on the statues on Easter Island, 350 scuba divers diving underwater at the Great Barrier Reef, and a thousand more creative actions like these. At each event, people will gather for a big group photo that somehow depicts 350—and upload that photo to the web www.350.org.
A local event is being organized by Martin Springheti and will be held on a property at the intersection of Route 371 and Holgate Road in Damascus Township Pennsylvania with two medium-sized wind generators on. He writes in an email received this week that it is a good example of how an individual can do something that directly reduces the amount of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere. The event will be held on October 24 from 10 a.m. to noon.
“The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done.” We join with others to get the work done.
I was struck with the idea that Unitarian and Universalist women and in particular Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton sought justice and equality for nearly 60 years. And I imagine their chagrin when after working for the abolition of slavery that black men, with the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1870, received the right to vote. The sense of betrayal had to be enormous and the patience and perseverance to wait an additional 50 years before receiving that same right must have been exceedingly tiring.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until the warden W.H. Whittaker and those prison guards really stepped out of line with brutality that enough momentum was achieved and changed occurred.
Rea Stein sent this story and some of the pictured around this week: the message was that women needed to understand that they were enhanced by the efforts that came before them.
Today, we walk to support social justice in our local community. It was an imperative of Bud Rue, a retired teacher from New Jersey, who insisted that a religious community had to walk its talk; it had to work toward bending the arc of light, as the Rev. Theodore Parker explained in 1870, toward justice. Bud Rue never saw the completion of the first walk. Despite serious asthma, discontent with being simply a visionary, and over the objections of his famil,y Bud was adamant about walking. The story is told that there was a discussion the night before the walk and to quell the objection of his family, Bud produced a cartoon of a frog, which had been swallowed by a pelican. While completely in the bill of the bird, the frog had its hands around the bird's neck and was strangling it. The caption read, “Never give up.” One mile outside of Narrowsburg, on October 23, 1994, he collapsed. He died the next day.
Today, we walk in his name. And we are supported and urged by all those who have come before us. Together our vision widens and our strength is renewed.
