One of the most important events at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly is the Ware Lecture, where we invite an important thinker from outside our movement to speak to us on a topic of interest to Unitarian Universalists. Previous speakers include theologian Rheinhold Neibuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., poet Mary Oliver, and scholar Elaine Pagels.

This year, the speaker was Van Jones, an activist working to tie issues of environmentalism and social justice, particularly poverty concerns, together to create real change, and he had a warning for Unitarian Universalists: “Y’all are about to mess up and be successful!” when it comes to needed social and environmental change.

A good description of his lecture can be found on the UUA website, along with a video (WMV format, or Real Media) of the event.

In this speech, given in July of 2005 to the Spiritual Activism conference, Mr. Jones sides with Rabbi Michael Lerner in calling for an alliance of spiritual progressives across the board to enact real changes in our society, and speaks particularly to the anti-religious bias that is a very real presence in many progressive organizations.

The Religious Left Fights Back

by Van Jones

Rabbi Michael Lerner is stirring up trouble again—thank God.

Earlier this week, Lerner was the main organizer of a national gathering in Berkeley, California, for the religious Left. His “Spiritual Activism” conference was intended to help launch a much-needed new initiative: the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP).

Lerner has been the spark-plug for many progressive, faith-based undertakings over the years, including Tikkun magazine. But this latest effort is an order of magnitude more challenging than anything he has attempted thus far. And given the stakes for our ailing would-be democracy, the birthing of NSP may prove to be his most important calling.

Lerner wants to help forge a new alliance of “religious, secular and ’spiritual-but-not-religious’ progressives.” This alliance will someday expose and challenge the cancer of American consumerism. And it will oppose the religious Right’s abuse of scripture to promote war, intolerance and ugly corporate agendas.

(Read on … )

Today, many Unitarian Universalists and others are celebrating the ruling of the California Supreme Court, overturning that state’s ban on same-gender marriage. This is an issue that the Unitarian Universalist Association has been actively involved in, promoting the rights of any two people who wish to make the commitment to marriage to do so. Many Unitarian Universalist clergy have refused to sign marriage certificates for any couple until they are legally allowed to sign them for all couples who come before them.

This sermon (PDF), by the Rev. Sue Phillips, offers an inside perspective on the issue, written just after same-gender marriage was legalized in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Rev. Phillips won the 2005 Skinner Sermon Award for this piece, and is currently serving the First Parish Church of Groton, Massachusetts, as their Sabbatical Minister.

On Being an “Issue”

by the Rev. Sue Phillips

I spent months preparing this sermon. I read books on the history of the institution of marriage and how dramatically it has changed over time. I reviewed countless articles in the mainstream press assessing the political and social implications of same-sex marriage. I read and re-read the statements of religious conservatives who assert that opening marriage to gay and lesbian people would diminish the institution they hold to be the thread of our nation’s social fabric. I saved reams of articles that would have helped me offer a spirited political defense of gay marriage. I spent hours trying to understand the historical context out of which the public policy debate about marriage emerged. And I developed impassioned arguments about why gay marriage is an essential civil right. If I were straight, I would have preached about this issue long before I actually did.

But I’m not straight. I’m joyfully, abundantly, thoroughly queer. And so I have to talk to you about what’s ranging around in my heart. This means, of course, that I can’t with any integrity offer reflections on gay marriage as a social “issue,” no matter how much political and historical homework I have done. If I used that kind of intellectual analysis this morning I would be hiding. If I placed the authority for my reflections outside of my own experience it would feel like an act of cowardice, somehow, that keeps me hidden from you. And so it is from my personal experience that I want to speak with you.

(Read on … )

Bearing witness to the world around us is a large part of Unitarian Universalist faith. A beautiful, and heart-wrenching, example of this principle in action can be found in the writings of Dr. Charlie Clements, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, who traveled to Kenya “to assess the political and humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the country in the wake of the flawed presidential elections of December 2007,” along with an emergency delegation. This account was posted on the UUSC hotwire: A Human Rights Weblog, and more accounts can be found beginning here.

The UUSC’s page regarding the Kenya crisis can be found here. Dr. Clements has since provided testimony to the United States’ House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the situation as well.

A Lone Kikuyu Vendor in Eldoret

by Dr. Charlie Clements

The women vendors led us to a wide alley where large trucks come to be repaired. There, in a shaded corner, was a man with a sewing machine. He cuts open the large fiber sacks and sews them into awnings and other items.

Despite his ready smile, he had a sadness about him. He told us that he’s Kikuyu and that he and his family are living at the show grounds, where we just visited, because their home was burned by a mob. He said he only feels alive when he comes here to be among his colleagues. Yet, his working is not without risk: he has to come after 9 a.m., when some of the roadblocks and small bonfires along the roads are not manned, and return to the IDP camp before dark. The women told me he is one of the few Kikuyu traders around.

(Read on … )

What better way to acknowledge the great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who the nation honors today, than in his own words?

Dr. King spoke to the 1966 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Hollywood, Florida, as the distinguished Ware Lecturer. His remarks are very long, so I reprint only a segment here. The entire address can be found on the UUA website.

For some context, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was in 1955-56, the “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered on the Washington Mall in 1963, and the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1964. At the time of this speech, the Civil Rights Act had been in place for not quite two years, and the Voting Rights Act for not quite one year. Dr. King was tragically killed almost exactly two years later.

Note: I have added some paragraph breaks to make this easier to read.

from the Ware Lecture to the 1966 Unitarian Universalist Association

by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Another thing about this philosophy [non-violence] which is often misunderstood and that it says that at its best the love ethic can be a reality in a social revolution. Most revolutions in the past have been based on hope and hate, with the rising expectations of the revolutionaries implemented by hate for the perpetrators of the unjust system in the old order. I think the different thing about the revolution that has taken place in our country is that it has maintained the hope element and at the same time it has added the dimension of love.

Many people would disagree with me and say that love hasn’t been there. I think we have to stop and talk about what we mean in this context because I would be the first to say that it is nonsense to urge oppressed people to love their violent oppressors in an affectionate sense. And I’m certainly not talking about that when I talk above love standing at the center of our struggle. I think it is necessary to see the meaning of love in higher terms. The Greek language has three words for love – one is the eros, another is the word filio, and another is the word agape. I’m thinking not of eros, or of friendship as expressed in filio, but of agape, which is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. When one rises to love on this level, he loves a person who does the evil deed while hating the deed. I believe that in our best moments in this struggle we have tried to adhere to this.

(Read on … )