Month: October 2019

A Dangerous Joke

.Reading time 6 minutes.

 

About 90 minutes into Thursday’s forum on LGBTQ issues in Los Angeles, a gay rights leader posed a question to Sen. Elizabeth Warren: How would she respond if a voter approached her and said, “I’m old-fashioned, and my faith teaches me that marriage is between one man and one woman?”

Warren (D-Mass.) responded with a theatrical seriousness. “Well, I’m going to assume it’s a guy who said that,” she deadpanned, pausing a beat for the audience to catch the joke. Then she added, “And I’m going to say, ‘Then just marry one woman — I’m cool with that.’ ”

She finished with a zinger:

“ ‘Assuming you can find one.’ ” – Annie Linesky for Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2019

Elizabeth Warren
One of probably a billion selfies…. Me and Elizabeth Warren in Cambridge, MA – Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018

As an openly gay faith leader with deeply liberal political views, I feel strongly that Senator Warren got it wrong and completely mis-represented me.  Taking a play from Trump’s book, she was playing to her base on Thursday night, but what she missed is that faith is no joke particularly if it is not your faith.  The first lesson of true interfaith work (and I believe that running for office must be a powerful exercise in this work) is that everyone’s beliefs are sacrosanct.  Everyone in the room must be taken seriously.  More importantly everyone must be invited into the room because if you win the race, you will be tasked with the sacred act of governing those who are directly aligned with you and those who oppose you…equally.

I believe we can make this world work with someone like me and those of my colleagues who believe that a ministry like mine is somehow illegitimate because of my sexuality or because it is not rooted in a Western orientation toward God.  The big takeaway for anyone involved in the delicate healing work of interfaith engagement is that modern faith in the public square cannot be about absolutes even when the personal faith is grounded in such unbending beliefs.  Public and un-listening absolutism is what created the wedge and reinforcing it with the kind of snarky, nose-looky-downy humor that was used in the forum on Tuesday weaponizes liberal thought.

This does none of us on the ground any good.  It is a gross step backward and a slap in the face to those of us who are working every day to bring people together against what feels increasingly like impossible odds.  Please, please don’t make our work more difficult by turning it into a Saturday Night Live sketch.

The correct response would not have been a joke. Senator Warren’s answer implies that faith is a triviality.  Coming from that standpoint alienates the large swath of people who base their political decisions on their beliefs…whether they identify with a faith tradition or not.

The correct response would have been something like this:

“Sir, you have the right to believe that marriage is between one woman and one man.  But your rights and beliefs cannot eclipse or erase the beliefs of others.  The US Constitution and the Supreme Court decision that was handed down on June 26, 2015 granting all people the right to marry in the United States regardless of gender identity, upholds this basic principle. We are ALL protected by the Constitution and that means a man who believes in marriage between one man and one woman, the person who believes in marriage between two men, a transwoman and a cisgender man or two females who identify as bi-sexual.  This decision strengthens the protections for you, sir, as much as anyone else because it affirms the human need for intimate relationships and it publicly affirms love.  All consenting adult people are granted this right by the covenant we share as one nation. 

Marriage, like healthcare is a human right…not the exclusive province of the Religious Right.”

So I say to Senator Warren, if you are going to talk faith, take time to dig as deeply into the nuances of it as you have taken to dig into our national finances.  No one calls out for a balance sheet and a calculator on their deathbed and the number of Accountants marrying people and blessing children is minimal.

You and the rest of the candidates need to have a public forum on faith if you actually want to win in 2020.

-ALD

Are We Ready for Religious Equity?

Liberal Religion…Where Are You?

A Failure of My Faith

.Reading time 8 minutes.
white wooden boat adrift at shore under grey cloudy sky
Photo by Trace Hudson on Pexels.com

I have now watched the date that marks 400 years since Africans were first displaced to this continent in bondage come and go with no substantial acknowledgment by the Unitarian Universalist Association (well, we rang bells…that’s nice.)  I serve this denomination as one of all too few African American ministers and this lack of action is yet another reminder that in many ways, this is not my faith.  But I am not deterred.  In fact, I am determined that because of this minimal action, I will not let the same thing happen next year with regard to marking 400 years since the start of the aggressive and pre-meditated displacement in 1620 of Native people from the place that we now call Massachusetts.

I believe that the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ as the modern-day religious descendants of the Puritans who arrived here in 1620 must make a public acknowledgement of their role in initiating the devastation of Native people.  I also believe that as the religious body that formed and structured what would become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the modern government of the commonwealth must join these two denominations in a public act of witness.

By 1620, Native tribes had already been poisoned by European disease.  But it was the Puritans who were then able to take advantage of this weakened position to squat on villages that had been previously cleared by dying tribes and to wield firearms (somethings never change) as a threat of lethal force to build their precious “city on a hill.”  Native people did not lay down without a fight (Pequot War, King Phillip’s War, etc.) but they were ultimately repressed by the English colonizers who had little or no interest in the original inhabitants’ continuing to survive according to their own customs let alone thrive.

…talk is cheap; repentance is dear.

There are those who will hear this call to action and resist any effort to acknowledge this history as a crime of humanity; and they may simply chalk it up to “progress”.  They may ask, how can we do this without then taking account of every one of the conflicts posed by European settlers to Native people.  They  may also retort with “but there was violence from both sides.” Frankly, I don’t give a damn because I’m tired of accommodating white fragility around this history.  I also know that if these three powerful (and supposedly liberal) entities continue to tacitly accept the forced removal, enslavement and genocide of the original inhabitants of this land as “progress” we will never get to a place of true progress; we will never truly recognize or resolve the ongoing violence of the Atlantic slave trade or the troublingly persistent second-class status of women.  In order to accomplish anything at all, we must begin at a beginning.

New England talks a good game on liberal values.  But talk is cheap; repentance is dear.  It is time for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the descended religious bodies of the Puritans (UUA & UCC) to pay up.

Inspired in this moment by the Jewish High Holy Days and the season of atonement, and the actions of the Collegiate Church of New York in 2009, the following is my imagination of what a joint declaration from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association addressing their role in Native displacement and murder might look like. Just to be clear, I am not Native or Indigenous identified and I cannot express the specific needs of those communities and I don’t intend to represent myself in that way.  But I am a minister in the lineage of the leaders who created this devastation and it is my obligation to call that legacy to account if my faith is ever to live up to my standards of racial, social and cultural equity:

A Declaration for 1620 Atonement

May it be understood:

The early colonizers of the region now known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts intentionally sought to displace the original inhabitants of this land.

Motivated by their Christian faith, the colonizers approached their project of settlement with an assumption that their “work” was ordained by God.

The religious basis for the colonizers’ social and political organization was foundational to their efforts and created a justification of entitlement to their actions in peacetime and in war.

The Puritan movement created the principle social and political order for the colonizers.

May it be resolved:

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association (primary descendants and chief beneficiaries of the Puritan colonial project) recognize the year 2020 as a year of mourning and the beginning of atonement for the loss of life, the destruction of a way of life and for the stolen cultural autonomy of the Native people in this region.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association acknowledge their direct connection to the brutality inflicted on the Native people of this region.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association will seek reconciliation with the descendants of the displaced, enslaved and murdered original inhabitants of this land, but there will be no expectation of or obligation for this reconciliation to be accepted by the modern tribes.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association will collectively explore in consultation with Native people a system of full enfranchisement based on the needs and wants of the Native people.  This system may include but is not limited to financial, land and or educational reparations.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association will incorporate in their respective governing and spiritual documents an acknowledgement of this unrepayable debt owed to the Native inhabitants and moving forward will approach their efforts of government and faith development with humility and recognition of their role in the near destruction of the original people of this region.

-ALD

PDF Version: A Declaration for 1620 Atonement