We, the Living, Uphold This

I went to Ghana January 3-18, 2011, to fulfill the Drew Theological School Cross Cultural requirement. It seems that my trips have led into each other, into this one to Ghana. Venezuela and South Africa--- these pilgrimages began in a small way to force me to recognize my race privilege. This pilgrimage to Ghana is yet another step, a bigger step, for me on the journey to understanding my race privilege and working against racism. This is my reflection from January 6, one of the most powerful days of the trip.

When I walked down into the dungeon for men in Cape Coast "Castle," there was just this horrible weight that pushed me down so much that I thought I would scream under the weight of it. The dungeon was designed to be a place of terror, a place where 1500 men were packed in and abused like livestock on factory farms are today, while so-called Christian missionaries lived in the apartments above them. In reflection later Jessica asked, how can a merciful God love us when this is what we do to one another?

Today began with a lot of apprehension on the part of our group. Most of the other students dressed up, knowing that this place they were visiting is a grave and trying to show respect. Then they sang gospel and praise songs on the bus on the way there, which Garrett broke into to read from Genesis 50:15-20:
Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, "What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?" So they approached Joseph, saying, "Your father gave this instruction before he died, 'Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.' Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father." Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, "We are here as your slaves." But Joseph said to them, "Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today."
I shivered as he read it. Shivered to realize what it was my African American classmates were facing as we journeyed ever closer to those forts on the coast, looking out over the sea where so many died in the Middle Passage.

As soon as we arrived to the Elmina Dungeon--- castle is not an appropriate term here as it signifies to me Disney princesses, rather we must find a name that better captures the horror of it like dungeons or concentration camps--- one woman began crying, overwhelmed by just standing on these steps, stones soaked in death and brutality.

At Elmina, our guide told us the story of the systematic dehumanization of the slaves, the rape of the women, the slow starvation of resistors, the deprivation of light, air, food. The stench of death and dying still lingers in the poorly ventilated women's quarters, almost two hundred years after its use, while the sea air caressing us in the officer's quarters was a slap in the face. Particularly as we stood in the Dutch church above the women's dungeon, or the Portuguese church in the center of the fort (different churches for different occupiers), feeling sick to our stomachs to think people could worship God on the very spot they committed atrocious crimes against humanity. We walked from the men's dungeon into the transition room, into the Room of No Return, where an opening barely big enough for me was the only way out into, in those days when the water was higher, the sea, into boats that would take them to those ships of death that would take the Middle Passage.

In the face of walking over this space where such atrocities, people, particularly white people I think, link this horror to others we know. The horror of Elmina reminded me of the orderliness of German-run concentration camps during the Holocaust. Systematic, orderly destruction. Here bodies had to be kept weak to avoid revolt, so they practiced a business model that caused the death of countless unknown. A business model. Cape Coast Dungeon, though, that reminded me of the sheer brutality of the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides. Out of control brutality rather than orderly brutality. We walked down this slope into the male dungeon, stones worn by the feet on men, the filth of their humiliation now fossilized on the stone floor so no amount of sandblasting or excavation could remove it. This serious of dungeons for men had tiny oles way at the top of the walls for slivers of light and air. When our guide shut off the already pitiful lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, added for the tours, I couldn't breathe. It was like being in a cave.

Beside this first room was one in which resisters were chained and starved--- crucified--- in sight of the others, a primitive drain for this blood, urine, and shit to run off. Then we continued to descend into a sorting room where men were sorted by the merchants who bought and branded them. The tunnel--- through which the men would be forced down another, agonizingly long, that led to the Door of No Return--- has now been sealed and blocked by an Akan shrine that had been in that spot long before this place of death and returned to educate and I think try to drive the spirits of that place home to rest.

The women's prisons were not like the men's, down a tunnel through which no guard or officer would go even to feel the men--- no, the women's dungeons had to be more accessible to satiate the white monsters'--- for there is no way men working in these places could be anything but monsters--- lust for power, control. And these women's fates, like those of the men, led out of that Door of No Return just the same.

Both our guides in these places ended with hope. At Cape Coast, you leave through the Door of No Return, look out over the sea, but when you turn back around the door has been labeled the Door of Return as the remains of those who had been slaves in Haiti and the USA have been exhumed and returned through that door, symbolizing the right of return for all whose ancestors were victims of that place.

Both ended with a hope that such sites and the education that is their purpose are a call that Never Again will something like this happen. Yet I am always disturbed by this call because too often we think that if slavery has ended in that form the brutality has also ended. Our guide at Cape Coast boasted that the "castle" is more than a site of terror but, because of how it was used afterward, a site that helped bring Ghana into the new international economic order. I agreed: it is a site that is representative of an economic system that still exists today in which people of color are exploited so a small number of whites (and those who share white hegemonic power) can get rich. One of the realizations I had standing there as he spoke was that today I stood in slave dungeons. On January 31 I will stand in a prison to take a course with women on the inside. Just another way that this system in which we live enslaves people of color.

Yet these sites have forced us to ask questions, critical questions about the way the slave narrative has been fed to us (in text books written by white men, as Dr. Naana Opoku Agyemang talked about in a lecture we went to later that night). We saw in the structure of the building that these dungeons were intended as sites of terror from the laying of their foundations NOT as places to trade gold and ivory that evolved into the trade of human beings. We saw the resistance that must have been, despite their absence in the history books, in the very shape of that building, cannons not only facing the sea but the surrounding village. And we heard a few stories of walled communities to protect from kidnapping, people hiding from slavers in the immense hollow center of a baobab tree. We heard of the white merchants creating tribal warfare to benefit their trade as continues to be common economic and political practice in the two-thirds world today.

And I am an inheritor of these white merchants, as I am white, middle class, and a citizen of the U.S.A. I came to Ghana to continue my journey to understand my race privilege and unlearn racism and these slave dungeons now sit on my heart with the weight of the crimes against humanity. Too long have I thought, "My people"--- which as a construction in and of itself is problematic--- "have never been slave owners. We were busy being colonized by the British ourselves.---" as though I have any kind of cultural memory of that event--- "We came over after the Civil War because of the Famine, and we once classified as people of color too." This delusion denies the fact that when the Irish became white, I became an inheritor of a system in which because of the color of my skin I have opportunity, guarantees, safety, education, wealth, and other privileges I take for granted that some of those African American students with me in Ghana have not had. And this means it is my responsibility to acknowledge my inheritance of this racist system and work against it.

So when I, like Joseph's brothers, say,



"I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and sisters and the wrong they did in harming you...please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your parents."
I have felt the weight of those crimes, breathing in the putrid air in the women's dungeons in Elmina. And I know it is not enough to ask forgiveness, so I must seek ways to act to erode racism, to atone.

These "Fear-Infested Times": The Christian Advocate's and Social Questions Bulletin's Coverage of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Methodism 1951-1953

This post is adapted from a presentation I did from my research in the Methodist archives at Drew University for a United Methodist history class taught by Dr. Kevin Newburg.1

Introduction

In the 1950s in the USA, the Methodist church was a powerhouse. Though beginning as a church of the poor and working class, in the almost 100 years between the end of the Civil War and the 1950s, the church had steadily moved from the periphery to the center. Yet, in reading the national Methodist publication the Christian Advocate and the publication the Social Questions Bulletin (SQB) (now The Progressive Voice) of independent social justice Methodist group Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), there was a tension, a hysteria embodied in the investigations undertaken by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC).

I chose to look at 1951-1953 to cover the General Conference of 1952 in which MFSA was instructed to change its name and move out of Methodist offices and to cover the HUAC hearings of both Rev. Jack McMichael of MFSA and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam. The media I chose to look at were the Christian Advocate (the national publication out of New York) and the SQB. The Christian Advocate was a much more widely read as well as much more politically moderate publication than was the SQB. I wanted to compare coverage in these publications to understand what it was Methodists understood a Christian economy to be and how they were affected by the hysteria surrounding communism.

What I found, though, was a church so afraid of splitting that prophetic voices were silenced by the mainstream church.

Christianity and the Isms

There was close to one article a week, or one article every other week in the Christian Advocate that centers around some aspect of communism--- which alone indicates the great anxiety that came with the Cold War. However, I was surprised at the multiple opinions and nuanced opinions published by the Advocate in this period, having expected to see much more conservative and univocal articles on the topic. Perhaps the best overview of what the Advocate published concerning economic systems was a series they ran called "Christianity and the Isms" in 1951. An editorial explaining the series called "Christianity and the Isms," indicated that the editors found it important to be in dialogue, and important to understand as Christians. They had pastors, not professors, write each piece.2

The first, over the week of April 19, was "Christianity and Capitalism" by Charles M. Crowe.3 Here, he argued that not only was capitalism not contrary to the teachings of Jesus, but, as you see in the picture, it is based on and honors biblical values. He writes, "It is time the church quit holding up to scorn the one system that has done more in more ways for more people than any other economic program. It needs to be said, without equivocation, that the free enterprise program of private ownership best supports and affords the chance to realize basic Christian ideals."4 This article interests me for two reasons in particular: 1. the focus on values, and 2. the direct address to those who disagree. The values focus, we will see later, is one the Advocate relies on most when discussing economic systems. The direct address is intriguing because it tells us that there are those who are loud and who have power to speak for Christians who disagree that capitalism is the economic system of Christians.

"Christianity and Socialism" by Edgar N. Jackson ran the following week.5 I was surprised here at the fact that the Advocate would publish something so open about supporting socialism, so often seen as a dirty word today. The beginning of the article deals with disentangling religion from economic system (i.e. capitalists can be atheists too). Then, he explained that fascism, communism, and socialism are not the same thing, a battle we still fight today. The whole article had a calm, reasoned, teaching feel to it. He corrected misconceptions, pointed out that Jesus would not support one particular economic system, but rather argues that all economic systems must be judged based on the gospel standards. He writes, "Socialism would seek to free society from the economic motives that place a premium on money and selfishness, and in their stead place the value of the human person and the common desire to serve human needs..."6 Thus, he tries to paint socialism as common sense, and as democratic, and so American.

But ultimately, the most important part of this article is at the end. He writes, "Socialism asks of people a maturity of spirit that can pass judgments on facts, free from unreasonable bitterness and blinding emotion."7 This is important because it foreshadows the coverage of the HUAC hearings. The Advocate in publishing this piece is ultimately asking for reason, for acceptance or at least tolerance to reign in confronting communism. They are putting themselves firmly against the anti-communism that support the HUAC. Now, of course, Jackson, does receive many such anti-communist reactions to this article published in the Mailbag at the end of May.8

The last installment was "Christianity and Communism" by Clarence Seidenspinner.9 The article on communism basically argues that Christianity and Communism are completely incompatible because both are evangelistic religions:

The Christian can never be happy until the words of Jesus are fulfilled, "Go ye therefore, and teach the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The Communists can never be happy until the words are fulfilled which were set forth in the Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels back in 1848: "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. The openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries unite!"10

This is the basic argument throughout the three years I looked at: Christianity and Communism are by definition incompatible. And those articles like this one that are more anxious about it also have an urgency to them--- that if Christians don't evangelize more and soon, they will lose.

All in all, I think my surprise at these say more about my prejudices than about life for Methodists in the 1950s. However, with these articles, we have a foundation for not only the different arguments, but we also see how the Advocate invites the different discussions.

Anti-Hysteria

I want to take a moment here to highlight what I mentioned with Jackson's "Christianity and Socialism" article. In August of 1951 with L. Harold DeWolf's article, we see yet again the concern of the Advocate of countering the hysteria of the Red Scare. DeWolf writes, "The pressure of all this Red-hating hysteria is so strong that it is hard for Americans who love their historic freedoms to keep from being swept into it. But we must keep our heads is we are to protect our liberties and win the peace. Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco all rode to power on anti-communist, patriotic slogans. Such patterns, must not be repeated here."11 When publishing against hysteria, most piece have this form, focusing on what it means to be American and what it means to be free. The argument here is about reason, about the ethics of the constitution. And again and again, the Advocate cautions against Red-hating hysteria, often profiling the words of bishops, particularly Bishop Oxnam,12 who I could write an entire paper on. He is the champion of anti-hysteria in the Advocate.13

Of course, the Advocate's message against the hysteria of the HUAC makes sense given the fact that freedom of the press would be important to a weekly publication. But the anti-hysteria message is important because it becomes the Advocate's official position of sorts when it comes to discussing communism and the economy.

"Can't We Leave Jesus Out?"14

While the SQB certainly agreed with the Advocate in terms of opposing the anti-communist hysteria, what I found most striking about the way economic systems are discussed in the SQB was the Jesus-language used. By Jesus-language, I mean that everything MFSA published was underscored with scripture, particularly the Gospel.15 Part of the reason for this constant use of the Gospel and scripture is that it is a defensive tactic. Everywhere we see assurances that MFSA's message is Gospel-rooted.1617 For this reason, their discussion on economics is one not that says we must be open to see positives and negatives in capitalism, as publications of Christianity and the Isms seemed to say, nor is it one that focuses primarily on fighting against the anti-communist hysteria as the Advocate messages, but rather the SBQ's message is praxis based, saying that it is the responsibility of Christians to find alternatives to Capitalism and Communism.18

And while the anti-hysteria expressed in the Advocate is based on ethics and reason, in the SQB, it is very much based on the idea that Jesus would directly oppose McCarthyism. It was not just an ethical, but a spiritual issue. Rev. Jack McMichael writes, "When this crucial period is recorded, persons may be judged by what Jesus called fruits, not by labels propagandists threw their way. Glory will be assigned courageous words and deeds to which conscience drove Christendom and others--- to end hysteria and defend the spiritual freedom and democratic rights which made America great."19 This quotation again directly links the work of MFSA with the Gospel, but also assures the reader, reminding them that even through MFSA's problems with the HUAC, they are doing the work of Jesus that will be judged as fruits in the end.

These articles place the work of MFSA directly in the sandals of Jesus himself. They even draw a parallel between the crucifixion and the HUAC under the heading "Jesus and the UnRoman Activities Committee": "Have we forgotten the stand taken by Jesus when quizzed as to his alleged UnRoman activities by investigators and courts in his day who were bent on sending him to death on a cross?"20 Those are powerful words with which to scold the HUAC, and distinctly places MFSA as direct inheritors of Jesus' work.

The 1952 General Conference

So we come to the 1952 General Conference with the understanding of the gospel-rooted message of MFSA and the multivocal economic opinions of the Advocate that ultimately seem to settle on an anti-hysteria message. So I can't help but be confused when we see in 1952 such fierce opposition to the MFSA in the Advocate. You can see the preparation for General Conference with the increased focus on MFSA, driving home the opinions of the editors to those readers who will also be delegates.21

In May of 1952, we read that MFSA is responsible for a breach between lay and clergy.22 The editorial about social action and General Conference was triumphant:

The Conference's expected rebuke to the Methodist Federation for Social Action was based on the unrepresentative character of this group that had often been thought to be speaking for The Methodist Church when it actually was doing no such thing. So the majority report, which was adopted by a large vote, requested the federation "to remove the word 'Methodist' from its name" and "to terminate its occupancy" of the building at 150 Fifth avenue, New York, N.Y.23

This particularly quotation is edifying in its naming of the Advocate's problem with MFSA: they do not want MFSA's message to be confused with that of the whole church. But, as the SQB points out, the MFSA had its name before the Methodist church even had its present name.24 Similarly the SQB points out that MFSA is specifically targeted in ways that conservative papers like One (Methodist) Voice is not. Why are the facts not talked about in the Advocate?

The Social Questions Bulletin recounts the ruling in this way:

In retrospect, there is a striking thing about the General Conference debate. Federation opponents admit that their majority-adopted proposals (requesting the Federation to change its name and office location) can only be implemented by Methodist Federation for Social Action members themselves...and only when and as Federation members determine...From such considerations many at General Conference concluded that the most vigorous Federation opponents were not primarily concerned with the Federation's name or its office location, but rather with telling constituents (stirred up by secular and other misrepresentations)--- that the 45-year-old Federation had been properly spanked.25

It is very interesting that despite the care with which the Advocate presents differing economic opinions, it so thoroughly backs the "spanking" of MFSA and does not provide space for any rebuttals by MFSA.

Covering Rev. Jack McMichael's Hearing

Jack McMichael in seminary

Rev. Jack McMichael of MFSA's hearing before the HUAC is treated in much the same way. Though very little is said about McMichael's hearing in July of 1953 in the Advocate, the whole attitude of the short article is very negative towards him and towards MFSA. It is covered in a short piece from the segment News of the World Parish entitled, "Congressional Hearing: McMichael Says No."26 The title alone is bizarre, implying that the story here is not that McMichael, like Bishop Oxnam, was wrongly investigated, but that rather he finally denied being a communist. The article went on to talk about how McMichael was "evasive" and "contemptuous" throughout the hearing. It ended conceding that McMichael must not be a communist despite everything: "Mr. McMichael had gone into the hearing with assurance of support form a number of Methodists who, whether agreeing with him or not, did not want him considered guilty without proof."27 Such language undercuts those who support McMichael, MFSA, and their cause but implying that the only reason McMichael could have support is for a fair trial, not because people supported his work itself.

An older Rev. McMichael

McMichael himself frames his hearing as one on religious freedom, and he does so in much more religious terms than the Advocate does,28 but it is interesting again that the Advocate, rather than returning to its framing of anti-hysteria demonizes the work of the radical left in its coverage of McMichael's trial and its coverage of all things MFSA. Why the vastly different treatment between McMichael and Oxnam?

I argue here, that this can represent the beginning of the effects of the limits of tolerance. Certainly, the Advocate itself in the early 1950s seems to learn more left than right, but even with that lean, it does an impressive job at including voices for and against capitalism in ways that could be subversive. However, their demonization of MFSA to me is an early example of today's construction of a general public that does not include anyone who engages in radical political advocacy, or, in church language, a general public that ignores the prophetic voice. I am referring here to the work of Janet R. Jakobson and Ann Pellegrini in Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance. They argue that tolerance, listening to both sides of the story without evaluation, "sets up a political culture in which extremism, rather than injustice, is the major problem to be addressed in public life."29

Thus, in this case, the Advocate presents MFSA as threatening to Methodism because of their unapologetic position on the Left. It positions itself for this particular issue as existing above politicization, offended that MFSA chooses sides. But this positioning is also necessary in these early years after the 1939 Methodist merger when the north and south (which split just before the Civil War) became one church again. There was still a strong memory of that split in the 1950s. Taking the side of MFSA could alienate conservative church members and cause a split there, which was unacceptable for the Methodist church then and today. Unity, it seems, is everything.

Perhaps there is a place for such tolerance of both sides. I did appreciate the range of views the Advocate offered on economic systems throughout 1951-1953. However, demonizing MFSA seemed completely unnecessary to holding that position of "neutrality" because in demonizing MFSA, the Advocate in fact demonized all those who felt compelled to take a side based on their rootedness in the Gospel.

Conclusion

And what about this "fear-infested time" we live in today?

I have been interested in the anti-communist, anti-leftist sentiment expressed particularly in the 1950s because I see some similarities with the hysteria and fear I have seen in my own lifetime as I was born in the 1980s, during the backlash against the political activism of the 1960s and 1970s, and I became an adult post 9/11, in this only-getting-worse anti-terrorist hysteria.

Today, we are influenced by media that is incapable of analyzing the ethics of the politically active. And our church allows itself to be bullied for fear of being labeled as too politically active, and especially as too Left. Just this past October, the General Board of Church and Society withdrew its participation from the One Nation Working Together rally in Washington, DC, citing the fact that they did not want to be part of an event that was divisive, and since the August Glenn Back rally, it had came to be seen as the anti-Beck rally.30 This happened after a New York Times article (incorrectly) citing (former MFSA staff member) Rev. Amy Stapleton as speaking for the UMC--- and political pundit Glenn Back picked up on it. He cites other organizations involved and then says, "If you're a Methodist, you should demand: Do you [the church] stand with all of these communist organizations?"31

After receiving angry messages from Methodist Glenn Beck fans, GBCS caved and withdrew its endorsement. It did not want to seem threatening, did not want to rock the boat too much for fear not of being "too divisive" but for fear of being seen as "too radical." It abandoned its prophetic message for fear of causing division.

MFSA at the One Nation Rally

Fortunately there continue to be prophetic voices speaking loudly within the church when even the General Board of Church and Society caves in fear of division. They remind us, as was published in preparation for the 1952 General Conference in the Social Questions Bulletin, that "Some who whip up the great hysteria in America today do not really fear capture of this country by the small Communist minority. They do fear dissent, free and independent thinking, and prophetic religion and action--- for all of which the Methodist Federation for Social Action has stood for 43 [now 103] significant years. They were never more needed than today."32

Flash over Substance: The Balance between Freedom and National Security

I dread going to the airport. No, I don't have a fear of flying. And usually the waiting time isn't too bad because I have a book. And security gives me a lot less trouble because I'm white. Still, I dread the waste of time that is the Transportation Security Administation (TSA) (and the equivalent in the UK too, which is arguably much much worse). I am just waiting for the day when in my over-tired traveling state I will snap. Because I am disgusted with the ways over and over again people submit themselves to over-reaction in the name of counter-terrorism. The TSA does not make us safer. Created after 9/11, its existence is basically a charade to make us think that they are doing something, when in reality they have done nothing.

http://xkcd.com/651/

This "flash over substance" approach to security comes into play even more vividly as Thanksgiving 2010 marked the more widespread use of full body scanners in airports across the U.S.A. My parents argued with me about the scanners, saying that I and others were overreacting and it was no big deal (my mother in fact implied that I was being rather puritanical about bodies in refusing to go through the scanners). They argued that we ought to submit to these scanners if the can make our airspace safer. However, in all my reading I found over and over again that, as the xkcd comic on the left reminds us, these tactics of the TSA do little to protect us.

I want to take a moment here to refer to the fantastic Bully Bloggers had a piece (one that was not as good as usual but still had a good point)reminding us that white liberals complaining about full body scanners and the invasion of privacy they brought with it obviously forget that it is "the sort of treatment black women and men have been accustomed to ever since they were pawed and poked on the auction block." But this, for me, is just another example of how we in our anti-terrorist hysteria, have allowed the restrictions on our civil liberties to go too far. Randy Ananda in an article for the Dissident Voice quotes Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, as saying:

"In England where they spent about a third of all [their] security budget on video surveillance, there is study after study after study that shows that those who observe the surveillance are tracked to look at pretty girls' special parts, and to use those kinds of technologies to essentially violate women’s privacy, or children’s or boys’ or whoever we might be looking at.

"The same danger exists here, and that's something we should be aware of. It's been absolutely consistent in the tests. Some jurisdictions have even stopped using these technologies."

In this case, we see such scanners make us less safe.

So why do we continually allow ourselves to be treated like animals when studies have shown that such invasive tools do little to protect us?

Aaron and I watched a short documentary on the world's oldest continually operated airport, College Park airport, (which I included at the end because I thought it was that interesting, particularly the third section) that I think best narrated how ridiculous this hysteria surrounding flight post 9/11 is. The customer base at College Park airport prior to 9/11 was over 400,000. Now, it is just over 50 because the airspace within the 495 beltway is off limits without an extensive vetting process. Now, the manager of the airport says that he believes that there ought to be a vetting process. However, to fly at College Park, a pilot must get a background check by physically driving to Baltimore, physically getting finger printed at National airport in DC, bringing that documentation physically to College Park, and then waiting 4-8 weeks. These things could be done online or at any number of locations besides Baltimore and DC. And today, you can't even walk onto the airport property without being vetted, meaning the airport can't have the educational and child-oriented aviation events they used to have.

And for those of you who still think the College Park story is sad but necessary to make the Capitol safer, who think that no matter how much surveillance can be abused, if it just helps that one time--- go visit the general aviation section of an international airport like National or BWI. There is no security there.

At the end of the College Park documentary, Jim Campbell of Aero-News Network asks "how long the current security hysteria continues to value flash over substance, hype over reality?" I ask us the same question.

***

"Behind the Front Lines: Historic College Park Airport Struggles to Stay Alive"

Saying Grace

This is adapted from a story I preached for my liturgy class' Worship Design Project with Dr. Heather Murray Elkins. The scripture we used was 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, about how the body of Christ is made up of many parts, but it is still one body. We followed the story with an invitation to the table for a love feast, or agape meal.

Le Capitol, the center of the city

I studied abroad in Toulouse, France, in 2007 with about ten other women, most from my college but a few from other schools. None of us were really close before studying abroad together, but there is something about being thrown into a foreign land where everyone speaks a foreign language that can bring you together.

First semester living abroad is always really difficult, especially for those of us who had never been so far from home before, and especially around the holidays. So the director of our program, a petite French woman who would take one kernel of popcorn just to taste it and then be done, decided to throw a Thanksgiving dinner for us. I was actually a little upset about this. We were not eating dinner until 8 pm, which is what you do in France, and had been a sore point with me since I got there. I mean, Thanksgiving dinner cannot start at 8. You start making pumpkin pies in the morning while watching all the really bad pop stars lip sync to their really bad pop songs in the parade, and then you take a nap and then everyone comes over ready to eat non-stop for the next several hours. That's what it's about right?

A sculpture in Centreville

But I tried to let it go and focus on making something special for the dinner. We had all split it up and offered to bring something. I was bringing peanut butter cookies. Not quite tradition, but pretty USAmerican I must say. I had to go to three grocery stores before I found anyplace that even sold peanut butter. And when I brought the cookies and put them down among the other food, I was surprised at just how wonderful of a meal we had put together. I had never had pumpkin pie that good--- it was made from real pumpkins! I've only ever had it from the can. I had also never had champagne at Thanksgiving before. Or saltine toffee. And even the food I had had at Thanksgiving before, the myriad of brilliant green vegetables, the cranberry sauce, the mashed potatoes, and, though I didn't eat this because I'm a vegetarian, the turkey--- all these things others had brought with them to the table made the night one of the yummiest Thanksgivings I had ever had (don't tell my parents; they are good cooks and I don't want to hurt their feelings).

But more than that it was one of the best Thanksgivings I had ever had. Here we were, women feeling very alone in this new place with a few Frenchies thrown in, none of us with anything really in common other than that we were far from home. Ollie, for instance, she and Alison brought the saltine toffee. Ollie was planning to go into corporate fashion for a while. I don't know how many of you actually know me, but my own sisters and mother who are much more fashion conscious than I am are embarrassed to be seen with me--- and yet Ollie never ever even talks about clothes with me. And Alison, who helped Ollie with the toffee, grew up in New York City, which is so far from the corn fields of Harford County Maryland where I grew up. And Kristin, who is graceful and a dancer--- she was there that night too. She and Priscilla brought the pie. I don't know if any of you have seen me dance, but uh, Kristin and I definitely have nothing in common there. And Priscilla, though we did enjoy sharing a good nutella crêpe together--- Priscilla is so sophisticated and has seen so much of the world whereas I am third generation (at least) Harford County and had never been that far away for that long alone before.

The list is long of the folks there that night and how different we all were,* the different places we were all coming from academically, geographically, culturally. But all of us came to the table together to eat and talk and just be together in the warmth, stuffing ourselves silly as you should on Thanksgiving.

But all of us came to the table together to eat and talk and just be together in the warmth, stuffing ourselves silly as you should on Thanksgiving.

As I left that night to walk back to my apartment, doggy bag in hand--- not a very French thing to do, but I could not pass up that food. I realized that because of the time difference we had been eating at the same time as my own family: 2 in the afternoon in Maryland, 8 at night in France.

In French, Thanksgiving Day is translated as le jour de grâce or le jour de l'action de grâce. The word used for thanksgiving here is grâce, which we would usually translate not as thanks but as grace. And this night for me was a very grace-filled night. We had come to the table, each bringing something of value to share together, each of us bringing the weight of our own homesickness, and of our own wonder at this new country. But there were also some who are kept from the table, who make us recognize our privilege and remind us that the table God intends for us to build is big enough for all of us.

And so we come to this table to share together. Hungry--- I hope--- but we come, bringing with us all that is ourselves to share, and hoping to create a table where there is always room for one more.

*I wish I could include an anecdote about each of the women who I was in France with, because they are amazing and continue to do such amazing things!

My Brother's Keeper

God of love, we have sinned
replacing You with our fears, values, prejudices and our laws.
Move us from hardness to compassion,
from guilt to forgiveness,
from apathy to action,
from complicity and silence to justice.
Heal our brokenness and the wounds of your creation. Amen

This we prayed on November 20 at the symposium on hate crimes held at Grace United Methodist Church, 125 W 104th Street, New York City. It was a beautiful church, and throughout the day we watched the sun shine through the stained glass dove above the altar as we sat together and confronted what it means and what it would look like to commit ourselves to the work of ending hate violence. The symposium, called My Brother's Keeper: People of faith confront hate crimes, was sponsored by the Conference Board of Church and Society, the NYAC Immigration Task Force, the NY chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, Methodists in New Directions, the Conference Commission on Race and Religion and the Conference Committee on the Status and Role of Women.

The symposium was so beautifully woven together with lecture, worship, discussion, and art. We began with worship, opening with a song whose lyrics were "I am not forgotten; God knows my name"--- a powerful reminder of those communion of saints for whom we gathered today to stand up against the violence that makes people "forgotten."

For there are indeed so many who are pushed into forgotten-ness. Dr. J. Terry Todd, Drew professor and member of the keynote panel "How is the Hate Sponsored in Church and Society? How is the Hate Countered?" along with doctoral biblical studies student Rosario Quinones and civil rights lawyer Fred Brewington moderated by Dr. Traci West, spoke about the three periods of anti-immigrant fervor in the USA, weaving political cartoons from the 1880s with pictures from Tea Party rallies to reveal how the same rhetoric gets repeated again and again. And though he began by focusing on immigration, he reminded us that it is not coincidental that the rise of the Klu Klux Klan coincided with the period of anti-immigrant fervor from 1880-1924.

He ended his part in the lecture, though, with the adoption in 1972 in the United Methodist Church of what we call the incompatibility clause: "homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Originally the Committee on Christian Social Concerns wrote a sentence to declare acceptance of people of all sexual identities, recognizing everyone's sacred worth, but on the floor the language was changed to "incompatible." Fred Brewington said during his part of the panel that the incompatibility clause turns the bible into a weapon. And that, we began to see, is hate speech.

The day really centered around showing us of the intersectionality of anti-immigrant, racially-based, and homophobic hate crimes, as you can see from the keynote panel. The literature also reminded us about those hate crimes against Muslims in the city this year, though it was not covered as much throughout the day. There was a theatrical performance brought to us by the Teatro Experimental Yerbabruja out of Long Island, that spoke to us of the real-life events of the murder of Marcelo Lucero, thus documenting how hate crimes happen. Here, we kept hearing the words so prevalent today in our own anti-immigrant fervor: "It's not about race, it's about rule of law." And we kept seeing the bodies of immigrants broken and bruised alongside these words, proving how empty those words really are.

Bishop Jeremiah Park, who I was very proud to see there as too often bishops avoid events like this, brought us a letter announcing the coming statement from the Council of Bishops that says:

"We as people of faith are charged to build the beloved community because Christ has broken down the dividing walls and ended the hostilities between us. Yet we continue to build walls in the church and in the world, which separate us and cause our hearts to grieve...In the United States, there has been an escalation of violence, related to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religious preference. This escalation included personal attacks, bullying and vicious criminal acts of violence to the mind, body and spirit of persons. These actions diminish life for the victims, the perpetrators and the total community. They are ultimately insidious and irreverent attacks on the sacredness of God given life."

We as people of faith, must work to build this beloved community, one free from hate crimes and hate speech.

To educate yourself more, visit the Center for Preventing Hate and join the conversation on the My Brother's Keeper Facebook page.

As Rosario Quinones said, the blood of those impacted by the hate is, like Abel's, crying out from the ground. We must move, as the prayer says, to compassion, action, and justice to repent from this sin of fear.

Anti-Abortion Lies

Thursday morning I checked my Drew email and found this email:

Dear All,

Drew Students For Life with the Morris County Right to Life will make available pro-life pamphlets to the Drew Community. This brochure under the name "You Can Stop Injustice" educates all students when life begins, what are the emotional, physical, as well as psychological impact of abortions. This pamphlet has scientific information that links abortion to an increased rate of breast cancer and that abortions affects poor minorities the most.

All are welcome to read the pamphlets including pro-choice students to help understand the pro-life side.

We hope you enjoy the pamphlets.

I don't know where these pamphlets will be available. I don't know anything about this group, it seems to be new, and I think it is an undergrad group. What I do know is that when I read this email, I was livid, particularly because the email itself states the lie that abortion is linked to breast cancer unashamedly. I can only imagine what the pamphlets themselves say.

Abortion is not linked to breast cancer, yet I don't know how many times this has been shouted at me by anti-abortion extremists, I don't know how many times I've read it on websites for so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers (see also, the U.S> House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform's 2006 special investigation [PDF] on federally funded pregnancy resource centers), I don't know how many times I've heard it even from generally well-meaning pro-life people. But it is a lie. Medical consensus is that abortion is not linked to, does not cause, breast cancer . What I have been told by anti-abortionists is that because the development of milk in the breast is cut abruptly short by an abortion, it leads to breast cancer later in life. This is absurd.

In fact, one time my friend Jess and I were counter-protesting outside a clinic and, though you are not supposed to engage anti-abortion protesters because they are often violent, Jess finally was so curious she had to ask, "So do women who miscarry also have a higher risk of breast cancer?" And the guy said to her, "Oh no, God protects those women." Of course. Because God's an asshole.

One of the reasons that this kind of behavior makes me to angry is that if your cause is so noble and moral you should not have to lie to women to convince them to agree with you. This is a little problem the Right in general has, however (see the Tea Party, anti-gay rhetoric, and anti-health care rhetoric as well), and yet few people are willing to call them out on it. As Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini write in Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance, we won't call people out because in this country the "enemy" is not unethical, unjust behavior like the way the Right lies to try to convert people to their cause; no, the problem is rather "extremism," being seen as too far to either side. Thus, we are forced to tolerate this "two sides to every story" mentality to keep from appearing as though we are siding with one group over another.

However, as can be seen in this case, there are not "two sides" to this story. On the one hand, you have a lie that abortion cause breast cancer. On the other you have a medically established reality that that is not the case. However, pointing out the lie implicates you as being too partial.

The bottom line is that people can be pro-life all they want. But when they lie in order to encourage women not to have abortions, then we need to stand up and reject those lies instead of being cowed into saying "well, that's just the other side to the story."

***

*In this blog I go back and forth between pro-life and anti-abortion, but they mean different things to me and I was trying to capture the different meanings when I used them in different ways. I use anti-abortion to refer to extremists who kill or want to doctors and who picket abortion clinics and hurl hateful insults at the women who enter them. Hate is not pro-life.

What Saints Look Like

This is the adapted sermon I preached on Luke 6:20-31 and Ephesians 1:11-23 at Calvary United Methodist Church in Kearny, New Jersey, for All Saints' Day on October 31. As both my partner Aaron and my friend Rev. Nancy Webb said, it sounds just like my mother's sermons. Ha. Anyway, I have preached before multiple times, but never have I designed the service in its entirety, printed the bulletins, and then served as the leader of the congregation by myself. This congregation is the smallest in the Gateway North District--- 6 to 15 people on a Sunday, 7 this Sunday--- but one that is entirely committed to the work of the church.

It was such a blessing to be with these welcoming people, but I was nervous about leading. First, I was in this tiny chapel with only seven others, but I was expected to be behind the pulpit. It felt like forced formality. Then, I had printed out the scripture using the NRSV translation, so when they found it in their NIV bibles, they were really confused. I spoke too fast when preaching, and the hymns I picked were only three verses each (I don't know what hymns the congregation is used to, and there is nothing worse than being asked to sing seven verses of a song you don't know when there is no strong musical voice to follow!), so the service only ended up being forty minutes. Still, the passing of the peace was one of the most beautiful I have ever experienced because everyone hugged and kissed me and I could really feel the love of Christ in everyone in that room.The sermon that follows has been edited.

...Tomorrow is All Saints' Day, a day typically celebrated more in the Catholic tradition than Protestant tradition. When we think of saints, we often think of martyrdon and that process of canonization that is usually associated with saints in Catholic traditions. But my mom always used the holiday to explain to us that our church believed that we could all be saints. She used to say during the church service, "Let me show you what a saint looks like." And then she would hold up a mirror, so we could see our own reflections.

All saints aren't dead saints,1 she was saying. But if, for us, to be a saint you don't have to go through a process of beautification as in the Catholic Church, and if saints don't have to be dead to be saints, than what is a saint? I have heard many a time from folks that my father must be a saint after they meet me and my two younger sisters together. I think those people are insinuating that us three girls are a bit of a handful, which is untrue because we are angels, so I don't think that accurately captures the meaning of sainthood either. This is where our gospel lesson for this morning comes in.

When I saw that the gospel lesson we read this morning came from Luke's version of the Beatitudes, I was a bit perplexed and asked myself what this had to do with saints. But in reading a bit more, I saw that this passage is describing what a saint is. Jesus says:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
Jesus is saying that the poor are saints, the hungry are saints. Those who weep are saints, and those who are hated and reviled are saints. It's hard for some of us to think of those living on the streets as saints. It's hard for some of us to think of Muslims and gay people as saints, though they are often reviled and excluded from our very churches. And it's hard to think of ourselves as saints when we weep over the loss of loved ones. After all, those pictures of saints we see with the halos and stuff show them smiling and peaceful looking, right?

But the description of sainthood does not end there. At the end of the passage we read today, Jesus moves from a picture of what a saint is to how we can all become saints.
...Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Here we see that to be a saint is not just to be poor and in mourning, but it is also to make a personal decision day after day to live in a way that brings to life this Sermon on the Plain. Great. Ok. So now what? I mean, these are not some easy how to's that we can all just start doing right now no problem, right? Loving your enemies? Turning the other cheek? If someone takes our stuff, don't ask for it back? It is when we read things like this that I really agree with one of my professors who referred to Jesus as "that crazy bird Jesus." Jesus must be one crazy bird to think that we can really live this way.

I want to paint a picture for you about just how crazy this work of the saints is. This is a story about Bishop Peter Storey, a Methodist bishop and ecumenical leader during apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a violent legal system of racial segregation--- much like the system of segregation and Jim Crow here in our country before the Civil Rights Act was passed--- in South Africa in which the white minority called Afrikaners ran the country and committed horrible acts against the black African population. The system was put in place in the 1940s and was not overturned until 1994. This story is in Bishop Storey's words and for me it really illustrates the work of the saints:

A young Peter Storey

"I once received a phone call," Bishop Storey writes, "in the early hours of the morning telling me that one of my black clergy in a very racist town sixty miles from Johannesburg had been arrested by the secret police. I got up and drove out there, picked up another minister and then went looking for him. When we found the prison where he was and demanded to see him, we were accompanied by a large white Afrikaner guard to a little room where we found Ike Moloabi sitting on a bench wearing a sweatsuit and looking quite terrified. He had been pulled out of bed in the small hours of a freezing winter morning, and dragged off like that. I said to the guard, 'We are going to have Communion,' and I took out of my pocket a little chalice and a tiny little bottle of Communion wine and some bread in a plastic sachet. I spread my pocket handkerchief on the bench between us and made the table ready, and we began the Liturgy. When it was time to give the invitation, I said to the guard, 'This table is open to all, so if you would like to share with us, please feel free to do so.' This must have touched some place in his religious self, because he took the line of least resistance and nodded rather curtly. I consecrated the bread and the wine and noticed that Ike was beginning to come to life a little. He could see what was happening here. Then I handed the bread and the cup to Ike because one always gives the Sacrament first to the least of Christ’s brothers or sisters— the ones that are hurting the most— and Ike ate and drank. Next must surely be the stranger in your midst, so I offered bread and the cup to the guard. You don’t need to need to know too much about South Africa to understand what white Afrikaner racists felt about letting their lips touch a cup from which a black person had just drunk. The guard was in crisis: he would either have to overcome his prejudice or refuse the means of grace. After a long pause, he took the cup and sipped from it, and for the first time I saw a glimmer of a smile on Ike’s face. Then I took something of a liberty with the truth and said, 'In the Methodist liturgy, we always hold hands when we say the grace,' and very stiffly, the guard reached out his hand and took Ike’s, and there we were in a little circle, holding hands, while I said the ancient words of benediction, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all.'"2

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Here is a man who is doing the saintly work of that crazy bird Jesus, who is


Loving his enemies, doing good to those who hate him, blessing those who curse him, and praying for those who abuse him and his friends.
His friend Ike has been taken violently from his home for no other reason than the color of his skin. And yet, he with the smile of assent of Ike, takes the moment to offer grace to the guard who represents the system of oppression they live under. And he shows that to do this work, he isn't becoming some sickly sweet spineless guy, not like that picture of the saint with the halo, but someone filled with the Holy Spirit to stand up for the least of these. This is how to become a saint.

Luckily for us, we are a people who believe in the work of the Holy Spirit. The text from Ephesians reminds us this morning that we


were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.
Marked. That is such a strong word to me, reminding us of the power that is in our baptism as Christians. It reminds us that whether or not we think we can do it, the Holy Spirit moves among us and within each of us to make us holy, to make us even love our enemies, as Bishop Storey did.

So let's look again into that mirror that shows us what a saint in our own community looks like. What are ways that we can be saints together? So many of you already do saintly work each and every day. Think of your Vacation Bible School work! This is a true example of what Jesus ends his how-to of sainthood:


Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Here you are, reaching out to the community around you to bring a little light into children's lives, to give to these children what we all hope to give to our own: the love of Christ. It is also standing up, I think. Standing up to the culture of disconnect that we live in. Do you know what I mean? We live in a culture where no one knows our neighbors. Where one of the richest counties in the nation where I am living while I go to school is only sixteen miles from Newark where one in three children live in poverty. To open your church doors to the children in the community is such a gift. It is acting as Bishop Storey did in a way of standing up to the culture to be that picture of saints that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Plain. It is living into, as is written in Ephesians,


the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.

I don't know how many of you attended the District's Vacation Bible School Celebration several weeks ago. It was a powerful moment of communion with the saints in this area. One thousand children participated in the Vacation Bible school programs across the district, making the connectional church a reality. Here there were churches from across the district sharing resources to make real ministry and real sainthood possible. I saw the face of God in those children singing their bible school songs to us at this celebration service.

Too often, we think that Saints can only be perfect people that we have only seen in pictures. But we know that there is another image of a saint that we can look at in our own mirrors. And remember, as we celebrate this All Saints' Day, saints don’t always know they’re saints, or feel saintly all the time.

My prayer for each of you this day, is that you allow those holy things to happen in your lives. Be a saint. Allow the Holy Spirit to use you.

Thanks be to God.

Faithful God, Our True Witness,
Give us the strength and wisdom to live lives
of love, peace and acceptance
in a world fraught with hatred, dissension and exclusion.
Help us to reach out and love
both those who are oppressed and those who oppress.
Guide our journey
that we may live as saints
in remembrance of those saints who have lived before,
those saints who live among us, and those who are to come.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.3

All Saints Day I (1911) by Wassily Wasilyevich Kandinsky

***

1Taken from the "Who's out in the conversation?" lectionary series for All Saints' Day. http://www.hrc.org/scripture/?page=11-01-07

2Peter Storey, "Table Manners for Peacebuilders: Holy Communion in the Life of Peacemaking," Conflict and Communion: Reconciliation and Restorative Justice at Christ's Table, ed. Tom Porter (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2006), 61-62.

3Prayerfully Out in Scripture, from All Saints Aren't Dead Saints, http://www.hrc.org/scripture/?page=11-01-07

Biblical quotations are from The Harper Collins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 2006.

Believing Out Loud Together

So this post is a while in coming (it is one of those semesters): October 9-11, 2010 was the weekend of the first Believe Out Loud Power Summit, a space in which people from across denominations and secular organizers (! what a crazy partnership!) came together to brainstorm, plan, and organize for change, to make the Christian church inclusive of all of God's children, including those of all sexualities and gender identities. It was also the kickoff for Reconciling Ministry Network's Believe Out Loud Together Campaign intended to change the Discipline, our United Methodist book of laws, in 2012 at our General Conference.

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you.
-1 Peter 3:15

In 2008 I didn't realize just how surrounded I was with progressive Methodists, so I was terribly naive and so was stunned at just how horrible a loss we suffered. I was going to a reconciling church, becoming involved in the global UMC, looking "secretly" at seminaries, and I could not believe the strength and maliciousness of the Right. Here I was thinking that the UMC, though not nearly as welcoming at the Unitarian Universalists or many United Church of Christ folks, was close to being there, and yet, at General Conference, we could not even pass a statement saying "we are not of one mind on the issue of sexuality." That is a sad testimony of the state of Christianity and the United Methodist Church.

But at the Power Summit, surrounded by veterans and new folks of the welcoming movement across mainline denominations, I felt so uplifted. It was a renewal, but one that was focused, one with a purpose and tools to accomplish our goal of an inclusive church. Now, I know I am surrounded by a community that will change things in 2012. And we will hold each other accountable. Because we cannot afford to live under the hateful policy of our church.

One of the moments in the conference where we as United Methodists really saw where our denomination is was when they lined up the denominations in terms of how welcoming they are. The UMC was far behind everyone else because now the Episcopalians, the UCC, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians--- all of these mainline churches have welcoming policies. And the UMC policy is still that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. To see the differences in polity were striking.

But we also saw how well organized we are compared to many of the denominations. And Rev. Troy Plummer, the executive director of RMN, pointed out that you can change the legislation top-down all you want but will that really change the church? Rather, we ought to be working from the ground up. And we are.

I am going to school in the Greater New Jersey Conference where the lack of reconciling congregations is absolutely appalling, especially given the seemingly general friendliness and openness of most folks towards the issue of sexuality. But openness and friendliness of individuals is not enough. After all, if you aren't deliberately including, you are excluding people. So one of the most important things as organizers in the church that we have to do is get people to believe OUT LOUD together. Seventy percent of clergy say they are supportive of LGBTQIA issues, but only 7 percent have said anything about it in the pulpit. Right now, for us, we need to be focusing on that 63 percent of people who are supportive but not talking. Part of this means creating a supportive network so people don't feel alone when they speak out, but part of it is holding people accountable. Saying that it is not acceptable for us as Christians to stay silent.

Another piece of this work of believing out loud together, though, for me, is that we have to remember, as Beth Zemsky reminded us, that we have learned about difference and about how to make people into the Other through people we love and trust. So that is why we are going about changing the church through stories (see one of mine here). We are about changing the church through relationships, from the ground up.

As Rev Debra Peevey said, the secular world is hiding behind the church, using the church as an excuse for bigotry. And we let them. But I, for one, am not going to let the church be a place of hatred and exclusion. I am committed to changing the hearts and minds of those in my faith community so that when we say Open Hearts, Open Doors, Open Minds, we mean it.

Reconciling United Methodists at the Power Summit!

To learn more about RMN's campaign and some more details about the Power Summit, check out Audrey Krumbach's refection.