What We’ve Been Up To…
April 15, 2005
It has been too long since we updated this site. Since our last post, many exciting things have happened:
- We reviewed the entire Credentialing process for new ministers and suggested changes that we hope will help make the materials and the process more anti-racist, anti-oppressive and multicultural. The Ministerial Credentialing Director, Rev. David Pettee, has already begun implementing some of the suggestions and has taken other to the Ministerial Fellowship Committee for discussion.
- We met with students, faculty, and staff of Meadville Lombard Theological School to review the history of anti-racism, anti-oppression, and multicultural work and the school and to help clarify directions for the work to continue.
- We sent a representative to meet with District Executives and District Consultants at their most recent meeting.
- We’ve continued to connect with stakeholders in this work and hope to send representatives to the stakeholder’s gathering at General Assembly in Fort Worth, as well as have conversations with as many stakeholders as we can at GA.
More details to follow…
April 16, 2005 at 5:04 pm
I’m glad you are back! I’m especially glad, because I’ve been mulling over a recent article by Meadville Lombard professor David Bumbaugh regarding anti-racism goals in ministerial formation and, being on internship and therefore somewhat isolated, I’m longing to see what others think about it. Who better to ask than the Step-By-Step bloggers?
While I laud the goal of the UUA becoming an anti-racist institution in the abstract, I have sometimes puzzled over the concrete details of how this is to be achieved and the theological implications of our anti-racism policies. Of particular concern to me, as a wanne-be minister, is the expectation that anti-racism and multi-culturalism are required areas of competency for UU ministers.
At the outset, this sounds fine: What UU minister touts racism and cultural chauvinism? But when so much heated debate has surrounded differing ways of working towards becoming an anti-racist institution (from the 1969 walkout of BAC supporters at the General Assembly to Thandeka’s 1999 General Assembly address “Why Anti-Racism will Fail” which was a critique of the Journey Toward Wholeness program), I worry that potential UU ministers won’t just be judged on the basis of their commitment toward racial equality, but also on the basis of whether their commitment is expressed through support of whatever particular anti-racist ideology is currently embraced by the MFC and UUA leadership.
Sometimes, I convince myself that this is a groundless fear and that I have too many other things to worry about, but Bumbaugh’s essay is not reassuring. Take a look and, please, tell me what you think:
[start]
In the ongoing conversation concerning the antiracism initiatives of Meadville Lombard and the Unitarian Universalist Association, my voice has been largely silent. A recent experience, however, has provoked me to enter the fray.
I was sitting as a panel member in a mock MFC interview, when we engaged the question of antiracism. I remember saying to the candidate that it would be well to pay attention to this area, since it involves a clear party-line and an acceptable response must reflect that party-line. My colleagues on the panel were quick to demur–insisting that there is no party line, that the MFC simply wants to know that the candidate has engaged the question and that the question is on a par with insisting the candidate have a theological position.
I have been thinking about that in the intervening weeks and find I must respectfully disagree. To begin with, I have never sat through a mock MFC where a student was asked specifically about his or her theology. But more than that, I find the importance attached to this question revealing.
No candidate is asked to present a paper outlining his or her position on war and peace. Indeed, we boast of the Unitarian Universalists who have served as Secretary of Defense and the Unitarian Universalist Association, at all levels, has gone out of its way in recent months to assure those who engage in and support the military adventures of this nation that they are fully welcome in our congregations. No candidate is required to define his or her relation to an economic system that deliberately and consistently transfers wealth from the poor to the rich–a system from which most of our people benefit. Indeed, the UUA at all levels has gone out of its way to assure capitalists, large and small, that they are welcomed in our churches. No candidate is required to submit a position paper regarding the ongoing global ecological catastrophe occasioned by our lifestyle, even though it is clear that this moral issue trumps all the others. But every candidate must present a paper on antiracism.
That, in my mind, defines a party-line.
Let me be clear. Questions of race and racism have dominated my personal life and my public ministry. I do not question the importance of this concern for individuals or institutions. I am, however, troubled by a kind of group-think which inhibits our ability to place this issue in a larger context. And above all, I am affronted by a mindset that uses the real challenges of racism to allow us to feel better about ourselves rather than to address the larger world. When I see this kind of problem institutionalized in such a way that we are discouraged from asking fundamental questions, my teeth begin to itch.
[end]
April 20, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Thanks for your comments Matthew. I’m going to see the RSCC this fall, I wonder if I will get a taste of the new requirement there? I would hope that ministers would participate in caucusing, meeting as Whites working to understand White Supremacy and construct a shared belief in anti-racism. I know this is in part what Ministers and Seminarians of Color are engaged in.
April 22, 2005 at 10:10 am
Matthew,
I can’t speak for the whole committee, but I can speak for myself. I think this work is a part of what our theology, values, and vision call us to do. (More at http://ministrare.blogspot.com)
I don’t think there is any one right way to do the work and my experience is that the MFC and others in “the UUA” (which is not a thing, but a collection of individuals who serve our movement) is that there is no anti-racism orthodoxy. They just want to know that our new ministers have thought about these issues and begun to “unpack” the way they work in their own lives, in congregations, and in our association.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask and with all respect to David Bumbaugh, I don’t think it’s a “party line.” Perhaps the problem is that we’ve singled out this line of inquiry instead of asking the larger question, “What does your faith as a Unitarian Universalist call you to DO?”
The problem is, that with our demographics, many of our seminarians have never really had to think about the effects of racism and oppression on the people and movement they serve. In an increasingly diverse society, it seems the MFC would not be doing their job if they did not raise the question.
April 28, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Joseph, Good luck with the RSCC! I’ve enjoyed reading your blog and I’m envious about the interesting travel you’ve been doing. It is nice to at least read about it.
Anti-racism was not a topic broached during my interview with the MRSCC. I can’t say if this was unusual or if, even if it is typical, it is typical of other regional groups.
July 6, 2005 at 12:52 pm
Sean, good to see you at the Stakeholders meeting. I got a call today from Ian White Maher about the possibility of setting up a stakeholder website as a blog. What do you think? Will this blog get updated more regularly now that the JTWTC has announced its vital importance for communication?
Also the Youth & Young Adult Anti-Racism Trainer-Organizer Collective (ARTO for short) has a new blog, yayaarto.blogspot.com
could you link it>?
September 6, 2005 at 10:24 am
The Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association is committed to becoming a antiracist, antioppressive community of ministers and we work closely with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee.
David Bumbaugh has an opinion that MFC expectations relative to this work reflects a party line. In my conversations with the MFC I see no evidence for his opinion — members of the committee themselves don’t all share the same analysis, so it absurd to argue that they could enforce a party line. I have debriefed candidates who were given less than a 1 on their preparation and understanding of antiracism, and I must concur with the MFC’s judgments.
To be a UUA minister one needs to have an analyis of racism in the United States that goes beyond seeing racism as just bad attitudes that conservatives might hold, and be able to self critically see racism in one’s own work, and life style. There are more than one way to analyse that reality, but to argue that requiring ministers to come to grips with racism is an expectation is “a party line” is wrong. Why doesn’t David Bumbaugh speak with the MFC when the come to Chicago? We also have an expectation that ministers work to be in right relation with colleagues, and actually talking out ones concerns and seeking clarification is recommended in our guidelines.
December 18, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Hello, i love jtwtc.wordpress.com! Let me in, please
April 15, 2008 at 2:58 am
As a black American raised in a Unitarian household, it was always obvious to me that the UUA is fundamentally and culturally an upper-middle class, white denomination. I’ve often been puzzled by the denomination’s clumsy efforts to integrate and by their well meaning, but always ineffective approaches to racism. The UUA can take a sincere stand against racism without pretending to be something they are not. The “party line” appellation is a fair description of the church’s unexamined approach approach to racism.