Urban Caucus Participants Envision Society and Church Without Racism
Episcopal News Service. February 24, 1993 [93032]
Michael Barwell, Communications Director for the Diocese of Southern Ohio.
Mainline Christian churches -- and the Episcopal Church especially -- face a grim future because "they have been more concerned about survival than about justice," Bishop Barbara Harris told 110 participants in the Episcopal Urban Caucus (EUC) meeting in Buffalo, February 18-20.
"Church officials would rather address death and sexual issues than power," said Harris, suffragan bishop of Massachusetts and the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion. Unless church leaders learn to share their power with all of the people they hope to lead, they will continue to be faced with "dwindling numbers of worshippers and dwindling church revenues," according to Harris.
"The primary reason for division in the church is the cultural captivity of the Gospel, in which individuals and groups seek to define their own identity and power and status, rather than to transform that to the power of the Gospel." Harris lamented.
Citing recent research by futurist Alvin Tofler, Harris noted that he points to resistance to change and the rise of fundamentalism. "Fundamentalist extremism is united in one thing: the fundamentalist wants to return to the earlier world where violence is the source of all power, and to control all change."
"Churches have been more focused on survival and charity than justice," Harris asserted. "There would seem to be no unanimity in old line churches about what the church is for, let alone the message of the gospels. We must be clear and articulate about what we want to do."
Citing the Rev. Loren Mead of the Alban Institute in his book The Once and Future Church, Harris said that "our task is to reinvent the institutional church. [Mead] envisions a church turned upside down. White male-dominated churches are operating directly counter to worldwide changes at grassroots levels.
"Would we be better off to close our current operations and start again?" Harris asked. "Can Christians find anything to focus on as a uniting force?
"As people of faith, we believe the greatest source of power is God's love for us in the ministry, death and resurrection of Christ. But as Frederick Douglas said, those who wish changes to be easy and peaceful are like those who like rain without lightning, or redemption without judgement.
"The test for us is to embrace change as growth. To do less is to avoid the call of Christ wherever he would lead us," Harris concluded.
Harris's address at the closing banquet of the 14th annual EUC meeting capped two days of lectures and workshops on the issues of racism in the church and society. The agenda had been set in Cincinnati last year, when the caucus responded to the racism resolutions adopted by the 1991 General Convention in Phoenix.
Setting the tone of the meeting, the Hon. Byron Rushing of Massachusetts suggested that a new paradigm must emerge from the historical polarity between blacks, whites and other races. "Our challenge is to say to ourselves, our church and this world that racism is not our nature," Rushing said.
Rushing, a representative in the Massachusetts State Legislature and a former president of the caucus, said that if racism is going to be eradicated in the church and society, it is necessary to "name it, repent for it and envision what it would be like in a society with no racism."
"None of this is going to happen naturally. Sins don't go away on their own," Rushing added, "We have in this room the ability to move the Episcopal Church -- but we are talking about something very difficult," he told the participants representing 25 dioceses of the Episcopal Church.
Rushing's message was bolstered during a workshop introducing "Dreamworks," a new anti-racism program developed and being field-tested in the Diocese of Massachusetts. Co-authors Judith Conley and the Rev. Charles Virga led a two-hour session which highlighted some of the exercises offered in the new program, which will be distributed through the Urban Caucus.
"It is not a matter of meeting for three hours, holding hands and singing 'We Shall Overcome,"' Conley said. "It is a life-long, evolutionary process that will never end."
Virga, co-director of the project, explained that parish and diocesan structures are the targets, rather than individual attitudes. The exercises also can be used for issues other than racism, he noted.
Leading the group through one exercise, Conley and Virga asked participants in face-to-face conversations to remember an adult who had taught them that racism was wrong. Reflecting on the exercise later, one white male participant said, "I tried to think of any adult who gave me a positive expression of other races. And I realized I was raised to be a racist and I'm tired of trying to correct this."
A black male participant said bluntly, "Like many of us it is seldom I have an opportunity to speak to a white adult about these issues... It was a recollection of how much I have to suppress since childhood. And I was getting angry. How long does this have to go on -- dealing with this issue every day of your life? You just get tired of dealing with it."
That viewpoint was echoed during a plenary session in which a dozen dioceses reported on their experiences, work and frustrations in responding to the 1991 resolutions. Few dioceses have enacted resolutions to implement General Convention's mandates. Reports included candid remarks about bishops, clergy and lay people who have allegedly blocked efforts to discuss racism issues, or dioceses which have avoided funding racism work. "It's difficult to keep people focused," said one woman, adding that sexuality and other issues have garnered more attention in recent times. "My only advice is to be like the widow and keep hammering away at the door."
Caucus members were also critical of themselves, noting that while there was almost equal representation of blacks and whites, male and female, clergy and laity, there were no American Indians and no Asians at the meeting. "We need to model inclusivity," one woman said.
The workshop moved on to envisioning how the EUC could model antiracism. Throughout the two days, lists and suggestions were made, moving toward a focused agenda the caucus executive board will refine in coming months.
The Rev. Emmett Jarrett of Washington, D.C., president of the EUC, said in an interview that it is "not surprising that many dioceses are just starting on the 1991 resolutions. That is not cynicism, just realism," he said, noting that the caucus and others in the church fighting racism "are in for the long haul."
The caucus is developing a strategy with a three-fold mission: to focus on racism for the next nine years, to develop publications and materials for the church, and to affirm urban mission strategies."
"If we focus on racism," Jarrett warned, "we need to keep clarity about our primary goals. This is not a black-white issue only. And we need to be careful not to squabble with others about whose pain is greater," he added, referring to issues such as sexuality where emotions run strong. "We are at the point of a paradigm shift in society, the giving up of white power."
The EUC adopted one resolution that "the Episcopal Urban Caucus board create a mechanism by which we can identify and report annually to the membership incidents of overt and covert racism within parishes, dioceses, provinces and at the national church level and the outcomes, if any, of these incidents."
"This action will give us reasons to celebrate good news, explore and examine the reasons for unsatisfactory outcomes and will enable us to continue to be proactive rather than to be forced, by the very nature of racism itself, to be reactive," said Joanne Stevenson of the Diocese of North Carolina, who proposed the resolution.
"These annual reports will serve as navigators to chart our future caucus directions and priorities," Stevenson said. "The wall of denial in the church must come down. We can bring it down, together, one brick at a time," she added. "The church must face its fear of racism. How can you preach to others about freedom if you are not free yourself? The caucus cannot allow anything but the truth to guide her path. Our footing is made sure on this road to freedom, we clear the way for the church to follow. We, through our service and sacrifice, will have made her journey safe," she concluded.