Episcopal Urban Caucus Challenges Proposed Reduction in National Programs
Episcopal News Service. March 10, 1994 [94047]
E.T. Malone, Jr., Director of Communication for the Diocese of North Carolina
The rationale behind proposed cuts in program and staff at the national level was challenged at the 14th annual assembly of the Episcopal Urban Caucus in Charlotte, North Carolina, February 23-26.
Cuts in many of the programs that address social justice ministry represents "a failure of nerve to stand up for what is right," charged the Rev. Emmett Jarrett, president of the EUC. "It is predictable that funding that gets cut in establishment institutions is justice work or missionary work, rather than senior staff salaries," he contended. "We're the people for whom their political costs will be the least." He also expressed doubts that social justice ministry will be picked up by the church at the local level.
Jarrett said that members of the EUC, composed of a variety of social activist Episcopalians from across the nation, are not persuaded that the proposed cuts are an acceptable response to diocesan visitations or other studies.
"We are here to prepare to go to General Convention to do battle," Jarrett told the opening session of the conference. The conference theme was "Developing an Antiracist Spirituality," and its principal preachers and speakers hammered away at the connections between antiracist work and the commitments to antiracism and inclusiveness proclaimed by the Episcopal Church at the 1991 General Convention in Phoenix.
The Rev. Kenneth Leech, rector of St. Botolph's parish in London's violent East End, traced the history of his racially mixed neighborhood where attacks on ethnic minority persons have escalated. He charged that theology has often provided a bulwark for racism by insinuating that it is natural, a "given."
If religion upholds evil, then religion oppresses rather than liberates, Leech said. Much current popular spirituality causes people to avoid the struggle against messy social problems, he contended, noting that antiracism work must be both radical and also rooted in the Gospel. "Christianity can relate to persons of all races and nations, beyond kith and kin. That's why racists fear it," he said.
The church should not seek to defuse or sanitize anger, Leech contended. He said that much of what is termed "mindless violence" is not mindless at all, but is the response of inarticulate people against institutional oppression.
The Hon. Byron Rushing, a Massachusetts state representative from Boston, said that whites and blacks view racism differently -- whites defining it as a belief in racial superiority and blacks defining it as a set of discriminatory practices. That is why whites are often angry and defensive when they are called racist, he said.
American society is based on a fundamental conflict among whites, blacks and Native Americans, Rushing contended. "If true justice were accomplished, America as we know it would no longer exist," he said, adding that Americans need a spirituality that will teach people how to share. "The Holy Eucharist is the ultimate 'affirmative action' meal."
Despite the focus on antiracism, however, conference participants were equally energized about proposed budget cuts in social justice ministries -- proposals that many compared to a betrayal.
"We want to hold the institution's feet to the fire and hold it to its promise of inclusiveness," Jarrett said. "If it [the national church] is not going to do the basic missionary and justice work that only a national organization can really coordinate properly, then why do we give them any money at all? What are they there for?" he asked.
The EUC did not issue its traditional assembly statement. Instead, it will publish a document prior to the General Convention, containing all the major presentations and keynote speeches from the recent conference, as well as feedback from reports of the dioceses of Chicago and Minnesota and others on antiracism work.
Jarrett said that the document will be sold at the General Convention in an effort to influence action. "We will be watching intently," he said.