Category: Social justice

REA 2013 conference: formation for justice and advocacy

After taking a hour-long walk in Prospect Hill Park behind the hotel, I got back in time to attend the afternoon breakout sessions of the Religious Education Association 2013 annual conference. I chose to go to Carmichael Crutchfield’s workshop “Formation for Justice and Advocacy.” Although he’s currently teaching at Memphis Seminary, Crutchfield said he started out as a pastor in a local congregation. Thus his interest is primarily in congregationally-based religious education. He is particularly concerned with making Christian education “relevant in and beyond the present era” by helping us deal with our current realities, and helping us envision how we can move forward in “liberating and hopeful ways.”

Using the work of Paolo Friere and others, he rejects the banking theory of education, and advocates replacing it with what he calls “problem-posing education”; part of this consists in addressing real-world problems as a part of religious education. He aims to engage people’s critical consciousness, and to move people towards liberation through reflection and action.

After giving a short presentation, true to his pedagogical model he engaged the workshop participants in conversation. We discussed how we might engage in problem-posing education. This seemed fairly straightforward when doing education with teens and adults, but more problematic when working with children; developmentally, children are not at formal operations thinking, and so may not be able to engage adequately in cognitive reflection. However, one participant told a story about a moment when his daughter was eight years old, and stood up to injustice; she may not have been fully aware of what she was doing at that point, but her parents supported her, and the memory of that act stayed with her for years. Other participants commented on the important role parents must play in this type of education for pre-teen children; indeed, parent education may be a key ingredient.

I mentioned that I struggled to get children in my congregation engaged in this kind of liberative problem-solving education. I was grateful to Delores Carpenter of Howard University (I hope I have gotten her name right) for pointing out that children in minority groups are going to tend to be more advanced in this area; children in non-white families are going to be exposed to injustice, and the concurrent need for liberation, at a much earlier age.

all in all, an extremely useful workshop for anyone doing religious educaiton in a local congregation.

REA 2013 conference: Marshall Ganz

Marshall Ganz was the main speaker at the first plenary session of the Religious Education Association annual conference. Ganz is a senior lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Ganz dropped out of college in 1964 to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Mississippi Summer project; following his time with SNCC he worked with Cesar Chavez for 18 years.

In order to talk about leadership and organizing, Ganz began by quoting Rabbi Hillel, from the Pirkei Avot: “Hillel used to say: If I am not for myself who will be for me? Yet, if I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?” (Avot 1:14)

Ganz pointed out that the first of these questions is not about being selfish, but about caring for oneself. Hillel’s second question forces us to realize that we are inevitably wrapped up with others. And the third question prompts us to find a middle way between “jumping off a cliff” on the one hand, and getting ensnared by endless preparation on the other hand. Ganz said that these are questions, not answers — so Hillel was not urging us to assert control in order to avoid uncertainty, but rather to find purpose through “embracing uncertainty.”

Thus leadership is a set of practices in which the leader accepts responsibility, and enables others to achieve a purpose under conditions of uncertainty; leadership is also a form of social interaction. So leadership is less about a person or a position of authority than it is about purpose and real-world work that needs to be done. Continue reading “REA 2013 conference: Marshall Ganz”

REA 2013 conference: pre-conference trip to DSNI

The pre-conference session for this year’s Religious Education Association was a trip to the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) in Roxbury (Roxbury is a section of Boston). DSNI is a non-profit devoted to community-based planning and organization.

During our trip to DSNI, we learned that the Dudley area is poor — average annual income is about $12,300 — and its residents are primarily people of color, with about a third of the population 19 or younger. It’s also just two miles from the heart of downtown Boston, which says to me that it’s an area that’s ripe for gentrification (just as West Oakland is now being gentrified by young white people moving away from the high rents of San Francisco, forcing long time minority residents to move out).

Starting in the 1980s, the Dudley area was hit by a rash of arson, which resulted in large tracts of land left vacant. DSNI managed to get power of eminent domain within the limits of its neighborhood, and over the years they have acquired 32 acres of land which has been place in a community land trust. They then engaged in a community planning process, and built the kind of housing the community members really wanted. The houses are purchased by the residents, but the land continues to be owned by DSNI, in order to keep the housing affordable and to prevent gentrification that would force out long-time residents.

But what’s really remarkable about DSNI, and the real reason we made a trip to see what they’re doing, is that they reserve four seats on their 35-member Board of Directors for youth aged 15-17. They also have a Youth Council which engages youth in community organizing, and they give substantial power to the youth to plan projects, manage budgets, etc. Youth are mentored into leadership by adult community members, and the whole organization supports them as they mature skills as leaders. Significantly, these youth stay with DSNI as adults, either as volunteers or paid staff, and a couple of their former youth have moved into wider city or state politics as a result of their DSNI experience.

(Parenthetical note: As I was hearing about the way DSNI does youth empowerment, I couldn’t help thinking about what is called youth empowerment in Unitarian Universalist circles. DSNI youth are empowered to work in the wider community, working towards sustainable economic development, working for things like better housing and food security; the youth have an outward focus, tackling real-world problems. Unitarian Universalist youth ministry “empowers” youth to run weekend-long events for themselves; the youth wind up having an inward focus, where they support each other. Of course, the same thing happens in many adult Unitarian Universalist communities and congregations: we also maintain an inward focus, training our adult leaders mostly to run programs for ourselves.)

It was a good trip — hearing DSNI staffer May Louie speak about what they do and how they do it, seeing their accomplishments, getting the faith-based perspective of Father Walter Waldron, pastor of nearby Saint Patrick’s Parish in Roxbury. I just wish I had been able to learn more about how they mentor and empower youth to do real-world community organizing and project management.

———

After spending six hours learning about and visiting DSNI, six of us went out to dinner in downtown Waltham. We all know some of the best conversations at conferences take place in the informal interactions you have with other conferees; and tonight’s dinner conversations were both inspiring and helpful. Charles Chesnavage, who teaches at a Catholic high school in New York City, told us about his interfaith work in Yonkers, including regular meetings with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim interfaith partners. We asked the Catholics at the table what they thought of the new pope. Someone whose name I didn’t catch (the restaurant was noisy) heard I was a Unitarian and said Sophia Lyon Fahs was one of her inspirations, and we talked about the need for some kind of lab school for religious education, along the lines of what Fahs did at Union Theological School in the 1920s.

Perhaps most interesting moment from my point of view was listening to Leslie A. Long of Oklahoma City University talking about her work training lay youth workers for small congregations. She emphasized the need to train and retain older adults who will stay with youth work for the long haul, helping teens build intergenerational connections. (I couldn’t help but notice similarities between her approach and the approach of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.) I was also struck by her comment that research shows what youth are looking for is intergenerational connection and mentoring, while the usual model of youth ministry that looks like fun and games and parties is failing both youth and congregations.

That’s just the pre-conference session; the real conference starts tomorrow — and already I have learned enough to justify taking this time away from my local congregation.

How to be a peace activist

The fall, 2013, issue of Geez magazine is all about being a peace activist, and there’s a short eight-paragraph piece by James Wilt on the Peace Experiments program we did in Sunday school in our church (“Playing with peace,” p. 68). There’s even a nice picture of the peace quilt that the kids made under the direction of quilter Kathy Swartz. (Unfortunately, this short piece didn’t make it up on the Geez Web site so I can’t link to it from here.)

I don’t think we’re going to put this article up on the church bulletin board where kids can read it, only because I’m quoted saying: “Dan Harper, a long-time peace activist in California, calls the idea of of getting more conservative with age ‘bullshit.'” It’s a true statement, I’m not ashamed of saying it, but eight year olds don’t need to know I said it.

But it is true; I find myself getting more radical with age. The older I get, the more I realize how foolish and unproductive and morally bankrupt war is; the more I feel we have to protect our kids from war and violence. And increasingly I think most radical thing we can do is turn our kids into peaceniks. As James Wilt puts it in the article: “Now, however, instead of going to peace rallies, [Harper] hangs out with children. ‘I really think it’s the way to change the world,’ he told Geez….”

So — you want to be a peace activist? Go teach Sunday school.

Peace Quilt

A summary of the curriculum we used for Peace Experiments in online here. If you want to run Peace Experiments in your congregation, feel free to contact me for ideas.

Conclusion of youth service trip

Here’s the rest of the story about the youth service trip….

We finished up with Habitat for Humanity on Thursday, June 20. From there, we drove to the Big Oak Canyon site of Earthroots Field School, in Silverado Canyon east of Los Angeles. We worked there on Friday, June 21, helping prune and rehabilitate an abandoned orchard, and doing some trail maintenance. We camped at Big Oak Canyon — half of us slept outside under the stars. (Since June 21 was Pee on Earth Day, several of us celebrated the day by avoiding the portapotty when possible.) Then on Saturday, June 22, we drove back up to Palo Alto.

Starting tomorrow — Sunday, June 23 — Carol and I start driving across the country to visit family.

(Posted on July 1, and backdated.)

Youth service trip, day two

We worked on a Habitat for Humanity rehab project today. Three of us worked on nailing down oriented strand board on the roof, then putting up drip edge. Four of us worked on painting and other miscellaneous tasks. I posted a couple of photos here. And here’s a photo proving that, even though I haven’t worked as a carpenter for 18 years, I still actually know how to use a hammer (thanks for taking the photo, Samuel):

BlogJun1913c

By the end of the work day, we were pretty dirty, a little sore, a little sunburned, and very satisfied. Habitat for Humanity is a great organization to work for: they are well organized, they have clear goals, and they know how to manage volunteers.

We have another day of work at Habitat, and then we head off to volunteer at an ecology school doing trail maintenance. We’ll be camping at the ecology school, with no Internet access, so don’t expect another post until Saturday or Sunday.

(And, honestly, this service trip is more enjoyable for me than attending General Assembly. I’m doing something to make the world better! )

Youth service trip, day one

I’m on a five-day service trip with a total of seven youth and adults from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto. Agenda for day one: drive to Los Angeles, check in at motel, eat dinner and maybe do some sightseeing.

We drove down in two vehicles, with four people in the Neffmobile minivan, and 3 people in my car. They napped in the other car, but our car was very chatty. When Sam joined my car after the lunch stop, the car had a majority of people who liked classical music, so it became the classical-music-and-chat car.

Los Angeles traffic proved to be just as heavy and slow as we thought it would be. The Neffmobile pulled into the motel parking lot just after we did — with brake problems. So we scrapped our plans of driving to downtown Long Beach for dinner and sightseeing, because Robert had to drive the van to a nearby repair shop (which, fortunately, was open until 9 p.m.). The rest of us went to eat at the motel restaurant — the food was just adequate, but it was quite inexpensive so we kept well within our budget.

We’re off to bed early tonight, because we’ll be up at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning so we can get to the Habitat for Humanity work site on time.

Conscientious objectors

Although it seems unlikely that the United States will reinstate compulsory military service any time soon, there are people who are so opposed to any form of military service that they may want to establish themselves as a conscientious objectors for personal and/or moral reasons rather than for practical reasons. Then too, the political climate in the United States could change very quickly, all young men are required by law to register with Selective Service at age 18, and it is not unreasonable to want to establish conscientious objector (CO) status now just in case you need it later.

When I had to register for the draft upon turning 18, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) provided counseling and resources that helped me, but the CCCO died in 2010. And the big concern for most organizations in the present political climate is supporting people already in the military who discover that they are COs.

However, I have found some good online resources for non-military COs. Most important is the Center on Conscience and War (CCW) Web page titled “Advice to Youth Facing Selective Service Registration” which offers three main suggestions:

Print in legible black ink on the face of all Forms sent to Selective Service (not on the edges): I am a conscientious objector.

Make a photocopy all forms for your own records before you submit it to the postal clerk for date stamp and initials. Send all mail return-receipt requested.

Prepare a statement of your beliefs. Get it on file with your church or a reputable peace organization such as CCW. Such a statement could be helpful in getting the government to recognize your CO beliefs.

You can read the full article here. You can find a PDF of “Basic Draft and Registration Information,” a more comprehensive article, here.

What about Unitarian Universalists and conscientious objection? The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) offers a brochure titled “Conscientious Objectors and the Draft,” available online here. Unfortunately, this brochure is somewhat dated, but it’s still worth reading. According to this brochure, the UUA maintains a registry of conscientious objectors; with the demise of the CCCO registry, this is good news for UU COs.

All this makes me think back to how I documented my own conscientious objection to war as a Unitarian Universalist youth. The first thing I did was talk with Rev. Pat Green, the associate minister at my Unitarian Universalist church, about my religious objections to war and the military; he helped me sharpen my arguments in favor of pacifism, and find a religious basis for them. Pat also helped me to understand that although Unitarian Universalism does not have a specific peace witness (unlike, e.g., Quakerism), our religion nevertheless calls on us to follow our conscience in the face of difficult moral and ethical decisions. Thus I learned that as a Unitarian Universalist I could remain firmly opposed to participation in war on religious grounds, and other Unitarian Universalists could remain firmly committed to a career in the military on religious grounds. And Pat also pointed out that because of this, it was much harder for a Unitarian Universalist to convince a draft board that he was a CO than a Quaker (and yes, I do mean to use the word “he” here, since women have yet to be subject to compulsory military service in the United States).

I also registered with the CCCO — if I were doing this today, I would register with the UUA, my local congregation, and the Center on Conscience and War (CCW). I have vague memories of writing out a statement of my pacifism, but I don’t remember what I did with this. I got involved in the peace movement, specifically in campaigns to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal, attending demonstrations in Washington, etc. Before I turned 18, I found a qualified counselor who could give me advice about registering with Selective Service — the man I saw was trained by the CCCO, but as I understand it the CCW still trains such counselors. I also knew my Unitarian Universalist church would back me up if I ever needed to establish a claim, and I suppose that’s one thing that kept me involved in Unitarian Universalism.

If I were to give advice to a Unitarian Universalist youth today on how to establish CO status (and one recently asked me for just such advice), I might refer them to the Web page “How To Compile a CO Claim,” which suggests the following:

  • State that you are a CO when you register with Selective Service
  • Write a statement of your CO beliefs
  • Get three people who know you well to write a letter supporting your CO claim
  • Get active in peace work, and document your activity
  • Document other ways in which your pacifism has affected the way you live your life (at the very least, give money to CCW!)
  • Collect all these documents, and get them notarized
  • File copies of these documents with the UUA, your local UU congregation, and find out if the CCW will keep them on fiel as well
  • Keep the originals in a safe place

If you have any other suggestions or resources for UU youth who want to establish their conscientious objection to war, I’d love to hear them — leave them in the comments below.

Hmm, why do we…

So why do Unitarian Universalists do social justice work? In other words, what’s our religious reason for trying to improve the world?

I know my own personal reasons for doing social justice work. My reasons come partly from classic Universalism: we don’t have do worry about whether or not we’re going to heaven, but it is our job to make this present world a better world. I have updated classic Universalism with Bernard Loomer’s naturalistic interpretation of the teachings of Jesus: Jesus had a vision of the “kingdom of God,” which Loomer defines as an egalitarian interdependent web of existence in which all persons are valued, and in which no person shall go hungry, and this “kingdom of God” is the highest value towards which we can strive (note that Loomer was the one who introduced the phrase “web of existence” to Unitarian Universalists, which he identified with the kingdom of God). Thus I do social justice work to try to bring about what Jesus called the “kingdom of God,” where “God” is understood in an egalitarian, naturalistic way.

But people like me who rely upon Universalism and Jesus are definitely in the minority. What is the religious grounding for other Unitarian Universalists doing social justice? And pointing to the “seven principles” is not a sufficient answer — just because we voted to include the seven principles in the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1986 doesn’t tell me why we included them in the bylaws (e.g., I would argue that we included the seventh principle on the basis of Loomer’s understanding of Jesus).

I want to know why we do social justice. What’s your reason why?

Kavita Ramdas to speak at UU Church of Palo Alto

On Tuesday, August 28, Kavita Ramdas will speak on the topic “Women’s Rights and Culture: Social Entrepreneurship,” at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto (UUCPA). The talk will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Kavita Ramdas is the Executive Director of the Program on Social Entrepreneurship for the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She is the former CEO and President of the Global Fund for Women. She is an advocate for human rights, open and civil societies, and a respected advisor and commentator on issues of social entrepreneurship, global development, women’s leadership, education, health, and philanthropy. She spends her professional life shaping a world where gender equality can help ensure human rights and dignity for all. She was was born and raised in India and educated at Delhi University, Mount Holyoke College, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. And she’s been attending UUCPA!

I’ll be at this talk. I’m fascinated by the growth of social entrepreneurship, and I’m committed to women’s rights, so I’m looking forward to learning how these two things can be linked in powerful ways. And did I mention she’s part of UUCPA? Oh yeah, I already did.