There are three parts to this presentation:
Describing types of Young Adult Prophet
UU Social Justice Movements in the 20th Century
What we could do now
What is a prophet? A person who leads the people to freedom.
We are a religious community with a vision of freedom.
Introduction:
We know that the popular movements of our day are fractured. Many of the most
successful leaders like Judi Beri, have been killed, or forced to retreat into
hiding by the violence of police and armed reactionaries. The movements have
too few people with experience. They have no buildings of their own, only marginal
newspapers, very few jobs to offer all of the thousands of young people who
want to serve justice and freedom.
Lots of our friends leave YRUU to face a cliff hoping that one of these movement
groups will give them the community and power that they have grown to expect
in our spiritual movement. It's not there.
And our movement does not offer it to us once we become adults. Our movement
seems afraid of the power of what it has created. This is part of the pain and
confusion we feel. And so there is lots of cynicism, and lots of acceptance
of pain in our Young Adult movement. Despite our disappointment, our movement
maybe the most viable assembly of liberalism and progressive sentiment on the
contemporary scene. We train leaders at our own Universities. We have close
to a thousand buildings. We sponsor camps and conferences in every state. We
have members who have gone through the civil rights, gender rights, environmental
and economic justice movements of the last forty years who we can learn from.
So one facet of the wisdom we seek to learn is how can we get organized without
getting shot? How can we lead in this country so controlled by blind patriots?
As if truth and the USA were synonyms and our country were out to save the world.
I have defined prophet as a person who leads their people to freedom. In many cases, the people who have led Unitarians left the church, even disdained it. Yet have shaped it deeply. To help understand this relationship, I want to identify three examples of Unitarian prophet.
I want to make this more clear by pointing out three types of young adult prophet
The Enfranchised prophet:
Thomas Starr King died at 40 years old, in 1864. His final ministry was at the
San Francisco church where I am a member. He was also a traveling minister preaching
as far North as Portland Oregon, and East to the Sierra Foothills in the mining
and railroad camps of California. His message included that god is love, and
is one, and embraces the African and the Indian, and all humans should be free
to develop what the transcendentalists called their self culture. He was given
the most important pulpit West of the Mississippi at 35 years old.
We all know examples of enfranchised Young Adults. Many have been here this
week. People who are Church Board Presidents, or ministers, or continental organizers.
People who feel that the UU movement wants their talents and is able to support
them and provide leadership and money and a community of love for them. And
some of these Young Adults are taking us in new directions of liberation.
Lyn Ungar, for example who recently preached at our District Assembly. A lesbian
who ercently adopted an african american child, who called on our church to
grow to contain and surround her choices with love.
The Dissident
A second type of Young Adult prophet is the dissident prophet. The one who rejects
the church and often the Divinity School, who joins a small cluster of friends
that are critical of the main church and of society, who develop their judgments
about how to live and what is right and who find ways to broadcast this to the
world or the church.
Henry Thoreau will be my example. One of the reasons that Young Adults must
care about our Young Adult ancestors is to lift up the truly visionary and prophet
aspects of them. Many people are taught that Thoreau was important because he
took a year off, planted green peas and lived in a sort of tree fort in Emerson’s
backyard.
What matters more about Thoreau’s life and teaching? Thoreau’s famous
night of civil disobedience was in protest against one of the United States
Government’s first wars against Central America. In his own terms Thoreau
was opposing the colonial war of conquest against Mexico. Wars that I and some
of our riends in the movement have also done civil disobedience to protest in
Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvadore. And that we should be protesting in Columbia
and Mexico.
What is more dissident about Thoreau is that the transcendentalists were the
main financial support for John Brown who began a military insurrection against
the Governement of Virginia for its laws enslaving African born human beings.
The Transcendentalists were not passivists. Thoreau’s most luminous writings
may be his “Defense of John Brown” whom he calls one of the six
most alive men in the history of the world on the day that the Government is
going to hang him.
The question of life and freedom were so vital to the Transcendentalists that
they viewed attending Harvard College as a kind of death, or worse, a way of
being frozen stiff and turned into a Unitarian minister, who at that time controlled
Harvard. They called Harvard the Castle of Ice and said that getting a degree
from it would be like taking a flask of frozen mercury and clasping it to your
breast.
Sometimes, I am critical of the ministers at my church. But I never go that
far. In my earlier life and largely under the influence of Thoreau, I would
never have gone into a church of any kind and much of the power of my leadership
comes from dissenting against the dominent culture. And much of the strength
of the Unitarian and Universalist movement has come from dissenting against
Christian dogmas and the oppressions of US society.
There are many in the Young Adult movement today, both inside our churches and
in the civil society we have shaped who are our dissident prophets. The organizers
against the World Trade Organization are among them. And those who oppose the
execution of political prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal.
Parallel society
A third root that provides an example of UU Young Adult prophets is Margaret
Fuller. At the time Margaret Fuller came to Young Adulthood, in the 1820s and
30s, women were not allowed to attend college in this country or in Europe.
Women were meant to bear children. Margart Fuller did not waste her energy dissenting
from the domanent culture, she developed a parallel society. She purchased all
of the books that were being read at Harvard Divinity School and she invited
her women friends to join her in her living room to discuss and critique them.
After the first year many of the brightest men at Harvard were pleading to be
allowed to join in these conversations because the force of her understanding
so far surpassed what was being taught inside the palace of ice.
Margaret traveled to the St Lawrence to document the treatment and mis-treatment
of Native Americans, she traveled to Italy to cover an Anarchist Revolution
that occurred there. Amongst her and Thoreau’s associates were a circle
of intellectuals who began a commune called Fruitland, a utopian society, vegan
to the point where they would not burn whale oil lamps. Some who were raw foods
advocates. They held lectures and discussions as their form of worship. They
were one form of the Utopian precursors to the current OPUS and other UU camp
adherents like us.
The most successful contemporary form of parallel prophetic culture are the programs that DRE’s carry out. They shelter another way of knowing and carrying the UU tradition, they foster magic, and circle worship, and the indwelling spirit of power and joy.
Our work, as Young prophets includes remembering the difficult parts, the excluded parts, that make the older church members uncomfortable. The parts that informed the rest and made it whole, that the more mainstream parts of our churches might rather forget.
Part 2
UU Social Justice Young Adult Prophetic Movement in this Century
Internationalists and Humanists
(Up here in the butcher paper you see a line stretching from way down on that
end, at 1897, to way over here on this end at 1997. We are going to mark significant
events in the history of our movement along this line. If we had more time we
would do three parallel tracks on this timeline—personal history, social/economic
history, and UU history. With the short time we have we wont break out into
all three tracks until 1960—our parents era.)
1897________________________________________________________________1997
1897 Parliament of World Religions: spiritual leaders from all over the world are called together to share their wisdom and to honor their differences, the first time perhaps ever, certainly since the era of European and Christian conquest.
1917 The purpose of the church is to be a base of support for social liberation
and community. Community Church Movement John Hains Holms and the Community
Church of New York, Clarence Skinner forms the Boston Community Church, whose
major contribution is organizing the defense of the Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.
A trial and execution that gains international working class support and marks
the United States as a murderous, lawless state willing to execute for entirely
political objectives.
The Third church in Chicago, and the Berkeley Fellowship are the four that I
know of that remain of the completely humanist churches.
1917 Clarence Skinner writes and the Universalist assembly passes the Principles of Social Justice that include making a commitment to the working people and alliances with working movements, equality for women, and all races.
1934 33 leading writers draft the Humanist Manifesto, at least 12 Unitarians are among the authors. This markes the first time in 1700 years that religious people have been permitted to come together in Europe or Euro-American culture. The manifesto calls for equalization of wealth and property in order to secure democracy and equal participation. Names for the movement include, The Religion of Democracy, Realism and Naturalism.
For the next thirty years the Unitarian Movement is rocked by attacks from
the US government, attempts to close us down, to force us to renounce our rejection
of God the Father, towards whom we cower in fear of his judgment. We must understand
what a gift this is to bring to our culture, liberation from a cursing, dumbing,
madness that allows no feeling of honest spiritual sentiment, nor any human
judge of human experience. So now watch what happens.
1936 Rev. Stephen Fritchman is asks to organize Unitarian Youth and Young Adults
as a continental independent organization. Fritchman succeeds in getting several
delegates to travel to England to a world youth conference organized by the
socialist party.
1938 Rev. Stephen Fritchman is successful at getting an audience for Unitarian Youth with Elanor and Franklin Roosevelt.
Fritchman is also called to be the editor of the Christian Register, that era’s World Magazine
1939 Stephen Fritchman is called before the House un-American Activities Committee to testify. He is turned in by a small committee of reactionary Unitarians even though the UU assembly has passed resolutions against the work of that committee.
1948 Fritchman pens an editorial opposing the US sponsored coup in Greece. By this time the US has already re-established monarchies in Indonesia, Phillipines, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Fritchman says that he has remained anti-facsist for too long after the war was over, and he is now to be persecuted for it. Special assemblies are held, he is forced to leave his position, as editor of the Unitarian national magazine.
1948 Universalists form the Charles Street Meeting House. A major attempt to forge a new world religion that respects and synthesizes the spiritual practice of cultures the world over, and does so in the name of Human beings creative powers. Rev. Kenneth Patton, the meeting house’s minister becomes the major hymn writer, worship materials creator and one of the prophets of the movement. Including editing the Hymnal used throughout the sixties up until the nineties.
1952 The Humanist authors reconvene are asked specifically if they still uphold the 9th clause of the manifesto calling for equalization of property. Of the seventeen who participate, all but two maintain their commitment to socialism.
1948 Fritchman relocates to Los Angeles, where almost no one has heard of Unitarians. Before his career is finished there 9 of the Hollywood 10 preach from his pulpit.
1952 Fritchman is called before the un-american activities committee again and this time refuses to go. His church stands behind him.
1952 California passes a law requiring all people who get benefits from the state, college teachers, state employees, contractors to sign loyalty oaths to the state. Priests, ministers and rabbies have to sign an oath stating that they believe in the country and in god and that the members of their congregation do as well. This was an attempt to outlaw humanism as a form of godless athiesm. 35,000 ministers, priests and Rabbis sign this oath. 12 clergy do not sign. 8 of these are Unitarians. Fritchman is the most prominent and takes it to the supreme court.
1958 Fritchman and 12 other churches win their case in the US supreme court against the House unAmerican Activities committee.
1957 The San Francisco church hires a minister who is the main speaker for the american civil liberties union. Over the next five years, the church grows from 100 to 450, mainly people who are targets of the un-American Acrtivities committee and their allies, Gays, Jews, Commies, athiests, peaceniks. The church becomes a center of organizing against the committee.
BREAK OUT TO INCLUDE THREE TRACKS:
What happened in your family,
what happened in the world
what happened in the UU Movement:
LRY is formed?, ended in 1984, only Youth owned corporation in Mass History.
1961 Unitarians and Universalists merge.
1961 the Committee is forced to close it doors in San Francisco. The opposition is overwhelming. The face being lost is too great. Water canons are used to remove demonstrators from the steps of the City Hall. Abbie Hoffman is among the demonstrators as is Mario Savio both of whom become the center of what later is called the Free Speech Movement.
1963 Students at UC Berkeley protest a ban on political speech at all UC campuses that has been in effect since 1939, when students were opposing the call to military service in WWII.
1963 Call from Martin Luther King for people of faith to join him in Selma Alabama to March for an end to segregation. UU ministers and lay leaders from all over the country hear his call and join him.
1963 Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee participates, learns civil disobedience, becomes a national network in order to support the civil rights struggle.
1964 SF church agrees to become a site for the Black Panthers to distribute food.
1964 Students for a Democratic Society formed. Shift of student movement away from civil rights to anti-war. Many UU students participate in founding convention. (Think about this as we began to form campus ministries. What liberation can we bring to the people?)
1965 LRY conference at Asilimar: with Merry Pranksters, first electric kool-aid acid test.
1967 Office of Fellowships is closed. (some say that Humanism is dead.)
1967 A UU conference is called to come to terms with the riots that are occuring in many US cities. Watts, Detroit, and dozens of other cities. The Black Affairs Council is formed. They articulate a program for a Black empowerment movement, which demands autonomy and funding from the UUA.
1968 General Assembly, the Black Affairs council demands that the agenda of
General Assembly be written by the Black Affairs council, an all Black caucus.
And that no funding be given to a second group that proposes integrated approach
to overcoming racism. The black affairs Council walks out of the General Assembly
when their demands are not met.
The Youth caucus follows them out of the hall.
1969 The UUA agrees to give 1 million dollars to the Black Affairs Council over four years and to promote their program for anti-racism throughout the UUA.
1973 San Francisco church, First minister comes out of the closet from the pulpit, perhaps ever. (later gives the worship of the living tradition at General Assembly.)
1973 off the gold standard, US dollar devalues, beginning of the end of US middle class.
1974 SF Minister leaves church to join Cesar Chavez and forms a migrant ministry to farm workers.
1979 Sandinista Victory in Nicaragua, First time that a revolutionary movement has not been stopped by US direct invasion in “our back yard,” excluding Cuba, since WWII. (Prior would be Mexico.)
1982 Women in Religion collective forms in Bay Area. Forms study group in women’s spirituality, patriarchy, history of religion.
1982 Reagan Elected amidst the scandel of US hostages released as celibration of his inauguration.
? Nationwide Student organizing against Apartied contributes to fall of Race based government in South Africa.
? Uus more than 50% women ministers. First US church to achieve this parity.
1999 Up to 80% of theological students are women. High percentage of men in divinity school are gay.
So we come to the present and what do we have to offer to the world now? The only religion in the US, the only progressive movement with a base of 1000 buildings, with a national newsmagazine, with a humanist analysis that we have to solve our own problems here on this planet, neither God nor devil are real, and what are the decisions that we have been making at our assemblies.
Some of us think that there is a new theological movement afloat, a movement we are calling Magical Humanism, its based in the kind of feeling that we have for each other as we do our rituals, as we live together in our cons, its an open, honest way of knowing one another, and of caring for the world, including surviving the reactions such as what happened to the Humanist Movement which became so stilted in response to the attacks from the government, that became so patriotic in order to defend itself from the government.
1997 UUJEC
class divide and democracy:
In order to work against economic tyranny, strengthen the power of those who
work and vote, decrease the power of those who control by advertisement, lobby
and buy-out, and extend universal protections such as health care, education,
and legal protection to everyone.
1998 Race Injustice and Poverty
What is colonization?
1999 Responsible Consumption
Since the 1950s a movement has been growing to define the main oppression not
as capital accumulation and worker exploitation, but as the commodification
of culture. The making of all our actions into things that are bought and sold.
The Zapatistas raise this analysis. They ask for all of those that are not included
in the consumerist phoney reality, all those excluded, to come forward. And
be represented as human beings.
The world trade Organization is the premier agency whose mission is to transform
every corner of the globe into a site of sales, every cultural artifact into
a resource to be extracted and every culture into a monoculture.
So if you go to protest the meeting of that organization, you can do so as
a Unitarian Universalist who is doing the bidding of the General Assembly to
demand that the organization most reponsible for irresponsible consumption,
the World Trade Organization, be stopped in its campaigns. And take our pride
at being real with each other, our togetherness, and hold it forward so that
the other Young Adults who will be there can learn about magical humanism, our
way of life, here in the Utopian legacy of Fruitland, and Walden, and Asilimar.