Christianity

Evaporating Parish and Racism (Part 2-B)

~ philipamerson

Philip Amerson, May 2023

The Ecology of Racial Discrimination

“I was afraid I might be shot walking from my car into the building.”  These were the words of a friend, a denominational leader. He was speaking of work while his office was at Central Avenue UMC in the 1990s.

In recent years I assumed there were few surprises left for me after more than fifty years as a pastor in my particular Protestant denomination. I was wrong.

It was a casual conversation, but a stunning one. My friend’s almost off-hand comment opened a new vista into what I had failed to see those three decades earlier. He was speaking of when his office was in the Central Avenue Church years before. Still, the fear lingered in his voice.

I have written about the decline and closing of the Central Avenue in earlier posts. In the mid-1980s, I joined others in proposing some denominational offices be moved to the unsued space at Central Avenue. Our assumption was it would benefit urban ministry across the state. It would signal and solidify a commitment to valuing of city churches. Surely, if denominational offices and mission activities were located in the core-city, it would guarantee more support and an awareness, a commitment, to city ministry.  In an amazing set of circumstances, in that decade, even Governor, Frank O’Bannon, and his wife Judy, United Methodists themselves, chose to live nearby and associate with Central Avenue. They were advocates for urban revitalization.

Still, something was awry. My assumption in hindsight was fool hearty.  There was an insufficiency in vision. Locating offices in that building didn’t have the effect we had hoped. Central Avenue officially closed in 1999. The building needed significant repairs. The worshipping congregation was down to only thirty members.  Ultimately the grand old structure was given over to Indiana Landmarks and extensive refurbishment was carried out.[i]  

What did we fail to understand when it was thought that locating some denominational offices in that place would be a difference maker? Something more basic, more at the core of things, was at play. Offices might be centered in a building, but fear and a lack of a shared vocational clarity as to city ministry overwhelmed the best of intentions.

Earlier I posed the question, why?  Why did so many urban parishes seem to evaporate or vanish over the past half century? Central Avenue is representative. In fact, it had more advantages than many others. The many parishes that vanished faced a tsunami of urban change. Long deferred building maintenance and the costs of repairs played a significant role. It will be argued later that an inadequate sense of theological clarity and sense of connection between the congregation and a shifting neighborhood population was a contributor to this decline. 

Too few neighbors found a home at the church. Few persons were willing to drive from more distant neighborhoods back into the core-city.  There was insufficient interest, skill or insight in re-establishing this as a viable parish. Other factors contributed to this demise (secularization, smaller families, alternative faith communities nearby); even so, I have come to the belief that, at the core, there are two fundamental issues which offer the clearest explanation. These are:

a) the social and political ecology of embedded racism; and

b) Ineffectual denominational and congregational responses lacking in theological clarity. 

A Look at the Embedded Racism in Urban Ecologies

My friend who spoke of being afraid of being shot walking between his office and the car was not someone who would fit the label of a racist. Over his career he spoke against racial discrimination. Yet, the fear he experienced belied something deeper, something far more problematic.

Racism is about more than individual attitudes or behaviors.  It is embedded in perceptions and expectations. Even more, it is interwoven in the political and economic systems in which we all participate. After speaking of “being afraid of being shot” he went on to say, “I couldn’t invite persons to come to the building for meetings, especially in the evenings, out of concern for their safety.  On more than one occasion I heard gunshots near the building.”

As these words were spoken, I thought of the dozen or so United Methodist congregations nearby, several within a couple of miles. I thought of the dozens of churches, around the city and in urban neighborhoods across the state, that were in more “dangerous” settings (with higher crime statistics or gang activity).

Fear is a powerful force in shaping what we see and how we behave. Comments like “we must go to where the people are” or “I couldn’t invite people here” are not intended to carry racist freight on the surface – but they are marioneted in a broadly assumed and unspoken racist gestalt.  In truth, in nearby churches congregants gathered in more crime ridden neighborhoods, day-and-night, to carry on their ministries.[ii]

There was a failure to consider a wider array of options than an exit strategy. The resulting reality was a benign neglect of most core-city parishes. The “left behind” congregations were undervalued as to their potential.

There are many factors that underlie WHY neighborhoods changed and parishes slowly vanished. Realities and patterns vary from congregation-to-congregation, city-to-city, and neighborhood-to-neighborhood.  Even so, when one considers the common ingredients surrounding neighborhoods that were abandoned and where parish life was ignored, fear of the other (of the stranger) is always present.

Our nation’s history is that of a restless citizenry, moving from place to place, job to job, home to home.[iii] This mobility is assisted by the capitalistic assumptions that social status and a better life can be purchased by a move to a more respected place.

There is a lengthly list of contributors to transitions in urban neighborhoods like those surrounding Central Avenue Church. This recent research on the dynamic of urbanization singles out racist structures as far and away the critical explanatory and discriminatory component. Racism serves as what social scientists call an “independent variable.”

There are now scores of research reports, mostly from the past decade, that document the extent of racial inequity. It permeated our social and economic ecology. It was manifest in the building of interstate highways,[iv] the decline of newspapers and local media,[v] real estate speculation and housing practices,[vi] shopping malls and big-box retail,[vii] employment,[viii] education,[ix] taxation,[x] law enforcement,[xi] urban development,[xii] and, this all reinforced by patterns of governance and political control in cities.[xiii]

To illustrate, here is a quick review of the first factor above, the building of interstate highway systems. It is clear systemic racism shaped the urban landscape. A pervasive, and decades long, reality can be seen in the destroying and/or dividing neighborhoods based on race. The interstate highway system begun in the mid-1950s, and even earlier the parkways built by planners like New York’s Robert Moses, intentionally divided neighborhoods by race and social class.[xiv] In the process it was nearly always the Black and Brown neighborhoods that were destroyed or “isolated off.”

Today the former Central Avenue church building is only a few yards from I-65 as it loops through the middle sections of the city; and, barely two blocks away is another barrier as I-70 separates off heading east. The now gentrified Near Northside neighborhood is, thus, walled off from other, historically poorer neighborhoods in Indianapolis.[xv]

Robert Bullard in 2004 documented how the Interstate Highway System was blatantly and, in most cases, effectively utilized as a tool of “transportation racism”.[xvi]  Bullard speaks of the power of transportation inequity. Poorer neighborhoods suffered the consequences that included: isolated poverty detached from needed services, environmental hazards, loss of neighborhood centers (including churches), excessive noise and more difficult access to shopping, parks, entertainment, and other amenities. Bullard posits that “transportation planning has duplicated the discrimination used by other racist government institutions and private entities to maintain white privilege”.[xvii]

Thus, by the 1970s, in Indianapolis, the building of interstate highways, the establishment of Unigov (bringing together city and county government), the desegregation of schools and taxation policies were powerful reinforces of an often-covert racism.  It was a racism that was deeply embedded in urban planning activities and in the souls of well-meaning but fearful citizens, even church leaders.  It is little wonder that congregations like Central Avenue were in trouble. It is a story deeply embedded in racial fear. But the story is even more nuanced, more complex. 

If racism was a primary cause, the response to this time of transition and the vanishing of parishes by the denominations was also due to largely ineffectual and misguided practices.  We turn to this in the next posting.  There is more. There are words of hope offered by two other questions beyond the “why?”  In future we will also ask about the “what if?” and “why not?” options before us.

ENDNOTES:

[i] More information on the renovation of Central Avenue and transition to the Centrum by Indiana Landmarks can be found at: https://savingplaces.org/stories/nineteenth-century-church-receives-enlightened-renovation-indiana-landmarks-center

[ii] I was serving as one of the pastors at Broadway United Methodist under two miles north of Central Avenue from 1986 to 1992. Yes, there were gun shots heard and even violent exchanges on that parking lot; however, the lay people, who lived near and far away, and the nearby neighbors were beginning to forge bonds of cooperation and respect.  It was hard won – and was filled with the challenges of mistrust and paternalistic behaviors. 

[iii] Frederick Jackson Turner had hypothesized all the way back in 1893 that the American Spirit was one of always moving into a new frontier.  Turner spoke of the idea of an exceptionalism that sought to “win against the wilderness.”  Mobility came naturally to the settlement and resettlement of our cities.

[iv] Bullard, R. D. (2004). The anatomy of transportation racism. Bullard, R., Johnson, G., & Torres, A. (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

[v] There is a clear and growing research on the decline in civic engagement as related to the decline of a local press.  See for example Madeline Price, “No Longer Black and White and Read All Over: How the Disappearance of America’s Local News Threatens Our Democracy,” Democratic Erosion, February 13, 2022.

[vi] Rothstein, Richard and Leah, Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law, Liveright Publishers, 2023.

[vii] Dunlap, Michelle, Retail Racism: Shopping While Black and Brown in America, Rowman and Littlefield, 2021.  See also: Drost, Philip, “How Malls and Freeways helped segregate America, CBC Radio, June 26, 2022; and, Young, Michael and Peter Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London, The Free Press, 1957.  This remarkable early study of two communities. The decline in civic engagement and community involvement anticipated the losses of parish awareness ahead for places where suburban development was underway. undermining the viability of neighborhood shops and shopping.

[viii] Wilson, Valerie and William Darity Jr., Understanding black-white disparities in labor market outcomes requires models that account for persistent discrimination and unequal bargaining power, Economic Policy Institute, March 25, 2022.

[ix] Ramsey, Sonya, The Troubled History of American Education after the Brown Decision, The American Historian, March 2021.

[x] Davis, Carl and Wiehe, Meg, Taxes and Racial Equity: An Overview of State and Local Policy Impacts, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, , March 31, 2021. See: https://itep.org/taxes-and-racial-equity/

[xi] Valentine, Ashish, NPR, July 5, 2020, “The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How Race Shaped Americas Roadways and Cities.  See: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/05/887386869/how-transportation-racism-shaped-america

[xii] Baker-Smith, Christine, Lourdes German, Samantha Pedrosa and Stacy Richardson, Racial Equity and Municipal Bond Markets, National League of Cities. 2022.

[xiii] “Unigov: Unifying Indianapolis and Marion County,” Digital Civil Rights Museum, accessed May 8, 2023, https://www.digitalresearch.bsu.edu/digitalcivilrightsmuseum/items/show/42.In Indianapolis the dramatic shift in governance came with the adoption of Unigov – a merger of multiple city and county agencies. While presented as a way to streamline the work of overlapping government agencies, the Indiana Conference on Human and Civil Rights also served to dilute and weaken the voice and representation of the poor and black citizens of Indianapolis.

[xiv] Karas, David, “Highway to Inequality: The Disparate Impact of the Interstate Highway System on Poor and Minority Communities in American Cities,” New Visions for Public Affairs, Volume 7, April 2015, pp. 9 – 21.  See: https://www.ce.washington.edu/files/pdfs/about/Highway-to-inequity.pdf

[xv] Valentine, Ashish, NPR, July 5, 2020, “The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How Race Shaped Americas Roadways and Cities.  See: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/05/887386869/how-transportation-racism-shaped-america

[xvi] Bullard, Robert, Op. Cit., p. 15.

[xvii] Bullard, Robert Op. Cit. p. 20.

The Evaporating Parish (Part #2-A)

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Philip Amerson, May 2023

The Evaporating Parish (Part 2-A)

In June 1979, the Indiana United Methodist Annual Conference met in the I.U. Auditorium. The presiding bishop, Leroy Hodapp,[i] set an agenda for the future “We must go to where the people are!” The subtext was clear, we must go to the suburbs and invest talent, time, and resources there. As pastor in a core-city neighborhood at the time, I leaned to a friend beside me and whispered, “What are the people in our neighborhoods? Chopped liver?

The post-WWII Baby Boom population surge was slowing. A “population shock wave[ii]” or “Agequake”[iii] disrupted assumed church practices. Denominational anxiety about the future was on the upswing. In 1970 Alvin Toffler, with his wife Adelaide, published the popular Future Shock.[iv]  It spoke of the events of these years as “too much change in too short a period of time.”

Urban neighborhoods, perceived as dangerous and in inevitable decline, were changing rapidly. Homes were abandoned by families, mostly of European ancestry and sold to real estate speculators. The houses left behind were often subdivided into multiapartment residences. The new arrivals came mostly from non-Caucasian ancestry. Typically, they were families with lower wealth. Dramatic population and neighborhood changes continued, wavelike over the next decades, as residences and local businesses were turned into rental properties. Only a couple of decades later, change came again as younger folks who were given the rather ironic label of “urban pioneers”[v] arrived and refurbished the older houses again into single-family dwellings.

In an earlier post,[vi] I wrote of the demise of the Central Avenue United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. A version of Central Avenue’s story was replicated in thousands of churches in the U. S. during the middle-and-late Twentieth Century. The underpinnings of parish life were vanishing as linkages with surrounding neighborhoods diminished. This pattern, like rolling ocean waves, washed across city neighborhoods. Social connections withered, were then rebuilt, and again diminished, and then reestablished again.

Gentrification was only beginning. White flight had speeded changes.[vii] The none-to-subtle subtext of the bishop’s counsel in 1979 was that primary attention should be directed to those leaving the core-city and refocused on suburban church growth. Ironically, of course, the population density in core-city neighborhoods was growing to levels higher than ever.

The good bishop’s analysis and strategy failed to perceive the ways in which the “left behind” neighborhoods were becoming more global, more multicultural.[viii]  There was also a failure to discern the gifts being brought by the new residents. Even as new Asian, Hispanic enclaves emerged, and African American communities were enlarged, at the same time many of these “re-establishing” neighborhoods became more multiethnic in composition.[ix] 

A listening to, visiting with, and welcoming of the people of the neighborhoods near the church buildings by church leaders was rarely practiced.  The focus was on who was leaving, following “our” people. There was a blindness.  Importantly, and in truth determinatively, the financial base for many city congregations was diminishing as members left for the suburbs. In the Baby Boom years of the middle 1950s and early 1960s, many church buildings were expanded beyond what could be afforded by those left behind or newly arriving in the following decades.

The call to “go to where the people are” failed to consider options other than an exit strategy. Left behind were paternalistic responses welcoming the new arrivals. If there was an outreach to the newcomer, it was typically an effort to “fix” these new in-migrants.  Rather than seeing these persons as resources, with gifts to share, they were thought of as “the needy” and as such, well-meaning ministries like food pantries, thrift shops, and tutoring programs became the primary mission of many inner-city churches. 

As was noted in the previous post, “It is one thing to restore buildings and houses, quite another to re-establish (or perhaps rediscover) a parish.”[x]  What lessons might we discover from this history? We ask: why? what if? and why not? 

Why did these parishes evaporate or vanish? In the next two postings I will offer what I believe are the two primary reasons for this phenomenon: 1) the social and political ecology of embedded racism in the nation; and 2) Ineffectual denominational and congregational responses to these changes lacking in theological clarity.

Coming Next: 2-B, The Social and Political Ecology of Embedded Racism in the Nation.

Your thoughts? — Please enter these in the comment section.

ENDNOTES:

[i] Bishop Leroy Hodapp was a good and intelligent man and a good friend.  Still, he was a product of the mid-twentieth century church culture that selected him and shaped him for leadership. He would be considered a Christian “progressive” and generally friendly to many urban ministry efforts at the time. However, the pressures of office and desire to balance competing expectations of over 1,100 congregations and 300,000 Hoosier United Methodists limited what he perceived to be the best way forward. There were dozens of urban congregations and pastors that might have helped widen his vision, but the dye was set by the prevailing myths of the inevitability of suburban growth and urban decay.

[ii] Rizvi, Abul, Population Shock, Monash University Publishing, 2022. 

[iii] Wallace, Paul, Agequake: Riding the Demographic Rollercoaster, Shaking Business, Finance and Our World, UNKNO, 1999.

[iv] Toffler, Alvin and Adelaide, Future Shock, Random House, 1970.  Society was said to move through the three stages: agrarian, industrial, and post-industrial and with each transition there was a period of societal disruption and stress.  Toffler’s analysis followed in follow-up books, The Third Wave and Powershift.

[v] Hwang, Jackelyn, Pioneers of Gentrification: Transformation in Global Neighborhoods in Urban America in the Late Twentieth Century, Demography, February 2016, 189-213.

[vi] Amerson, Philip, Recentering the Parish – Part 1, see: https://wp.me/p5lzr1-3Kc.  Upon reading the earlier piece on the decline of Central Avenue church a friend reminded me of other changes including the interstate highway system where Interstate Highways I-64 and I-70 sectored off neighborhoods from one another. He also noted the consolidation many city and county functions in a new structure known as Unigov in Indianapolis. He was right. There are multiple other contributors as noted in this essay and each one seems shaped by racial discrimination.

[vii] Semuels, Alana, White Flight Never Ended, THE ATLANTIC, July 30, 2015.

[viii] Buccitelli, Anthony, Bak, City of Neighborhoods: Memory, Folklore, and Ethnic Place in Boston, University of Wisconsin Press, 2016.

[ix] Hwang, Jackelyn, op cit.

It’s About Time

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It’s About Time

You don’t have to go to Pharoah to design a course on freedom, so says Professor Michael Eric Dyson, of Vanderbilt University.  Per usual, Dyson puts the pith into pithy.  We need his clarity as we enter Black History Month 2023. Right on time, Michael Eric Dyson nails the ugliness, the meanness and inappropriateness of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ efforts to block the content of AP African American Studies curriculum. 

This is but a contemporary example of a governor standing in the schoolhouse door.  It is like George Wallace in 1963 who sought to block African American students Vivian Malone Jones, Dave McGlathery, and James Hood from enrolling in the University of Alabama.  This time it is a governor seeking to block the free exchange of ideas and a shared knowledge of a painful history.  It is an attempt to keep us from acting like respectful adults, as people open to the free expression of differing ideas.

But, what about us?  Easy to pick on a demagogue stirring up racial animosity as he prepares to run for the presidency. How might churches faithfully respond in this time?  Let me speak for my group, the United Methodists.  We, who are heirs to John Wesley’s legacy, have a ready response built into our theological DNA.

Sadly, many of our congregations and denominational institutions have forgotten and others often don’t display it. Early Methodists, in cities like London and Newcastle, formed a Strangers Friend Society. Wesley taught Christians “should meet strangers in their own habitation.” These societies designed “to visit and relieve the sick and distressed” were expressions of acceptance and inclusion. One such society still meets, weekly, in John Wesley’s New Room in Bristol near a clock identified as the Strangers’ Friend clock.

In the United States, the distressing chronic illness of racism continues – sometimes it seems to overwhelm. The tragic death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis in recent days is an expression of our dilemma. Let me suggest it is time for United Methodists to turn STRANGERS INTO FRIENDS.  What if United Methodist congregations across the nation and world offered classes in Critical Race Theory or on Being “Woke” to Racial Injustice?  Okay, not realistic, you say.  Well, what if… oh, let’s say 50%, or 25%, or even 10% of United Methodist congregations offered such courses?  What if pastors and lay leaders in these places taught complementary classes based on Biblical sources and drawing on curriculum already developed by fine faculty in our seminaries?

 In a time when all Christians, especially United Methodists, are too focused on much less relevant matters like institutional survival, or on how to handle our divisions, what if we called for healing of the disease of racism in our nation. What if we acted like we believed in a conversion (a wokeness).  What if we called for the need of repentance and conversion from our chronic racism?

I can imagine certain politicians’ discomfort when they passed the church with the sign “Critical Race Theory Taught Here, Monday Evening at 7:00 PM, Register NOW.”  It’s about time!

Saving Our Institutional Souls

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Saving our Institutional Souls

A familiar folk axiom is as follows, “institutions are designed to serve the needs of people, but before long those people serve the needs of the institution.”  In my experience, this truism is evident in a variety of settings and across every organizational type. 

Let me affectionately pick on a category of institutions I value and have come to know rather well – theological schools. Seminaries are established by religious denominations to teach, prepare leaders, develop resources, and do research. A midwestern seminary, with which I am very familiar, recently invited me to join a “video conversation” scheduled for the evening of February 22, 2023.  A “select group” of us were asked to learn about exciting initiatives of the field education program.  I opened my calendar to add the date, stopped, double checked, and laughed out loud. 

The event was scheduled for Ash Wednesday evening, when most congregations I know will be holding a worship service. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent leading up to Easter.  In many Christian traditions it is among the more significant days in the liturgical calendar. The scheduling of this event was an unforced error; more, it was a sign of disconnection.  Since then, the date of this seminary’s video conference was rescheduled.  To repeat, seminaries were begun to serve congregations and denominations, but… well, the seasons and gifts of congregational ministry, are sometimes missed in the planning.  This was a failure in awareness as to who was serving whom.

At another seminary where I was in leadership, I visited a gathering of interfaith congregations in Tucson Arizona. It included a wide range of faith traditions who engaged in regular, innovative joint gatherings. A young faculty member was with me on this visit.  A few days later, back on campus, a faculty committee shared their plans to “teach congregations how to do interfaith work.” Sadly, this committee had failed to explore what was already taking place among congregations in places like Tucson. I waited before speaking, expecting my young professor friend to share her experience. Later she confessed she didn’t want to challenge the plans of more senior professors. Instead of discovering the gifts already evident in the ecology of existing congregations like those in Tucson these well-meaning faculty folks had seen their role as being the producers of knowledge, the source of innovation. Sadly, the connective tissue, the patterns of reciprocity and mutuality were missing.

I could write of dozens of other examples where institutional expectations and design missed the mark. Denominations often exhibit this blindness as to gifts already present at their own seminaries or their own congregations.  I think of denominational efforts to establish in house “leadership training” or “research programs” when the very schools they started and support, offer some of the best resources in the nation.  To be fair, we shouldn’t miss the reality that congregations themselves are too often quick to start projects without knowing the gifts in the neighborhoods or cities where they are located. 

A very different example is evident as a “new denomination” is being formed among dissidents from the United Methodist Church. Who is serving whom?  Are some seminaries and powerful caucus groups misrepresenting the denomination’s institutional practices for their own purposes?  Have congregations been being encouraged to disaffiliate based on the needs of institutions who have little or no awareness of the context and neighborhoods where the congregations are in ministry?

At the outset I suggested our world is full of similar examples of this disconnection. In government, health care, education, law, agriculture, economics and on and on we see it.  The Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams was built around such institutional blind spots.  I have no sympathy for anarchy; I do not suggest all institutions inevitably fail and should be abandoned. To the contrary we have seen the tragic results of the “deep state” myth and conspiracy nonsense in our local, state, and national governmental institutions. I am arguing that sometimes basic linkages and necessary relationships are lost.  Not all institutions should be saved.  Slavery is an example. Institutions designed to exclude other humans of basic rights should be ended.  

I am suggesting that the connective tissue allowing for mutuality and dialogue needs to be exercised, like the muscles of a human body. Our human institutions need to be continually, evaluated, strengthened, and open to democratic reform. In the process, a complex web of reciprocal teaching and learning is essential. All healthy institutions will seek democratic renewal and will be attentive to what can be learned from the gifts and assets of those at the grass roots of society. 

Othering Prayer II: Individualism and Its Distortions

~ philipamerson

Othering Prayer at Advent 2022 – II

Individualism and Its Distortions

Do you recall looking at your image in one of those fun house mirrors, concave and convex and otherwise bent, in an amusement park? It can illustrate the way we might miss-image ourselves based on an out-of-whack, taken-for-granted, reality. It is a distortion, a skewed reflection of what is real. What if our spiritual quests and faith understandings are vulnerable to the concave and convex bends in our worlds taken-for-granted. 

In contemporary North American society, frames of reference are constrained by the dominant role individualism plays. It distorts. Societal understandings, economics, politics, culture, even language are limited. Cormac Russell and John McKnight compare this with the African notion of Ubuntu and write: “Individualism is a superhighway to a sick, depressed, and dissatisfied life and a fragmented society. Ubuntu, by contrast, says we are not self-reliant, we are other reliant: that life is not about self-fulfillment and leaning into work and money. Instead, a satisfying life is largely about leaning into our relationships and investing in our communities; it is about interdependence, not independence, (The Connected Community, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2022, p. xiv).

I would suggest our views of prayer have been focused too narrowly as an individualistic practice, to be personal prayer or meditation, primarily.  There is Corporate Prayer, typically in a worship service or as the Invocation or Benediction in religious or civic gatherings. 

Recently I wrote that the focus on Centering Prayer has gained much acceptance in religious life. While of value; still, I ask if it might be balanced by what I would call Othering Prayer. 

To my mind, Othering Prayer is rooted in the prayer Jesus taught the disciples (Luke 11 and Matthew 6). What we refer to as The Lord’s Prayer draws on elements from multiple earlier Hebrew prayers. In English translations the opening word “Our” says a great deal. It begins with an awareness that we are part of a community. 

I do not write this to suggest Centering Prayer, or deep personal religious experience is not of equal or often greater value.  Rather, it is to suggest that there is reflection to be done on how Othering Prayer might carry benefits in acting toward God’s purposes in our world.

It was Trappist Abbot Thomas Keating, St. Joseph’s Abbey Trappist Monastery who played a significant role in opening awareness to the value of Centering Prayer more than fifty years ago.  For Keating, Christian Centering Prayer was in continuity with the practices of other religious traditions.

I am assisted by the insights of Richard Rohr and the good folks at the Center for Action and Contemplation.  Since 1987 this Center has sought to integrate contemplation and action with Rohr arguing they are inseparable.  In fact, Rohr emphasizes this when he says the most important word in the Center’s name is neither Action or Contemplation but the small word “and.” 

Recently a friend commented that her experience is that when she practices quiet, contemplative, centering prayer, it seems richer when done as part of a community. Hmmn.

Enough for now — more to come…

Othering Prayer, Advent 2022

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Othering Prayer at Advent 2022

They asked to pray. Out of the blue it came. Now? Right here in the middle of an otherwise “perfectly normal” conversation? Twice, in as many days. Two friends, very different in backgrounds and experience, who had no other connection asked if we could pray together.  After not seeing each other for months, years, we were able to easily speak, share, laugh, confess, and delight in the goodness of friendship. Then, prayer.

Not in church, or in a “spiritual” conversation. The request stopped me… cold. On both occasions, then and there, we shared concerns and prayed. While I didn’t have a mystical experience, when we departed that day, there was a deeper sense of connection. It was, I believe what Brother Lawrence spoke of as God’s presence arising amid the routine activities of life — a deeper sense of joy and mutual love.  (Brother Lawrence was a 17th century lay Carmelite monk whose small book “The Practice of the Presence of God” has been treasured by believers across the centuries as a call to seek God’s presence everywhere from the chapel to the kitchen.)

Yes, prayer has been misused by charlatans and abused by spiritual pretenders. Prayer has also been reduced to a magical formula, a one-time “believer’s prayer” for example sold as a one-way ticket to heaven, separate from any daily life of faith.

A day or so before these two serendipitous prayers, another friend wrote mentioning he was reading The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience by Professor Andrew Newberg. I ordered the book, part of The Great Courses lecture series. Again, was this a coincidence? Newberg’s research looks at the way prayer, especially what might be called “Centering Prayer,” contemplative prayer, or mystical experience can shape human perception.  There are measurable changes in perceptions of reality and often a sense of joy, unity with the universe and purposefulness.  My look at Newberg’s rich research linking individual prayer with brain research, however, left me with a whole other set of questions.

I am not particularly well-schooled in a wide range of spiritual practices. I know some basics but can’t distinguish, say, among types of contemplative prayer. In fact, over recent years much of my praying has occurred on “prayer walks.”  I am not very practiced at what is referred to and valued as “Centering Prayer.” Most of my praying is better described as “Othering Prayer.”  Not exclusively, I do prayer that my personal intentions and understandings align with God’s purposes.  I also seek the heart of God on the behalf of others in the world beyond my own interests.  As I walk the streets of my city, I pray for those in prison as I walk by the jail, or the judges who are passing sentences, or families of those being incarcerated.  I pray for the bakers passing the bagel shop; the bankers as I pass an ATM machine; those without shelter who spread their blankets in front of the library and churches. 

So much of our culture’s understanding of prayer is individualistic in focus. It is decanted into a magical thinking drink… a negotiation with God… or a shaking of the begger’s cup in the face of the Almighty. What if contemplative prayer were seen as always caught up in the prayers of a community — prayers that were joined with, and for, others. This Advent we will think further about the potential of Othering Prayer.

Avoiding Deep Change: Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 2

~ philipamerson

Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 2

Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 2

“Preaching leads to changed lives,” I recall one of my seminary homiletics professor’s assertation. Another professor, a diminutive Scot, with a marvelous Scottish brogue (involving the trilling of ‘r’s in his speech), offered instead that “Ser-r-mons are r-r-eminder-rs of where God is al-r-r-eady active in the lives of the people.”

In my experience, sermons typically aren’t life-changing events for the hearer — or the preacher. Like workshops they can be helpful, but not often transformative.  Now, after more than five decades, I have much appreciation for my Scottish professor’s understandings. A sermon may assist others in taking a step along faith’s journey.  I don’t recall anyone greeting me after worship and saying, “that sermon was transformative.” On the other hand, years later a few have said, “You didn’t know it but that word came at a time in my life when I was ready to hear.” Amazingly, years or decades later, some have said, “I remember that sermon back in 19??.  It came at a time when I was seeking another path, another vocation, or a new partner. Thanks.”

Recently, I wrote about well-intentioned but ineffectual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion workshops. Like sermons, such events rarely lead to substantial change in racialism and discrimination. But this is not written as a screed against workshops or sermons. Instead, it is the proposition that when these activities are accompanied by a clear invitation to join with others in witnessing and addressing racial discrimination, remarkable transformation is possible.

So, why this focus on preaching and racism? Well, put simply, addressing racism is about more than words or ideas. Racism is often distilled into the belief that it is only about personal attitudes or prejudice. For Whites — for all people – sermons are effective as they are joined to changes in the ways we live. Parker Palmer suggests “Changed thinking doesn’t lead to changed actions so much as changed actions lead to changes in the ways one thinks.”  Sermons and workshops are insufficient, helpful perhaps, but in isolation they may serve as an inoculation avoiding fundamental change.

Several Open Housing campaigns in the 1960s carried the slogan: Your heart may be in the right place, but are you? As hundreds of thousands were moving to the suburbs avoiding racially integrated schools and neighborhoods, the church was… well, preaching a lot about racial justice.  Meanwhile in only a few cities were churches at the center of racial justice and integration efforts.  In 1961 Gibson Winter, theologian and social scientist, documented this in the book “The Suburban Captivity of the Churches.”

Dr. William Pannell

A cherished friend of mine, Professor William Pannell of Fuller Seminary, is now in his nineties. We met in the late 1960s when as a young seminarian his book “My Friend, the Enemy” spoke powerfully about racism being more than personal prejudice. As friends, he taught me that it was not enough to have a “changed heart.”  I needed to acknowledge the enemy we both faced of white privilege, culture and discrimination. 

Sermons, workshops, and conferences can be mechanisms of avoidance. Bill speaks of the 1966 World Congress on Evangelism. The theme for the 1966 gathering was One Race, One Gospel, One Task.  Evangelical leaders invited more than 1,200 delegates from 100 countries to Berlin for this World Congress on Evangelism (an important precursor to the historic 1974 Lausanne Congress). Pannell speaks of a small group of African American Christians who discover that even though the theme was One Race, One Gospel, One Task, there was a silence about racial injustice.  Imagine this in the middle of the Civil Rights struggles of those years. As Pannell tells it, (see:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkpYIg8tpOI) those concerned about this omission confronted the conference leadership and, as is often the case, they were asked to write a document on racism to be approved by the Congress.  Pannell then reports, these more than fifty years later, that document must be “sitting on a shelf somewhere.”  You see, the passing of a nicely worded document, was not connected to concrete institutional and cultural change.  Or as Pannell would have it, “Vital and Biblical evangelization.”

All around we have the opportunity to join in activities to address racial injustice and do more than attend workshop or preach sermons.  However, those of us who are now, or have been, a part of Mainline Christian leadership need to learn to listen to and support others.  There are some remarkable young persons ready to teach and lead us. Persons who come from different racial experiences.  I will share more in future chapters. Urgently now, look for places where persons are addressing the evil of White Christian Nationalism. Check out the upcoming event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-white-christian-nationalism-threatens-our-democracy-tickets-439763242697#search.  Then do more.  A true addressing of racism involves deep change in the ways our institutions understand, and act differently based on the structural, financial and cultural options pursued.

One of my other heroes was Thomas Broden on the faculty of Notre Dame Law School. Tom joined a team working on an initiative called Project Understanding, back in the early 1970s. It focused on city congregations across the country (Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, Bay Area, South Bend). My work was to carry out research on ways racial attitudes might be changed and how racism in many forms might be addressed.

I recall the day we recommended to Broden that lay persons from many denominations be gathered to study and consider ways to address racial injustice. Tom’s response was “That’s okay as far as it goes.” He had my attention! He went on, “We will want to get them involved in some activity with persons who differ racially and in situations where discrimination can be clearly seen.”  In South Bend, one of the activities he suggested was to have lay people sit in welfare offices and observe the cheating going on there.  I was appalled – Tom laughed – “Oh, he said, cheaters will be found, but few of them will be those seeking assistance!”  He was right, so very right.  Today, in Indiana every welfare office must post “the rights of those who seek assistance.”  That came directly from the work of lay people in Project Understanding.  In Chicago and Dallas, change came from teams who sought to rent an apartment (some teams were White only, some Black only, some mixed racially). After visiting the same apartment and seeking to rent it, the teams would gather and learn about the ways discrimination was seen in the prospect of renting the same apartment. In California, there were engagements with persons seeking immigration or work documents.  Sermons helped, workshops were okay, but the research showed that true and lasting changes in racial attitudes were rooted in real and concrete efforts to address discrimination and unjust institutions.

Or, as my seminary preaching professor would put It, “Serr-r-mons are r-r-eminder-rs of where God is al-r-r-eady active in the lives of the people.”

Avoiding Deep Change: Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 1

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Avoiding Deep Change: Racism and the Ineffectual Church, Chapter 1

A year ago, October 1, 2021, I made a calendar note, “Write about this next year!” A year ago today, I had just read of another “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” workshop planned by a denominational group. My heart sank. One could find dozens of such events planned — and, no doubt, there were consultants who were happy to have the work!

Please understand. I am not against “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” commitments. A good thing this. I’m not as enthusiastic about workshops, training events, webinars, etc. that are unhinged from engagement in the communities nearby where undiscovered neighbors, real people, live and work. Workshops can become tools of avoidance, especially as stand alone, one-off, efforts. Without a deeper look at institutional and cultural strata shaped by racism over decades there are well intentioned but shallow responses. Tragically, they sometimes result in representational leadership (a minority person promoted to a leadership role) without addressing the deeply embedded patterns upon which institutions function.

Let me confess that I delayed a year in writing this because I didn’t want to be reactive. Perhaps, if I waited, something would emerge to assuage my doubts. Or, I could give a more measured response than simply concluding most church leaders would prefer to avoid, delay and placate all the while appearing to make progress by offering training sessions. Perhaps I would see real, deep and sustainable change. As of a year — I still wait for something substantial to address the racial injustice in which we are mired. Even worse, in this year it appears white nationalism sentiments have grown, sadly often within congregations.

A year ago, following the murders of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor I had been involved in several conversations, web seminars, zoom meetings and the like, where I attempted to share research that showed education and sermons were not sufficient to bring enduring change. I attempted to argue that DEI workshops would not be enough — they would be ineffectual. I even warned pastors “Don’t preach that sermon” until you have in place a way to work with neighbors on antiracism measures in your setting. This advice was not based on a hunch, but on research on addressing racism that had been done decades earlier as part of a program called Project Understanding. That research made it clear that real and enduring change to address racism at a root level involved action with others who brought their differences, as well as education.

A true addressing of racism involves deep change in the ways our institutions understand, and act differently based on their financial and cultural options. There are instruments designed to address institutional racism. These were not requested. There was work to be done beyond training sessions — work to support minority owned banks, address racial discrimination in housing, business, and real estate. Any true addressing of racism in the church would take more than sermons, minority clergy serving as pastors in predominantly white settings or pulpit exchanges once a year with a racial ethnic congregation down the street. There were concrete, measurable ways congregants could be deeply involved, spiritually alive and committed to take common action with persons of different racial and religious groups — action for fundamental change.

An early Inventory of Institutional Racism, from 1973

The year has past… Surely some good has resulted. Please share this in the comments section. Even so, I don’t hear much being reported that is substantial and sustainable. I write a year later of my concern and will in the next few postings offer again insights regarding other approaches. I will share insights from saints who are nearing the end of life or have now passed on — persons like William Pannell at Fuller Seminary, Thomas Broden at Notre Dame, Joseph Taylor and LaVerta Terry at Indiana University, Gilbert James at Asbury Seminary and Jicelyn Thomas who was a gifted preacher and theologian taken from our earthly fellowship too soon, too soon.

A North American Distortion of the Lord’s Prayer

~ philipamerson

A North American Adaptation of the Lord’s Prayer – for too many Christians

A “Distortion” of The Lord’s Prayer as understood by too many North American Christians

(With interpretive notes)

Matthew 6:9-15

Pray then in this way:
Our* MY Father in heaven,
hallowed be MY UNDERSTANDING OF your name.
Your SPIRITUALIZED kingdom come,
Your SPIRITUALIZED will be done,
On earth** AMONG MY TRIBE as it is in heaven.
Give us ME this day our daily MORE EXCESS bread,
And forgive us our ME MY debts,
as we I also have forgiven our MY debtor FRIENDs WHO DESERVE IT.
And do not bring us ME to the time of trial,
but rescue us ME from the evil ones WHO DISAGREE WITH ME.
For if you forgive*** CONDEMN others of their trespasses,

your heavenly Father will also ESPECIALLY forgive you;

but if you do not forgive others,

neither will your Father WILL forgive your trespasses ANYWAY.
–Matthew 6:9-15

Interpretive Aids:

*This prayer is distorted to fit “modern” North American individualistic sensibilities held by many Christians.  Toby Keith’s song “I Want to Talk About Me” can be sung after the prayer.  It is based on the message preached and believed that all the followeres of Jesus are to focus on is individual salvation. This view forgets any mention of love of neighbor, the Year of Jubilee, Gospel stories about welcoming the outsider and stranger, Paul’s mention of each having gifts needed to be a part of whole community, historic practices of social-justice or ideas of covenant and commonweal.

** Faith in this view is all about heaven and the hereafter. It has little reference to daily life on earth. My current life is to get me ready for the “sweet by-and-by.” God’s will is meant only for those who think like me and believe the same theology and creeds that I hold.  In other words, “on earth” is about how I treat those who are part of my tribe.  This means, climate change is a myth, any government aid the poor is “evil socialism,” the earth’s resources are to be dominated and used up for my benefit and those who are like me. The earth is not our “Common Home” as Pope Francis proclaims. The United Methodist bishops calling for “environmental holiness” was wrong.

*** Forgiveness in this view is a sign of weakness… unless it is asking for a pardon for crimes.  The individual praying the prayer doesn’t need forgiveness because he or she has the right answer on two or three critical issues (e.g., against homosexuality and all abortions) and all else is “up to God.” I don’t really need to ask for forgiveness as my way is the only way to salvation. The story about the prodigal returning home is always about “them” and never about “me.”

Summer Reading Bouquet

~ philipamerson ~ 2 Comments

A Summer Reading Bouquet

Among my summer bouquet of reading — or re-reading, I have put two in my backpack to carry along with others. These are meant to be devotional books. I plan to carry them as devotional resources to be read and re-read as gifts in these challenging days. These are valuable starting points for reflection and meditation… a stopping to smell spiritual flowers.

For persons of faith, or those interested in exploring Christianity, I recommend these two theologian/prophets from the mid-twentieth Century as among the best of the witnesses of their time. First, take a look at a book about E. Stanley Jones and second, a book penned by Georgia Harkness. Both were essential Christian figures writing during our nation’s troubled times of war, depression, racial injustice and rapid social change.

Dr. Georgia Harkness

In the recently publishedThirty Days with E. Stanley Jones Jack Harnish offers a fresh look into the life of Jones – the mystic, prophet, missionary, peace activist, evangelist, ecumenist and global ambassador. Georgia Harkness’ Prayer and the Common Life is written for folks in that mid-Twentieth Century, socially moble, economically bubbling and globally expanding culture. Professor Harkness, theologian and philosopher, authored more than thirty books, some scholarly and many others, like Prayer and the Common Life, are meant to be accessible to the lay audience. I believe both have much to teach us, today.

By reading these two together one can see the hoped for seeds of renewal and unity anticipated in the church and society in those years, and at the same time, they point to the troubles ahead for Christendom caught up in narrow cultural understandings. For Christians inclined to devotional reading that comes from an earlier time and yet speaks with profundity to our current dilemmas, I lift these two remarkable people of faith for our personal and common benefit.

For believers, doubters or just plan folks interested, I share these two suggestions as remarkable additions to a good summer reading boquet.