1619-1919: Finding Ourselves in the History of Racism

Editor's Note: This week's post is written by the Rev. Barbara Ballenger. She has helped to lead St. Martin's Becoming Beloved Community work since 2014.

St. Martin’s efforts at Becoming Beloved Community follow the lead of the Episcopal Church in its church-wide call for racial reconciliation and healing. It is part of the church’s deep reflection on its own complicity in the long legacy of racial oppression. This call is rooted in the scriptures and the Baptismal Covenant, which invite us to a new level of respect for the dignity of every human being that fundamentally challenges and displaces racism.

In August, The New York Times reminded us of a sobering anniversary, the 400th year that the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia, anticipating four centuries of race-based oppression in the United States. For Episcopalians, whose Anglican forebears built, blessed, and benefited from the architecture of slavery and its aftermath, this legacy clings to us in ways typical of deep structural sin: fostering social blindness and deafness to the experience of people of color; quieting the Gospel of Jesus and amplifying the agendas of scientific and economic advancement; and centering whiteness in everything from our religious imagery to our church structure. That is why the Episcopal Church has been leading us in a wide-scale effort of racial repentance, reconciliation, and healing. Our Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, explains this ongoing work well in this brief video.

St. Martin’s has been at the effort for a while, most recently laying out a framework to be even more intentional about how we learn, embody, and advocate racial justice and healing. This 400th anniversary does put the work in a long and painful perspective, however, and it invites us anew to take a hard look at how we engage with our own individual and collective history around racism, and how we participate in healing the racial wounds in the Body of Christ.

This program year, St. Martin’s will offer several opportunities to engage in the ongoing work of Becoming Beloved Community. I encourage you to make time to participate, bringing your insights and stories to the effort.

Here is a look at what lies ahead:

• Sunday, Sept. 29 Parish Forum (9:15 a.m.) – Finding Ourselves in the 400 Years: What the Spirit is Saying to the Church about its Legacy of Racism. Featuring a short film by Katrina Brown and a discussion of local racial history by diocesan historian, David Contosta.
• Wednesdays, Oct. 9-Nov. 6 (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.) Beginning Beloved Community Workshop. This five-week series, developed in 2015 and 2016 by St. Martin's parishioners and staff, provides an introduction to the individual and collective work of racial understanding and healing central to our Becoming Beloved Community efforts. Recommended for all parishioners and ministry leaders. Learn more and register here.
• Wednesdays, Jan. 8 -29, (7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.) Wellspring-led discussion of the book, Waking Up White, by Debby Irving. The author writes: "My hope is that by sharing my sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, I offer a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance."

In addition to these educational offerings, committees of parishioners and staff will continue to follow the recommendations of our Becoming Beloved Community Strategic Plan, by working on the following this year:

• Developing a process for recruiting, hiring, and retaining people of color onto our program staff.
• Creating a training process for parish ministry leaders to build leadership skills grounded in racial justice and healing. This will be developed this year, and formally launched during the 2020-21 program year.
• Strengthening our public witness against racial injustices in our community, led by our Community Engagement Committee.
• Engaging all our parish committees and outreaches in the work of Becoming Beloved Community.

The Becoming Beloved Community effort at St. Martin’s is overseen by the Vestry, the clergy, and the Becoming Beloved Community Team, a committee of parishioners whose mission is to support the implementation of the BBC Strategic Plan. It is led by Justina Barrett, The Rev. Carol Duncan and The Rev. Barbara Ballenger.

To learn more about the parish’s Becoming Beloved Community efforts and find resources for engagement, visit the racial justice page under Community Engagement at StMartinEC.org.

Blessings,
The Rev. Barbara Ballenger
Associate for Spiritual Formation & Care

A People Set Free

Easter Greetings!

My kids and I love to play Monopoly on lazy summer evenings in Maine. After years of play, my kids delight in dominating me in this property acquisition game. Soon enough I am hemmed in by monopolies with hotels on every side. At that moment I pray to ‘Go Directly to Jail’ for a moment of respite.

While cooling my heels in Monopoly jail last summer, I found myself wondering, “What if a man in a tuxedo and top hat rang my doorbell one day and delivered to me a ‘get out of jail free’ card? How would I live my life from that moment on?”

On Easter we get a very real ‘get out of jail free’ card. The risen Christ delivers to us the good news that we are set free from sin, fear, and death and invited into a new life of grace, hope, and love. How will we live our lives, having received that good news?

Free from the fear of death, we can live boldly and take risks in the service of Jesus Christ. His way, his truth, and his life are vindicated and embraced eternally by God in the resurrection, so that we can live his way, his truth, and his life with him now!

As a people set free, let us serve Christ in righting wrongs, healing relationships, reconciling historic grievances, crossing divides, and sacrificing for the sake of the most vulnerable. As a people set free, let us serve Christ by giving ourselves to spiritual transformation through prayer, study, worship, service, and by exchanging harmful habits for ones that give life.

The risen Christ is our way out of bondage and into a freedom that sets the world free; a freedom that desires only the flourishing of all God’s creatures.

Happy Easter,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

An Unforgiving Culture

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

We are living in an unforgiving era of knee-jerk judgment. Conclusions are reached instantly and opinions transmitted without delay in response to a picture, a video, a brief news report, or a rumor. Social media seems to amplify our conflict, tempt us to simplistic judgements, and provides a constant platform for moral posturing and partisanship. What we need is relational healing and mutual problem solving, yet both are not well suited to our new normal of relating.

The printing press was a crucial ingredient in the Protestant Reformation. This technological revolution allowed for unprecedented literacy, independence from traditional authorities like clergy, and the broadcast of theological debates and partisanship across all of Europe. We embrace the freedom of thought encouraged by this technological advance, even while we cringe at some of the side effects. Reformation debate led to religious warfare, toxic skepticism, and a paralyzing inability to acknowledge and stabilize sources of authority.  

Two people reading and typing on smartphones. Image:Pixabay

Technology is once again outracing and distorting our moral commitments. We need to slow down, take a breath, sort through the sources, and insist on credible media. Much like the slow food movement that invited people to decelerate and enjoy a meal and conversation with friends and family, I think we need a slow conversation movement where we take the time needed for the nuance required by the subjects that challenge us.

Stuck on a long car ride the other day, I had such a conversation with a friend about abortion. This is a very difficult and charged topic but we explored it fully with curiosity, patience, and generosity. We agreed that the subject required a nuanced and careful approach. We agreed that real solutions were inhibited by the nature of the debate. I am grateful for this oddball conversation because I needed to ask some questions to clarify my thoughts, and I cannot do that if I am scared of the response.  

Partisanship distorts moral discourse, reducing any concern into a blunt instrument designed to win. It is no wonder that we cannot claw our way back to compromise and mutual problem-solving when we start at the conclusion.  

Spiritually, our culture is deeply concerning to me. If we cannot receive each other and forgive each other or even sacrifice for each other, then community will dissolve and we will be even more alone. Millennials talk about the social media practice of “cancelling” each other. This means blocking or unfriending someone who falls short of your sense of moral decency. Jesus taught us to forgive 7 x 70 times. For the disciple of Jesus there is a tension here. How do we love the neighbor with whom we disagree profoundly? How do we allow someone to regain our trust after they have made us feel unsafe? A forgiving culture risks turning toward each other with the hope that relationship can be restored.

Blessings,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Space for Conversation

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

"We need less religion, less politics, and more culture," said the Rev. Mitri Raheb when I met with him in Bethlehem this summer. For just this reason, the college he founded is devoted to nurturing art, dance, music, theater, poetry, and the culinary arts. His objective is to develop the bonds of civil society in the West Bank so Palestinians can become a unified people without resorting to religious or political extremism.

I heard this idea expressed by a number of Palestinian leaders including a young man in Hebron who had organized a co-ed 5k run. Predictably, the co-ed run had provoked a clash between more traditional Palestinians and more modernizing Palestinians. The young man took this in stride as the cost of progress. His goal was to carve out a secular space for civic activity that could build the health of his people.

Do we need less religion, less politics, and more culture here in the United States? Would a resurgent or newly conceived common culture mitigate the intensity of our political and religious polarization? I will not pretend to have complete answers to these profound questions but I do have some themes I would like to explore.

Over-confidence in religious beliefs is often named as a major contributing factor to disputes that resist resolution. The corrective is said to be a healthy skepticism and doubt of any value or assertion that comes from a religious worldview. Unlike Palestine, the United States has a long history of a secular civic space and we cast the fantasy that religion has nothing to say in this space. The problem is; how does a religious person leave their religion behind when making moral decisions that shape our common life through politics?

Professor Jeff Stout, recently retired Professor of Religious Studies at Princeton University, puts it this way: "The line between church and state does not run through the heart of a believer." I agree with Jeff - one of my intellectual heroes - and would add, "If I call Jesus Lord, how can he be Lord of only one facet of my life? Mustn't I seek to follow him in every place I make decisions that effect my neighbor?"

My answer to those who counsel doubt and skepticism in religious belief is to wonder why religion should be the thing we doubt most of all. When we are honest, we admit that we do not live each day doubting the values and beliefs that make our day functional. We believe our car will run without knowing the first thing about engineering. Really what we need is to simply be upfront about our commitments, wherever they come from, and contribute them as a way of enriching the moral discussions that form our life together.

Some will object that politics is corrupt and selfish and I want religion to be pure and transcendent. My gentle reminder is that we follow a God who took on incarnate life and battled sin hand to hand to the point of a sordid and disgraceful death. Perhaps we need to follow him into the muck and the squalor for the sake of love of neighbor and God?

If you're interested in further discussion around this topic, I highly recommend that you join us on Sunday morning, October 28, for Parish Forum at 9:15 a.m. Chris Satullo will lead us in the first of a two-part series on Conversations Across Differences. See you in the parish hall!

Blessings,
Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector
Parish Forum - Sundays at 9:15 a.m. in the Parish Hall
Oct. 28: Conversations Across Differences
The common denominator in all of our communities is they are divided by differences of all kinds. How do you get people to discuss their differences and put their solutions into action? Our guest speaker at Parish Forum this week is Chris Satullo and he's an expert on the subject. Chris is the co-founder of the Penn Project of Civic Engagement and is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He will demonstrate how faith plays as important a part of breaking down barriers as anything else does. Join us for the first of this two-part series this Sunday at 9:15 a.m. in the Parish Hall.

Chris Satullo

Nov. 4: Conversations Across Differences, Part II
This week Chris Satullo continues his discussion on how faith can play a role in slicing through differences we face in our communities in part two of this important series. Today he’ll discuss strategies to start conversations, arrive at solutions, and put those solutions into action. We can save the world one small piece at a time. Your first lesson awaits you at Parish Forum.