Few sermons have generated the level of engagement of last Sunday’s dialogue. Sofia Betancourt, who keynoted Seminary for a Day on Saturday, and I reflected on one of the shifts required to secure Unitarian Universalism as a liberating faith for the future…and the present.

We spoke of concepts of freedom liberated from the constraints of power and privilege out of which our faith tradition grew.

My conversations and my in-box reflect real engagement, not enthusiastic approval. Re-imagining central religious concepts, like “freedom,” is not done easily. Re-imagining involves a giving up of the notion that our prior understanding was broad enough, unbiased enough to respond to the clamor of voices now raised that have been unheard for too long.

I hear many of you truly wrestling. Though I have not heard enthusiastic approval, I also have not heard real resistance. Perhaps that is because so many of us have come to understand that the resources in our theological tool kits have not been sufficient to point us in a hopeful direction. We need to go broader in our reach and deeper in our reflection.

I used words of Audre Lorde as our Call to Worship on Sunday:

“I dream of our coming together
Encircled driven
Not only by love
But by lust for a working tomorrow.”

It is the “lust for a working tomorrow” that can sustain us as we search for new understandings, as we leave behind what Sofia described as the “logics of domination,” and focus our spiritual attention on the question not of who is in control, but how we can all be free.

Sofia, as she promised, has forwarded a bibliography of the works she referenced in her speaking. To read all of these works would truly take you to the doctoral level, but any of those listed for the keynote itself can provide deeper insights into this shift. For those who learn more easily visually, “The Prophecy” provides more of the images Sofia used to describe creation growing out of the ecological devastation we have created.

Our spiritual theme for February is resilience. Discovering sources of resilience is a critical next step as we live into the shifts around us and within us.

See you in church.

Blessings,

Bill

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Seminary for a Day – January 26, 2019

Bibliography for Keynote Presentation

“From Liberal to Liberation: A Theological Response to Climate Change”
–presented by Rev. Sofia Betancourt

Books / Resources Mentioned during the Keynote:
• Paul Rasor, Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century
• Tisa Wenger, Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal
(this is not the unpublished text referenced by Rev. Betancourt, yet this new book from Dr. Wenger is very much on topic)
• Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature
• Val Plumwood, The Ecological Crisis of Reason
• Film on Fabrice Monteiro’s “The Prophecy”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZI_i-LauzY

Additional Texts Referenced During Q&A and Workshop:
• Melanie Harris, Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth Honoring Faiths
• Melanie Harris, ed., Ecowomanism, Religion, and Ecology
• Mark Morrison-Reed, Black Pioneers in a White Denomnation
• Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
• Sharon Welch, A Feminist Ethic of Risk
• Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens
• Emilie Townes, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil
• Katie Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics
• James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation
• Ivone Gebara, Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation