Churches Playing Fiddle While Rome Burns

What MLK warned us about in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (link)

(in Why We Can’t Wait)

I love the Buddha, Sojourner Truth, Rev. Vernon Johns, Swami Vivekananda, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and other spiritual leaders who questioned the socio-political inertia of their times. I want the same from our current day clergypersons. I would welcome my ministers telling me to do more for my fellow human beings. I know they may be concerned about indulging in what they perceive as guilt and shame tactics. They want to "meet me where I am." They may be concerned about alienating the straight white middle class by challenging poverty and incarceration rates, white privilege, straight privilege, climate change, etc. They want to do it slowly and carefully so that people feel "safe." If it takes another hundred years to do this gradually, so be it, they seem to imply.

Guess what? It’s not all about us and people who look and think like us. If an inner city child complains that her mom is working two jobs and barely able to pay the bills and that thirty kids in her class have to share two old computers, it’s not about guilting and shaming me. It’s not about my safety. It's about HER urgency. If an LGBT person can not visit his or her partner admitted to Mount Carmel Hospital because their relationship has no legal basis in Ohio, it’s not about you and your need not to feel guilty and ashamed. This is also about our children whose futures are being bankrupted by banks and insurance industries and whose air and water are poisoned as we speak.

The "go slow" approach has a palpable consequence that we can notice even if we don't step out of the confines of our church. The same couple of dozen people with a social conscience who are involved in everything are getting old and tired. Social Justice committees and diversity task forces are crying out for help. The problems are growing while the problem-solvers are becoming fewer and fewer.

So how do we do it then? How do we get people to practice their faith outside of their churches, temples and mosques?

Any Suggestions?

I have no ready-made solutions but I’d like to brainstorm a bit. One thing I do know for sure is that a change in culture is necessary before strategies and tools could work.

Phases of Organizational Transformation

Here are some suggestions each of which would fit into one or more phases of this organizational transformation:

1. Recognize that there is a problem of low participation in SJ activities from most of our church members. Like they say in AA, if we don’t admit there is a problem, we are not ready for a solution. (This assumption can be verified through a survey of church members or townhall meetings but it's important that this effort come from the Board rather than the SJ Committee.)

2. Recognize that action is important. Some may argue that individual events and drives do not matter as much as a sustained movement. This is an artificial distinction. I can not think of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance for the freedom of the country of our birth apart from the Dandi Yatra (1930) and I can not separate the March from Selma to Montgomery (1965) from MLK’s Struggle for Civil Rights. There are no movements without events.

3. All talk about “guilt and shame” aside, we seem to be doing a good job of holding our members accountable when it comes to the almighty dollar. Some churches kick people off their rolls for not paying their dues. One’s financial obligations are very similar to one’s social responsibilities. The only major difference is some requirements are made explicit while others are turned into mere suggestions or worse, not even mentioned. How about the congregation agreeing to commit to regular SJ action? Think of this is as our social responsibility tithing.

4. Look into how to re-define your church as a social justice, outreach organization. If you have a good mission statement, ground it in the work that you want your church members to get more involved in.

5. Ministers can re-define their roles as midwives to the birth of a just future. We could use more sermons that present a clear direction toward a specific social action. Whenever you get a chance, beg and cajole your parishioners to pitch in and help the “do gooders.”

6. Set aside one day a month for SJ work when the church hosts letter-writing sessions, phone banks and other opps for action.

7. Become a sister church with an inner city, predominantly-African American congregation and find common projects to work on. As the old Sarvodaya saying from India goes, "as we build the road, the road builds you and me."

8. Affirm the individuals who are doing outreach. Periodically recognize their work in church services. They are what I call the human "Bridges of Franklin County" (or whatever county you live in). Get them apprentices to help them when needed and to eventually pick up the torch.

9. Fund a Social Justice Minister or Volunteer Coordinator position, whose job it would be to lend coherence to our scattered SJ efforts and be the single point of contact. Many congregations have these roles. We can try this initially for two years and go on from there.

10. Have an SJ theme of the year so that our efforts won't seem like "same old, same old" every year.

11. Integrate SJ into the work of as many church committees as possible. The fact that we have a separate SJ committee (in some minds at least) may give the impression that SJ work is being taken care of by others while one can focus on "church business." SJ is everybody's business.

12. Have an online volunteer opportunities database where people can sign up to help.

13. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) should guide every organization, whether it is a church or a corporation. In the manner of Deming, identify measurable factors that contribute to SJ and monitor them for improvement from month to month, quarter to quarter. (As a former quality engineer, I could help set these up.) CQI would mean that change is managed top-down with a continuous flow of ideas in all directions. Think of every committee as an SJ quality circle. If I lost you on this one, it's okay.

Today's social justice issues have a sense of urgency about them. Instead of timidly whispering to one another, we should get our bugles out and make some clarion calls. This is no time to rest on the laurels of our predecessors or on the actions of our few and weary activists.

I submit to you that once our church gets a brand recognition as an organization of change, we will reap rich rewards in terms of a growing membership of youth, people of color and men and women who would love us for helping them balance their faith with works.

Let us inspire one another to get out of our comfort zones for a few hours a month. Let us speak up for those without a voice and without the privileges that you and I have. Let's make 2010 the year of social justice.

Namaste, Shalom and Salaam.

(Jan-Feb 2010)