We are coming to accept and expect that there are more things to pay attention to than we can possibly hold in our hearts. This week is no exception. Today is International Women’s Day. Hollywood pushes forward on issues of equality for women, while a “porn star,” a sex worker, sues the President of the United States. A trade war is threatened. Florida enacts modest gun control measures. The Justice Department sues the State of California because of that state’s sanctuary commitments.
Any of these could have been my subject for this blog. But today I am looking more toward our faith community, its history, its present, and its future.
“May we know that without love there will never be peace. Teach us therefore to love.”
- Egbert Ethelred Brown
A Jamaican, Ethelred Brown was converted to Unitarianism after reading a pamphlet by William Ellery Channing. He pursued a career as an accountant in his native country, until he heard a call to the ministry. He wrote a letter to “Any Unitarian Minister in NYC,” describing his desire to become a Unitarian minister. One minister finally responded and pointed Brown toward Meadville Theological School. He came to the United States and after one false start, Brown graduated and was ordained in 1912. He was the first person of African descent to become a Unitarian minister.
There were no Unitarian churches which would consider him for a position. So in 1920, Ethelred Brown created a storefront Unitarian church in Harlem, the Harlem Community Church, which remained in existence for 20 years. That church received grudging recognition from the Unitarian national office, never public, and virtually no financial support.
During this period, the Unitarians were busy supporting new upper middle class churches for white members in the growing American west and even the south. The Universalists, declining in the US, were supporting an active mission in Japan to minister to westernized Japanese.
Neither the Unitarians nor the Universalists, unlike many Protestant denominations, supported the creation of “ethnic” churches here in the US. So, today, Unitarian Universalism does not include thriving Black or Korean or Mexican ethnic churches. We are a faith of “white” churches that want, perhaps, more people of color in the pews.
I have been thinking about Ethelred Brown in recent months. An alarming number of Unitarian Universalist religious professionals of color have lost their positions in the last 18 months. I have been thinking about Brown as we, here at First Unitarian, bump up against the culture of white supremacy of which this faith is so deeply a part. What does it mean that two Black men are on the chancel most Sundays? What does it mean that lay people of color in this congregation continue to have a hard time being heard at leadership tables?
The response to Seminary for a Day this year, the willingness of many in the congregation to engage these issues, the commitment of the Church Board of Trustees to continue their reflection…all of these are positive signs.
But our religious work on these issues is only beginning. I share these reflections and ask these questions because they will not let me go. I, and we, need to find a ground of hope. It is so easy to criticize our national politics and our current political leaders. It is far more difficult and so important for this church community to attend to the issues here.
“As we face a troubled and a puzzled world,
We too are troubled and puzzled.
As our fond dreams remain unrealized
And our bright hopes of yesterday wither
In the bitter disappointments of today,
Our courage fails, our spirits droop,
Our faith trembles,
And, frustrated, we bow our heads
In despair.
…
As we pray for peace in our time,
O God,
May we be at peace with
The world, with ourselves and with
Thee.
May we know that without love there
Will never be peace.
Teach us therefore to love.”
- Ethelred Brown
Bill