105 years ago: A Catholic priest takes his congregation to court, while America's most prominent evangelist offers politically-incorrect comments on the big fight

In the early 20th century, not only did newspapers print the text of major church sermons, but religious news items regularly appeared on the front page. Submitted for your approval, the following item from page 1 of The New York Times, April 6, 1915 (bold, capitals in original):

JAIL YAWNS FOR 102 ACCUSED BY PRIEST
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Metuchen Authorities Put to It to House Men Father Camadia Says Libeled Him.
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NOT CELLS ENOUGH FOR ALL
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Wholesale Arrests Follow Charge That Pastor Drank Too Much at a Pig Roast.
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Special to The New York Times

METUCHEN, N.J., APRIL 5--Unless there is a big supply of ready cash on hand tomorrow, Metuchen will have to build a lean-to to the town jail to accommodate the 102 members of the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church of South River, who are charged with having libeled criminally their pastor, the Rev. Father Paul Camadia. Fifteen of the parishioners were arrested today. The others will be apprehended tomorrow.

Furthermore, the order has gone forth to lock them up if they can't furnish bail. Among the accused are some of the most important citizens of Metuchen. The town jail hasn't nearly enough room for so many prisoners. Justice of the Peace William B. Black signed so many warrants today that his hand became cramped and Chief of Police Eberwin said it would be an all-day job to serve the warrants on the South River congregation.

The trouble started over a pig roast some weeks ago. Some of the congregation charge that Father Camadia became "intoxicated and hilarious," and proceeded to sing songs and strike persons in the street. They drew up a petition to this effect and sent it to Bishop John F. McFaul at Trenton. Whereupon Bishop McFaul sent it to Father Camadia.

The priest asserted that the charges were untrue. On the question of pig roasts, rum, duck suppers, and the like he has ideas akin to those of the Rev. Billy Sunday, and he even preached a sermon, he said, denouncing such things. Then he took the petition to court. The warrants followed.

"The petition which the congregation signed is so libelous," said Justice Black today, "that Father Camadia is justified in taking drastic action. Prosecutor William E. Florance is co-operating with me. Those who cannot furnish bail will be locked up."

And that isn't all. Father Camadia went before the Middlesex Grand Jury as complaining witness against his sexton and organist and another member of the congregation. He complained that they had broken up a service in the church on Feb. 28 by removing an emblem from the church and putting it in a saloon at Drury Hill.

The troubles of the South River folk have torn Metuchen in two. Father Camadia gave a parade and picnic tonight, and his followers turned out in force. Their rivals also got up a celebration. The police were ready to do their part if called on.

Billy Sunday (1862-1935) was a popular, if mediocre, outfielder with the Chicago White Stockings (1883-1887), Pittsburgh Alleghenys (1888-1890), and Philadelphia Phillies, batting .248 with 12 home runs and 170 runs batted in in 499 games. He was known for his speed, and stole 246 bases--84 in his last season.

In the 1886 or 1887 season, Mr. Sunday came to saving faith in Jesus Christ through the ministry of Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. In 1891, he turned down a lucrative baseball contract offer in order to accept a position with the YMCA in Chicago. Mr. Sunday began hitting the "sawdust trail" as an evangelist in 1896, aided by his wife Nell, and became the most prominent evangelist in the United States in the first two decades of the 20th century. His popularity waned in the 1920s with the coming of radio and motion pictures. By the time of his death, it was estimated that Mr. Sunday had preached 20,000 sermons, to a total of over 100 million people (including repeat attenders). For more on Mr. Sunday, see Billy Sunday Online.

On December 26, 1908, Jack Johnson, a Negro American, defeated white Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia to win the world heavyweight boxing title. Mr. Johnson's win, and his flamboyant behaviour--including his preference for white women--outraged white Americans. Former world champion Jim Jeffries yielded to public pressure and came out of a five-year retirement to fight Mr. Johnson in 1910, but Mr. Johnson won easily. After several years of attempts to find a "white hope," Jess Willard knocked out Mr. Johnson in the 26th round to take the title on April 5, 1945. The fight took place in Havana because Mr. Johnson was wanted in the United States for alleged violation of the Mann Act for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Billy Sunday was in Paterson, New Jersey when the Johnson-Willard fight took place, and offered his comments on the event.

Unitarians, as their name indicates, believe that God exists in just one person, and thus deny the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ. Unitarians also deny original sin and biblical inerrancy. The American Unitarian Association was established in 1825; it united with the Universalist Church of America in 1961 to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). It was the earlier Unitarian organization that was opposing Mr. Sunday. As reported on page 6 of The New York Times, April 6, 1915 (bold, capitals, in original):

SUNDAY IS HAPPY OVER PRIZEFIGHT
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He Picked Johnson for Winner, but Says White Men Should Be Glad Willard Won.
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AND "MA" SAYS "HURRAH!"
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"Too Much Booze and Too Much Paris," She Adds, in Diagnosing the Black Bruiser's Defeat.
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Special to The New York Times

PATERSON, N.J., April 5--Billy Sunday took a day off today, and in the limousine which has been put at his disposal as long as he is here he and his wife, "Ma" Sunday, toured the city and paid several visits, among them calls at several banking houses.

First, Billy dropped in on Mayor Robert Fordyce at the City Hall, and in response to a hearty greeting exclaimed:

"Well, you have a regular city here. I had no idea Paterson was such a large and bustling place. You should be proud of it."

Mrs. Sunday said she was pleased with the city also.

At Police Headquarters Sunday met Chief Bimson and the other officers and hen slid a couple of weights down the shuffleboard in the platoon room, declaring the exercise was "bully" for the stomach muscles.

Next the couple went to see "Jim" McCormick, Sunday's old "baseball sidekick, " who was in bed with an attack of rheumatism. McCormick greeted Sunday with the exclamation:

"Hello, Bill. You don't look five years older."

"The pleasantest moment in months," was the way Sunday described this meeting with his old friend. They talked over old baseball days for half an hour until Mrs. Sunday suggested that it was time for Sunday to get home and receive his newspaper interviewers.

Thought Willard "Easy Meat."

Sunday received a score of newspaper men. He was gowned in a silken bath robe, reclined in a big easy chair, and talked of his early baseball days. He showed considerable interest in the Johnson-Willard fight at Havana, and early in the afternoon picked "a winner" in the person of Johnson. When the returns came in Sunday said:

"I thought Willard was easy meat for Johnson, but the result is great. Every white man should be happy."

"Hurrah!" was "Ma" Sunday's comment. "It's a case of too much booze and too much Paris. Booze defeated Johnson."

Billy talked of the time when he quit baseball to work for the Y.M.C.A. at a salary of $83 a month. Previous to making the decision to enter evangelistic work for the Y.M.C.A. Sunday was swamped with telegrams, he said, offering him flattering salaries to stay in the baseball game.

"I remember my first meeting after I had started out to be an evangelist," he said. "It was in a tent in Perry, Iowa, and there were 500 people. Ma and I were more than worried, because we were afraid expenses would not be met."

Asked what he was going to do tonight, Billy said: "To bed at 7 o'clock and a good night's rest to be ready and fit for tomorrow's work."

Sunday said he intended to cut his meeting short tomorrow night, closing at 8:30 o'clock in order that he might attend the Philip Sousa Band concert at the Fifth Regiment Armory. The evangelist is acquainted with several members of the band, and said it was his intention to have a seat with them on the platform.

Unitarians Ready to Fight.

That the Unitarians are ready for Sunday's expected attack and are prepared to retaliate with well-known speakers armed with legions of facts about their religion was evidenced by the appearance of stacks of printed matter in the reading room which will be opened tomorrow at Orpheus Hall.

Mrs. Ethel B. Robinson of Paterson and Montclair, author of "The Religion of Joy" and "Glimpses of God," and prominent in the work of Unity Church, Montclair, is in charge for the present, and told something of the plans of the campaign. She said no meetings had been planned for April, but four would be held in May.

"Of course, if Mr. Sunday makes any attack on our religion or doctrines, speakers will be brought on at once," she said. Among the possibilities as speakers are former President William H. Taft, Dr. Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University, John Haynes Holmes, pastor of the Church of the Messiah of New York, and Rabbi Stephen M. Wise of New York.

Informed of Sunday's remark that he had no more fear of the Unitarians than he had of the saloonkeepers and that Taft was a "good scout," Mrs. Robinson said:

"Billy Sunday has no fear of the Unitarians and the Unitarians have no fear of Billy Sunday. We are all trying to do God's work in this world. The Unitarians are only too glad Billy Sunday is in Paterson,and they hope and expect he will do marvelous work here. No truly religious man scorns another religious man. Man needs to have his soul set on fire with a zeal to do God's work. The tiny baby is not devilish, but is a spark of God."

Among the pamphlets of the Unitarians is one entitled, "What Do Unitarians Believe?" In addition to an analysis of the Unitarian pledge it contains a long list of America's prominent men who profess the Unitarian faith. Mrs Robinson said that from now on until the close of the Billy Sunday meetings the reading rooms would be open to the public and every opportunity would be given the people of Paterson to learn the true principles of the Unitarian faith.

Unitarian leaders 50 years ago resembled Emerging Church leaders of recent years

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:8

With an emphasis on experience over doctrine, and conversation rather than "thus saith the Lord," the Unitarian minister profiled in the following article would be at home in the Emerging Church, and the methods he used remind this blogger of those used by the Church Growth Movement. As reported by the Calgary Albertan, October 26, 1968 (bold in original):

For the first time in a year, Calgary's 200 Unitarians have a minister to guide them.

He is Rev. Jerome Howell, 38, of Berkeley, Calif., who describes himself as "a liberal right down the line.

His church is the former Crescent Heights United on 17 Ave. N.W., leased on a monthly basis from the United Church presbytery.

Mr. Howell not only is new to Calgary and to Canada, but a newcomer to the ministry as well. He recently completed a three-year postgraduate course in divinity at Starr-King School in Berkeley.

NO DOGMA

Perhaps it's his liberal tendencies that make him a member of the Unitarian Church, which is non-dogmatic and has no creedal requirements for membership.

Members often become Unitarians in dismay with the more traditional churches, he said in an interview. They continue to feel the need for religious community in "something like a church," and thus become Unitarians voluntarily. A Unitarian may be Christian, agnostic or atheist.

Rev. Howell is no radical of the sort that sports beard and sideburns. He's a pretty conventional type of individual, with a trace of conservatism in his manner.

"I didn't come here to reform Calgary, but to learn about this city and its people," he observed.

The Detroit-born father of five frankly admits he's here to respond to his own feelings of bewilderment about the U.S., where he grew up as a social liberal with no church experience. He served with the air force in the Korean war, then obtained a degree in anthropology and spent some years in personnel work. At the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, Calif., while he was involved in weapons development, he began to realize the cost in human lives of war. After considerable soul-searching, he decided to undertake divinity work.

TWO CAMPS

After just two weeks in Calgary, he has already become interested in the problems of the community. He views his own role as one in which he hopes to have "a foot in both camps" on the issues concerning his congregation.

Cognizant of the current concern over drugs, he said he's talked to kids who use drugs, to get their point of view, but on the other hand, he's ever mindful of four growing boys of his own.

"I'm certainly not one who advocates the use of drugs, but I have to understand those who do in order to translate their thoughts to others."

While he was a student at Berkeley, Rev. Howell said he took a couple of courses from the radical Anglican Bishop James Pike. He described him as "a very bright man...a good example of a man of our time who thinks and talks for the world, but seems rather sad himself."

"I was with him in issues until he became interested in spiritualism."

Worship in the Unitarian Church is less traditional than many churches, and Rev. Howell's ministry will follow the pattern.

POETRY, RECORDS

At his initial service, he discussed a recent controversial book, The New Romans, on Canadian-U.S. relations, and the factors which led him to leave the U.S. Then he went on to play records and read poetry, followed with a coffee break and informal group discussion, in which the congregation shared feelings.

This Sunday, Rev. Howell will discuss "Our Boston Heritage," relating back to the time when the Unitarian Church began and existed very much as the traditional church. He noted that King's Chapel still stands in Boston, and continues to use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Sunday, Rev. Howell will depart from his customary pulpit dress of suit and tie, and wear a robe, to fit the theme. He will also follow the liturgical order of service "to come to grips with what our historical antecedents were," he said.

Contending the church is not a place where the minister knows the truth and has a pipeline to the better life, rather, a place where the minister has leadership quality, but so do the lay members. Rev. Howell said he will strive to make the church as relevant as possible to society.

LAY MEMBERS

With this in mind, he will follow a pattern of preaching perhaps three Sundays out of five, and the balance will be left up to the lay members, while he becomes just another member of the congregation.

He believes the institution of the church is not the powerful force it once was, because society has become secular. Thus, it is up to the church, if it cares, to be known in all its facets, he contends.

To do so, means increased community involvement and less salvation. And to illustrate and relate to his new community, Rev. Howell has cancelled services for Sunday, Nov. 3, holding instead a Saturday night service for the marchers in the Miles for Millions Walk.

SING AND PLAY

"We'll sing and play our young people on their way," he said.

Fresh from a unique seminar in Boston for new ministers of the Unitarian faith and their wives, Rev. Howell said it served as an indoctrination for both he and his Canadian born wife into the ministry. The wives received an awareness of how a marriage comes under stress, and had the opportunity to engage in discussion and share experiences.

One of the programs he hopes to initiate in Calgary is encounter groups for lay people. In groups of about 30, they will act out the things which break down their hostilities, with openness and honesty the ultimate goal.

"It's a personal concern of our members to have a community action awareness. After that they are most interested in their existentialist selves," he said.

Neither Mr. Howell's marriage nor his career as a Unitarian minister lasted many years past the publication of this article. His website indicates that he led an interesting life until his death in 2017 at the age of 87. If I'd met him, I probably would have liked him--although I certainly wouldn't have wanted his advice on any spiritual matters.

Percentage of female clergy in liberal denominations has increased greatly in the last 20 years

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths. Isaiah 3:12

This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,... I Timothy 3:1-2a

For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:
If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. Titus 1:5-6

It comes as no surprise to this blogger to see that the most liberal religious denominations, such as those mentioned in the following article, are the ones where the percentage of women in positions of leadership has been increasing in recent years. The Unitarian-Universalists, of course, aren't Christian in any way (although, with the direction in which evangelicalism is heading, I wouldn't be surprised to see a movement for "Christians and Unitarian-Universalists Together"). The United Church of Christ is as apostate a denomination as you'll find that still claims to be Christian. As reported by Adelle M. Banks of Religious News Service, October 18, 2018:

The share of women in the ranks of American clergy has doubled — and sometimes tripled — in some denominations during the past two decades, a new report shows.

“I was really surprised, in a way, at how much progress there’s been in 20 years,” said the report’s author, Eileen Campbell-Reed, an associate professor at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tenn. “There’s kind of a circulating idea that, oh well, women in ministry has kind of plateaued and there really hasn’t been lot of growth. And that’s just not true.”

The two traditions with the highest percentages of women clergy were the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, according to the “State of Clergywomen in the U.S.,” released earlier this month. Fifty-seven percent of UUA clergy were women in 2017, while half of clergy in the UCC were female in 2015. In 1994, women constituted 30 percent of UUA clergy and 25 percent of UCC clergy.

UUA President Susan Frederick-Gray credits the increase to a decision by her denomination’s General Assembly in 1970 to call for more women to serve in ministry and policymaking roles. She noted that as of this year, 60 percent of UUA clergy are women.

“All that work in the ’70s and ’80s made it possible for me, in the early 2000s, to come into ministry and be successful and lead thriving churches,” said Frederick-Gray, “and now be elected as the first female, first woman minister elected to the UUA presidency.”

Campbell-Reed and a research assistant gathered clergywomen statistics that had not been collected across 15 denominations for two decades.

The Rev. Barbara Brown Zikmund, who co-wrote the 1998 book “Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling,” welcomed the new report as a way to start closing the gap in the research.

“While the experiences of women and the evolution of church life and leadership have changed dramatically over the past two decades,” she said, “there have been no comprehensive studies on women and church leadership.”

Reached between recent convocation events at Andover Newton Seminary, the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, a retired UCC minister, said the report’s findings were reflected around her.

“I was sort of looking around and seeing so many women and remembering that in my years in seminary in the ’60s how few of us there were,” said Crabtree, a trustee and alumna of the theological school. “So it’s definitely a sea change in terms of women’s ordination.”

Campbell-Reed’s research found a tripling of percentages of clergywomen in the Assemblies of God, the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America between 1994 and 2017.

But Campbell-Reed also found that clergywomen — with the exception of Unitarian Universalists — continue to lag behind clergymen in leading their churches. In the UCC, for example, female and male clergy are equal in number, but 38 percent of UCC pastors are women.

Instead, many clergywomen — as well as clergymen — serve in ministerial roles other than that of pastor, including chaplains, nonprofit staffers and professors.

Paula Nesbitt, president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, said other researchers have long observed “the persistent clergy gender gap in attainment and compensation.”

For women of color, especially, significant gaps remain, and for women in some conservative churches, ordination is not an option.

Campbell-Reed noted that clergywomen of color “remain a distinct minority” in most mainline denominations. Those who have risen to leadership in the top echelons of their religious groups, she said, have done so after long years of service.

“Some of them are also being recognized for their contributions and their work, like any other person who’s got longevity and wisdom, by being elected as bishops in their various communions,” she said of denominations such as the United Methodist Church and the ELCA.

Campbell-Reed also pointed out the role of women who serve churches despite being barred from pastoral positions in congregations of the country’s two largest denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church.

Former Southern Baptist women like herself have joined the pastoral staffs of breakaway groups such as the Alliance of Baptists, which have women pastoring 40 percent of their congregations. And Catholic women constitute 80 percent of lay ecclesial ministers, who “are running the church on a day-to-day basis,” she said.

Patricia Mei Yin Chang, another co-author of “Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling,” said the new statistics prompt questions about the meaning behind them, such as changing attitudes of congregations or decreases in male clergy.

“Those are two really different causes,” she said, “and they may differ across denominations.”

Campbell-Reed, whose 20-page report concludes with two pages of questions for seminaries, churches, researchers and theologians, said the answers about the often-difficult job hunt for clergywomen relate to sexism.

“Just because more women enter into jobs in the church or are ordained does not mean that the problems of sexism have gone away,” she said. “At times, the bias is more implicit but no less real.”

Some women are reaching “tall-steeple” pulpits — leadership in prominent churches — instead of being relegated to struggling congregations, often in denominations on the decline.

Frederick-Gray said her denomination, which is working on race equality as well as gender equality, is seeing greater opportunities for women to preach in its largest churches. Of the 41 largest congregations in the Unitarian Universalist Association, 20 are served by women senior ministers.

Women’s leadership, Frederick-Gray said, is necessary at a time of decline for many religions.

“The decline is not the responsibility of women,” she said. “But maybe we will be the hope for the future.”

As usual, the clergyhag with the stereotypical hyphenated name has it wrong with those last comments. Putting women in positions of leadership is, and always has been, both a symptom and a significant contributing factor in declining membership and increasing apostasy. For a church to put women in positions of leadership is an indication of the liberalism that already exists within that body; and it invariably proves to be an indication of further apostasy and declining membership to come in whatever denomination adopts the unbiblical practice.

Pew survey finds that most Americans who don't regularly attend religious services are still believers

Given the claims of the Church Growth Movement, it's a wonder that there are any Americans who haven't found a service to their liking. As reported by Hannah Alani of the Charleston (South Carolina) Post & Courier, August 17, 2018 (links in original):

Church attendance has stagnated or decreased in recent years, causing major problems for religious institutions, even in the Bible Belt.

Pastors, priests, rabbis and imams may be left to wonder: Are Americans losing their religion?

Not necessarily, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center, titled, "Why Americans Go (And Don't Go) To Religious Services."

In a survey of thousands of Americans who attend and do not attend religious services, researchers found that most non-attenders are believers. And the top reason why attenders go to religious services was not rooted in tradition or a sense of obligation.

Across all religious groups, about 81 percent of Americans who said they regularly attend services cited their desire to grow closer to God as the key reason. (These people attend at least once or twice per month). The second-highest reason cited, at 69 percent, was for children to have a moral foundation. About 66 percent said they seek services during times of sorrow.

And it seems to work. About eight in 10 Christians surveyed said they regularly feel a sense of God’s presence during services.

While a few churches have faced closure in the Holy City in recent years due to diminishing membership, some of Charleston's faith leaders were encouraged by the Pew findings related to why Americans do continue to seek religious experiences.

The top two reasons — to feel closer to God and to give their children a moral foundation — in particular encouraged Rabbi Yossi Refson, who leads the Mount Pleasant-based Center for Jewish Life (also known as the Chabad of Charleston and the Low Country).

"I think we underestimate the interest in religion," he said. "Or we overestimate the lack of interest."

The Rev. Nancy Pellegrini is an assistant minister at the Unitarian Church in Charleston. Unlike traditional Christian churches, the Unitarian faith is bound by relationships and covenants, not by creeds.

"Instead of common theology, we have a set of common values," Pellegrini said.

While other churches have suffered losses in recent years, the Unitarian Church has more or less sustained its membership, she said. The Charleston chapter has about 400 members, and about 75 percent attend Sunday service regularly, she added.

Pelligrini agreed with Refson's assertion that people tend to underestimate the number of religious Americans.

"I think people are often yearning for spirituality and another dimension of their lives, rather than just the routine day to day, going to work," she said.

Of those surveyed who said they do not regularly attend services, only 28 percent chalked their decision up to nonbelief. In fact, a much larger share said they stay away for other reasons. About 37 percent said they practice their religion in other ways. (That number rose among Christians; more than four in 10 practice religion outside of church.)

Some said they haven't found a church or service they like. Others cited logistical reasons, including poor health and lack of time.

Whatever the reason, the effects have certainly been felt in the Holy City. Despite the tri-county region's steady influx of new residents, many historic churches have been on thin ice because of diminishing membership. In 2017, Shiloh AME Church and the Plymouth Congregational Church left the peninsula while several other churches had land for sale.

Convincing the spiritual masses to move from believer to regular attender of services is easier said than done.

Refson estimated that about 150 of the Charleston region's roughly 7,500 Jews regularly attend services. However, he said the Center attracts families through its free programs and activities. Still, he said attendance can be difficult when there are so many other outlets competing for parents' time.

For example, filling after-school Hebrew classes, a traditional staple of Jewish childhood, has become more of a struggle as children's extracurricular opportunities multiply. Parents now choose between Hebrew school and ballet classes, sports or music lessons.

"Sometimes religious opportunities get lost in the shuffle," Refson said. "People are being generous with their time. It’s not out of a sense of obligation that they have to do something."

That's true among most religious Americans, the Pew researchers found. Only 16 percent of those who regularly attend services said they do so to please their family, spouse or partner. And 31 percent said they do so out of obligation to continue tradition.

This information puts the onus on religious leaders to increase attendance by creating a meaningful experience of high quality, Refson said.

"This study speaks to our mission," he said. "Times have changed. We need to be proactive to make sure people know that they're welcome and do everything possible to create religious experiences for people, not just to fill the seats."

Religious liberals attack their own as a Unitarian church in Washington, D.C. faces accusations of racism

Unitarians have never taken a back seat to anyone when it comes to buffoonery, so this blogger finds it very amusing to see a non-Christian denomination that epitomizes political correctness making accusations of racism within its own ranks. As reported by Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post, April 17, 2018 (updated April 18, 2018):

It felt like a typical Sunday at the “diverse, spirit-growing, justice-seeking” church. That is the motto of All Souls Church Unitarian in Washington, one of the most respected and most multiracial congregations in a denomination where those two attributes are strongly linked.

The program that congregants received that day noted a workshop to support Latin American youths and intensive training on race and ethnicity. There was a request for volunteers to fix up the room named after the late black Pastor David Eaton, who led All Souls in the 1970s to being one of the first racially inclusive churches in the country.

Then, directly after services, dozens of people gathered in the church basement for an intense meeting about the nature of racism. But the focus this time was All Souls itself, its board and its longtime, white male pastor.

The messy, bitter and unexplained exit weeks before of the Rev. Susan Newman Moore, a 60-year-old African-American who had been All Souls’ associate minister for more than seven years, had deeply unsettled the 1,100-member congregation.

The conflict at the church reflects a modern debate about racism, which often surfaces in less overt ways that can be open to interpretation. At liberal institutions such as All Souls, a longtime bastion of progressive values and activism, racial conflicts can also raise suspicions of hypocrisy.

Several liberal religious denominations are wrestling with racism allegations. The Unitarian Universalist Association in the past year has been asked to help resolve 15 congregational conflicts involving religious professionals of color, and Metropolitan Community Churches faced allegations of racism after a dispute and separation earlier this year with a black female pastor.

In Moore’s case, her supporters assert that the issue is not whether she is blameless but whether she, as a black female pastor, is being more harshly judged for her flaws and mistakes than the white male pastor, Senior Minister Rob Hardies, is for his. In other words, are Hardies and Moore receiving equal benefit of the doubt?

Even at the basement meeting, where some 40 people gathered to create a case for a better financial settlement for Moore, there were competing perspectives. Some wanted to tamp down the confrontation, while others advocated engaging it for the good of the church. Many interviewed for this report requested that their names not be published out of concern that their remarks would offend some people.

“We all want to be a beloved community. But if we just make accusations [of racism], no one will want to listen to us,” a middle-aged white man said from a folding chair on one side of a large circle.

An older black woman steeled her voice. “There are some facts,” she said, referring to complaints Moore made about her treatment by church leadership. “Facts are facts.”

All Souls prides itself on accepting the American fact and sin of white supremacy — what Hardies described in an interview as “the pervasive racism that impacts every person and institution.”

It’s exactly the kind of racism Moore and her supporters are alleging she experienced. As the only African-American on the full-time professional religious staff, Moore alleges that she was underpaid, shortchanged on vacation and received just one evaluation — a positive one — during her seven years at All Souls.

She alleges that she was the target of years of micro-aggressions — racially motivated slights — by congregants who called her by her first name despite her request they use her title and by church staff who she said did not show the same respect for her authority, particularly when Hardies was on sabbatical and she was in charge, that they accorded to Hardies automatically because of his gender and race.

Several congregants who served in leadership roles said complaints about Hardies’ management — mostly that he ignored or avoided conflict — were long-standing. An additional staffer was added to the management team to make up for that, said Karen King, who served on the church council’s steering committee for five years and was privy to the hiring conversations. Despite this, Moore says, she is being punished while his career remains intact.

“I’m the cough, but there is a disease in liberal religious churches,” she said. “It’s not enough to put a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign on the outside, but then you don’t see it on the inside.”

While Moore resigned rather than accepting a suspension, she maintains that she was essentially forced out, by All Souls leadership and the regional leadership of the United Church of Christ, the denomination that ordained her in the early 1980s.

Hardies and board President Thurman Rhodes, an African-American judge in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, denied Moore’s allegations but declined to comment on the reasons for her suspension, citing the need to protect the confidentiality of the UCC process and their own church personnel. The church later released a statement to The Washington Post saying Moore’s pay was in compliance with the contract she negotiated and signed.

Hardies said he has placed racial and social justice work “at the center” of his 17 years at All Souls, noting the work the church has done under his tenure on affordable housing in New Orleans’s African-American Ninth Ward and in the district, and on voting rights efforts with the NAACP, among other groups. He called cross-cultural and multiracial work “a huge part of my formation as a leader.”

“I believe All Souls is a deeply committed anti-racist institution. Having said that, it’s not immune” from racism in general, he told The Post.

The seeds of Moore’s exit were planted late last summer when a 31-year-old congregant named Reeve Tyndall, who volunteered as assistant treasurer, got into a tiff with her via email. Moore had wanted to immediately pay a guest speaker one Sunday, but no one authorized to sign a check was present. Embarrassed, she sent an email to people involved in finance, including Tyndall. She signed it “Rev. Susan.”

“Susan,” he wrote back. Demanding such a fast turnaround, he wrote, “is unacceptable.” He had given notice well in advance that he would be away, he said. “I expect the same professional behavior from you.”

Tyndall later wrote a series of letters to church and denominational leaders at the Unitarian Universalist Association and UCC in which he complained about Moore and Hardies, citing everything from what he saw as the pair’s excessive vacation and sabbatical schedules to their inattentiveness to church matters. He also alleged Moore had plagiarized parts of sermons, among other things.

He cited several instances in which Moore’s writing mirrored that of others, including in sermons and in her personal statement when she was hired. A couple of examples involved passages from Wikipedia, which Moore says is “fair use.” She also noted the influence others had on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

In a letter dated Sept. 8, Chuck Dulaney, who was then the board president at the church, told Tyndall his complaints were “hurtful” and to back off. Hardies and Moore “are important leaders of our beloved community,” Dulaney wrote.

Tyndall then shared his allegations with the United Church of Christ, which launched a broader investigation that lasted months. All Souls staff members, including Hardies, were interviewed as part of the probe.

In mid-February, the UCC suspended Moore from the ministry for six to 12 months while she worked on a “growth” plan.

The two UCC minister-investigators in the case — both African-Americans — declined to give the congregation or The Post details of why they found Moore unfit for ministry, and whether their reasoning included Tyndall’s complaints or was entirely separate. Hardies, board members and UCC investigators won’t share details about their reaction to the initial congregant complaint, nor about subsequent interviews with All Souls’ staff.

The UUA, which includes All Souls but did not ordain Moore, had initially declined to become involved but said in a statement that it is trying to help both sides reach a resolution.

A few days after her exit was announced at the end of January, Moore did an hourlong video interview with Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU), a group meant to support African-Americans in the overwhelmingly white denomination. She made the video, she said, to defend her reputation.

Moore said that when UCC investigators laid out their allegations, they were not the ones Tyndall had originally raised. Instead, she said, they included not being a supportive colleague, violating confidences while the probe was ongoing and ministering to an All Souls congregant while on leave. Neither the UCC nor All Souls’ leaders would confirm this.

After nearly 200 years on the social justice forefront leading on everything from fighting slavery and segregation to legalizing same-gender marriage, All Souls’ attendance surged after the election of President Donald Trump. Now some congregants say they feel the conflict over Moore has revealed their church home as just another example of the racism they have been fighting.

Over many weeks, worshippers have been divided between those who will picket on Moore’s behalf in front of church meetings and those who will cross the picket line. Between who will sign a petition demanding Moore get a financial settlement that is “grounded more in our shared values” than in legal requirements and those who will not. And between those who think it’s not a coincidence that management complaints involving a white man and black woman ended with her exit — not his — and those who trust that it is.

Both sides are now at a stalemate over Moore’s departure. Church leadership and Moore are trying to return to negotiations over her severance package as the congregation continues trying to square the perceptions of Moore’s treatment with its anti-racist self-image.

“We preach justice here, but when it’s right in front of you, you don’t want to pay attention,” said Vickie Lindsey, an African-American who is a former board member.

The situation has become something of a Rorschach test for how congregants perceive the role of race, given the lack of details about Moore’s ouster.

Support for Moore does not break down completely along racial lines, but at the basement meeting of 40 people on a recent Sunday, at least half of the participants were African-American or of color. And the willingness of congregants to trust All Souls and the investigating institutions appears to be influenced by race, with some members of color saying they are disinclined to trust the process has been fair when they don’t know all the details.

Even among congregants focused on getting Moore a strong severance package, there is a willingness to admit she had drawbacks. The issue, they say, is whether she as a black woman is being treated with equal consideration.

“Structural injustices don’t depend on people being bad, they depend on people being silent,” said one longtime African-American congregant who spoke on the condition that she not be named because she didn’t want to be associated with the divisive issue. “Are we the sort of church that will pay a female pastor of color less than we should, know about it and feel good about it? If so, perhaps the next time we’re marching because janitors aren’t paid well in D.C., maybe All Souls shouldn’t march.”

Some say neither race nor gender played a role in the current conflict - and then pause.

“No,” they didn’t play a role, Rhodes said in an interview. “Only to the extent that race and gender generally play a role in our overall society.” Having grown up in Baltimore at the time of the 1968 race riots, he said, “I’ve seen the face of clear discrimination. This is difference that we are confronting now.”

There’s a desire among many to go back to the way things were - but now it’s clear not everyone shares the same perspective on what that was.

“The lazy thing to say is: I want my church back. I see now that my church wasn’t everyone’s in the same way, so we have to fix it,” said Kerry Reichs, a white author who has been active in church leadership roles. “I’m struggling with how to absorb others’ pain, while also wishing to move on. I want to go to church without feeling anxious.”

Congregants received an email this weekend saying the Moore conflict revealed the need at All Souls to “dismantle racism and other oppressions in our church and ourselves,” and laid out a springtime of training sessions related to anti-racism work, communication and trust. The church also held a two-day workshop called “Beloved Conversations.” Its goal: “How to live healthily in a multiracial, multicultural, theologically diverse community, and how to work for a racially just world.”

Sologamy--yet another indication that we're in the last days

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:1-5

Several of the characteristics mentioned in the passage above--and the word "men" includes both men and women--can be found in the article below. It comes as no surprise to this blogger that the sisters and stepsisters of the main subject of this article remain unmarried. Nor does it come as any surprise that the ceremony took place at a Unitarian church. The Unitarian Church never seems to pass up an opportunity for buffoonery. The reader will also notice that the vows were "adapted from their Biblical origins"--i.e., wrested out of their proper context (see II Peter 3:15-16).

So far, the practice of sologamy seems to be restricted to women, but it will come as no surprise to this blogger to read of metrosexuals and members of Generation Selfie following suit. Any normal man who reading this article will likely react to a sologamist by quoting Horace Stoneham out of context: "Who wants that?" As reported by Charlotte Lytton of the London Daily Telegraph, May 19, 2017 (links in original):

When 38-year-old Sophie Tanner celebrated her second wedding anniversary on Tuesday, there were none of the usual trappings – no flowers or romantic meal for two, no card sealed with a kiss.

It’s not that her other half is remiss, but that on May 16, 2015, when the PR consultant took her vows on the steps of Brighton’s Unitarian Church, the person she swore to cherish for eternity was, well, herself.

“I literally had the idea when I was lying in bed recovering from flu and a bad relationship,” she remembers. “Everyone celebrates getting together with someone and getting married, but there’s no milestone in society that celebrates escaping something awful or returning to your own happiness and contentment.”

Initially, Tanner's idea was to write a book in which a woman married herself, but after two years researching sologamy – people who commit to themselves – for her novel, Happily, she was sold.

“By the end of that journey I was such an advocate for it as a concept that I thought I’d better do it myself,” she says. “It felt like an obvious step, and all of my friends and family had become really into it, so by the time I said I wanted my own wedding, they were on board.”

The nuptials were both holy and wholly unique; the vows Tanner wrote were all adapted from their Biblical origins, she wore a $105 vintage white dress and her father Malcolm, a 69-year-old painter and decorator, gave her away – to herself. Afterwards, the 50-strong wedding party danced through the streets of Brighton and down to the beach to the sounds of Kendrick Lamar’s I Love Myself playing from a boom box.

It’s tempting to dismiss this as the height of Generation Selfie’s narcissism, particularly as the ceremony is not legally recognized (Tanner’s letter of enquiry on the matter, to Brighton and Hove register office, while researching her book met with the response that marriage was “exclusive” to two people). But for Tanner, the weight of the occasion – a celebration of being single, and thoroughly enjoying it – still holds.

“Initially, I thought of the wedding as a light-hearted thing, and held it during the Brighton Fringe so passers-by could be a part of it,” she explains. “But I got really nervous the day before. It felt like a really important thing to be doing, especially as it was one of the first sologamous marriages many people had seen. A few people told me it was the best wedding they’d ever been to. The atmosphere was amazing and it felt really powerful.”

Though solo ceremonies such as Tanner’s are unlikely to unseat the traditional union for two, they do seem to be on the rise; part of a much bigger social trend for women rejecting the traditional timeline of their mothers and grandmothers, and forging an independent path, worlds away from the 'spinster' stereotype.

“I think it’s hard not to adopt whatever society’s messages are… and I certainly think that one of the messages is, ‘You are not enough if you are not with someone else’,” says Erika Anderson of her decision to self marry. The 37-year-old, who lives in New York, wed her university sweetheart in her twenties, but the pair split aged 30 after growing apart. Committing to herself, she says, was “an act of defiance”.

The notion of marrying oneself entered popular consciousness in a 2003 episode of Sex and the City, the US television series, in which Carrie Bradshaw, its protagonist, announced she was fed up with forking out to celebrate friends’ life choices, but never her own.

In 2010, one of the lead characters on TV musical comedy Glee enjoyed a solitary wedding ceremony. Now, with some 42 per cent of British marriages ending in divorce (unmarried women having outnumbered their married counterparts for the past decade), marrying yourself is, perhaps, the only safe bet.

Its proponents say that it is a modern rite of passage. “A wedding is just a marker in life,” explains Alexandra Gill, a Canadian food critic who married herself in 2006 and renewed her vows on her 10th wedding anniversary last year.

“Our mothers and grandmothers didn’t have the choice to remain single… Self-marriage is an opportunity to celebrate our personal independence, self-reliance and freedom from the chains of convention.”

Unsurprisingly, a number of businesses have spotted opportunities. Gill launched Marry Yourself Vancouver, a wedding planning service, last year. In Japan, where one in seven women are unmarried, Cerca Travel offers a two-day package that provides a dress fitting, make-up and hair styling, and a photo shoot, for upwards of $4,400.

Are these companies helping to de-stigmatize lone declarations of love or, as one website posited in response to Erika’s big day, “just looking to make bucks [off] a few sad feminists”?

“This is not a substitute for a partner, on the contrary it is (about being) a stronger member of society (and) more grounded as a person,” says California-based jeweller Jeffrey Levin, who created the self-marriage kit service, I Married Me, despite being conventionally married to his wife, Bonnie.

The pair have sold “hundreds” of packages, which can include white gold wedding rings, vows and ceremony instructions for around £200 [$352 Canadian], in a bid to “allow individuals to be have a physical, tangible way of self-reinforcement and positivity”.

Of course, not everyone looks at the trend quite so positively.

When news of Tanner's wedding hit the headlines, many on social media were quick to call her a narcissist; acquaintances, too, haven’t held back.

“A couple of guys have become a bit incensed,” she says. She has continued to date since her wedding ceremony, but has no plans to marry anyone (else). “One told me I couldn’t have my cake and eat it by marrying myself and then going on to have other relationships, and a man I was having a holiday fling with flipped out,” she says.

“I was surprised by the anger – it’s not harming anyone. Most of the guys I’ve been out with have been really supportive. It’s been a good filter to see their reactions when I tell them, as if they suddenly become wary, they’re not the one for me anyway.”

Tanner has one sister and four step-sisters, ranging in age from 22 to 38. She is, thus far, the only one out of the six of them to have been a bride.

“We’re all familiar with the fact that 2.4 children don’t always work out,” she says. “I think Mum might quite like me to find a nice man and be happy, but she knows from experience that things don’t always end up like that.”

If marrying oneself doesn’t preclude having a relationships with anyone else, however, and confers no legal benefits, what is the point?

“You can be more lonely in a relationship that’s not functioning than just being on your own, and a lot of people don’t realise that,” Tanner explains. “I hope seeing how empowering committing to yourself is, can liberate people and teach them that seeking solitude is a good thing. You can waste your life waiting for the one, when you are the one yourself.”

Perhaps sologamy is the inevitable next step for millennials, who have already traded the traditional grown-up signifiers of home ownership and settling down for travelling the world, itinerant careers and moving from one rented flat to the next. In these very modern marriages, as with so much else, the only constant seems to be themselves.

30 years ago: Unitarian minister's prayer shocks Edmonton City Council

Until fairly recently, council meetings in Edmonton and other Canadian cities opened with prayer. However, the out-of-control atheistic mentally and morally retarded body known as the Supreme Court of Canada has seen fit to outlaw the practice in recent years, which will be the subject of another post, if I ever get around to it. The Unitarian Church, as the name indicates, isn't Christian, and this minister's requests make that obvious. As reported by the Edmonton Journal, December 10, 1986:

City council heard proposals Tuesday for a local abortion clinic, a nuclear-free Edmonton, and a worker-owned co-operative at the strikebound Gainers plant.

And that was just in the morning prayer.

Several aldermen raised bowed heads and stared in open shock as the minister, invited to deliver council's traditional opening prayer, ran down his Christmas wish list.

Rev. John Marsh of the Unitarian Church of Edmonton asked first that Edmonton be declared a nuclear-weapons-free zone. He asked next for a therapeutic abortion clinic.

"...Third, if (Peter) Pocklington does not want to own a meat-packing plant in our city, let the city make the financial arrangements for it to become a worker-owned co-operative."

Marsh acknowledged afterwards council members seemed "mildly disturbed" by his prayer.

Clergymen are picked at random to deliver a prayer to open council's regular meetings.