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SACR£D Sfrvicf CIVIC SPAC£ SACR£D SfRVICf CIVIC SPAC£ Sacred Service in Civic Space: Three Hundred ofCommunity Ministry in Unitarian Universalism. SACRfD SfRVICf Copyright © 2007 by Kathleen R. Parker First Edition, 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except for quotations embodied CIVIC SPAC{ in critical articles or reviews. For additional information write to: Meadville Lombard Press 5701 S. Woodlawn Ave. Three IIunJreJ Years Chicago, IL 60637 if Conununilg ISBN: 0-9795589-0-5 (10) 978-0-9795589-0-0 (13) LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2007929215 Minislry in Cover design and interior design by Dan Doolin Unitarian Universalism Cover photos clockwise from top left: Benjamin Rush, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, John Haynes Holmes,Olympia Brown, Sophia Lyon Fahs, Francis Greenwood Peabody, Carolyn Bartlett Crane, James Luther Adams, Joseph Tuckerman, Thomas E. Wise, Mary White Ovington, Clarence Russell Skinner, James Reeb, Mary Livermore, Adin Ballou, Frederick May Eliot. KATHLEEN R. PARKER Photos are courtesy of the Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography, an on-line publication of the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society, with the exception of Francis Greenwood Peabody: courtesy of Andover- Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School; Sophia Lyon Fahs: courtesy of Union Theological Seminary Archives, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University Libraries; and James Reeb: courtesy of the Unitarian Universalist Association Archives. Every effort has been made to secure permission to reproduce the images fea- tured on the front cover ofthis book. Additional copyright holders are invited to meaooiLLe LombaRO PRess contact the publisher so that proper credit can be given in future editions. Cbic.ago, ILLinois Conlenls toreword by lee Rarker ix Acknowledgments Xl Introduction 1 lIistoricalTheological Perspectives toward Community Ministry 5 PART I The Pressing Rise of Liberal Religion Chapter 1: Community Ministry in [arly New bgland 15 10r Grace Chapter 2: The farly liberal Moralists 29 and Sam Chapter 3: The "New Religion": AuthorsMp and Oratory as Public Ministry 45 Chapter 4: Community Ministers-at-large in the 59 PA RT II Liberal Religion and Antebellum Reform Chapter 5: Utopian Societies as Community Ministry 73 Chapter 6: Ordained Ministers as Reformers 81 Chapter 7: Reform Work as lay Community Ministry 91 Chapter 8: Community Ministry in the La of the Civil War 101 PAR TIll After the War: from "Gilded Age" to Sodal Gospel Chapter 9: Mid-Century Continuities: The Theological Schools 117 Chapter 10: Suffrage Pioneers as Lay CommunHy Minislers 123 Chapter 11: OrJaineJ Women Move Mwslry ReyonJ CongregaHons 133 Chapter 12: Afrtcan Americans anJ Community MWslry 149 Chapter 13: The SociJ Gospel: Allies for RaciJ anJ [conomic JusHce 159 PAR T IV Challenges in CommunHy Minislry Chapter 14: The PoliHcs of Peace MWslry. 173 _Chapter 15: MWslries of InsHluHonJ LeaJersMp 181 Chapter 16: Unilarians anJ UniversJisls al MiJ-Cenlury 197 Chapter 17: New Occasions Teach New DuHes 205 Chapter 18: £ngag1ng SociJ Change in the 1980s 219 PART V CommunHy Minislry Gains formal Slanding Chapter 19: tounMng the Society for lhe Larger MWslry. 241 Chapter 20: Community MWslry since 1991 Chapter 21: The RevivJ of Campus Minislry Chapter 22: The Community Mwslry SummH: A tramework for the tulure 279 Condusion Noles 297 InJex 345 FOREWORD Meadville Lombard is proud to publish this book. Not only does it add to the store ofour Unitarian Universalist history, it also tells us about the life and pulse ofour present day. Drop into anyone ofour seminary classrooms, listen to min- istry students passionately discuss their futures, and you will see there has been a change. Sacred Service in Civic Space: Three Hundred Years ofCommunity Ministry in Unitarian Universalism tells us how and why. -LEE BARKER foreword President and Professor of Ministry Meadville Lombard Theological School Chicago, Illinois April 2007 ne needs to look nofurther than this seminary to see the change. Less than a generation ago, Meadville Lombard o Theological School served students who took up their studies with nearly a single-minded understanding of ministry. They arrived at the seminary door with the following assumptions: Ministry was carried out in congregations, and it was exclusively through congregations that the world would be reshaped in a vision of justice, equity, and compassion. These days, students appear on our campus with a different, expanded understanding ofthe possibilities for ministry. These are the current assumptions: Congregational life is central to Unitarian Universalism, but ministry often calls one to be a "border crosser," one who moves beyond the center of the congregation in order to reshape the world with our common values. This is the call to community ministry. It is carried out in prisons and halfway houses, in classrooms and homeless shelters, in every precinct where there is the demand for service and love. There may be a movement-wide impression that this shift has taken place abrupdy and recendy. But there is a longer view to behold, and in this book, Kathleen Parker delivers it. In fact, the shift we are seeing today is one of many similar episodes that have occurred throughout the history ofliberal religion. ix x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS three ofus confirming with each other points ofclarity, chronology, and interpretation. Neil Gerdes at Meadville Lombard Theological School gave advice in the beginning and supplied substantial addi- tional direction in the final editorial stages of reassessing content and filling gaps. Mark Harris read a late version and offered impor- tant critical insights, most of which made their way in some form into the final document. Many others read and reviewed portions of the manuscript and offered helpful suggestions and encouragement. ACknowledgmenls I am grateful to all who so willingly agreed to be interviewed. Among them, my thanks go especially to Neil Shadle, Steve Shick, Leslie Westbrook, David Pettee, Deborah Pope-Lance, Tom Chulak, Maddie Sifantus, Mark Morrison-Reed, Carolyn McDade, Robert he process of researchin.... g and writing this history of com- Rafford, David Arksey, Michelle Bentley, Cheng Imm Tan, and munity ministry has changed my life. For giving me this Orloff Miller. Their unique and compelling stories of ministry opportunity, I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Dorothy inspired me, as they will you, and their offerings of insight helped Emerson. Dorothy obtained a grant from the Unitarian to clarify the direction of this book in important and meaningful I ways. The others I do not mention were also vital to this work. My Universalist Funding Program to compile and edit a collected work of essays on community ministry. The Community Ministry primary regret is that there are so many more with whom I did not Summit, held in Boston in 2003, endorsed the completion of this speak at all. To all who have authored useful books or articles, you work as one ofits goals, andit became my privilege to contribute a may find that your prior work has, thankfully, found its way into summary chapter of the history of community ministry. As often the pages of this volume. Responsibility for any errors of fact or happens, the research soon took on a life of its own, and my omission falls to me alone. intended thirty-five page historical chapter became a book-length I wish also to thank the members of the community min- manuscript, more suitable for publication in its own right. That istryeditorial committee-Anita Farber-Robertson, Mary McKinnon work is what you hold before you now. Ganz, Deborah Holder, Charles Howe,Maddie Sifantus, and Dorothy The individuals featured in this history of community min- Emerson-for their gift ofprocess and for their encouragement ulti- istry-known through print research and interview-are the peo- mately to let this volume stand on its own. A more concise version ple whose community ministries make this work everything that it of this history will appear in the collected work of essays, still in is. Finding, organizing, and editing their stories would not have process under the editorial direction of Rev. Dr. Farber-Robertson. been possible without the assistance of many people. David Pettee In addition, I want to thank the Unitarian Universalist Funding generously shared the notes from his course in community min- Program for its generous financial assistance toward the writing and istry at Starr King School for the Ministry, which provided a publishing of this work, Laura Horton-Ludwig for her scrupulous blueprint from which to begin. Barbara Child provided an account proofreading, and Dan Doolin for his very fine and creative type- of the founding of the Society for the Larger Ministry. Dorothy setting skills. Emerson gave assistance with contacts and content advice. Both Finally, lowe a very special thank you to particular members she and Charles Howe were essential to the editorial process, all ofmy family-Alecia Parker, my daughter, and John Jewitt, her xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS husband; Tom Parker, my son; Judith VanderWilt, my sister; and Marlin VanderWilt, my brother-in-law. They have sustained me with their love, encouragement, patience, and helpful suggestions. Lastly, I could not have written this book without the support and companionship of my friends at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, including Jennifer Halperin, our Director of Religious Education and the Rev. Dr. David Herndon, our minister. They have journeyed with me a long way. Today they celebrate, with everyone who has had a stake in this project, that this history of community ministry will at last be shared with all ofyou. -KATHLEEN PARKER May 2007 C1here is, I submit, a certain spirit which appears within and among us ... in which we seek, in relationship, to enhance and enlarge the whole being and the whole community. ... Community ministers have vital experience with this invisible church, this implicit congregation ofAll Souls, with its graceful persistence.
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