Morrison-Reed Black Pioneers

I am grateful to finally have opportunity to read this work.

I was raised in a very white society.  Everyone I knew was from the same socio-economic group (poor, white) and everyone was either Canado-American or just plain American.  My first experiences outside of these cultures was in Spain and France, also very white.  It is only over the past fifteen years or so that I have come to recognize that other cultures are different, not merely faded or blurry reflections of the culture I knew.  That is why I respect non-white Unitarian Universalists because they had to overcome whatever preconceptions they had regarding white culture to be able to engage it through our faith.

For me, the introduction, preface and chapter one flow together.  This was an academic work, so it is full of the requisite academic proofs, etc, the majority of these first two sections based on R. Neibuhr's cultural analysis of churches.  I am left reflecting on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which earth is described in two words:  mostly harmless.  This is the crux of the disconnection between what needs to be for an affluent church (freedom of thought, criticism, ect.) and the needs of a church of the oppressed for which freedom is more real and more visceral.  We UU's are mostly harmless, and therefore mostly boring or mostly unreal for an oppressed society.

He uses the next two chapters to tell the compelling stories of Brown and McGee and the cast of characters and atmosphere around them and then synthesizes the two stories into one in the next chapter.

He then looks toward the future.  Here the most compelling points he has to make are, first the general assumption that more diversity would be good for us.  This, I think is a point many of us can intellectually engage, but we may lag behind emotionally but for on the most sincerest of tiers.  Next, he poses three options for us to gain the benefit of this integration.  His options are

1.  Pretend there is no problem.  Sing our hymns.  [I cringe every time we sing We Shall Overcome"]
2.  Wait for the "forces of cultural amalgamation" and eventually blacks will become more socio-economically like us and free to leave the bonds of kinship that keep them in their current religions.  [I can certainly associate with this, it wasn't until I left my family that I was able to actually join a non-Catholic church.]
3.  Recognize that changing ourselves is good for us and move in that direction.

This third point, he goes into detail about the value of religion not only as intellectual fodder for discussion but also for real, spiritual spring from which true redemption,  in this world as well as in the intellectual world can be met.

There is also, finally a good overview of what happened with the BAC/BAWA, something I have been chasing.  The one in Premise and the Promise maybe had too much detail and left me wondering what really happened.

Great quotes:

"Denominations represent the accommodation or religion to the caste system"  Neibuhr.  [This is overstated.  Denominations represent the accommodation of religion to society, and society has accommodated itself to the caste system.  The way he words it, you're blaming the caste system on religion and although it is complicit, guilt is probably an overstatement.]

"well-intentioned ignorance".  [What a great use of three small words.]

"Can a black minister with a liberal religious message succeed in the black community?  The answer may be "no".  [This is very interesting for him to bring up.  It would seem to be the opposite question asked by this book, but it bears witness to maybe why black have not engaged with us.]

"Many [blacks] have not been able to reconcile integration with black autonomy."  [This is very relevant.  I think the flip side here is that although I can theologically agree with a liberation theology, my agreement is not emotional, but intellectual.  As a result, I don't go off and join a black church, even though my theology may not be that different from theirs.  As the dominant race/sex combination, I can give up my white maleness at any time because I can always simply claim it back.  If being black has gone through the pain of self-determination and self-value, relinquishing that value probably borders on betrayal.]

"The Unitarian church was not integrated because it chose not to be.  The church housed ordinary people with grand ideas about themselves, and the denomination was run by men who were no different."  [KA POW!  Take that!  So, how untrue is that today?  I don't know, we're pretty myopic on our grandeur and short sighted on our weaknesses still, IMHO.]

"Godless religion was more acceptable than Godly religion preached in the wrong place."