Sneaking Into Libraries

By Laurel Dykstra

I researched my book Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus by sneaking into libraries. After completing my degree at Episcopal Divinity School I was no longer a student and could not afford the guest user-fees at most academic libraries, so I marshaled all my race and education privilege, tried to look like the sort of person who belonged, and quietly made use of the staff, the stacks, and sometimes the online passwords, at several of North America’s most excellent theological libraries.

Over the past few years I have been part of a project that would make such subterfuge unnecessary. The Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice (CLBSJ) seeks to make a collection of scholarly texts into a commons, rather than a limited-access resource or a privately owned treasure that passes from mentor to favorite student.

Norman Gottwald is the initiator of this collaborative venture. In 2006 he approached the Word and World People's School, a grassroots experiment in theological education for activists, to see whether that organization might accept the gift of his world-class personal library. Word and World did not have the infrastructure to accommodate this extraordinary gift but the seed of an idea was planted and grew.

John H. Elliott and Herman Waetjen, two other pioneers in the use of the social sciences in biblical scholarship, responded to Norm’s invitation to donate their libraries as well and over several years a remarkable and generous group of scholars and community-based activists came together to design and negotiate the Center and Library. Housed at Stony Point Conference Center, 40 miles north of New York City, with a developing relationship with their resident interfaith Community of Living Traditions, the CLBSJ’s mission is

“to provide informed biblical resources for those committed to the study and practice of social justice in contemporary church and society… [and to] seek to bridge the gap that presently separates critical study of the Bible from faith-based organizations and activities working for social justice and reconciliation.”

CLBSJ opens officially on the weekend of October 22-23; it is a first-class collection of books, periodicals, archival, and electronic data on biblical studies and related justice areas. Because of the interests of the initial donors, it is particularly strong in the social sciences. The Center and Library will serve the needs and interests of those from seminary, sanctuary, and streets, welcoming scholars, students, activists, educators, community organizers, clergy, and laity seeking biblical resources for restorative justice and peacemaking. To foster an interweaving of theory and practice, the Center and Library will provide an ongoing educational program of seminars and conferences on topics central to the social-critical study of the Bible and to its use in enacting social justice. There is no comparable collection, center, or organization anywhere in North America.

In conjunction with the project’s opening I have co-edited, with biblical animator and scholar Ched Myers, our inaugural volume, a remarkable anthology that is something of a hand-held version of the new library. Liberating Biblical Study: Scholarship, Art, and Action in Honor of the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, brings together the work of biblical scholars, social change activists, and movement-based artists. The book explicitly addresses such biblical justice issues as empire, resistance movements, identity, race, gender, and economics, but it raises questions as well: What is the role of art in social-change movements? How can scholars be accountable beyond the academy, and activists encouraged to study? How are resistance movements nurtured and sustained?

I am particularly proud of the real diversity of contributors to this volume and of the fact that artists and activists are not merely included for decoration or illustration. Instead the book demonstrates practically how the disciplines of scholarship, art and activism challenge and enrich one another.

I encourage you to come to Stony Point for the library opening, to take advantage of our programming and the opportunity to write and study immersed in an amazing collection of scholarship on the biblical call to justice.

*Laurel Dykstra, MATS '97, is a community-based Bible and Justice educator and activist exploring the vocation of neighbor in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the poorest off-reserve postal code in Canada.

Faith, Justice, and Solidarity

 by Rosemarie Buxton

There's no divorcing social justice from Christianity. When I was at the Episcopal Divinity School, I heard my professor, the Rev. Ed Rodman, put it something like this: "Charity without justice is just an empty promise." About five years ago, I began a journey that has taught me the truth of those words.

I had been invited to an event held by an interfaith community organizing group called the Merrimack Valley Project.  I didn’t really know what to expect, but what I experienced was a cross between a religious revival meeting and a union rally. 

I learned that people in the Greater Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts areas were experiencing workplace injustice in Gillette packaging plants. I learned that residents of Lowell were concerned about gentrification and the lack of affordable housing. I learned that immigrants throughout the Merrimack Valley encountered discrimination and unfair treatment.  

I was hooked, and over the next year or so, I became increasingly involved with the Merrimack Valley Project, but I remained unclear about exactly what was the source of the attraction for me. 

However, the more I became involved, the more I realized that while service work is an important part of a call to ministry, calling attention to the larger issues of social injustice and trying to effect systemic change is an energizing and essential piece of our Christian commitment.

Today, I am president of the Merrimack Valley Project, and as I was developing my speech for MVP’s most recent action to support homeowners experiencing foreclosures, I talked about what I learned about charity and justice from the Rev. Ed Rodman.  

My involvement with MVP has tied together my own roots as the granddaughter of immigrant mill workers in Western Massachusetts with the anti-oppression-based education I received at EDS.   The support and economic conditions that allowed my immigrant grandparents to achieve the “American dream” for themselves and their children – a union-protected job with fair wages, the move from tenements to a first home, a college education for a child – are becoming increasingly out of reach for today’s immigrant and working class Americans. 

When Gillette and Proctor and Gamble used and abused so-called temporary workers (some employed for as long as six years!), MVP took action and organized for fair treatment, wages, and job security. When immigrants throughout the Merrimack Valley expressed concern about fair treatment by law enforcement, substandard school systems, and lack of access to legal resources, MVP held story forums between suburban and urban parishes and held an action of 500 residents calling for immigrant justice. 

                 

Today, MVP is acting in solidarity with homeowners and tenants facing foreclosures and evictions. Some homeowners are victims of the voracious and deceptive subprime lending market of the early 2000s. The newest wave of foreclosures is due to the financial crisis, which has resulted in many unemployed and underemployed homeowners. Many of them started out as well-qualified borrowers and now find it difficult to make their mortgage payments.

While CEOs of banks that received stimulus funds received record bonuses in 2009 and 2010, desperate homeowners filed mountains of paperwork to obtain modifications only to see the notice of the foreclosure auction of their home appear in the newspaper. In fact, MVP has even seen homeowners who are paying on their modifications receive foreclosure notices. 

Apparently, the bail out applied only to the banks and lenders, not to their customers.  Meanwhile, neighborhoods are filled with boarded-up houses and uprooted families without a place to live. This system produces vacant properties that offer temptations to crime and vandalism, and families who become wanderers with decimated credit ratings, hoping to find rental property with landlords who will accept them. 

The voices of the leaders of the Merrimack Valley Project demanded that legislatures pay attention to homeowners facing foreclosure and eviction. Together with state-wide allies and partners like City Life, we urged our legislators to pass the Massachusetts Foreclosure Prevention law.  As a result of that law (passed last summer) homeowners in default have up to 150 days to negotiate with the bank, and tenants in good standing can no longer be evicted from foreclosed properties. 

At MVP’s most recent action, we called on our legislators to support two new laws that have been proposed. Massachusetts is one of the few states that does not require judicial process for foreclosure; the proposed new law would require a judicial mediator to sit down with the bank and the homeowner.  The second law, an Act to Prevent Unnecessary Vacancies in Foreclosed Homes, would allow former owners to stay in their homes and pay rent to the bank. This would help preserve neighborhood stability and prevent homelessness.  Already, MVP has received the commitment of the Massachusetts representative from Lawrence, Marcos Devers, to support this legislation.

As MVP continues to build its leadership and strength, we also continue to find new solutions, continue to hold banks accountable, continue to make our voices heard, continue to pray, and continue to hope. The voices of many people of faith, calling out for justice, can indeed move mountains, or in this case, the minds and hearts of our legislators.  

Rosemarie Buxton received a Master's in Theological Studies at EDS in 2008, and sees her education and spiritual formation there as crucial to her passion for social justice.  She is originally from Chicopee, Massachusetts, and her grandparents were French Canadian immigrants who worked in the mills there.  She has been involved with MVP since the spring of 2006, and she has served as President for the past two years. 

She is also a member of  Christ Episcopal Church in Andover, where she has been a mentor in the lay Christian formation program Education for Ministry for six years, and she has also served as a lay delegate for the Diocese of Massachusetts annual convention.  

In addition to her role as a community organizer, Rosemarie also works as a teacher of ESL, English, and Writing at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and at Hesser College in New Hampshire.

 

                 

Prayer for Our Nation: Be rid of hearts of stone

By Frank Clarkson

When I was a child in North Carolina, segregation was legal and was the norm. That we have come, in a half century, from segregation and oppression to electing an African-American president is real progress.

Progress is often two steps forward, and one step back. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr wrote, “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of [people] willing to be coworkers with God.”

If you are discouraged by the news these days, as I often am, then take heart, and take the long view. We, who believe in freedom and justice, have come a long way. Do not let your hearts be discouraged. You need an open heart, a loving heart, for the living of these days. How do you get one? And how does our country trade in its heart of stone for a heart of flesh?

For the answer we need only look at Rev King, a living example of love in action. He shows us the power of nonviolence as a force against evil and for good, a transformative power for the oppressed and for the oppressor.

What do we need in this hard-hearted time in our country? How do we transform our heart of stone into a heart of flesh? It’s simple, and it’s difficult - we need to commit to nonviolence.

Nonviolence means you don’t respond to hatred with hatred. You give up the
desire to get in the last word, or land the last blow, or make the final point. A commitment to nonviolence means giving up the use of power in the conventional sense - the power of intimidation, coercion, and force. You lay those weapons down. But what you gain is soul force, what Gandhi called Satyagraha: satya means ‘truth’ and graha ‘holding to’ or ‘power.’

Our times cry out to us, and ask, “Where are you going to stand?” On the side of distrust, fear and violence, or on the side of love, and faith and hope? Where are our leaders, and our institutions, and our country going to stand?

Will you say no to the violence in our society? Turn off the TV and radio when they spew hatred, and let them know you will no longer patronize them. Call our leaders to account when they malign others, and say “You will not get my vote when you tear down or target another person.”

For those who are privileged, because of skin color or national origin or wealth, these can be scary times. The old world is falling away, and the future is uncertain. What is certain is that violence is not the answer. As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Now is the time to drop our defensive posture, lay down our weapons, and pray to be transformed. To pray for a new heart, a heart open to the beauty and the pain of this life, a heart emboldened with soul force--with the power of truth and love.

Rev King knew this because he lived it. He inspired others to stand up to their oppressors; to say, “I am no longer going to participate in my own oppression.” They put their lives on the line for the cause of freedom and justice. They suffered together, went to jail together, sang and prayed together. And together, they changed our nation.

Now is our time. These days, I’m praying for our country. That we will be transformed. That America will lose her heart of stone, and it will be replaced with a heart of flesh. That we will see what a gift we have been given to live in this country at this time, and we will commit ourselves anew to the work that lies before us. To build the kingdom of heaven right here on earth. To carry on the work of Rev King and all those who have brought us so far along the way.

Will you pray with me?

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Take away this heart of stone, and put in us a heart of flesh,
that peace and justice will reign,
and we will be your people, and you will be our God, Amen.*

*The prayer is adapted from the hymn Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson.

+ The Reverend Frank Clarkson, MDiv ’05 is the parish minister at Universalist Unitarian Church of Haverhill, Massachusetts.

 

Creating a future to support the exceptional

By Doug O Fitzsimmons

Across the world educational institutions are struggling with finances. In Britain university tuition has been increased 300%. In the United States and other nations schools, colleges and seminaries have been forced to close because of financial pressure. All are looking at ways to survive. The example of Episcopal Divinity School which sold some of its land and buildings and entered into agreements with neighbouring Lesley University to share certain resources such as the library, refectory and maintenance is instructive, for more go to the EDS press release of December 15, 2010 http://www.eds.edu/sec.asp?pageID=376  Here an EDS trustee explains the decision.

I voted for the partnership between Episcopal Divinity School and Lesley University in 2008 as a trustee of EDS.

Since then many people have asked me what it was I had in mind.

“Growth” was what I had in mind. Greater freedom for EDS to grow from its established strength. Years of further opportunity to help the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion strengthen parishes to meet the leadership needs of today and tomorrow. 

The context in the United States seemed clear: decades of membership decline and challenges around financial resources in the Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations. We are all experiencing stressful, rapidly changing lives because of globalization and accelerating technology. US exceptionalism is being questioned. But with that all is a quest for spiritual growth.

And the context at Episcopal Divinity School also seemed clear. Decades of superior academic training and community formation for ministry with a progressive focus on issues of social justice: anti-racism, anti-oppression, gender equality, and a strong pool of candidates for enrollment but steadily fewer who were able to afford the costs of living in Cambridge.

Episcopal Divinity School has a track record of educating lay and ordained leaders with skills particularly well adapted to urban and rural budget-squeezed communities.

The prospect of a partnership with Lesley University illuminated a path forward. In addition to a residential program, we would have an opportunity to develop curricular modifications by which we might offer degrees to students across the country without requiring that they disrupt their lives, sell their residences, and experience the costs of moving to Cambridge. We would also be able to upgrade the quality of our campus facilities for the resident student body we hoped to grow.

In short, we saw opportunities for growth: more students from more locations, domestically and abroad. More graduates serving a greater number of parishes. Strong training for more lay leaders.

“But haven’t you failed to tell us about the financial story? Surely fiduciary obligations were uppermost in your mind when you voted for the Lesley arrangement.” Those who question me ask.

“Yes,” fiduciary concerns were prominent. For some years we were operating a campus of high market value, with elegant but aging buildings beyond the needs of our student enrollment. Deferred capital infusions would, in time, have created a very difficult financial picture for us, a difficulty our endowment would not have been able to meet. Fortunately, we were able to envision a creative a shift in our pedagogies that would make the partnership with Lesley work for us.

That is what I was thinking.

* Douglas O Fitzsimmons has been an EDS Trustee since 2003. He is retired from Mobil Corporation where he worked in Human Resources Management. Doug lives in Cambridge, MA and serves on the Vestry of Trinity Church in the City of Boston.