Tag Archives: reconciliation

A Stolen Beam

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November 19, 2024

This fall, the Episcopal City Mission is offering “A Stolen Beam,” a series of meetings addressing reparations in Christian and Jewish faith traditions. Led by facilitators Steven Bonsey, former Canon Pastor at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston,  and Constance Holmes, the meetings will end in mid-December 2024 and we’ll report on our participation and what we learned from the series in this column.

The course was originally developed by members of the Reparations Committee of the Jewish Community of Amherst, MA. They explain the influence of the Stolen Beam debate on their efforts:

*The name “Stolen Beam” is a reference to a Talmudic debate about the right thing to do when we discover that the house in which we live was built with stolen materials, “a stolen beam.” One rabbi argues that the entire house must be torn down and the beam returned. Another argues that it makes no sense to destroy the home, yet some form of acknowledgment and compensation is owed to the owners of the beam.”

The city of Amherst has been working on a reparations plan since 2021. The final report of the African Heritage Reparations Assembly (AHRA) was issued in September 2023. For more on the activities that led to the presentation of the report, see “Reparations Revisited: Where Are We Now in Amherst?”

–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church November 27, 2024

UK Marks Black History Month

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October 22, 2024

We first learned of the United Kingdom’s Black History Month, which is celebrated in October, from the Episcopal News Service article, “Church of England prepares to mark October as Black History Month.”

In addition to the musical offerings mentioned in the above article, one of the several lectures hosted by cathedrals and churches will be given by David Olusoga, OBE, professor of Public History at the University of Manchester and author of Black and British: A Forgotten History (London: Macmillan, 2016). A BBC documentary of the same name is also posted on YouTube.

This year’s theme for the month is “Reclaiming Narratives,” and the Church of England has a rich page of resources for additional prayer, contemplation, and reflection. Study days, lectures, services, and other events have been planned, listed here:

We were happy to see that a film that we viewed a few months ago is now widely available on YouTube: “After the Flood: The Church, Slavery, and Reconciliation.”

–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church October 22, 2024

Episcopal Church Summit on Truth-telling and Reparations

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September 24, 2024

The first summary of the Episcopal Church’s recent Summit on Truth-telling and Reparations has been published in the Episcopal News Service: “Church Summit Deeply Explores Truth-telling and Reckoning with an Eye Toward Reparations”.

The meeting included 106 people representing 34 dioceses who gathered “to share strategies, best practices, and resources and to pray for and encourage one another in their work.” These representatives from parishes across the country have done work in three areas; truth-telling, reckoning, and discernment. “In practical terms, truth-telling means identifying theologies and practices to unearth and name historic and systemic racial injustices; reckoning takes the form of publicly owning and naming harms and injustices; and discernment is coming to a collective, agreed-upon definition of what constitutes healing and repair.”

We recommend this article which includes a helpful link to a page with resources gathered by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC. You will “meet” several of the leaders in the Church that our group has learned from in the
past year of our study in the videos linked therein.

–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church September 25 & October 2, 2024

Juneteenth Reflection

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July 8, 2024

We thank Alden Fossett, seminarian at Yale Divinity School and postulant in the Diocese of Massachusetts for this meditation. It was written with Juneteenth in mind and is a worthy reflection for any day of the year.

And since it is because within this sheet of paper you now hold the best of the South which is dead, and the words you read were written upon it with the best (each box said, the very best) of the new North which has conquered and which therefore, whether it likes it or not, will have to survive, I now believe you and I are, strangely enough, included among those who are doomed to live.

— From the fourth chapter of Absalom, Absalom! (1936) by William Faulkner

First, there was the Watch Night service. December 31, 1862, also known as Freedom’s Eve: that vigil held in secret and sustained by profound faith. Enslaved people huddled and alive, praying in the sanctuary or else in the brush, keeping watch on the threshold, waiting for the sun to rise and usher in 1863, when “all persons held as slaves …  are, and henceforward shall be free.”1 Continue reading →

The African Meeting House

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June 25, 2024

“The simple brick building nestled in Smith Court on Boston’s Beacon Hill reveals little to the passerby to indicate its grand place in history. Yet, not only is the African Meeting House the only extant church building for blacks in America; for nearly a century it was also the political, social, educational, and religious epicenter of the black community in Boston and throughout New England.”
–Robert C. Hayden, “The African Meeting House in Boston,” 1987.

The Chapel Camp tour of the African Meeting House took place last Sunday. The stories of community building, witness, and activism are told there in the letters, articles, books, historical photos, and cultural artifacts as well as by welcoming guides. We took the regular tour of the building that served as schoolhouse, community meeting space, churches of various denominations, and public meeting hall in which speakers communicated their passion for freedom and equality, justice and education. Continue reading →

Juneteenth

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June 17,2024

Juneteenth, June 19th, was declared a Massachusetts state holiday in 2020 and a federal holiday in 2021. The number of commemorations and offerings for celebration in community have grown over the years. This year, we note the variety of events in Boston and the Episcopal Church, and local churches, which are described in the links listed below our signatures.

Our column this week focuses on how two people of color have described and thought about Juneteenth. Kevin Young, poet and the director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture since 2021, called the holiday a mix of family, freedom, music, and food (his Louisiana family saw ice cream as its way of feeding the body as well as the soul). For Young, Juneteenth also means history and thinking about the legacy of slavery. The news of Juneteenth was met with both jubilation and reflection on the “delays of freedom.” Continue reading →

“Open Circle: Jewish and Christian Thought and Practice”

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May 27, 2024

A wonderful series of talks,“Jewish and Christian Thought and Practice: Face to Face and Side by Side,” was offered last fall and winter. Sponsored by Hebrew College Open Circle Learning and hosted by Rabbi Michael Shire of Central Reform Temple, the series explored several topics with Christian faith leaders in the Boston area. Session 6 was devoted to reparations. Rabbi Michael Shire introduced the session and moderated the question-and-answer segment. Our Reverend Pam Werntz was also a speaker.

Rabbi Michael explained the difference between two temple offerings in Jewish teaching and practice. The “hatat,” a sin offering, is made by individuals for damage to other individuals. The “asham,” a specific offering, is given when wrong has been done to others and the harm is done to a people. Asham is “more of a national shame that comes upon us by what we have done or not done.” Rabbi Michael’s remarks included salient examples from the Hebrew Bible about the need for both kinds of repair.

Reverend Pam spoke first about personal reparations (her 2023 sabbatical was devoted to discovering the story of her ancestors and their connection to enslavement in Maryland). Pam then focused on Christian notions of reparations, and specific Episcopalian notions and practices of reparations. She gave examples of Church rituals, prayers, and teachings (the “Great Commandment” and scriptural writings in the Second Testament). We seek and serve the spirit of redemption in all persons and we also pray for restoration and social justice, which is a moral obligation for Episcopalians. Pam’s remarks highlighted the importance of learning that repairing and restoring relationships is work related to justice. Lastly, she spoke about the need to engage in material reparations as part of Emmanuel Church’s commitment to the work in all its forms. Continue reading →

Our Diocese’s Report on Slavery and Its Legacy

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May 14, 2024

The Diocese of Massachusetts Toolkit for Reparations has a new resource. As of
March 2024, their list of sources includes “And You Will Know the Truth, and the Truth Will Make You Free: A Historical Framework (1620-1840) for Understanding How the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts Benefits Todayfrom Chattel Slavery and Its Legacy.”

This report, written by Alden Fossett, a postulant for ordination to the priesthood and Master of Divinity student at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, was released by the Subcommittee on Reparations of DioMass’s Racial Justice Commission.

The focus of the report is on the “12 Church of England parishes founded in Massachusetts before the American Revolution and the sources of wealth that funded their construction, as well as industries that funded the expansion of the Diocese of Massachusetts during the 19th century.” It complements the earlier history, “The Episcopal Church and Slavery: A Historical Narrative,” written by the Subcommittee on Reparations in November 2021. Continue reading →

We Celebrate Bishop Barbara Harris

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April 30, 2024

This past Sunday, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Carol J. Gallagher, visited us, presiding and preaching at our Eucharist for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Bishop Gallagher also dedicated our second pulpit statue. Bishop Barbara Harris’s statue joins that of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, both carved by our resident sculptor, Ted Southwick. Bishop Barbara was known to many of us and stories about her forthright manner and other qualities are legendary. We honor her in this column. While it would be impossible to cite her writings and writings about her, we present a few here.

“I would like to see the church come to some better understanding of what it means to be an inclusive fellowship, how to more fully exhibit the love of Christ in the world.”

— Barbara Harris, The Right Reverend Barbara C. Harris, 1930-2020

Harris, Barbara C. Hallelujah Anyhow! A Memoir. New York: Church Publishing,
2018.

Johnson, Qiana M., “The First Five Black Women Episcopal Priests,” Anglican
and Episcopal History 92:1 (March 2023), p. 81-102. An article about Pauli Murray, Mary, Adebonojo, Barbara C. Harris, Sandye Wilson, and Gayle Harris.

–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church April 30, 2024

“The Church Awakens”

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April 15, 2024

Our recent discovery of “The Church Awakens: African Americans and the Struggle for Justice,” the exhibit website hosted by the Archives of the Episcopal Church, leads us to describe it briefly for you in this column. We encourage you to spend some time with it: there is much to read, listen to, and explore. The timelines include the key moments in which African Americans and their struggle for justice in the Episcopal Church came to the fore.

Other historical information is found in the topical pages (Legacy, Divergence, ESCRU, Transitions, The Special Program, and Awakening). In the Leadership Gallery, you’ll find important figures who have been the subjects of inquiry and discussion at Emmanuel Church, such as William Stringfellow and Pauli Murray.

Among the important lay leaders, Boston’s Byron Rushing is cited. Byron generously offered Emmanuelites two tours during Chapel Camp 2021, giving us a better sense of the history of Black South Boston writ large, and an opportunity to learn about Emmanuel Church’s connections to the African American community. We visited the building that housed Emmanuel’s mission church, the Church of the Ascension and the original Emmanuel House. Visit the Social Justice page under the Missions heading at the Emmanuel Church website for more on those tours.

Do take some time perusing “The Church Awakens” website; it has much to offer.

–Mary Beth Clack, Cindy Coldren, Mary Blocher, Liz Levin, Pat Krol
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church April 17 & 24, 2024