LIFE TOGETHER: Two Rallys on April 24 put national spotlight on Kentucky Churches

As some of the readers of this blog will know, I was a participant in the "Freedom and Faith" rally held Sunday afternoon, April 24, 2005, at Central Presbyterian Church in Louisville. This event served as an alternative rally to the so-called "Justice Sunday" event held at Highview Baptist Church and that was simulcast across the nation on Sunday evening.

The afternoon rally brought together those who felt quite strongly that language of "religious discrimination" in the case of some of President Bush's judicial nominees was inappropriate and also deeply offensive to other "people of faith". Other speakers at Central Presbyterian included: Rev. Al Pennybacker of the Clergy and Laity Network; the Honorable Jonathan Miller, Kentucky Treasurer; Jim Wallis, of Sojourners and author of God's Politics; Rev. Dr. Joe Phelps, pastor of Highlands Baptist Church; Rev. Lucinda Laird, Rector of St. Matthews Episcopal Church; Rev. Dr. Charles Gutenson, professor of theology and philosophy at Asbury Theological Seminary; Rev. Dr. William Kincaid, of the Interfaith Alliance of the Bluegrass, and Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Director of the Department of Religion, Chautauqua Institution.

I was not there in the name of the Kentucky Council of Churches. I spoke in the cause of ecumenism: a movement within Christianity that understands us all to be part of God's one beloved family or household, and that seeks foremost the unity of churches who declare that their oneness in Jesus Christ. I felt it important to speak a different word that the words that I heard coming from those who promoted the event that featured Senator William Frist, Dr. Albert Mohler, Chuck Colson, Dr. James Dobson, and Tony Perkins.

Tony Perkins, executive director of the Family Research Council, has claimed that a "radical minority has launched an unprecedented filibuster" against a handful of judicial nominees. They have said that people who oppose these candidates are "hostile to faith."

I felt it was time to speak the truth in love to brothers and sisters in Christ who somehow feel, contrary to Scripture, that those who differ with them on a political matter are somehow "hostile to faith", and to witness to a different religious spirit, a spirit that animates and undergirds the foundations of a civil and just society.

Ecumenical manners, in my organization, require that we live out concretely, in word and deed, the irrevocable call to reconciliation and unity within Christianity, and in the world. Because I work for an organization committed to the cause of Christian unity, I cannot join in name calling, using derogatory adjectives or verbs against those with whom I disagree, however strongly. We must avoid polemics and caricatures of opposing points of view. This does not prevent us from speaking prophetically, but it does require that we do so honestly and fairly. It does not prevent us from being angry with one another. It DOES require that we frame our language and shape our arguments in ways that MODEL what we believe.

My efforts at the alternative rally were phrased in terms of lamentations and thanksgivings. I'll share those in another blog in the next day or so. Or, you can find a copy of my remarks on our web-site at www.kycouncilofchurches.org.

With hope for justice, peace, and unity, Nancy Jo