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AdvertisementProject CommUNITY: Louisville church says it's a privilege and priority to help protestersHide TranscriptShow TranscriptEXPLAINS WHY HELPING THOSE FIGHTING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE HAS BEEN A PRIORITY FOR MEMBERS OF THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH FOR DECADE BETTY: MANY OUTSIDE THE FAITH KNOW LITTLE ABOUT UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST HOWEVER, UU'S AS THEY REFER TO THEMSELVES, RECENTLY CAPTURED HEADLINES WHEN THEY OPENED THEIR DOORS TO BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTORS AND PROVIDED SANCTUARY AT THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH ON 4TH STREET. REV. LORI KYLE EXPLAINS WH &gt;&gt; THE UIVERSALIST UNITARIANS' FAITH HAS ALWAYS GROUNDED IN AND HAD A LOVE FOR AND FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE ISSUES, SO IT SEEMS A VERY NATURAL OUTGROWTH OF OUR VALUES AND OUR SEVEN PRINCIPLES TO DO THIS REPORTER: FOR FIVE DAYS, THE CHURCH GAVE REFUGE TO HUNDREDS OF PROTESTORS WHO RISKED ARRES FOR VIOLATING THE CITY'S 9:00 P.M. CURFEW IT WAS IMPOSED ON SEPTEMBER 23, FOLLOWING KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL DANIEL CAMERON'S ANNOUNCEMENT THAT NO OFFICERS WOULD BE CHARGED IN CONNECTED TO THE DEATH OF BREONNA TAYLO &gt;&gt; OUR FIRST PRINCIPAL IS RECOGNIZING THE INHERENT WORTH AND DIGNITY OF ALL PEOPLE. THAT'S THE FOUNDATION OF OUR SUPPORT FOR THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT. THE VERY NEXT PRINCIPLE IS JUSTICE, EQUITY AND COMPASSION IN HUMAN RELATIONS, SO ONCE AGAIN THESE PRINCIPLES SPE DIRECTLY TO THE THINGS THAT ARE GOING ON REGARDING RACIA INJUSTICE, AND SO WE STEPPED DEEPLY INTO OUR PRINCIPLES AND OUR VALUES. AND SO AS A RESULT OF THAT WE HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF OFFERING SANCTUAR REPORTER: PROTESTORS, MANY OF WHOM HAD BEEN DEMONSTRATING DAILY FOR MONTHS AND SOUGHT REFUGE AT FIRST UNITARIAN, RECEIVED AN ARRAY OF ASSISTANCE. THE CHURCH PROVIDED EVERYTHING FROM FOOD AND MEDICAL CARE TO THERAPY AND SHUTTLE SERVICES BUT THAT WASN'T ALL. &gt;&gt; I HAVE BEEN ASKED WERE YO ACTUALLY WORSHIPING, AND THE ANSWER IS YES. THERE WERE SPEAKERS. THERE WERE LISTENERS, AND THERE WAS INSPIRATIONAL SINGING, DANCING AND SHARING SACRED MEALS TOGETHER REPORTER: OFFERING COMFORT AND SANCTUARY TO PEOPLE UNDER STRESS IS A NATURAL OUTGROWTH OF WHAT UNIVERSAL UNITARIANS BELIEVE. &gt;&gt; WE ARE BORN OF THE JUDO-CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND WE HAVE SIX SOURCES THAT ARE TH SOURCES OF INSPIRATION AND OUR AUTHORITY RELIGIOUSLY AND THAT HAS TO DO WITH THINGS FROM SCIENCE TO LITERATUR ESPECIALLY ONE'S OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. AND THEN WE HAVE SEVEN PRINCIPLES THAT SPEAK VERY DIRECTLY TO ONE'S OWN PERSONAL SPIRITUAL PATH AND SUPPORTING EACH OTHER IN THAT PERSONAL PATH WHERE THERE ISN'T DOGMA AND DOCTRINE THAT WE ARE EXPECTED TO BELIEV REPORTER: UNIVERSAL UNITARIAN CHURCH IS A SMALL DENOMINATION LOUISVILLE'S THREE UU CONGREGATIONS HAVE A COMBINED 416 ADULT MEMBERS AND THERE ARE FEWER THAN A THOUSAND ADULT MEMBERS OF ALL EIGHT OF KENTUCKY'S UU CHURCHES. FEW ARE BLACK. BUT WHAT THE DENOMINATION LACKS IN NUMBERS IT MAKES UP FOR WITH A BIG HEART FOR SERVICE TO PEOPLE AND COMMUNITY. WITH JUST 173 MEMBERS, LOUISVILLE'S FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH HAS HISTORICALLY HAD AN OUTSIZED MINISTRY. &gt;&gt; WE ARE VERY INVOLVED IN VARIOUS JUSTICE ISSUES. WE WORK WITH DIFFERENT AGENCIES AND ORGANIZATIONS IN LOUISVILLE THAT PROVIDE SERVICES TO MARGINALIZED PEOPLE, HOMELESS PEOPLE, IMMIGRATION ISSUES ACROSS THE GAMUT WE ARE INVOLVED IN THESE THINGS BECAUSE AGAIN THE INHERENT WORTH AND DIGNITY OF EVERY PERSON REQUIRES US TO STEP INTO AN ACTIVE AND NOT JUST IN A THEORETICAL OR PHILOSOPHICAL WAY BUT A VERY ACTIVE WAY REPORTER: WHEN IT COMES TO RACIAL JUSTICE AND WHAT'S NEXT FOR LOUISVILLE, AND THE NATION, REV. KYLE IS OPTIMISTIC LARGELY BECAUSE THESE TIMES AREN'T THE 1960 &gt;&gt; THIS IS DIFFERENT IN 2020. THERE ARE MORE WHITE ALLIES AND ISN'T THAT A BLESSING AND BECAUSE OF THESE HORRIFIC THINGS THAT HAVE OCCURRED THAT HAVE BROUGHT THESE ISSUES TO THE FORE, WITH THE HELP OF THE MEDIA, HAVE HELPED THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF RACIAL EQUALITY, AND SO FOR THIS REASON I AM HOPEFUL THAT WE ARE ON A GOOD PATH AND I DEFINIAdvertisementProject CommUNITY: Louisville church says it's a privilege and priority to help protestersWhen members of First Unitarian Church of Louisville opened their church to hundreds of Black Lives Matter, "say her name" demonstrators last month, they were not stepping out on faith. They were stepping into one of the cardinal principles of their faith. Universalist Unitarians, aka UUs, recognize “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” and so, it was a “privilege” to invite the protestors in, said Rev. Lori Kyle, minister of First Unitarian Church since August 2019. Kyle and I recently sat socially distanced in the spacious, high-ceiling, sunlight-filled sanctuary. Our audience were chairs that would ordinarily be lined up in rows for worship, musicals, lectures, plays and other events. On this day, however, the chairs were stacked and pushed to the side haphazardly as if waiting their turn to be pressed into service again. Giving sanctuary to protestors and others in need of protection is in the DNA of UUs. Mark W. Harris, in a pamphlet, “Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith,” noted that from its beginnings “Universalism challenged its members to reach out and embrace people whom society often marginalized.” UUs advocated against slavery, fought for prison reform, and for “breaking the chains” of people incarcerated in mental institutions. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and Samuel Gridley Howe, who organized the first school for the blind in the U.S., were members of the faith. So was one of the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement. Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama, where he was among the 20 percent of UU ministers who answered Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for people of faith to join the fight for racial justice. “For the last two centuries Unitarians and Universalists have been at the forefront of movements working to free people from whatever bonds may oppress them,” Harris wrote. The Louisville protestors, as invited guests of First Unitarian, were saved from possible arrests for violating the city’s 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew ordered from Sept. 23 to 28. Simmering tensions boiled over into outrage on Sept. 23, the day Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that none of the police officers who fired shots into Breonna Taylor’s apartment on March 13 would be held accountable for her death. Louisville Metro police were executing a no-knock warrant in a drug investigation at the time, but say they knocked and announced before busting down the door. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, says they never heard police announce themselves, so he fired a warning shot thinking it was an intruder. His bullet hit the leg of Sgt. Jon Mattingly, who returned fire, along with two other officers. From the protesters’ perspective, the AG added insult to injury when he also announced that the one officer indicted by a grand jury wasn’t charged for blindly firing into Taylor’s apartment, but instead into her neighbor’s apartment. That officer showed extreme indifference to life, Cameron said. But what about the extreme indifference to 26-year-old Breonna Taylor’s life? No drugs were found in Taylor’s apartment and months later, questions linger about the quality of the search warrant and whether basic LMPD procedures and practices for conducting such a raid were ignored. “We are very involved in various justice issues,” Kyle stressed. In fact, she said UU’s principles “require us” to step into society’s challenging issues, and “not just in a theoretical or philosophical way, but a very active way.” For all their advocacy and activism, which over the centuries have at times caused UUs to be persecuted, the denomination is small. The International Council on Unitarian Universalists estimates there are 700,000 Unitarian Universalists worldwide, including the estimated 600,000 in the U.S who self-identify as such. However, the formal membership of U.S. congregations affiliated with the UUA is 183,576. Kentucky’s 8 UU congregations combined have 855 enrolled adults. Louisville’s three congregations - Clifton Universalist Unitarian Church, Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church, and First Unitarian - collectively have 416 adult members. First Unitarian’s 173 adult members often line up outside their Fourth Street church advocating for one cause or another to passersby. A Black Lives Matter banner hangs on the church’s front facing façade. The denomination may be more racially diverse today, but the Pew Forum’s 2008 Religious Landscape Survey estimated that 89% of UUs are white, 1% are Black, 3% are Hispanic, 3% are Asian, and 4% are multiracial. But what do UUs believe? One source described UUs as valuing “deeds over creeds.” In a cheeky undated essay on the Internet, Rev. Tony Larsen offered that people who are “holier than thou” should not be Unitarians. He closed saying, “You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you don't like diversity, and you should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you can't stand the name calling that will inevitably result from being a diverse church.” “We were born of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” Kyle said in our interview. UUs find inspiration from six sources that include science and literature and draw their religious authority from the faith’s seven principles, one of which is to support the members’ personal spiritual paths. There is no “dogma and doctrine that we are expected to believe,” she said. “The most important thing is to find your path individually and to be supported in it and to approach your spiritual life in a free and spiritual way.” Religion and politics are subjects best avoided in mixed company, it is often said. But in a pluralistic society, religion and politics are almost always on the table. The great challenge when we disagree is to try to do agreeably. Though faith walk is different than Universalist Unitarians, I learned a lot that I did not know about the denomination and that there are elements of the UU faith; for example, the emphasis on the worth and dignity of all people, that resonate with me.Betty Winston Bayé is a longtime columnist with decades of experience writing on race and social justice issues at the local and national level.When members of First Unitarian Church of Louisville opened their church to hundreds of Black Lives Matter, "say her name" demonstrators last month, they were not stepping out on faith. They were stepping into one of the cardinal principles of their faith. Universalist Unitarians, aka UUs, recognize “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” and so, it was a “privilege” to invite the protestors in, said Rev. Lori Kyle, minister of First Unitarian Church since August 2019.AdvertisementKyle and I recently sat socially distanced in the spacious, high-ceiling, sunlight-filled sanctuary. Our audience were chairs that would ordinarily be lined up in rows for worship, musicals, lectures, plays and other events. On this day, however, the chairs were stacked and pushed to the side haphazardly as if waiting their turn to be pressed into service again. Giving sanctuary to protestors and others in need of protection is in the DNA of UUs. Mark W. Harris, in a pamphlet, “Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith,” noted that from its beginnings “Universalism challenged its members to reach out and embrace people whom society often marginalized.” UUs advocated against slavery, fought for prison reform, and for “breaking the chains” of people incarcerated in mental institutions. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and Samuel Gridley Howe, who organized the first school for the blind in the U.S., were members of the faith. So was one of the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement. Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama, where he was among the 20 percent of UU ministers who answered Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for people of faith to join the fight for racial justice. “For the last two centuries Unitarians and Universalists have been at the forefront of movements working to free people from whatever bonds may oppress them,” Harris wrote. The Louisville protestors, as invited guests of First Unitarian, were saved from possible arrests for violating the city’s 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew ordered from Sept. 23 to 28.Simmering tensions boiled over into outrage on Sept. 23, the day Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that none of the police officers who fired shots into Breonna Taylor’s apartment on March 13 would be held accountable for her death. Louisville Metro police were executing a no-knock warrant in a drug investigation at the time, but say they knocked and announced before busting down the door. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, says they never heard police announce themselves, so he fired a warning shot thinking it was an intruder. His bullet hit the leg of Sgt. Jon Mattingly, who returned fire, along with two other officers.From the protesters’ perspective, the AG added insult to injury when he also announced that the one officer indicted by a grand jury wasn’t charged for blindly firing into Taylor’s apartment, but instead into her neighbor’s apartment. That officer showed extreme indifference to life, Cameron said. But what about the extreme indifference to 26-year-old Breonna Taylor’s life? No drugs were found in Taylor’s apartment and months later, questions linger about the quality of the search warrant and whether basic LMPD procedures and practices for conducting such a raid were ignored. “We are very involved in various justice issues,” Kyle stressed. In fact, she said UU’s principles “require us” to step into society’s challenging issues, and “not just in a theoretical or philosophical way, but a very active way.” For all their advocacy and activism, which over the centuries have at times caused UUs to be persecuted, the denomination is small. The International Council on Unitarian Universalists estimates there are 700,000 Unitarian Universalists worldwide, including the estimated 600,000 in the U.S who self-identify as such. However, the formal membership of U.S. congregations affiliated with the UUA is 183,576. Kentucky’s 8 UU congregations combined have 855 enrolled adults. Louisville’s three congregations - Clifton Universalist Unitarian Church, Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church, and First Unitarian - collectively have 416 adult members. First Unitarian’s 173 adult members often line up outside their Fourth Street church advocating for one cause or another to passersby. A Black Lives Matter banner hangs on the church’s front facing façade. The denomination may be more racially diverse today, but the Pew Forum’s 2008 Religious Landscape Survey estimated that 89% of UUs are white, 1% are Black, 3% are Hispanic, 3% are Asian, and 4% are multiracial. But what do UUs believe? One source described UUs as valuing “deeds over creeds.” In a cheeky undated essay on the Internet, Rev. Tony Larsen offered that people who are “holier than thou” should not be Unitarians. He closed saying, “You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you don't like diversity, and you should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you can't stand the name calling that will inevitably result from being a diverse church.” “We were born of the Judeo-Christian tradition,” Kyle said in our interview. UUs find inspiration from six sources that include science and literature and draw their religious authority from the faith’s seven principles, one of which is to support the members’ personal spiritual paths. There is no “dogma and doctrine that we are expected to believe,” she said. “The most important thing is to find your path individually and to be supported in it and to approach your spiritual life in a free and spiritual way.” Religion and politics are subjects best avoided in mixed company, it is often said. But in a pluralistic society, religion and politics are almost always on the table. The great challenge when we disagree is to try to do agreeably. Though faith walk is different than Universalist Unitarians, I learned a lot that I did not know about the denomination and that there are elements of the UU faith; for example, the emphasis on the worth and dignity of all people, that resonate with me.Betty Winston Bayé is a longtime columnist with decades of experience writing on race and social justice issues at the local and national level.Loading more articles...

AdvertisementProject CommUNITY: Louisville church says it's a privilege and priority to help protestersHide TranscriptShow TranscriptEXPLAINS WHY HELPING THOSE FIGHTING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE HAS BEEN A PRIORITY FOR MEMBERS OF THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH FOR DECADE BETTY: MANY OUTSIDE THE FAITH KNOW LITTLE ABOUT UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST HOWEVER, UU'S AS THEY REFER TO THEMSELVES, RECENTLY CAPTURED HEADLINES WHEN THEY OPENED THEIR DOORS TO BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTORS AND PROVIDED SANCTUARY AT THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH ON 4TH STREET. REV. LORI KYLE EXPLAINS WH &gt;&gt; THE UIVERSALIST UNITARIANS'...

Project CommUNITY: Louisville church says it's a privilege and priority to help protesters

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