海角大神

Ashley听尝颈蝉别苍产测: Welcome to 鈥淩ethinking the News鈥� by 海角大神. I鈥檓 Ashley Lisenby, one of its producers. Each holiday season, editors and writers discuss some of the most meaningful stories of the year.聽

This year, staff will discuss stories that exemplify five main themes: faith, gratitude, love, hope, and joy. Today鈥檚 theme is faith.聽

Listen as Deputy Daily Editor Trudy Palmer and Monitor contributor Maisie Sparks discuss how the founders and congregants of The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco show courage and faith in action.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Trudy Palmer: Hey, Maisie, I really enjoyed editing your piece on The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco and how members there worship together despite their ethnic and religious differences. That was a great piece. I enjoyed it. So Maisie, for those listening, can you tell us where your idea for this started?

Maisie Sparks: Sure. Back in June, right before the nation鈥檚 July 4th celebration, I had been pondering a thought about our nation moving from celebrating Independence Day to celebrating Inter-dependence Day, basically recognizing our need for each other. What I had been noticing was the American notion of independence was becoming so extreme that it was threatening to unravel the need for us to work together for the common good.

Palmer: Oh, that鈥檚 right, I forgot that you went in that direction.

Sparks:聽Initially I was hoping to find an example of intercultural cooperation and interdependence that wasn鈥檛 a religious institution. But as I thought about it more and more, I was learning that the places where we learn about God鈥檚 love should also be the places where we learn to love all of God鈥檚 people, where we learn to accept and respect and worship with each other. This was the church. This was a time when I was beginning to want to be more intentional about bridging racial, cultural, and religious divides. And a church really is a place for that to happen.

Palmer: Yeah, I remember you saying that in most places, Sunday at 11 a.m. is the most segregated hour of the week. So it鈥檚 actually really impressive that you found your example in a church.聽

厂辫补谤办蝉:听Yes, I had known about Howard Thurman from readings earlier on with life, and hearing some of his sermons even ... online and his work and his life really impressed me and how he was so much behind a lot of what went on with the Civil Rights Movement in the 鈥�60s. He wasn鈥檛 out front, but he was behind, supporting and encouraging and doing the kind of silent work that often needs to be done when big shifts are about to happen within the thinking of a nation.

Palmer: After learning more about Fellowship, what was the most compelling part of their story?聽

Sparks: When I interviewed the current pastor of the church, [the聽Rev. Dr. Dorsey]聽Blake, I was challenged in my understanding of diversity as it applied to a church. First, he didn鈥檛 have the same definition of church growth as I did. He seemed to define growth as the many different kinds of people he could get into his church and the number of people the church could love. And in my competitive way of thinking, I saw church growth as the number of people who show up. And of course, most of those who would show up would be all the same color. But he wasn鈥檛 focused on that. He was more focused on how many different people were in the pews, and it was more about how many people were being stretched in their imagination as far as what a church could be. The church honors a lot of diversity on all levels: diversity of race, thought, culture, even their religious beliefs can be different. So I remember at one point in the conversation I thought to myself, this church loves more people than I do. And that was not only a realization, but it was a conviction.

Palmer:聽I聽remember, like you, being challenged by how a group of people with extremely different views of God, how that constitutes a church. And you have people who are members of other denominations who are also members of this congregation. And I think what was hard for me in that is I think of church in a way as a common language. It鈥檚 a common language sort of built on the principles of my denomination and how those principles influence one鈥檚 view of the world. So there鈥檚 this kind of common baseline. And, you know, there are also texts that you can refer to within your denomination, and people will, generally speaking, you know, have a kind of common understanding of them. So I was trying to figure out how does that sense of common language work at Fellowship?

Sparks: I think what I experienced in talking to the people at Fellowship Church was that they have more words in their language. They use words and thoughts from Islam and Judaism and other world religions. They鈥檝e decided that they鈥檙e going to embrace ideas and thoughts that treat everyone with dignity and respect and fairness wherever they find those words. They have a respect for truth that honors any culture and justice anywhere. They are not a part of a denomination, so I see that they have a lot more freedom and a lot more flexibility. But in their statement of faith, they do say that they are a 海角大神 church.

Palmer: Hmm. So how are they defining 海角大神ity?

Sparks: In my eyes, Fellowship Church makes a distinction between 海角大神ity and what Howard Thurman, who was one of the church鈥檚 founders, called the religion of Jesus. The religion of Jesus is what they feel they are to pattern themselves after, which I think they would say is reaching out and extending themselves to anyone who wants to be part of the church. They are not necessarily trying to mold people into a particular set of beliefs, but getting people, you know, from different backgrounds to love as Jesus loved. I would say that they want people to get to know different people so that they don鈥檛 have to be afraid of the differences.

Palmer:聽Hmm. So what lesson can Fellowship鈥檚 story bring to those of us outside of their congregation? And more specifically, what did you learn about faith from your own reporting?

厂辫补谤办蝉:听There were two takeaways for me from working on this story. One was just remembering the adage where there is a will, there is a way. If we want to treat people with dignity, respect, and fairness, it can be done. The question is really, do we want to do that? And Fellowship has been intentional about wanting to do that. The other big takeaway for me was the word 鈥渇aith鈥� as both a noun and a verb. American 海角大神ity puts a lot of emphasis on the noun, not so much on the actions that would back up our creeds and statements of belief. But working on this story helped me to see that faith can take on a much more active and intentional form when it comes to our racial and cultural differences - if we want that to happen. Trudy, I鈥檇 like to turn the tables now and ask you a question.

Palmer: OK.

厂辫补谤办蝉:听I鈥檓 curious, how do you think this story models the Monitor鈥檚 perspective?

Palmer: Well, actually, I think it does in a number of ways. The Monitor is convinced that humanity is always present, so we鈥檙e always looking for it and wanting to share it. And it seemed clear to me that this is going to be an article that would shine a light on the humanity of the people involved. I mean, it would be a celebration of individuals seeing others鈥� value, despite 鈥� or frankly, even because 鈥� of their differences. And so the Monitor鈥檚 desire to understand others, it seems to me like that鈥檚 sort of Fellowship Church鈥檚 reason for being:To understand others. So that鈥檚 just a direct fit.

And I think another way that the article fits with the Monitor is that Fellowship is living out progress. I mean, certainly when they started, the desire to bring people together over a pretty impassable gulf, and their success in doing that, is a proof of progress. And interestingly, it鈥檚 not one that has stopped. I think when they started, it was probably primarily embracing people from different races and religions, which was, you know, revolutionary enough.聽But they鈥檝e since expanded. My sense from talking with you is that they鈥檙e 鈥� LGBTQ people are now gladly embraced. And it鈥檚 kind of like Fellowship is saying 鈥� it鈥檚 not saying, 鈥淥K, OK, we were pretty embracing, but I think that鈥檚 enough progress. Let鈥檚 stop.鈥� Instead, they are determined to just continue expanding their embrace, which is 鈥� which is impressive. And certainly, progress is a Monitor distinction, I鈥檇 say.

Finally, just real quick. I think it鈥檚 lovely when a Monitor story really provokes thought. And something this one did for me, I mean, it asks some tough questions. What does it mean to be a church? What does it mean to be 海角大神, to follow the religion of Jesus? And Fellowship, they just, with joy it seems to me, embrace those tough questions and wrestle with them fearlessly and lovingly. And that鈥檚 鈥� that鈥檚 an impressive way to operate.

Sparks:聽I would totally agree with you. What I鈥檝e seen is that being open to difficult conversations means that they won鈥檛 always be difficult conversations. We will become comfortable in those places where we thought we couldn鈥檛 be comfortable and with people that we thought we didn鈥檛 have anything in common. I think often fear keeps us stuck in beliefs and traditions and ways of doing things that aren鈥檛 even beneficial to our own selves, much less our society. And we could all benefit from adding more words to our religious and cultural languages so that we don鈥檛 have to be afraid of others. I know and I see and I truly believe that as our world continues to be more interrelated, it will become more important that we get to know people outside of our particular group. And so the challenge going forward is recognizing our common humanity. We need to find kinship with people who we previously considered were not our kind. And I think that Fellowship has given us at least one model, one way of doing that.

Palmer: Hmm. That reminds me of the last line you ended your article on. It was a quote from the pastor that you interviewed. He was talking about the genius of the founders of the Fellowship Church, and he says they moved forward because "they could imagine church, not as an end in itself, but as a pathway to helping us all to recognize our connection to the Divine and with each other."

Sparks: Yes, they were stepping out. As Dr. Thurman again, one of the founders, said there was a new movement of the spirit of God in their hearts. And often when something new was being birthed, it鈥檚 going to rub up against what is already happening, the status quo. But there has to be someone who steps out, and we have seen that certainly throughout our history of this country and as well as the history of the world. Someone has to say, 鈥淚t鈥檚 time to make a difference and to do things differently,鈥� where more people are involved and there is more inclusion than exclusion. And so I think you鈥檙e right, it gives us hope. It gives us an idea of what can be done when we want to do it. It calls on us to use our imaginations and to become a church, not just in the world, but a church that is for the world. That we鈥檙e actually trying to bring people together in ways that we can work for the good of us all. Because there really is enough here on our planet for us to do good by each other.

Palmer: Hmm. I love that, Maisie. Thank you.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

Lisenby: Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, share it with your friends. Or even better, give them the gift of Monitor journalism. Visit CSMonitor.com/Holiday for our discounted holiday offer.

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