Today at lunch at Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, where Alice and I attend, the chair of the session’s community outreach committee did a “TED Talk” on how Orange County Justice United and other organizations like it affiliated with the 70-year old Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) are bringing back power and influence to churches that no longer have it (i.e., power and influence) in their communities.

Her “Talk” blew me away. See, churches (and other faith organizations), fairly recently actually, have been supplanted by other institutions “of power and influence,” institutions such as local government, school districts, and the business community, she said.

No surprise there, I suppose. But what seriously impressed me was her illustration of how the once-powerful-on-their-own-but-no-longer churches, parishes, and synagogues, when they gather themselves together intentionally and begin to know and trust one another intimately, still have the power to confront and gain the respect of the new power brokers of our age…and make systemic change happen.

Witness what has happened in our own Orange County, NC community with issues such as actually affordable housing for poor people in Chapel Hill, absentee Hillsborough lower-income apartment complex landlords actually paying attention and fixing things, and a district attorney who agrees to ignore the technicalities of “the law” so Hispanic drivers are no longer targeted unfairly as “revenue streams” for the county.

Institutions of faith coming together and regaining the lost power they once had — up until fairly recently — made these things happen.

Just as importantly, these same faith institutions, in their coming together to accomplish the common goals that their respective traditions call them to address, have discovered across the racial, ethnic, denominational, and many other divisions that separate us, our common humanity.

Not sure if I speak for all of the 30 some people who attended this afternoon (though I have a hunch I do for most), but thank you, Jane (and JU coordinator Devin Ross, whom Jane said she heard describe the concept initially) for your “Talk.”

In his Letter from A Birmingham Jail 56 years ago (August, 1963) Martin Luther King explained to eight “well-intended” Protestant ministers, all of them white and all of them men, why the movement for human rights simply couldn’t wait for a better time, as they had urged. Over the years, I’ve come to think he spoke the Gospel truth. We can’t wait for a better time, ever.

Recently – well, last summer – the Presbyterian Church (USA), my own faith community which itself is as skillful at waiting, for good but tedious reasons as anybody else, I guess, began the process of considering whether Dr. King’s letter or portions of it should be added to our constitutional Book of Confessions as a contemporary statement of what we also believe.

Yesterday at Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, Robin Cooper, a member of the session and also third year student at Duke Divinity School, led us in an affirmation of faith that he had adapted from the letter. It seemed to me a wonderful example of how the letter can be really effectively used in our present national moment of indecision about who gets in and who doesn’t, who should be caged then returned to where they came from, who gets justice and who doesn’t, and when should justice happen.

I asked Robin’s permission to publish his adaptation in this very occasional blog of mine, and, happily, he gave it. Incidentally, his sermon, Difficult Habits, based on the encounters the dopey/smelly/shepherd-vine dresser/old-rocker Amos had with both the king and the Lord and on the story of the good Samaritan was also profound…and appropriate. Here’s the affirmation, right out of the bulletin:

    “We believe that sin is separation from God and from other humans. Thus, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

    “We believe that Jesus Christ taught a Gospel of truth, love, and justice. Thereby, all of God’s children are called to seek out justice even when to do so might cause disorder in our communities and in our churches. We reject teachings that hold order above justice.

    “We believe that progress never rolls on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless effort of people willing to be co-workers with God.

    “We affirm that we seek to follow Jesus Christ who was an extremist for love, truth, and justice, and thereby rose above his environment.

    “We reject all teachings which seek to make firm the distinction between sacred and secular. Therefore, we affirm the siblinghood of all people regardless of ethnicity, gender, class, or legal status. All are one people in the body of Jesus Christ. We are a colony of heaven called to obey God rather than humans.

    “We work to bring about a Church that is a thermostat which transforms the mores of society rather than a Church that is merely a thermometer recording the ideas and principles of popular opinion.

    “We believe that one day the radiant stars of love and siblinghood will shine over the world with all their scintillating beauty.”

Thanks again, Robin. And thanks to all of you, as always, for listening.