Week 3 of 30 Days of Love is here!
For many of us, it is hard to imagine a world without police, prisons, and punishment as “justice.” Fear-mongering about a lawless society in which we all have to fend for ourselves has become a talking point in the culture wars reacting to abolitionist calls to defund and dismantle the violence of our current policing and punishment system. Even for those of us who have confronted the ways our current system evolved from structures designed to control and enslave Black bodies and continues to enforce the death-grip of white supremacy on our society, we are so shaped by what exists now that many of us have a hard time conceiving of a different way.
And yet, our theological forebears (especially our Universalist ancestors) articulated the radical notion that there is no vengeful God waiting to “save” sinful humans through retribution and punishment. They unequivocally declared that the only hell that exists is the one created by humans on earth and that suffering and punishment are a part of that hell–not its antidote. And today, our contemporary principles remind us that no one is disposable–that we all deserve safety and security in our homes, our communities, and society at large–because each and every one of us has inherent worth and dignity.
At our UUA General Assembly in 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd and the global uprisings for racial justice of that spring, our delegates overwhelmingly passed an Action of Immediate Witness called “Amen to Uprising: A Commitment and Call to Action”. It read, in part:
THEREFORE, we will create systemic change within our congregations by:
Revising agreements and policies to create alternatives to policing (including developing plans for safety and accountability);
Choosing not to involve police departments and deactivating security systems that mobilize police response when triggered;
Engaging in creative, transformative, justice processes;
Pursuing abolition of policing systems within the congregations and institutions in which we have power;
Moving congregational and institutional resources and endowments towards Black liberation organizing and long-term redistribution; and
Rooting ourselves in theologies of liberation and abolition.
This was a bold moment for us as Unitarian Universalists, in which we articulated an aspirational theology that we will have to stretch our souls and our imaginations to fully incarnate. To do that, we will need to practice together, again and again. And so, in this third week of 30 Days of Love, we invite you into the collective spiritual exercise of moral imagination.
Join us as we imagine together what real community safety and security for everybody–and Every Body–might look like in conversation with Zach Norris, the author of this year’s Common Read, Defund Fear.
Explore our multigenerational resources and invitations to Read, Watch, Act, Listen, and Worship.
Learn from visionary organizers who brought abolition into the national conversation for the first time through a groundbreaking campaign to create policies and structures that eliminate our dependence on the violence of policing. Register for “Safety Beyond Policing: Organizing Lessons from Minneapolis” here.
And check out our weekly Chalice Lighting (Monday), Meditation (Wednesday), and Friday Songs of Joy: Embodied Practice.
Whether you are a longtime abolitionist who is heartened to see Unitarian Universalism finally engaging with the calls of the abolitionist movement, or someone who is just beginning to grapple with the violence of our current system and the challenge of building another way, we invite you to join us. Let’s dream together about a world in which all of us are truly free.
In faith and solidarity,
Rev. Ashley Horan
UUA Organizing Strategy Director - Side With Love