By Reverend Donna Schaper
I should tell you about my perch. I am Minister at Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Judson is a post-denominational, post-Christian, doubt-friendly, arts-friendly, queer-friendly congregation of 380 people whose heart is a little bit to the left. We are part of the United Church of Christ and the American Baptist Churches. Judson is a place with a big past, a medium-sized present, and a great future, especially if you are somewhat allergic to what most people think religion is.
Judson was the first church to ordain women and gays. The United Church of Christ created the God is Still Speaking Campaign, which CBS and NBC refused to air because it was too political, affirming gays. On Wednesday nights, congregants gather to make bleach kits to help reduce the harm of drug use. Upstairs in the loft, we host emerging artists, not all of whom are nude. In my eight years at Judson, we only had a Gay Haitian Voodoo dancer for one Easter service. We provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, built the golden calf for Occupy, and housed the movement for its first two years. We encouraged a “mosque” to be built near Ground Zero. We host the first Moslem Democratic Club in NYC, the anti-fracking campaign, and the sex workers and domestic workers unions. I hope our left credentials will be sufficient for you to keep reading.
Judson is a great place to work, to hang, and mostly to worship. Every Sunday, we sing three hymns and one Broadway tune. Judson is a good place for a growing number of people. Unlike most American Protestantism, our congregation and its attendance has tripled in the last decade. We are thriving, with human joy, human creativity, human suffering, and an elevator that is often out of service. What is different about us is that we add personal spiritual power and human community to the political mix. We are fusion, without keeping the spirit out but insisting that it be upfront and engaged. We are not flat but multi-dimensional and probably agree with sociologist Robert Bellah who defines religion as “just the sense that there is more than one reality.”
But Judson is not perfect. What’s wrong with Judson is related to what is right with Judson: We can be arrogant and imagine that there is nothing else like us anywhere. Ironically, in that great way that evil sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking, the institutions most like us are evangelical, right-wing religious institutions, where politics and spirituality are fully twained and tethered. We crusade for what we think is good and are alert enough to history to know that can make us a problem.
Stay tuned for the finale, in Part Three!
