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Social Justice We've Moved Families Moving Forward Simpson Shelter Repeal Conceal Press Release Hiroshima Anniversary - Remarks by Kosuke Koyama Reprinted from the Southwest Journal April 24-May 7 2006 Reprinted from the Star Tribune April 15 2006 Marriage Equality April 1st, Lyndale Church moved to 2822 Lyndale Ave S. Sharing space with Intermedia Arts and Salem Lutheran Church in the Intermedia Arts building. 
Families Moving Forward (FMF) is an interfaith network that provides hope to temporarily homeless families with children. It helps break the cycle of homelessness by offering emergency shelter in congregations, like Lyndale UCC and 36 other Minneapolis congregations, involving thousands of volunteers. FMF supports former shelter families with continued advocacy and education. FMF also develops permanent affordable rental housing for families. Lyndale UCC has been a host to FMF families since 2001. We welcome FMF guests into our building for one week at a time, three times per year. Numerous Lyndale members and friends serve as volunteers -- from preparing meals, to coordinating activities with the children, to being overnight hosts. By partnering with FMF, we live out our commitment to social justice and put our faith into action. Lyndale UCC members and friends (children, youth and adults) participate regularly in the ministry of hospitality at Simpson Shelter. We plan menus, purchase groceries, and prepare, cook, and serve dinner to people who are homeless. (And of course, we clean up afterwards). In addition to preparing and serving the meal, there is time to greet and interact with the guests, welcoming them to the table and time of fellowship. Lyndale is scheduled to volunteer at Simpson Shelter once a month, January through December. This monthly activity takes place at Simpson United Methodist Church, located at the corner of 27th Street and 1st Avenue South in Minneapolis. Released for publication 5/28/2003 
TWIN CITIES CHURCH ANNOUNCES “REPEAL CONCEAL” CAMPAIGN TO END CONCEAL & CARRY LAW. Lyndale United Church of Christ in Minneapolis is urging the Minnesota Legislature to repeal the Conceal and Carry handgun law recently passed by the Minnesota Legislature and signed into law by Governor Tim Pawlenty. “Many members of our congregation believe the Conceal and Carry Law is bad public policy. We’re concerned it results in more handguns in our neighborhoods and on our streets, thereby reducing the safety of our children, our seniors, our police and neighbors,” said Co-Pastor Don Portwood. “We were disappointed when this law passed, and we hope future lawmakers will join our “Repeal Conceal” initiative to end this law sooner rather than later,” said Co-Pastor Cathie Crooks. By restricting Lyndale U.C.C.’s ability to ban handguns on its church grounds and by restricting and dictating the manner in which Lyndale U.C.C. must effectively communicate prohibitions against firearms on its premises, Lyndale United Church of Christ believes the 2003 Conceal and Carry Law infringes on freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom of speech. The Social Justice Committee of Lyndale U.C.C. is offering bumper stickers that urge Minnesotans to “Repeal Conceal.” For a $2.00 donation, supporters of repeal can receive a Lyndale “Repeal Conceal” sticker. Lyndale urges supporters to display the “Repeal Conceal” stickers on their cars, home windows, bikes, wheelchairs or any other prominent location. Lyndale’s “Repeal Conceal” stickers are sold on Sunday mornings following worship service and during regular church office hours. Proceeds generated from the “Repeal Conceal” stickers will be used to fund future efforts to repeal the law, as well as help fund the Church’s ongoing larger mission, including other social justice efforts. People receiving Lyndale’s “Repeal Conceal” stickers will also have the opportunity to volunteer for the Repeal Conceal initiative, and sign the Church’s Petition to Repeal Conceal and Carry. Lyndale U.C.C. plans to deliver its petition to Legislative leaders during the next Legislative session. Lyndale U.C.C. is at 31st and Bryant Ave. in Minneapolis and has been serving the greater Twin Cities community for over 100 years. Contact: Cath Crooks or Don Portwood, Co-Pastors, 612 825-3019. Hiroshima Anniversary - Remarks by Kosuke Koyama August 6, 2006 remarks by Kosuke Koyama Hiroshima Day Peace Garden, Minneapolis It is hardly possible to imagine that in an atomic era, war could be used as an instrument of justice (Pope John XXIII) Dear Friends, 61 years ago, at 8:15 in the morning of August 6, 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was annihilated by a nuclear bomb. The bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy” exploded 570 meters above the ground creating a fireball 100 meters in diameter with a temperature at its center of 300.000 degrees Celsius. Instantly the city became a land of death and destruction. 140.000 people perished. Three days later, on August 9th, the city of Nagasaki suffered the same fate. 80.000 perished. The Japanese authority told us that this extremely powerful bomb was the atomic bomb and advised people to wear white shirts and carry ointment. When the war ended 66 major cities of Japan were desolate wildernesses through fire-bombing. During the night of March 10, 1945, five months before Hiroshima, 325 B29s burned 16 square miles of Tokyo killing 100.000 people. I narrowly survived that holocaust. As we pause to remember Hiroshima day this morning we are deeply disturbed and concerned about the destruction going on in the Middle East today. Any bombing is a demonstration of human depravity. It breeds nothing but despair and hatred. Above all, it kills innocent children! Injuring and killing children is an “absolute” evil. Bombing is an indefensible act of terrorism. It must be totally outlawed and abolished if humankind is to remain human. I am not afraid of God. God will never drop nuclear bombs upon the inhabited cities. I am afraid of humans, for they have actually done it and may do it again! Religious speeches about hell do not frighten me. Hell cannot be worse than what I saw and went through the night of March 10, 1945 in Tokyo. I do not think God can make a worse hell than the one made at the order of American Air Force General Curtis E. LeMay. (1906-1990). What is it in the thinking of people that allows for the kind of violence and terror that we have created through the use of our modern weapons? Sadly we have to admit that too often violence is encouraged by fanatic religious language. Nothing can be more ignorant and violent than religiously motivated fanaticism. “God is on our side!” To release the horrors of war in the name of God is the worst of heresies. War is “the failure of all true humanism.” “It [war] is always a defeat for humanity,” says Pope John Paul II. The sages of Asia, Buddha and Confucius, taught that “god-talk” makes humans irresponsible. People, they said, are responsible for what they do. “You make a mess. You clean it up” they say. This is an honest message. “You made a hideous mess in the Rape of Nanjing in 1937. You are responsible. You clean it up!” There is no conflict between this Asian message and the message of the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Honest confrontation may activate “an enormous capacity for goodness and generosity” hidden in human spirits (The New York Times, July 31, 2006, from the Tikkun Advertisement, “STOP THE SLAUGHTER IN LEBANON, ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES!) As I reflect the litany of atrocities that has taken place during my life time I am led to say that it is honest human talk, not dishonest religious talk, that will give 21st century humanity the wisdom and courage to live by hope. James Baldwin says: “It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own; in the face of one’s victim, one sees oneself.” This is an honest observation not unlike Newton’s law of motion that to every action there is an equal reaction. We cannot demonize others without demonizing ourselves. We cannot bomb others without bombing ourselves. We cannot kill other children without killing our own children. “All who take the sword will perish by the sword,” says Jesus. This is honest human talk. To think that one can deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own is pornographic. To suggest that by taking the sword we can prosper by the sword is deceitful. The children in Hiroshima or in Baghdad are as precious as the children in San Francisco. Any religion, any political power, or any ideology that despises this universal preciousness of the lives of children and all human beings must be publicly condemned for the sake of the sanity of human spirit. During the war (1941-45) the Japanese people were bombarded by the official propaganda that Japan is the divine nation for the emperor is divine. The word “divine” was profusely used. This was Japanese war-time “dishonest religion,” or shall we call it “mendacious theology.” This “god-talk” presented an immature god who spoke only Japanese and was undereducated about other cultures and international relations. Trusting in this parochial god Japan destroyed itself. Then, dear friends, do not trust a god who speaks only English, and has no understanding of Arabic or Islamic culture and history. If you follow such a small town god you may be infected with the poison of exceptionalism: “I am ok. You are not ok.” For the last 5.000 years the self-righteous passion of “I am ok. You are not ok” has perpetuated war and destruction. War “has never been and it will never be” able to solve international conflicts, says Pope John Paul II. Today eight nations (the United States, Great Britain, Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan and Israel) are in possession of nuclear arsenals. The bomb confers the power that I may characterize as “absolute.” Something that is “absolute” should not be trusted to unreliable human hands. The sanity of being human is to recognize human limitation. The idea of unlimitedness attributed to humanity is demonic. Indefensible Weapons (Robert J. Lifton / Richard Falk) are “glorified” for their ability to pose an ultimate threat to an enemy. Albert Einstein saw that “war cannot be humanized. It must be abolished.” That is not an utopian dream. Let me quote from the recent New York Times Tikkun Advertisement: “The paranoid and allegedly ‘realistic’ version of global politics asserts that we live in a world in which our safety can only be achieved through domination, or others will seek to dominate us first. Of course, when we act on this assumption, it becomes self-fulfilling.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that “if we want to survive upon the earth, for our own self-interest, we better learn to love our enemies.” In spite of the remarkable advances humanity has made in science/technology, our moral and spiritual growth has been stunted. Humankind seems addicted to destruction even with the nuclear arsenal and biological weapons. Today there are 639 million small arms actively present in the world (National Catholic Reporter, June 30, 2006). Fear propaganda always kills Hope. Violence is called sacrifice. Children killed in war are cruelly called a part of the “collateral damage.” Remember that fireball! It is a human copy of the great fireball called the Sun. Humanity is now in possession of the unimaginable possibility of cosmic super-violence. We, the species called human on the third planet of the solar system, are now capable to obliterate all living beings upon the earth. When Hiroshima/ Nagasaki was nuclear bombed, symbolically the whole world was bombed. Every bomb used against others is ultimately a bomb exploded upon ourselves. How dedicated we are to destroy ourselves! Since Hiroshima, war is no longer about this nation against that nation. It is we, all of humanity, who are against our own good. We must hold on to the vision of the “enormous capacity for good and generosity” of the billions of people upon the earth! At this moment it is fitting for the world to remember the gift the American people made to Japanese people in 1945 which was enshrined in the Article Nine of the Post War Constitution of Japan: Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. Reprinted from the Southwest Journal April 24-May 7 2006 LYNDALE CHURCH OPPOSES GAY-MARRIAGE BAN Anna Pratt, Southwest Journal April 24-May 7, 2006 Church plans to perform religious weddings exclusively Lyndale United Church of Christ opposed a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages by discontinuing civil weddings under a resolution the congregation passed unanimously on Sunday, April 9. Now the church will perform religious weddings exclusively, as it has for 120 years for heterosexual couples and since 1991 for gays. The decision was announced at a press conference on Wednesday, April 12 at the church at 810 W. 31st St. Lyndale United, which has 200 members, reacted to a call from the United Church of Christ General Synod 25 to stop discriminating against gays and the congregation's own “open and affirming” policy. The vote followed a five-week study on the issue. White Bear Lake Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Mahtomedi passed a similar motion three years ago. Soon, Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, 106 E. Diamond Lk. Rd., will also vote on the issue. Lyndale Pastor Don Portwood said, “We're saying that we're privileged to marry people in the eyes of God, but we won't do it in the eyes of the state anymore. We're trying to separate the function of religious institutions and the state,” he said. “Religious institutions bless relationships, not make them legal.” Lyndale United member Rebecca Voelkel, also a reverend, said, “This is a clear case of the state practicing discrimination against some of its citizenry. When that happens, we're called to witness against discrimination or injustice and to find ways to practice justice as much as possible.” Lyndale church member Mary Martin, who lives in a senior complex with her husband in Kenwood-Isles, said that she supports equal rights for everyone. “I feel honored to be a part of a congregation that makes a stand on this issue. As a straight couple, we've benefited all these years from all the rights that go along with being married. It should be free to everyone,” she said. The United Church of Christ has a long history of civil rights activism. The denomination ordained its first openly gay minister in 1973. Its first female minister was ordained in 1853. Some church members were also involved in the abolitionist movement and, later, the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Reprinted from the Star Tribune April 15 2006 CHURCH SEPARATES FROM STATE WHEN IT COMES TO MARRIAGE Pamela Miller, StarTribune April 15, 2006 When members of Lyndale United Church of Christ in Minneapolis realized that they all believed it was unfair that straight couples can legally marry and gay couples can't, they decided to demonstrate their solidarity. The congregation of 135 active members, about one-third of them gay, voted unanimously this week to stop offering civil weddings at the church, said Michael Vanderford, moderator for the congregation. "We see this as a way to treat all couples, gay and straight, equally," he said. The decision means that heterosexual couples will receive the same religious marriage ceremony at the church that gay couples receive, but they will have to go to a justice of the peace to have the state recognize their union, said the Rev. Don Portwood, Lyndale’s pastor. "Since government is not going to provide us with equal rights, we decided our church would move to treat people equally," Portwood said. "By going along with the laws of the state, we end up discriminating against our own members." Chuck Darrell, communications director for the Minnesota Family Council, said such actions show that advocates of same-sex unions will not be content until they have "full-fledged gay marriage." The Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a member of Lyndale United, acknowledged that people of faith cite scriptures for both sides of the same-sex marriage debate. ”The arc of the gospel always moves toward circles of inclusivity, and in earlier debates about human rights, people who err on the side of inclusivity have been proven right,” she said. “Very few passages in the Bible deal with homosexuality, but many can be lifted up in arguments for justice and equal treatment.” Portwood said that in making its stand, his church is “talking about discrimination and equality, not quoting specific scriptures.” The church is following the direction of its synod, which in a July 2005 resolution urged member congregations to “consider adopting wedding policies that do not discriminate against couples based on gender.” Members of Mayflower Community Congregational Church in Minneapolis, which is also a congregation of the United Church of Christ synod, plan to vote on a similar resolution at their annual meeting in May, said the church's pastor, the Rev. Sarah Campbell. White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church has had such a policy for several years. Its pastor, the Rev. Victoria Safford, said that while such actions may not change minds wholesale, “change comes one person at a time.” “For instance, at wedding receptions, I'll hear people say, 'The couple has to do what [to obtain a civil marriage]? And why?'” she said. “They talk it over, and while it may not change their minds right there, over time, aunts and uncles and grandmothers start to think about why some loving, committed couples are treated differently from others.” (Reprinted from the StarTribune) Marriage Equality Statement Lyndale United Church of Christ endorses Equal Marriage Rights for All, including 1) affirming equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender and 2) endorsing marriage policies that do not discriminate against couples based on gender. Effective April 9, 2006 Lyndale Church and its pastor/s will no longer perform civil/religious marriages as an agent of the State of Minnesota. We will continue to perform religious marriages only, for all couples, same or opposite gender. |
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