Conscience Calls
Our Conscience Calls, co-sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, are monthly facilitated web calls which invites signers of the Declaration of Conscience into deeper relationship with one another and our shared principles and commitments to faithful resistance. Join the Love Resists email list to learn about future calls.
February 10 Conscience Call
- Watch the conference call video
- Video introducing the Declaration of Conscience from Hon. Tom Andrews, UUSC President & CEO
- Community agreements for break-out discussions on future calls, presented by Janice Marie Johnson (UUA)
- Sanctuary Movement pledge to resist deportation, language to inspire sanctuary policies
- A New York Times article about last week’s deportation of Puente activist Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos in Phoenix
March 24 Conscience Call – Expanding Sanctuary
- Download the “Expanding Sanctuary” slides
- Watch the Conscience Call video (content excerpt)
- Watch the Expanding Sanctuary short video from BYP100/Mijente (YouTube, 1:30min)
- Download the toolkit (PDF) for congregations considering physical sanctuary (one of many ways to expand sanctuary!) and view the Tools for Sanctuary and Solidarity for wider options about advancing sanctuary in your community.
April 14 Conscience Call - Rise Up May 1st
- Download the “Rise Up May 1st" slides
- Music Video “La Bamba Rebelde (YouTube)” by Las Cafeteras
- Art Work: Seeds of Resistance and What She Wants - Bread and Roses by Ricardo Levins Morales
May 12 Conscience Call – Love Resists Principles & Strategies
Join the UUA-UUSC Love Resists Staff Team to learn more about the core principles and strategies of the Love Resists Campaign and hear what UUs are doing around the country and a report-back about May 1st Rise Up actions.
- Music “Rise Up (YouTube)” by Andra Day
- Download the Love Resists slides
- Watch the Love Resists Conscience Call video (Unedited: fast forward over the 15 minute blank small group portion to 50:25)
June 9 Conscience Call – Organizing Expanded Sanctuary & Nurturing Courage
Caitlin Breedlove, Vice President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Theological Seminary, and former UUA Standing on the Side of Love Campaign Director provides an overview of the political landscape, the organizing challenges and opportunities at this time, and how UUs and Love Resists can make a difference.
Community by community, state by state, and nationally, when possible, we can participate in expanded sanctuary campaigns to stop mass deportation and incarceration, Islamophobia, anti-trans violence and more, and shift the public narrative with prophetic radical truth-telling. We can get community and institutional policies passed and enforced that keep ICE out and police accountable in our schools, neighborhoods, and public institutions, including transportation, and we can provide support to organizations and coalitions that are doing this. We can build congregations and spiritual communities that are centers of faithful and cultural resistance as we organize for justice and witness for our values.
- Music: River is Waiting (YouTube) by Irma Thomas
- Watch the Love Resists Conscience Call Video
- Schedule a journey to BorderLinks for your congregation or youth group, with opportunities available from late Fall 2017 – early Spring 2018. Learn more at the website or contact info@uucsj.org.
July Conscience Call - Covenanted Communities for Social Transformation
Reflect on the means of social change and the role of covenant with Rev. Nathan Hollister (“Nato”) of Sacred Fire UU, a ministry that plants, grows, and connects covenanted communities of support for life and for social justice. Nato shares what he has learned about the components of social transformation, how change occurs, and the role of covenant in our justice work.
- Download the Conscience Call video
August 11 Conscience Call - Partnerships for Expanding Sanctuary
Rev. Beth Banks, Senior Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, Cal., shares the inspiring, informative, and instructional story of her congregation’s partnership with undocumented students. Learn about how to begin, sustain, and grow deeply transformational relationships that support justice, build community, and create sanctuary spaces in our communities.
- Download the Partnerships for Expanding Sanctuary slides
- Watch the Conscience Call video
- Resources referenced on the call:
- UU College of Social Justice Border Witness journeys
- Know Your Rights
- Restorative Justice
- Albert D’Orlando, from Tapestry of Faith: Resistance and Transformation
- NBC News: "Texas’ SB4 Immigration Enforcement Law: 5 Things to Know"
- Nogales International: "16 LGBTQ migrants ask for asylum at DeConcini port"
- Closing Reading: Each of Us Ministers to a Weary World by Darcy Roake
September 22 Conscience Call - Introduction to series on Make Your City or Town Safer - Take Action to Stop Racist Policing
On September 15, 2017 a white former St. Louis police officer was found not guilty of the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith who was shot five times. Prosecutors said that officer Jason Stockley planted a gun in Smith's car after he shot him. People in the St. Louis community and around the country are grieving and resisting.
Rev. Meg Riley, Senior Minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and civil rights Attorneys Al and Adam Gerhardstein (members of First Unitarian Church Cincinnati) will introduce a new webinar community learning project series on Strategies to Eliminate Racial Profiling and Reduce Arrests & Police Violence.
Learn about the role that people of faith and conscience can play in creating a climate of witness and pressure for accountable policing in your community. This introduction will help you recruit a team for participating in the webinar series. The series will include four sessions over several months and will begin on Friday, October 13th. There will be concrete assignments in between sessions and a gathering for all the teams at General Assembly in 2018. By working together over several months we will be able to review projects and our progress on the webinars and share our experiences.
Here is a folder with the video and audio recording and the comments in the chat box and the slides from our Friday call. Note that the audio of the video recording starts at about the 1:45 marker into the recording.
We also lifted up 2 Calls to Action on the call:
- UU White Supremacy Teach-In 2 on Oct. 15 or 22
- 3 Things You can Do to Support Dreamers Now on the Love Resists Blog including contributing to United We Dream’s DACA Renewal Fund for the 155,000 recipients that qualify for another 2 year renewal and must pay a $495 application fee. Applications must be submitted by Oct. 5th.
- Music was a version of Sweet Honey in the Rock’s Ella’s Song (YouTube) performed by members of the Philadelphia Coalition for R.E.A.L Justice!
- See Songs for REAL Justice for a great resource to infuse your justice ministries with compelling music.
View the free recording (YouTube) of the first session on Stopping Racist Policing here.
- Register your team for the rest of the series with your payment.
- Next Sessions: Friday afternoons 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET: February 23, 2018, March 23, 2018 & May 4, 2018, plus a session at the June 2018 General Assembly.