Asking the Clergy: How does your congregation engage with Black Lives Matter?

Black Lives Matter has inspired social justice activism throughout the United States, including on Long Island, where a multifaith group of clergy marched in Bellmore last month to demonstrate solidarity with the movement and pray for healing. This week’s clergy discuss Black Lives Matter’s impact on their faith communities and messages from the pulpit.

The Rev. William F. Bristol

Pastor, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Roman Catholic Church, Wyandanch

"Black Lives Matter" is good for everyone because when Black lives matter, all lives matter.

We must acknowledge, however, that today’s Long Island was planned and developed by and for white people leaving the city to seek homogeneous white communities, schools and even churches. Efforts by my parish to collaborate for better housing in our majority Black, economically challenged hamlet in the 1970s were defeated at the town board by majority white surrounding communities. Racially exclusionary banking and real estate practices still limit housing options for nonwhite families.

Today, we continue advocating with and for people of color. For instance, our parish Roundtable for the Common Good focuses on bail reform and structural injustices, such as biased police traffic stops. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., honored now, was once viewed as a troublemaker by many Long Islanders. We need to learn the history, with the Gospels and Catholic social teaching as our guide, and help realize King’s dream of the “Beloved Community” for all. Bishops' pastoral statements on racial justice help, but they must become action of mind and heart in each of our pulpits and parishes, cultivating this new seed of solidarity and hope for the future.

The Rev. Dyanne Corey

Pastor, Bellmore United Methodist Church

Since George Floyd’s death, I have been intentionally preaching about the Black Lives Matter Movement at the Sunday pulpit. Additionally, we engage this topic within our weekly Bible conversation group. Jesus teaches, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all of you soul and with all of your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment … and the second is love your neighbor.” (Matthew 22:37) God commands us to love with action.

On June 7, the Rev. Nancy Rakoczy, who is white, and myself, an African American, facilitated an Interfaith Black Lives Matter March, Protest and Prayer Vigil in Bellmore. Four of my congregants attended. Two are white, two are Black. Inspired by the day’s messages of hope, unity and the call to action, each spoke at the next Sunday worship about the division incited by hate, the pain of racism, the power of love, and the hope for a better future. Hearts were humbled. Barriers were broken.

If we are not motivated by love, as followers of Christ, then we have failed in our obedience to love the Lord with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind.

The Rev. Natalie M. Fenimore

Minister of Lifespan Religious Education, The Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock

I can say, “Black Lives Matter” because for centuries Black lives in the United States have been treated as if they do not matter. Unitarian Universalists affirm and promote the worth and dignity of all persons and seek to end the dehumanization of all persons.

I have joined, with members of my congregation, in recent peaceful protest against racism and inequality. We have challenged ourselves to dismantle white supremacy culture, which is the societal belief that white, European, heterosexual and male identities, perspectives and experiences are normal, rightfully dominant, of highest value and most desired. Black Lives Matter is a call to change a system, as well as individual behavior.

Our congregation’s women’s group and Racial Justice, LGBTQ+ and Lifespan Religious Education committees provide opportunities for discussion and sharing in programs, reading groups and speaker presentations. We give grants to organizations that support the movement. Our denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association, has supported Black Lives Matter for five years and charged the Commission on Institutional Change to develop recommendations to increase equity and diversity within our association.

Unitarian Universalists believe, as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, that “Justice is love correcting everything that goes against love.”