Episcopalians who have inspired us with their lives of faithful nonviolence number in their many thousands, both here in the US and throughout the wider Anglican Communion. From clergy and laity struggling on a daily basis with poverty and violence in their own communities, to leaders of internationally recognized peace-movements, we can learn from their leadership and example. Here’s are details on just a few on them……If you would like us to list others, please send us the details.
Below find the stories of The Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, Janet Chishom, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, The Rt. Rev. Paul Jones, Margaret Lawrence, MD, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Seiichi Michael Yasutake,
Rev. Canon Naim Ateek: Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center) ‘I Never Lose Hope’
Palestinian theologian Naim Ateek understands the trap that violence and injustice have brought to the Middle East – and he sees ordinary, faithful people as the way out. by Elizabeth Green and Emily Hershberger
On Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, Palestinian Christians at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center shouted “Hosanna!” and invited the churches of the world to work for liberation anew – by thinking about their investments.
Rev. Naim Ateek, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, is canon of St. George’s (Anglican) Cathedral in Jerusalem and is founder of Sabeel, which has produced a 15-page statement that, in Ateek’s words, will go out “to all hierarchies of churches everywhere in the world.” It was inspired by the economic boycotts that helped end apartheid in South Africa. Its mandate: selective divestment by churches from corporations and companies profiting from the occupation.
The document, titled “A Nonviolent Response to the Occupation: A Call for Morally Responsible Investment,” addresses the reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, the continued building of the separation wall, and illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
“We had the Contemporary Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa for Palestinians,” Ateek, 68, told Sojourners, recalling programs at Sabeel before the start of the second intifada in 2000 dissuaded most internationals from coming. “This is a liturgy we created where we take [visitors] to the stations of the cross that Palestinians have, such as demolished homes, destroyed villages, checkpoints. Every one of those is a station of the cross, a station of suffering.”
According to Ateek, Sabeel “strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, and love” among the Christians who make up less than 2 percent of the Palestinian population. A workweek includes daily prayer, Bible study with staff, and an inclusive, fresh celebration of communion. “Every Thursday at noon we have communion service, that’s agreed,” Ateek said. “And this is a wonderful, wonderful time. Not only of worship, but of the discussion that goes on. We do it in an informal way, although we are still liturgical. But it’s a very different example of the church.”
Sabeel’s outreach efforts bridge traditional boundaries. “Everything we do is ecumenical,” he said, describing programs for youth, women, clergy, and interfaith gatherings. “So the different types of Catholics, the different types of Orthodox, the different Protestants, they are all together. And that’s one of the beauties of the work.” Most notably, Ateek’s nonviolent liberation theology requires reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians even as it demands “justice and only justice” for his people.
It makes sense, then, that Ateek has faith “in a God of love, justice, mercy, and peace,” and that he believes that “God’s will for all people is to have life and to have it more abundantly.”
“But we must all work with God with this type of commitment and this type of faith,” Ateek said. “And I think we will get there.”
SUCH IS THE LOGIC of Sabeel’s call for divestment: God at work through the actions of God’s ordinary, faithful people. “Take the Presbyterian Church [(USA)], for example: They were one of the first ones to come up with statements against the occupation,” Ateek said. “And then every major denomination has done the same. Wonderful statements. And those statements at the general assemblies or conventions are sent to the president of the United States, sent to the prime minister of Israel, to the ambassador to Israel – everywhere. This has been going on for many, many years.”
“But nothing has ever happened,” he said. “No government is willing to put pressure on Israel. This means that the churches are saying, ‘We are going to do it. We are going to absorb the loss. We are going to take a stand. If the governments – our governments – are not going to act, we are going to act.’ It is a wonderful thing. It really brings it back to the church. We should have done this a long time ago.”
Grounded in theological, political, and legal analysis, Sabeel’s statement presents a two-step plan. First, churches must “exert pressure on companies and corporations to divest from business activities” that fund the settlements and the separation wall, maintain the occupation, or support violence against civilians through products, services, or facilities. If this has no effect – if “companies and corporations…do not respond and comply with morally responsible divestment” – then the churches themselves must divest. They are directly responsible, as shareholders, for the actions of the corporations in which they invest.
Theologically speaking, Sabeel calls churches to divest not only as morally responsible shareholders but as the body of Christ bearing witness to the sufferings of brothers and sisters in Palestine and in Israel. “Churches, by moving from statements to direct action and adopting financial policies that are in line with their moral and theological stance, create an example for the international community, even if it means incurring and absorbing some financial loss,” the statement reads. Emphasizing that the worldwide body of Christ must transcend national borders, ethnic identity, and religious fervor, it goes on to reference 1 Corinthians 12:26: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
Sabeel brings this particularly Christian perspective into the broader divestment movement, joining secular and other religious groups.
Janet worked in poor urban areas for many years, establishing and operating child care programs and subsidies, shelters and transitional housing, job placement, counseling and other services, as well as addressing child abuse, elder abuse, domestic violence, racism, addiction and other violence. She has been employed in a variety of positions: director of religious education, director of anti-poverty child care systems, university lab school master teacher and professor for student teachers, designer of a career ladder for para-professionals and a State of Connecticut manager for social services.
As a volunteer, Janet has provided leadership for many years in the very active Episcopal Peace Fellowship, recently completing a term as its national chairperson. For 40 years she has been active in the leadership of peace groups locally and nationally. She is currently a board member of the Nevada Desert Experience, the 26 year faith witness at the Nevada nuclear test site.
Janet established a spiritually-grounded, intergenerational, community-based program called Creating a Culture of Peace (CCP). In four years, CCP traveled to 36 states and Palestine and prepared over 330 Trainers. Janet began the program at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, where she also served two years as the Executive. CCP is now based with Janet at KIRKRIDGE Study and Retreat Center in Bangor, Pennsylvania, and has been adopted by other organizations: the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Methodist Federation for Social Action, Veterans for Peace, the Texas Conference of Churches and the Baltimore Presbytery. As KIRKRIDGE Coordinator for Justice, Peace and Training, Janet also arranges weekend peace programs, training, gatherings of peacemakers, public witness events and pilgrimages. She helped plan the recent ecumenical Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in Washington, D.C. on March 16, 2007.
Janet holds a Master’s degree in Human Development and Family Relations. Her daughter is a human rights attorney and the mother of Janet’s new grandson, baby Max.
Walking with Jesus Into the Desert
by Janet Chisholm 03/03/2001
The Desert Story is about a search for God. According to the Bible, and the desert fathers and mothers of the early church who intentionally went into the desert to live a simplified life focused on God, the Desert Story is about journeying – about being tested – about encountering God. Today, we know that the Desert Story is also a story about violence and the Bomb.
I want to share reflections about my journey, the desert, the Bomb and the temptations of Jesus in the desert.
My journey in the desert began when my parents moved to Las Vegas many years ago. It was a small town with only 18,000 residents and two modest hotels. My parents were seeking a warm, dry climate where my father’s health would improve and they could raise their children. We came from Portland, Oregon, a lush land of greenery and rain where I played on soft lawns, and trees and flowers were everywhere. The change for me was very dramatic! We moved into a small motel room surrounded by dirt, where I was expected to play contentedly. The sun was oppressively hot, and there was one scruffy tree for shade. This certainly was no Promised Land of Milk and Honey, but a Land of Dirt… and Sunny!
Before long the natural beauty of the desert touched my soul. The sky reaching from horizon to horizon and filled with the drama of clouds and wind. The tall, colorful mountains surrounding the valley. The oases with their streams and shady cottonwood trees; and the flat desert, with its thorny mesquite bushes in which I could create a hideaway and block the entrance with a tumbleweed. The bursting flowers at springtime: yucca, belly flowers seen only when we got on our bellies, the red Indian paintbrush and more. When I was older, our family bought a horse. As a teenager, I was allowed to ride alone – all the way to the mountains. It was thrilling and liberating to jump the ravines and gallop for miles across the unfenced desert. This was like the Holy Land, I was told – like the desert where Jesus had walked. No wonder I felt healthy and whole, free and safe to explore and act boldly, and convinced this was a sacred land. And each year our family drove north along the main highway. We joined church friends on a desert hilltop to hold an Easter Service and watch the dramatic sunrise, with its spreading and brilliant colors slowly filling the heavens of God’s beautiful creation.
During my elementary school years, there were many other occasions when our family drove north along that same highway. We rose early – as we always did for the Easter sunrise service. We drove out early, before dawn, while it was still dark, to get a good parking spot on the shoulder of the highway. We and hundreds of other families – cars full of children – our grandmother, too. It was the chance of a lifetime to watch the bombs go off. The newspapers and radio described the exact route to follow to get as close as possible. And they told us it was safe! Everyone got out, put on dark glasses and waited. There was a great hush – we were afraid to blink and miss the spectacle. It was the hint of morning – a creeping glow was visible above the horizon – when finally a light exploded into the dark, there was a powerful sound forced into the air, the ground shook, and slowly dark billows tumbled out and rose, the mushroom cloud. And they told us it was safe!
As a Las Vegas High School freshman, I researched the effects of radiation on the human body. Recently, my mother was cleaning her garage and found my paper on the project. I had analytically reviewed photos of Japanese who were said to have survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings – of U.S. doctors treating them and gathering data about exposures. I spent time in the local Atomic Energy Commission office and interviewed Edward Teller – not realizing his renown, I asked my simple questions about his research. It was the Sputnik era and we were being encouraged to enter Chemistry and Physics if we had talent, because the U.S. wanted to catch up with the Soviet Union. I was doing my loyal best: studying rocket fuels and design, taking all the science and math courses I could get. It was expected of the brightest students – take the hardest courses, prove yourselves! And during my early school years, the nuclear testing industry employed the most people in town. It was the best place to get a good job. Despite the overwhelming evidence of sickness and dying that I summarized in the paper, I patriotically concluded with a quote from Dwight Eisenhower about the necessity of nuclear weapons to protect democracy. This certainly was no Land of Milk and Honey, but a Land of Bombs and Money!
In Honolulu, the Bomb exploded into my personal awareness again. I remembered the “survivors” in those black and white photos of doctors examining living victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – shriveled skin, scarred faces and bodies, babies born with deformed limbs – a white American military doctor with a stethoscope against the passive chest of a frail Japanese woman, the dazed children and the cold projections of reduced life expectancy. They were so similar to the films I began to see of Vietnamese survivors, the wounded, dazed, crippled and scarred victims of a deadly rain of napalm and bombs. “Stop this horror!” my heart cried out. The children of the deadly rain were being brought to the island, to Tripler Army Hospital, for skin-grafting and prosthetics. But the deadly rain continued. Some of us purchased films showing the victims and toured the Islands – and protested in many other ways – calling for a cease fire, for an end to all the killing and violence, an end to the victims who never made the nightly body count reserved for soldiers on both sides.
As a Navy wife, the Bomb touched my personal life again. I went to watch the first firing of a Poseidon nuclear submarine off Key West. With other family members of the submariners who were involved in the test firing, I watched the extraordinary event from a nearby surface vessel. The thunderous explosion and horrible power immediately recalled for me the explosions I had witnessed as a child. Others cheered and clapped. I was shaken to the core and wept.
A few years ago, the Bomb became personal again. There was a lump in my breast. (It turned out to be benign.) When I was scheduled for surgery, I called to inform my mother. With great distress, she talked about recent studies that indicated Las Vegas residents had been exposed to high levels of radioactivity during the bomb testing in the fifties – from the winds that had swirled in our hometown.
But they told us it was safe!
The silence was suddenly broken. No one in Las Vegas, during the years I lived there or since, had ever spoken to me before about the dangers of the nuclear weapons testing. Mother admitted she had had no concern then, no one seemed to – it was a time to show loyalty and patriotism. (I remember that the first TV pictures we watched were the McCarthy hearings.) Everyone was so trusting. With increasing alarm she disclosed some of the horrible clues to the dangers: the blasts broke windows and cracked the walls of buildings, tumbled dishware and other breakables onto the floor. There were thousands of insurance claims.
But they told us it was safe!
It felt like an earthquake, but it was not an act of God.
But they told us it was safe!
A man who worked for my father suffered from terrible skin cancer and finally had to stop working. He had been the only insurance investigator allowed on ground zero after a blast. He would go around and assess the damage with government experts. He was never warned of the dangers. The soles of his boots would be eaten off after one walk-through; he was always purchasing new shoes!
But they told us it was safe!
The sheep in Utah began to sicken and die in great numbers – and then the families became sick. And so much of our food came from there.
But they told us it was safe!
Protesting nuclear weapons is personal! I have spoken often against nuclear weapons and joined others in protest at the Groton Submarine Base, Electric Boat, the Nevada Test Site and the Pentagon. And I shall continue – until it IS safe for all of us. My desert is Holy Ground; not a wasteland or a land to waste, not a place to perfect weapons that will destroy, murder, and dominate. It is a place of testing and transformation!
Related Links:
Learn more about the Fellowship of Reconciliation
Learn more about the Nevada Desert Experience
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939, one of two offspring of a Congregationalist physician. When in high school, he had a bad fall which put him in the hospital for about a month. It was a time of reflection. Soon after, he joined the Episcopal Church and also began to take his studies seriously, and to consider the possibility of entering the priesthood. After high school, he enrolled at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia , where at first he seemed a misfit, but managed to stick it out, and was elected Valedictorian of his graduating class. During his sophomore year at VMI, however, he began to experience uncertainties about his religious faith and his vocation to the priesthood that continued for several years, and were probably influenced by the death of his father and the prolonged illness of his younger sister Emily. In the fall of 1961 he entered Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, to study English literature, and in the spring of 1962, while attending Easter services at the Church of the Advent in Boston, he underwent a conversion experience and renewal of grace. Soon after, he made a definite decision to study for the priesthood, and after a year of work to repair the family finances, he enrolled at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1963, expecting to graduate in the spring of 1966.
In March 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asked students and others to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capital in Montgomery demonstrating support for his civil rights program. News of the request reached the campus of ETS on Monday 8 March (my sources are a bit confused on the chronology of that week, but I think this is correct), and during Evening Prayer at the chapel, Jon Daniels decided that he ought to go. Later he wrote:
“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary’s glad song. “He hath showed strength with his arm.” As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled “moment” that would, in retrospect, remind me of others–particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.” I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.”
He and others left on Thursday for Selma, intending to stay only that weekend; but he and a friend missed the bus back, and began to reflect on how an in-and-out visit like theirs looked to those living in Selma, and decided that they must stay longer. They went home to request permission to spend the rest of the term in Selma, studying on their own and returning to take their examinations. In Selma, many proposed marches were blocked by rows of policemen. Jon describes one such meeting (ellipses not marked).
“After a week-long, rain-soaked vigil, we still stood face to face with the Selma police. I stood, for a change, in the front rank, ankle-deep in an enormous puddle. To my immediate right were high school students, for the most part, and further to the right were a swarm of clergymen. My end of the line surged forward at one point, led by a militant Episcopal priest whose temper (as usual) was at combustion-point. Thus I found myself only inches from a young policeman. The air crackled with tension and open hostility. Emma Jean, a sophomore in the Negro high school, called my name from behind. I reached back for her hand to bring her up to the front rank, but she did not see. Again she asked me to come back. My determination had become infectiously savage, and I insisted that she come forward–I would not retreat! Again I reached for her hand and pulled her forward. The young policeman spoke: “You’re dragging her through the puddle. You ought to be ashamed for treating a girl like that.” Flushing–I had forgotten the puddle–I snarled something at him about whose-fault-it-really-was, that managed to be both defensive and self-righteous. We matched baleful glances and then both looked away. And then came a moment of shattering internal quiet, in which I felt shame, indeed, and a kind of reluctant love for the young policeman. I apologized to Emma Jean. And then it occurred to me to apologize to him and to thank him. Though he looked away in contempt–I was not altogether sure I blamed him–I had received a blessing I would not forget. Before long the kids were singing, “I love —.” One of my friends asked [the young policeman] for his name. His name was Charlie. When we sang for him, he blushed and then smiled in a truly sacramental mixture of embarrassment and pleasure and shyness. Soon the young policeman looked relaxed, we all lit cigarettes (in a couple of instances, from a common match, and small groups of kids and policemen clustered to joke or talk cautiously about the situation. It was thus a shock later to look across the rank at the clergymen and their opposites, who glared across a still unbroken “Wall” in what appeared to be silent hatred. Had I been freely arranging the order for Evening Prayer that night, I think I might have followed the General Confession directly with the General Thanksgiving–or perhaps the Te Deum.”
Jon devoted many of his Sundays in Selma to bringing small groups of Negroes, mostly high school students, to church with him in an effort to integrate the local Episcopal church. They were seated but scowled at. Many parishioners openly resented their presence, and put their pastor squarely in the middle. (He was integrationist enough to risk his job by accommodating Jon’s group as far as he did, but not integrationist enough to satisfy Jon.)
In May, Jon went back to ETS to take examinations and complete other requirements, and in July he returned to Alabama, where he helped to produce a listing of local, state, and federal agencies and other resources legally available to persons in need of assistance. On Friday 13 August Jon and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. (They had agreed that none would accept bail until there was bail money for all.) After their release on Friday 20 August, four of them undertook to enter a local shop, and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young girl in the party, and Jon pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. (Whether he stepped between her and the shotgun is not clear.) He was killed instantly. Not long before his death he wrote:
“I lost fear in the black belt when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self-seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance! The point is simply, of course, that one’s motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it. As Judy and I said the daily offices day by day, we became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible “communion of saints”–of the beloved community in Cambridge who were saying the offices too, of the ones gathered around a near-distant throne in heaven–who blend with theirs our faltering songs of prayer and praise. With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in Him Whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout, whose Name is Itself the Song Which fulfils and “ends” all songs.”
Further Reading:
The Jon Daniels Story, ed. William J Schneider (Morehouse, 1992 ; ISBN: 0819215864) (orig. publ. 1967)
Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, by Charles W. Eagles (Univ of North Carolina Pr., 1993; ISBN: 0807844209)]
Links: Lectionary
Bishop Paul Jones (by Michelle J. Kinnucan) As the drumbeats of war intensify in prelude to a possible US attack on Iraq, we would do well to reflect upon the life of Paul Jones. As early as 1915–the year of the German terrorist atrocity of the sinking of the Lusitania–Jones, the Episcopal Bishop of Utah, preached against war. His faithful witness to the nonviolent teachings and example of Jesus came as the carnage of World War I escalated and during one of the worst periods of political repression in US history. The Constitution was savaged, thousands of immigrants were rounded up and deported, and scores of American citizens were imprisoned or worse for speaking against the war.
While he was still Bishop of Utah, Jones wrote a pamphlet explaining his views. It says, in part:
“After thus studying again [Jesus'] life and teaching, I find it quite impossible to believe that people can be true to the things which He taught and the example which He gave and at the same time take part in war; for war is the organized destruction of our enemies and it is always accompanied by hatred and bitterness, thus necessitating an attitude of mind and course of conduct the opposite of that enjoined by Christ. . . . “
“It is unthinkable that [Saints Paul, James, Peter, or John] would have taken any part in a war or in preparation for one. And I need only to refer to the example of the Christians of the early centuries who preferred to die rather than go into the army and cause someone else’s death, to show that they all interpreted our Lord’s teaching in the same way. . . . “
“The day will come when, like slavery which was once held in good repute, war will be looked upon as thoroughly un-Christian. At present it is recognized as an evil which nobody honestly wants, but not yet has it received its final sentence at the bar of Christian morality. Only when Christian men and women and churches will be brave enough to stand openly for the full truth that their consciences are beginning to recognize, will the terrible anachronism of war . . . be done away.”
World War I was a particularly ghastly affair that highlighted the evil, futile, wasteful nature of modern war–millions died. WWI ushered in the first large-scale use of machine guns, tanks, and chemical weapons. Diplomats and politicians proclaimed it the “war to end all wars” but many modern observers agree that it actually resulted in the even greater horrors of the Third Reich and World War II.
For his principled Christian opposition to war, in general, and World War I, in particular, Jones was pressured into resigning in 1918 as the Bishop of Utah. A special committee of the national House of Bishops of the Episcopal church reported that:
“The underlying contention of the Bishop of Utah seems to be that war is unchristian. With this general statement the Commission cannot agree. This Church in the United States is practically a unit in holding that it is not an unchristian thing. In the face of this unanimity, it is neither right or wise for a trusted bishop to declare and maintain that it is an unchristian thing . . . . The Bishop of Utah ought to resign his office.”
However, eighty years later in 1998, in a vindication of his stance and ministry for peace and against war, Paul Jones’ name was added to the Calendar of Saints of the Episcopal Church for commemoration on September 4. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) has written the following prayer in Bishop Jones’ honor:
“Loving God, Creator and Sustainer of humanity, to whom each person is sacred and for whom all wars are unchristian: Raise up in this and every land and time courageous women and men who, like your servant Paul Jones, will stand firm in proclaiming the gospel of peace when the multitude is clamoring for war, and who will dare to call your church to fulfill her reconciling vocation. This we ask in the name of the One who calls us to peace and reconciliation, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, now and for ever. Amen.”
It is too late for the dead of September 11th and in Afghanistan. It is not too late for the imperiled people of Iraq and the American service members who will be sent to kill them. Bishop Jones preached not only a disapproval of war but also an active resistance to war and preparation for it. As I write this September 4th and 11th are approaching and I wonder, in the days to come, how many “Christian men and women and churches will be brave enough to stand openly for the full truth” that war is “thoroughly un-Christian?”
Bishop Paul Jones: The Cost of Questioning Church and Country
By Joseph Wakelee-Lynch
Originally published in The Witness magazine, March 2002
Friday, March 1, 2002
In April 1918, a month after the U.S. entered World War I — the war to end all wars — a prominent Episcopal voice against war was silenced. Bishop Paul Jones, serving the then-Missionary District of Utah, was forced to resign his post.
Religious support for the war was strong even before the U.S. entered the conflict. In 1916, the Episcopal House of Bishops lauded those who promoted peace, but the bishops made it clear that Christians should be ready to serve the state in time of crisis:
“[America] must expect of every one of her citizens some true form of national service, rendered according to the capacity of each. No one can commute or delegate it; no one can be absolved from it. National preparedness is a clear duty.”
In 1914, when Jones was selected by the House of Bishops to lead the Utah district, he was already a prominent advocate for peace. He believed war couldn’t be reconciled with Jesus’ teaching. He advocated an aggressive Christian response to conflict and acknowledged that Germany was in the wrong.
“I believe most sincerely that German brutality and aggression must be stopped,” Jones said before the House of Bishops in 1917, “and I am willing, if need be, to give my life and what I possess, to bring that about. . .
“I have been led to feel that war is entirely incompatible with the Christian profession. . . Moreover, because Germany has ignored her solemn obligations, Christians are not justified in treating the sermon on the mount as a scrap of paper.”
In 1917, vestry members at Utah’s two largest and most prosperous parishes, joined by the District Council of Advice, organized a campaign against the bishop. They charged that Jones shouldn’t speak as an Episcopal leader but as an individual, particularly because his flock disagreed with him, and that
his views had harmed the church’s work in Utah.
Jones refuted the charges and research by Douglas G. Warren shows that Jones enjoyed significant clergy and lay support in his district. Many Episcopalians supported the war, but they believed Jones had the right to speak as bishop and that he had not harmed the church’s work. Yet, after a convoluted process of examination, the bishops finally asked for his resignation.
In April 1918, Jones complied. In his letter of resignation, Jones argued that the House of Bishops by its action was stating that war is not an unchristian thing and no bishop may preach against it if the government and the church have accepted it.
“These conclusions I cannot accept;” he wrote, “for I believe that the methods of modern international war are quite incompatible with the Christian principles of reconciliation and brotherhood, and that it is the duty of a Bishop of the Church, from his study of the word of God, to express himself on questions of righteousness, no matter what opinion may stand in the way.”
Jones, who died in 1941, never again served as bishop. But his work for peace continued. He was a founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and its secretary for 10 years. He helped found the Episcopal Pacifist Fellowship, now the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. During World War II, he helped resettle Jews and others who fled Nazi Germany, and he argued for greater understanding in relations with Japan.
Jones’ legacy today may be more important than before, says David Selzer, EPF chairperson.
“In a time of particularly high patriotism, Bishop Jones was loyal to the sense of seeing the Gospel as the Gospel of peace rather than the Gospel of vengeance.”
Additonal info: Lectionary ; Bishop Paul Jones: Witness for Peace John Howard Melish (Forward Movement Publications, 1992). EPF’s Pamphlet “Bishop Paul Jones.” (order from epfsaraf@ameritech.net
Morgan Lawrence In 1932, became the only African American student at Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences. Challenging the double discrimination of racism and sexism that she faced as she launched her career in medicine, Dr. Lawrence has gone on to have a distinguished career of breakthroughs and successes. She was the first practicing child psychiatrist in Rockland County and co-founded the Rockland County Center for Mental Health in New York, and in 1975, she was named the first recipient of the county’s J. R. Bernstein Mental Health Award.
Margaret Morgan Lawrence was born in New York City in 1914. She grew up in Mississippi, and returned to New York to attend high school. As a child, she knew that her parents, an Episcopal priest and an elementary school teacher, were devastated when her only brother died two years before she was born. She grew up hoping that if she were a doctor she could save children like him.
Margaret Lawrence was denied admission to Cornell Medical School although she had just graduated from Cornell College with outstanding grades. The dean explained that twenty-five years earlier they had admitted a black student, but that the student had died from tuberculosis before graduating. When she later applied for an internship at Babies Hospital, she was rejected because the doctor’s residence was for men only and the nursing residence refused to give her accommodation because of her race.
Lawrence was only the third black woman to attend Columbia University of Physicians and Surgeons and the sole black graduate in a class of 104 in 1940. She was encouraged by the only black member of the Columbia faculty, Dr. Charles Drew, who said that if she did her best work, race wouldn’t matter. So when her application was rejected at Babies Hospital, she pursued a pediatric internship at Harlem Hospital. Spiritual support and role models also came from prominent professional women in the Harlem community.
While earning her master of public health degree at Columbia University in 1943, under the tutelage of Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Lawrence became aware of the connections among physical, social, and psychological health. Later in her career she built on Dr. Spock’s integrated vision of the child, family, community, and society, and explored the connections between physical illness and community health.
During World War II, she taught pediatrics and public health at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. Already using ‘homespun child psychiatry,’ Dr. Lawrence decided to pursue formal training in psychiatry. In 1948 she became the first African American resident ever admitted to New York Psychiatric Institute, thanks to the intercession of Dr. Viola Bernard, professor emeritus in psychiatry at Columbia. Lawrence enrolled at Columbia University’s Columbia Psychoanalytic Center, as its first black trainee, and obtained her certification in psychoanalysis.
Dr. Lawrence devoted herself to the child mental health, with accomplishments that included developing some of the first child therapy programs in schools, day care centers, and hospital clinics. For twenty-one years, she served as chief of the Developmental Psychiatry Service for Infants and Children (and their families) at Harlem Hospital, and as an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She retired from both positions in 1984.
In an article in the Journal of Religion and Health published in 2001, she wrote “Love is universal, generational, and exists only in relationship.” This seems an appropriate summary of Dr. Lawrence’s approach: a relationship of love to and from her community, her family, her profession, and her church. She describes her work with children and families as integrating psychoanalytic wisdom with spirituality.
Dr. Lawrence’s commitment to community, justice, and peace are clear in the long list of her affiliations and deeds. She has lived in a cooperative community in Rockland County, New York, since 1951. She co-founded the Rockland County Center for Mental Health in 1953 (now part of the Yeager Center). Its child development center, renamed the Margaret Morgan Lawrence Children’s Center in 1998, provides early diagnosis and treatment for children under age six who are experiencing emotional trauma.
Since 1943, Dr. Lawrence has been a member of the Peace Fellowship of the Episcopal Church. In 1998 she received an honorary doctorate of humane letters (L.H.D.) from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University. Margaret Morgan and her late husband Charles Lawrence II, raised a son and two daughters, and in 1998, her daughter Dr. Sara Lawrence Lightfoot celebrated her mother’s remarkable career in a biography: Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer.
