Posted on March 24, 2018 by davidbreeden7@gmail.com
Dear UU Humanist Association members and friends:
General Assembly will be Wednesday, June 20 through Sunday, June 24 this year in Kansas City, Missouri. The 2018 theme is “All Are Called,” and we UU Humanists are taking that theme seriously. Our session is titled “Black Humanism in the Unitarian Universalist Context and Beyond.” We have teamed up with the UU History and Heritage Society to present this program.
Rev. Dr. Nicole Kirk, Professor of Unitarian Universalist History at Meadville, will present some of her research on Lewis McGee, a 1940s-era Unitarian humanist minister in South Chicago. Rev. Patrice Curtis, minister at Unitarian Universalists of Clearwater, will discuss her path as a humanist and African American woman in UUism. Rev. Karen Hutt, minister and Clinical and Pastoral Education advisor, will discuss how Rev. Dr. William R. Jones’s Is God a White Racist has informed her ministry and her life.
Our keynote speaker will be Mandisa L. Thomas, founder of Black Freethinkers. Mandisa has a powerful story to tell about how Humanism frees minds and changes lives in the African American community. Hers is a story of how the Humanism born in the Unitarian and Universalist traditions has radiated far outside the walls of traditional Unitarian Universalism.
If you don’t know about Mandisa’s work, do yourself a favor and watch this:
Also at GA, we will hold our Annual Meeting. Who will receive our Religious Humanist of the Year award? Be there!
I hope you’ve read the new volume of Religious Humanism. Included there you will find reflections on William R. Jones and a summary of a celebration of the founder of Humanism in the Unitarian tradition, John H. Dietrich. That celebration featured Dr. Anthony Pinn. http://huumanists.org/publications/journal
As always, UU Humanists will be a huge presence at General Assembly, and don’t miss our table in the exhibit hall. GA registration information is here:
You know, the UU Humanist Association is the largest affiliate group of the UUA. There’s a good reason for that: “humanism” with a capital H and with a little h is the heart and soul of Unitarian Universalism. We bear the torch of the central theme of our tradition: the use of reason in things religious.
The use of reason in things religious.
Still, today, that is a radical idea. And your UU Humanist Association will continue the tradition of radicalism.
In solidarity,
Rev. Dr. David Breeden
President, UU Humanist Association
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About davidbreeden7@g...
Rev. Dr. David Breeden is the social media manager of the UU Humanist Association, serves as Chair of the Education Committee of the American Humanist Association, and is Senior Minister at First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis. David has a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, with additional study in writing and Buddhism at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He also has a Master of Divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School. He blogs at https://medium.com/@davidbreeden7. He tweets at @dbreeden.