Love affirms dignity, value of life, ethicist says
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert The Revs. Tamara E. Lewis and Kyung Son Hong sing during the opening session of the 2006 Women of Color Consultation.
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The
Revs. Tamara E. Lewis and Kyung Son Hong sing during the opening
session of the 2006 Women of Color Consultation, held Aug. 11-13 in
Chicago. The event was sponsored by the United Methodist Board of Higher
Education and Ministry's Office of Loans and Scholarships. Lewis has
been accepted into the Vanderbilt University doctoral program in church
history. Hong is in her second year of doctoral studies at Drew
University's Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. A UMNS photo by Kathy
L. Gilbert. Photo # 06880. Accompanies UMNS story #482. 8/15/06
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Aug. 15, 2006
By Linda Green*
CHICAGO (UMNS) — A United Methodist ethicist and a bishop emphasized the
transforming power of love in relationships and society in remarks at the denomination’s
Women of Color Consultation.
In the United States, the word “love” is
thought of in terms of an intimate or private relationship, not as involving
the
social, political
or corporate aspects of life, noted the Rev. Rosetta Ross, an ethicist and
chairperson of the department of religion and philosophy at Spelman College,
Atlanta.
Bringing both our public and private selves in harmony with each other would
greatly impact social life, she said.
“Love is action that affirms the dignity and value of life,” she
said. It involves accepting people for who they are, with all of their baggage.
Ross’ keynote speech Aug. 11 was followed by remarks from Bishop Beverly
Shamana, who leads the United Methodist Church’s San Francisco Area.
The bishop urged the women to use the power of love to build “pathways
of peace” in the world.
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert The Rev. Rosetta Ross gives the opening keynote address.
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The
Rev. Rosetta Ross, chairperson of the Department of Religion and
Philosophy at Spelman College in Atlanta, gives the keynote address at
the opening session of the 2006 Women of Color Consultation. The event,
held Aug. 11-13 in Chicago, was sponsored by the United Methodist Board
of Higher Education and Ministry's Office of Loans and Scholarships.
Ross' address was on "Blazing Trails and Transcending Boundaries Through
Love: Women of Color and the 'Religious' Work We Do." A UMNS photo by
Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06881. Accompanies UMNS story #482. 8/15/06
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The consultation drew more than 150 participants
together Aug. 11-13 to pay tribute to those women who have transcended boundaries
to obtain doctoral degrees
through the denomination’s Women of Color Scholars Program.
The program was created in 1988 by the United
Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry to address concerns about
the lack
of women of color faculty in
the denomination’s seminaries. The consultation and celebration highlighted
challenges, theological perspectives, and the academic work of the program’s
40 graduate scholars, mentors and current participants.
The Women of Color Scholars Program provides up
to $10,000 a year in scholarship funds to women of color who are Ph.D. or
Th.D. students.
Recipients meet twice
a year with mentors — women of color who are working in theological education.
Ross is one such mentor — and a graduate of the program. In her speech,
she emphasized “religious work” and how love means attending to
one’s “immediate needs and devising an interim plan after immediate
needs are met.”
She drew on Toni Morrison’s recent novel,
Love, about the relationship between a 14-year-old boy, Romen, and an 18-year-old
woman
named June Viviane.
Romen is living with his grandparents, Vida and Sandler Gibbons, and June is
on her own. The novel reflects how the two take different paths in life when
one is wanted and the other is not. The grandparents pay attention to Romen
and his needs and counsel him as he grows from boy to man. Romen is loved,
while June has been left to survive on her own.
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert Bishop Beverly Shamana responds to a keynote address given by the Rev. Rosetta Ross.
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Bishop
Beverly Shamana, who leads the United Methodist Church's San Francisco
Area, responds to a keynote address by the Rev. Rosetta Ross during the
opening session of the 2006 Women of Color Consultation. Held Aug. 11-13
in Chicago, the gathering was sponsored by the United Methodist Board
of Higher Education and Ministry's Office of Loans and Scholarships. A
UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06882. Accompanies UMNS story
#482. 8/15/06 |
Through the novel, Ross examined the practices and meaning of love in intimate
relationships.
She also used the story of the Good Samaritan
to discuss the relationship between the public and private practice of love.
In Luke
10, Jesus explains
what it means to love one’s neighbor. Love is not what is defined as
a sentiment, feeling or attraction, but involves having a social or moral fortitude
to help someone in need, Ross said. The story, she said, is about love being
the engagement of emotion, reason and will. It is a religious duty to show
love to fellow human beings, she said.
Love also includes being faithfully attentive to that which is loved in order
to be able to respond to whatever forces are affecting the beloved, she said.
Sometimes the necessity to act on behalf of someone or something is less than
thrilling, she added. Being faithfully attentive is having the resolve to act,
regardless of whether acting involves doing unpopular, uncomfortable, inconvenient
and sometimes frightening tasks to help those that we love.
“We are behaving courageously when we have the resolve to take the action
and create the context needed for overcoming the challenges we face in seeking
to be faithful to what we love and are committed to,” she said. That
includes providing for a need to ensure the beloved’s wholeness and well-being.
Ross told United Methodist News Service that love has a ripple affect and
makes it possible for people to love others.
In her message, she said love is the most important aspect of Christian teaching.
“Love is acting or behaving in ways that affirm life.” She underscored
acting because if one has not acted, one has not loved, she said. “Acting
is expressed in our faithfulness to whatever we love in our behaviors.”
Peaceful pathways
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A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert The Rev. Yoo-Yun Cho-Chang looks at a book during a reception and book signing.
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The
Rev. Yoo-Yun Cho-Chang, in the doctoral program at Boston University,
looks at books during a reception and book signing held after the
opening session of the 2006 Women of Color Consultation. The Aug. 11-13
gathering, held in Chicago, was sponsored by the United Methodist Board
of Higher Education and Ministry's Office of Loans and Scholarships.
Published books by graduate scholars and mentors of the Women of Color
Scholars Program were available after the opening session. A UMNS photo
by Kathy L. Gilbert. Photo # 06883. Accompanies UMNS story #482. 8/15/06
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Using the image of shoes to respond to Ross’ message
about love and how it should be used to help others, Bishop Beverly Shamana
said women of
color are called to be trailblazers. She urged them to put on whatever shoes
are necessary to assist them in preparing pathways of peace.
Citing Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the bishop urged the women “to
pay attention to our feet because we are going to be called to walk in places
where we never thought we would walk before.” Those places, she said,
might not “smell too sweet,” but she encouraged the women to be
alert, spiritually discerning and ready to act in preparing those peaceful
pathways.
She told the women of color that they may not be where they are today if someone
had not paid attention to them, supported them, counseled them and enabled
them to take their places in the realm that God made for them.
Women of color need to be alert to the sexism
and racism still prevalent in the church and in society today. Shamana said
that alertness
provides tools
and strategies to name it, disarm it and delete it so that “public and
private power is unmasked,” to make a difference and change the landscape
for women of color.
Agape love
She said Jesus provided the perfect example of
advocacy when he described the man who paid the workers who came at noon
the same
wages as those who were
there earlier. “Jesus shows us what it means to tip the scales in order
to include the latter workers with the same rights as those who came earlier.”
United Methodist seminaries, she said, should
take a page from the teaching of Jesus’ advocacy in bringing in women of color into greater numbers, “to
make right what has been left out in the past” and bring women of color
along as scholars into the academy and the church.
As the commandment urges the love of neighbor as oneself, Shamana said agape
love requires holding people responsible and accountable for their racism and
sexism and to expect real justice, resolution and healing for those who have
been harmed.
“Agape affirms dignity and builds respect for others,” she said. “It
values all of us, and it sees the earth crammed with heaven.”
*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville,
Tenn.
News media contact: Linda Green, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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