University City Church in Chicago is not a "go with the flow" kind of congregation. Consider their mission statement:
University Church is a Christian community which affirms the transformative power of God's love, calling us individually and collectively to act for justice and to respect creation. We value the life and teachings of Jesus and we believe that God continues to be revealed in the world.
We are a people committed to nurturing each other in our spiritual journey through worship, Biblical study, artistic expression, and Christian education. We celebrate our rich racial and cultural diversity and are committed to weaving a common life together.
Although we live in a broken world, we seek to build bridges across the barriers that divide. We join with others who work for reconciliation and transformation locally and globally.
Mission statements like this seek to inform visitor and member alike that the congregation takes seriously the idea that Christians should be out in the world building up the Kingdom.
Doing just that type of work The Rev. Don Coleman was arrested outside Ft. Benning in Georgia. United Church News reports on what brought Rev. Coleman and others from University City Church to this far off place:
The School of the Americas (on the Ft. Benning campus) has been linked to the training of many Latin American military leaders and has been implicated in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including many religious leaders. UCC members from across the country have journeyed to Columbus, Ga., to participate in the School of the Americas Watch protest.
Coleman and the other Christians with him wanted to close down the school. All they did do was step "onto the military base property and were immediately arrested for trespassing."
This week his sentence was handed down. Again, from UCC News:
The Rev. Don Coleman, a UCC minister in Chicago, was sentenced to 60 days in federal prison on Jan. 29 for trespassing at Fort Benning, Ga., during the annual protest of a military training school there.
Coleman, 69 -- who is a co-pastor at Chicago's University Church (UCC/Disciples) in Hyde Park along with his wife, the Rev. Ann-Marie Coleman -- was one of 16 persons arrested on November 19 outside the School of the Americas, also known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Gathered outside Ft. Benning's main entrance, Coleman and others stepped onto the military base property and were immediately arrested for trespassing....
I hope that in all our congregations that his name, his family's names, and his church are remembered in our prayers. Pray that they remain strong. Pray for others to come forward who will join this cause for peace. Pray to God to guide those of us so far off to find ways to support the Coleman family in their ministry.
Finally, Rev. Coleman's wife gave permission for me to reprint the statement made by Rev. Coleman before the judge made a final decision.
Your honor and friends:
My name is Don Coleman. I am co-pastor, with my wife Ann Marie, of University Church in Chicago.
I come to this court room with support and encouragement from members and friends of University Church.
University Church has been involved in matters of Central America for 25 years. Members have traveled to Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia. We have spent hours in study groups learning about Central America. Members of the congregation were active in the creation of the Sanctuary Movement in Chicago in the early eighties.
We have been blest by Virgilio Vicente, Isabel Canu, and their family of four children, who became active at University Church when they came to Chicago in 1986 through the Sanctuary Movement. Virgilio is from Saq Ja, one of four hundred villages destroyed by the Guatemalan military. Saq Ja was razed to the ground; plants were uprooted and burned, animals killed, people slaughtered, and a few escaped into the jungle, Guatemala City, or with help from the Sanctuary Movement came to the United States.
Virgilio and Isabel have become American citizens. But they are caught in the contradiction of citizenship and knowing that it was they United State's military (namely, School of the Americas) that trained the military leaders in Guatemala responsible for the destruction of their village and the slaying of their family members.
University Church has sent people to these demonstrations at the gate of Ft. Benning since 2002. Last year (November 19, 2005) a delegation of 13 people attended the demonstration. Virgilio placed a cross against the fence blocking people from entering the base. I was moved to tears for on the cross were the names of his father and mother who had been killed in the destruction of the village of Sq Ja.
Those of us at University Church know that there are consequences to the training that takes place here. We know names and see faces of people brutally slaughtered by Guatemalan military personnel trained here. They keep the upper class in power, protect corporate interests, rob the poor of their land, and are responsible for killing or disappearing church leaders and labor organizers and teacher and community leaders.
I have pleaded "not guilty but have agreed to the stipulations of the government that I did cross through the fence on November 19, 2005. Let me plead guilty, your honor, to what I accept guilt for:
I plead guilty to respecting the law. I have been a law abiding citizen all my life and have never had any convictions for actions like this before. But the comparison of climbing through a fence with no damage to physical property or harm to another human being cannot be compared to the injustice and brutality that is the consequence of the training that takes place at this base. And I believe the focus on the petty misdemeanor that we are accused of makes this court complicit in the brutal acts of the Western Hemisphere Institute of Internal Security / School of the Americas.
I plead guilty of thinking long and hard about my decision to participate in this action. I could find no other way of putting WHINSEC/ SOA on trial for the crimes committed because of their training than this action. I consider what the sixteen of us have done as a way of holding the military in this country accountable for the injustice created by their actions. This act of civil disobedience on my part is really an act of holy obedience to the God who called me to respond.
I plead guilty to this action as a way of closing the WHINSEC / SOA. My act is the act of one person but it supported by members and friends of University Church and people from around the country. There will continue to be people from University Church joining with the thousands committed to closing this institution. And we are confident that in God's long arc of justice its will be closed. So let justice roll down like an ever flowing stream.
- The Rev. Don Coleman
