Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie

Guest Preaching

I’m sometimes asked if I’m available to guest preach. The answer is yes (though generally not during the summer months). If you are interested in having me speak at your church or conference, please email [email protected]. If this would be outside of the Portland-area, which I’m happy to do, all expenses need to be covered. I do not accept payment for guest preaching, but do ask that an honorarium be given to the Pacific University Center for Peace and Spirituality. For more information on my work, please visit www.chuckcurrie.com.

#LetOurPeopleGo Action In Portland This Thursday

August 27, 2018

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In keeping with the best spirit of the church universal, I will join with clergy from Oregon's interfaith community in risking arrest this Thursday (August 30^th) at a protest in front of Portland's ICE office as part of the “Let Our People Go”  campaign. Please consider joining in support of this action that will occur from 10am - 12pm at Caruthers Park (3508 SW Moody Ave, Portland, Oregon 97239). Learn more at: https://goo.gl/9568Rm. Feel free to share this invitation.

Clergy have been calling on the federal government to reunite all immigrant families separated by the Trump Administration this summer. We have also demanded an end to immigrant detention. For many years, I have joined with the National Council of Churches and interfaith partners in supporting bi-partisan comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. We need just policies - similar to those advanced by George W. Bush and Barack Obama - and not punitive measures that hurt children and refugees fleeing economic chaos and political violence.

As you know, I serve as the university chaplain and director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality at Pacific University, but my participation in this action is undertaken out of my own understanding of what it means to be a faithful Christian and minister in the United Church of Christ in this particular moment of history.

I invite your prayers and participation as we prepare for this action on Thursday. Please also consider signing this action alert from the United Church of Christ (you can change the language to reflect your own faith tradition or ethical viewpoint) calling on our government "to protect family unity and stop systematic family separation, help those seeking asylum find safety, and seek to answer the call to love all of our neighbors" at http://p2a.co/swIaktJ.

People of good faith can come to different conclusions on difficult issues. I respect those who might disagree with my actions.  My obligation as a minister, however, demands that I confront injustice and bring light to dark places. This is, frankly, the call of all those who are baptized. Non-violent protest has been part of the Christian tradition since Jesus first modeled such behavior in his ministry.

I will be keeping people updated as possible on Thursday via Twitter and Facebook.

In Peace,

Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie

Faith Leaders Respond To Oregon Shooting #UCCShooting

#UCCShooting

Joint Statement on Umpqua Tragedy from Oregon Faith Leaders Jan Elfers (Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon) and Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie (Pacific University Center for Peace & Spirituality)

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and the Pacific University Center for Peace and Spirituality join Oregonians and Americans in grief and shock over the mass shooting today at Umqua Community College (UCC). We are in contact with colleagues in ministry in the Roseburg area to see what assistance is needed.

“All of our faith traditions abhor violence, and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon has joined the National Council of Churches in calling for action to prevent gun violence,” said Jan Elfers, interim executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.“Our prayers go out to all those who lives have been impacted by this terrible tragedy; to the victim’s families and friends, and to the entire Roseburg community. We are grateful to those who responded to the emergency and undoubtedly prevented the loss of even more lives.”

A Resolution and Call to Action by the National Council of Churches of Christ, U.S.A.
http://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/comm…/…/gun-violence.php

“Mass shootings like this happen too often and Oregon has not been immune,” said Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie, director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain at Pacific University. “Today we offer our prayers for those killed and injured. We also lift up the families of those impacted. Still, we must also work to take steps that reduce gun violence this day so that there are no more days like this.”

Dr. Currie is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon is a statewide association of Christian denominations, congregations, ecumenical organizations and interfaith partners working together to improve the lives of Oregonians through community ministry programs, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, environmental ministry and public policy advocacy.

Pacific University’s Center for Peace and Spirituality provides students with the opportunity to engage in meaningful study, reflection and action based on the recognition that inter- and intra-personal peace are inherently connected and that concerns for personal spirituality are intimately related to concerns for one's social, historical, cultural and natural environment.

Founded in 1849, Pacific University offers more than 84 areas of study within its colleges of Arts & Sciences, Optometry, Education, Health Professions and Business.

Views and opinions expressed by Ms. Elfers and Rev. Dr. Currie do not necessarily reflect the position of Pacific University.


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#PopeInUS The Unity and Disunity of the Church Universal: A Sermon On John 17:20-21

The Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie, director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain at Pacific University, has been invited to attend the arrival ceremony for Pope Francis at the White House on Wednesday, September 23.

Pope Francis, making his first trip to the United States since becoming the world leader of the Catholic Church, will address the the US Congress before visiting Philadelphia and New York City.

Dr. Currie, a long-time advocate for social justice, was invited by the White House earlier this month to join President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in welcoming Pope Francis to the US.

“It is obviously a great honor to be able to attend this historic event,” said Dr. Currie, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. “I have enormous respect for Pope Francis, his welcoming inclusion of all, and his work to bring about peace, economic equality and support for the environment. It is a special gift to be able to represent Pacific University at this gathering."

Prior to the ceremony, Currie will present, "The Unity and Disunity of the Church Universal," on Sunday, September 20 at Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Portland (2941 NE Ainsworth). The service begins at 10 a.m., and his sermon will focus on Pope Francis' visit to the US and where people of faith from different traditions can find common ground.

Pacific University’s Center for Peace and Spirituality provides students with the opportunity to engage in meaningful study, reflection and action based on the recognition that inter- and intra-personal peace are inherently connected and that concerns for personal spirituality are intimately related to concerns for one's social, historical, cultural and natural environment.

Founded in 1849, Pacific University offers more than 84 areas of study within its colleges of Arts & Sciences, Optometry, Education, Health Professions and Business.

“Do The Nations Belong To Caesar or God?” - A Podcast Sermon Based Mark 12:13-17

A real treat for me this month was preaching on Sunday at Ainsworth United Church of Christ, my home congregation here in Portland.  A four-way covenantal agreement between myself, the church, the Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ and Pacific University allows my work at the university to be possible.  

"Ainsworth is a multi-cultural, multi-racial, open & affirming, Just Peace and accessible church. We celebrate that God is still speaking in our world today and that God’s extravagant welcome and love is for everyone. We hope that your journey of faith will lead you to us and that you experience God’s love through us."  Those words have meaning.

It seemed appropriate the Sunday following the 4th of July - on a blistering hot Sunday - to consider the role of church and state. Conservative voices often say it is the role of the church to address social ills but churches like Ainsworth UCC, that help address the AIDS crisis, cannot do it alone.  What does Jesus teach us?

Mark 12:13-17 was our focus text for the service.  You can download a podcast of the sermon here:

“Do The Nations Belong To Caesar or God?”

(some browsers - like Firefox or Google Chrome - will allow you to simply click on the link and listen...otherwise click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose “Save Target As” and save to your desktop or other folder – once downloaded click on the file to listen). 

My oped in The Portland Mercury: How All Christians Can Be More Christ-like About #MarriageEquality

My oped in The @PortlandMercury: How All Christians Can Be More Christ-like About #MarriageEquality http://t.co/1W7OvpubDp #PrideMonth

— Rev.Dr. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) June 10, 2015

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions: A Movement The United Church Of Christ Should Reject #GS2015

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions: A Movement The @UnitedChurch Of Christ Should Reject #GS2015 http://t.co/gmMzJ2SphQ #BDS #bdsmovement

— Rev.Dr. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) June 5, 2015

#VaccinesWork: Open Letter to Parents & Families From Faith Leaders

#VaccinesWork: Open Letter to Parents & Families From Faith Leaders | By @RevChuckCurrie & @Sbthistle http://t.co/DK5sx89qhK

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) February 6, 2015

Unfulfilled Dreams: A Sermon Remembering The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This morning people gathered in the chapel of Old College Hall on the campus of Pacific University for an Interfaith Service to remember to life and legacy of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We also gathered to consider the "UnFulfilled Dreams" of King's movement for social justice and how we from our various faith traditions and different backgrounds might continue to further the work of building up the Beloved Community.  View some of the photos from the service on Facebook.

You can download a podcast of the sermon here:

Download Rev. Chuck Currie - Unfulfilled Dreams

(some browsers - like Firefox or Google Chrome - will allow you to simply click on the link and listen...otherwise click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose “Save Target As” and save to your desktop or other folder – once downloaded click on the file to listen).

The Pacific University Center of Peace and Spirituality plans to hold future interfaith gatherings - both to promote interfaith worship and to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding.

Rev. Chuck Currie, Pacific University Chaplain

Brittany Maynard Made A Moral Choice

My latest op-ed in The Huffington Post:

Brittany Maynard made a moral choice http://t.co/A9jphW3YdE

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) November 3, 2014

Remarks at The Oregon League Of Minority Voters Dinner

Remarks delivered by Rev. Chuck Currie at the Oregon League of Minority Voters dinner on October 30, 2014.

It is with great appreciation that I join with you all this evening.

We are, as you all know, near to an election. There is always cause to celebrate the democratic process. We live in a nation where the people decide on those who will occupy elective office.

For all the gifts of our democracy, however, we are a nation not fully free. A broken system allowed the loser of the popular vote to take the presidency in 2001. Our political system has never fully recovered.

Since then we have given corporations the rights of people and taken away from certain people the right to freely vote. We are not fully free.

The United States keeps company with nations like Russia in incarcerating large numbers of our fellow citizens, and in America those jailings are disproportionally based on skin color and not on crime.

We are not fully free in Missouri or New York or California or Oregon when unarmed African-Americans are killed by uniformed police officers and we know the process of investigation will be neither fair nor balanced.

We are a little less free in Portland, Oregon this month after the Portland City Council decided to fight a judge’s oversight of reforms of the Portland Police Bureau that have been mandated by the federal government which would make us a little more free.

Ours is a disconnected reality. We live in an age where an African-American can be elected president of the United States. We live in an age where a Latino can serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. We live in an age where a lesbian woman can serve as the Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives. All of these people serve based on the content of their character.

These victories are a reality because of the work undertaken by many of you in this room here today.

But we are less free when our people are hungry. We are less free when our children are homeless. How can we make the claim that we are the “greatest nation on Earth" when 20,000 or more students will experience homelessness just in Oregon this year? Neither political party pays enough attention to poverty and economic inequity but the harshest judgment must rest with those who have fought investments in jobs, expansion in health care…and with those who have simply turned a blind eye to the people Jesus called the least of these.

The crisis of Ferguson is not an isolated incident but indicative of larger social ills that infect the whole body of our nation.

Only when we recognize the common humanity that we all share will we all be free. We cannot treat one another as if we can do without the other. We are too interconnected.

In his letter 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote about the church being the body of Christ. These are the words his used, as translated by Eugene Peterson:

For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

This is a good message for us as the election nears. We are not fully free because we do not treat the “other” as necessary, as integral, when there is no one, not a soul, that can be left behind. If we do not love neighbor as ourselves, we have no hope.

So I leave you with this prayer, one based on a prayer organically penned by Phillips Brooks, that we often share in the United Church of Christ:

Jesus said, "You ought always to pray and not to faint." Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger women and men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for power equal to your tasks. Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle - YOU will be the miracle, and every day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life that has come to you by the grace of God. Amen.

Rev. Chuck Currie with OLMV director Promise King and members of the Muslim Educational Trust

Is Peace Possible? A Sermon On Isaiah 2: 1-5 and Luke 6:20-26

This morning I had the pleasure of preaching at Portland's First Congregational United Church of Christ. Our Scriptures readings were Isaiah 2: 1-5 and Luke 6:20-26. My sermon - Is Peace Possible? - dealt with the complex realities of peace, justice and conflict.

Thinking about the pursuit of peace is enough to cause one to get a headache. This is true, in part, because defining peace is so complicated. Is it the absence of war? That is one understanding but the absence of war does not mean the conditions for war don't exist and that a new conflict is not just around the corner. We talk a lot in the United Church of Christ about creating “just peace.” This is the idea that for real peace to exist we must create conditions that make war impossible.

Still, peace is not just about war. Is there peace in Ferguson? Clearly, the answer is no. What about Portland? In this very church my colleague Patricia Ross and I conducted the memorial for James Chasse, a Portlander suffering from mental illness, who was beaten by the police so severely that officers left him with fractures in 16 of his ribs, a total of 26 broken bones, as well as a punctured lung. Still today, Mayor Charlie Hales is fighting federal oversight of police reform mandated by the U.S. Department of Justice after a series of people, mostly African-American, died at the hands of our police force. Is there peace in Portland?

Peace is absent as long as there is domestic violence and sexual assaults on college campuses. Peace is absent as long as there are federal and local policies that promote economic violence that leave our people homeless and hunger in a nation of abundance. Peace is absent so long as we pollute the air and seas and threaten God’s very creation. Peace is absent as long as there is gun violence and a lack of police accountability.

Is there a baseline understanding of Jesus’ teachings that, at the very least, mainline Christians might share, particularly in a world so broken by war and suffering from the lack of a just peace that threatens to destabilize all of creation? Walter Rauschenbusch offered a foundational argument regarding whether or not Jesus took sides in an analysis of Luke 6:20-26, one of our reading for this morning, in 1916’s The Social Principles of Jesus.

Listen to the audio of the full sermon here:

Download Is Peace Possible?

(some browsers - like Firefox or Google Chrome - will allow you to simply click on the link and listen...otherwise click with the RIGHT mouse button on the hyperlink and choose “Save Target As” and save to your desktop or other folder – once downloaded click on the file to listen).

United Church of Christ victorious in lawsuit as judge strikes down N.C. gay marriage ban

.@UnitedChurch of Christ victorious in lawsuit as judge strikes down N.C. gay marriage ban http://t.co/i50bQrIGOh

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) October 12, 2014

Nearly 200 Faith Leaders Condemn President’s Lifting of Civilian Protections in Syria Strikes

Reposted via Faith in Public Life

Washington, DC – Nearly 200 Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical faith leaders and professors issued a statement calling on the Obama administration to take stronger steps to protect civilians when carrying out airstrikes in Syria. Prominent signers include Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, professor and former President of the Chicago Theological Seminary, Sr. Simone Campbell of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, and Baptist ethicist Dr. John Shelley.

The administration recently announced that it had scaled back criteria for ensuring that civilians are not harmed in strikes aimed at ISIL.

“News that your administration has abandoned the stated policy of making every effort to protect civilian lives in the course of drone strikes undermines America’s moral authority,” they wrote. “As people of faith, we see this as a grave moral issue.  We urge you to put back in place your policy that no strikes will take place unless there is a ‘near certainty’ that civilians will not be harmed.”

“When you mirror your enemy, you risk becoming your enemy,” said Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, a United Church of Christ pastor and former President of the Chicago Theological Seminary. “The U.S. is now on that path and it is a profound moral mistake.”

“Our faith traditions argue that civilians must be protected in war,” said Rev. Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ pastor and Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain at Pacific University. “We are at our best as a nation when we live up to our highest ideals. It is our sacred responsibility to protect the most vulnerable. The president must order U.S. forces to resubmit to his original policy regarding the use of drones.”

The statement and full list of signers is available here. Titles are for identification purposes only.

I Will Vote "No" On Divestment

The Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ is meeting this weekend in Pendleton, Oregon. One of the resolutions under debate will offer the question as to whether or not the United Church of Christ should divest from certain companies in Israel. I will vote no.

We should all approach the Israel / Palestine conflict with a measure of humility. Without question, I recognize that this resolution is brought forward to push forward a human rights agenda. As J Street and other Jewish groups have noted, the current Israeli government has offered an agenda that will bring peace to no one. Israel must stop their settlement expansions, re-commit to a two-state solution, protect the human rights of the Palestinian people, and conform to international norms of human rights.

Human Rights Watch has noted that in the most recent conflict, as in others, Israel may have committed war crimes. The same charge has been brought by HRW against Hamas. The international community should investigate all such possible crimes.

Divestment of UCC resources will have no practical impact. It will not force Israel to the peace table. In fact, the opposite is true. Interfaith relations will be damaged. Dialogue, which is so needed right now in the interfaith world, will stop.

This issue has been debated within the national setting of the UCC for years. A resolution to consider divestment was set aside in favor of a resolution calling for further study on the issue. That step never really occurred and very few churches in the Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ can claim any direct knowledge of the complex issues involved with this issue – though some of our members have been to the region and have legitimate concerns about the suffering of the Palestinian people. I applaud bringing these concerns forward.

Regardless, I would urge the United Church of Christ to find just peace steps that continue to press for human rights while keeping the UCC involved and active in interfaith debates. Investing in businesses in Gaza, which our investment board has already done, is one good example. We should more actively send delegations from the UCC to Israel / Palestine to learn from those there and to press all sides to address human rights. At the same time, we must continue advocacy efforts that press the United States to put further pressure on Israel.

Symbolic actions can sometimes offer a powerful prophetic witness. In this case, voting “yes” may make us feel like good human rights advocates but the impact of this largely symbolic vote will only make interfaith peace making a more difficult task.

I'll Vote Yes On 91

Oregon voters will consider a ballot measure legalizing the sale and regulation of marijuana. Taxes from the sale of marijuana would be directed to fund public education, mental health and addiction services, and public safety. The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has made no pronouncement on this emerging public policy issue and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon has yet to release their fall ballot measure guide. As a minister in the United Church of Christ in Oregon, however, I will vote yes on the November measure and encourage other people of faith to consider doing likewise. My vote is predicated on a theological principle that public policy should reflect the common good. The illegalization of marijuana, a drug that is in some ways medically considered to be less harmful then alcohol, has tragically forced many people needlessly into the criminal justice system. It is worth noting that those charged with drug offenses are disproportionally people of color. African-Americans are four times more likely as whites to be arrested for marijuana use even though usage is the same, according to federal data. This has further institutionalized the sin of racism in our society. Like many young people, I smoked marijuana, but unlike youth of color there was little chance that I would have ever faced legal consequences for my actions. My “yes” vote is not without reservations. There is growing medical evidence that smoke from marijuana is dangerous. I am concerned that marijuana use is often idolized in public culture – the same is true for alcohol, however – and thus some seem to promote use among young people under 21. My hope is that with further public education and drug treatment funds that Oregon can do more to reduce unhealthy drug use among young people. Regardless of my concerns, this issue should be treated as a treatment issue and not a law enforcement issue. Obviously, people of good faith will come to different conclusions on this issue. I’ll vote Yes on 91 with the hope that the legalization and regulation of marijuana will reduce crime and violence now associated with the black market linked with the drug, will provide new funding for treatment, and will undermine the systemic racism that fuels our dysfunctional criminal justice system. All of this would benefit the common good of Oregon.

Disclaimer: Views expressed here represent the perspectives of Rev. Currie, as well as reader participants, and may not represent the official views of Pacific University, the United Church of Christ, or any local congregation.

Chuck Currie seeks to bring religious conversation, not conversion, to Pacific University

Chuck Currie seeks to bring religious conversation, not conversion, to @PacificU : http://t.co/py9UgHBsCl

— Forest Grove Leader (@FGLeader) August 19, 2014

Welcoming Faith To Pacific University

My latest op-ed: Welcoming faith to @PacificU campus http://t.co/GiisEH2Gmf via @oregonian via @FGLeader @UnitedChurch

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) August 8, 2014

My Last Day

Sunday will be my last day as the minister of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church. It has been an honor to serve these two Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church as part of a covenantal relationship with the United Church of Christ.

Please join us Sunday at University Park (9:30am worship with early 8:30am coffee reception) and Sunnyside Church (11am worship with reception to follow). All are weclome!  

Two years has not been enough time but they have been filled. I’ve been blessed to work with parishioners at both congregations that take the social Gospel teachings of Jesus seriously.

In that spirit, we have reached out to support those experiencing homelessness, joined anti-hunger efforts such as Bread for the World, raised funds for relief agencies like Church World Service, and worked for the equality of all God’s children.

We’ve expanded ministries through the use of social media – reaching people that never would have heard a progressive Christian message. Pastoral care has been provided. We’ve mourned the loss of some beloved members of our churches and watched children be born and grow.

Like many older congregations, we have been blessed with older buildings that can be both a community asset and a drain. Sometimes it has been difficult to focus on mission instead of building needs.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley kicks off Oregon's marriage equality campaign at Sunnyside Church

My ministry began with a lot of “issues” on the plates of both churches. We’ve thoughtfully and prayerfully worked through many of those issues only to uncover new ones. Faith is a journey, of course, and not a fixed destination. Still, working with new clergy - The Rev. Christopher Gudger-Raines at Sunnyside Church and The Rev. Julia Nielsen at University Park Church – answers to those new questions will help determine the future of both churches.

Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek visits University Park Church on MLK Sunday

As for me, I’m off to Pacific University. There I will serve as the Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain. Pacific is historically related to the United Church of Christ. The community is religiously pluralistic – with many diverse faith traditions represented among the students, staff and faculty (and I respect that many at Pacific don't have a faith tradition but share a commitment to civic engagement) – and I look forward to both teaching and learning at one of the Northwest’s most important centers of higher learning.

During the summer, before assumng my duties at Pacific, I'll have time for vacation and to work on the last leg of my Doctor of Ministry degree at Chicago Theological Seminary.  The summer will be busy.  Pacific has kindly allowed me to open my office before the fall starts so that I have a place to work on my D.Min. 

Members of Our Occupy The Bible Class

The people of University Park and Sunnyside will always remain in my prayers.  I invite your prayers as my new ministry begins.  

Rev. Chuck Currie

P.S. Visit Facebook to check out photos from the last two years but click on these photos for a sampling. 

Coming Out As A Person Of Faith

Portland Pride Parade

Christmas Eve in Portland

Sunnyside Church - University Park Church BBQ

Portland should put brakes on Transportation Use Fee / Tax

Don't put the Portland street fee burden on the poor, warns @RevChuckCurrie. Public hearing at 2 pm. http://t.co/yx8EykPVgs

— Aaron Mesh (@AaronMesh) May 29, 2014

Pacific University's Rev. Chuck Currie talks about emotional experience of performing same-sex wedding ceremonies

Pacific University's Rev. Chuck Currie talks about emotional experience of performing same-sex wedding ceremonies. http://t.co/J4uaH1IFuY

— The Oregonian (@Oregonian) May 21, 2014

Marriage Equality Comes To Oregon; Be Joyful

My latest: Marriage Equality Comes To Oregon; Be Joyful via @HuffPostRelig #GayMarriageOR #marriageequality #orpol http://t.co/dIHSWXrgec

— Rev. Chuck Currie (@RevChuckCurrie) May 19, 2014

People of faith back comprehensive immigration reform

My latest oped in The Forest Grove Leader, a publication of The Oregonian:

People of faith back comprehensive immigration reform

A Brief Word About Peace

Remarks delivered by Rev. Chuck Currie, incoming Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain at Pacific University, before the 2014 annual symposium of the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium, on April 26, 2014

This coming fall I’ll assume the duties of Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain here at Pacific University. As an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a community activist, I have long standing interests in peacemaking and how we build just communities that sustain peace.

In the mid-1980s, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ voted for our denomination to become a “Just Peace” church. This was seen as an alternative to the Christian model of “Just War” which sanctioned war under some conditions. Just Peace, on the other hand, tried to envision a world without war – a world where just systems of commerce and diplomacy would negate the need for war.

Theologically, Just Peace is predicated on the belief that…

A Just Peace is grounded in God's activity in creation. Creation shows the desire of God to sustain the world and not destroy. The creation anticipates what is to come: the history-long relationship between God and humanity and the coming vision of shalom.

and that…

Just Peace is grounded in covenant relationship. God creates and calls us into covenant, God's gift of friendship: "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezekiel 37:26). When God's abiding presence is embraced, human well-being results, or Shalom, which can be translated Just Peace.

The concept of a Just Peace was originally developed within the context of the Cold War and largely within the confines of Christian bodies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. With the end of the Cold War the Just Peace movement largely went dormant. In the last decade, however, new life within the movement has emerged and this time the movement has been reborn as an interfaith enterprise.

Ten organizing principles were developed to advance Just Peace, and have now been expanded to include Christian, Islamic and Jewish perspectives in Interfaith Just Peacemaking, with The Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite as editor:

1. Support nonviolent direct action.

2. Take independent initiatives to reduce threat.

3. Use cooperative conflict resolution.

4. Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness.

5. Advance democracy, human rights, and religious liberty.

6. Foster just and sustainable economic development.

7. Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system.

8. Strengthen the United Nations and international efforts for cooperation and human rights.

9. Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade.

10. Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations.

These principles, which Glen Stassen also first helped to develop, have the potential to help create a more just and peaceful world.

While many Christians are pacifists, with great justification, other Christians have found room within these principles to advocate a responsibility to protect in the event of genocide or other crimes against humanity. I myself advocated limited military intervention in Libya to stop Col. Muammar Gaddafi and his forces from carrying out their clear intent to inflict massive civilian casualties in a vain and hopeless attempt to maintain their grip on power.

My default position is always non-violence. My own belief is that even with the best of intentions that use of violence always falls somewhere in the category of sin.

As much as I am concerned about the larger world, I am also concerned about what happens here at home. From gun violence to domestic violence we live in a society that cries out for peacemakers.

The biggest obstacles to peace in our time include not just power hungry leaders intent on conquest but world citizens paralyzed into inaction when faced with the magnitude that is climate change and a sizeable part of the population that has abandoned reason and logic for absolutes that end dialogue and crumble the common good.

Is there hope in the midst of such difficulties?

As usual, I turn to William Sloane Coffin, the one-time chaplain of Yale University and later the long-time minister of New York City’s Riverside Church. Rev. Coffin told NPR:

"Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful."

Thank you for your time today.  

Footnote:  Moments following this presentation I learned of the death today of Glen Stassen. I give thanks to God for his life and offer my prayers for his family. 

The Fierce Urgency Of Easter

The Fierce Urgency Of Easter from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

The people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church gathered this morning for Easter in Portland.  This was my final joint service with the two congregations before I step down in June and begin my duties full time at Pacific University as the new Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain.  This morning was a joyful occasion with diverse people celebrating the life and ministry of Jesus.

Each Easter we are given the opportunity to decide whether or not we will walk in a world of darkness or embrace the light of God which offers a path toward salvation for all people, regardless of faith tradition. We must embrace our calling as people of faith with the same fierce sense of urgency (a phrase often used by Martin Luther King, Jr.) that Jesus embraced his. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is the “the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14),” as told in the Gospel of John. Unlike our early Christian brothers and sisters, however, we recognize that God speaks to all of creation and that there are different paths to truth and the divine. But all truth paths point the same direction Jesus did.

We have inherited, and sometimes help create, a world in peril. In sin, we have participated in cycles of living and commerce that have created a global climate crisis. Too many people each die in war and far too many die and suffer from hunger and poverty. God has called us to work towards the building up of the Kingdom – a place without war, poverty, or bigotry. This message was such a threat to the Roman Empire, which thrived on war and economic systems that benefited the few, that they put Jesus to death. It is a mistake to say that Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died to show us a new world was possible.

My prayer this Easter is that we embrace the way that Jesus showed us – and that we find new opportunities in concert with one another to see in Jesus’ death and resurrection those million fragments of light that Walter Wink talked about (and which I mention in the sermon video) and bring them to dark places, even sometimes our own hearts, so that Creation will know God’s light, love and peace forever more. 

Holy Week In Portland

Holy Week

Lent is a special season of reflection for people of the Christian faith. These days provide us with space to consider the teachings of Jesus in the spirit of renewal and rebirth. Please note these special services for Holy Week on your calendar:

Palm Sunday, April 13th | 9:30am at University Park Church | 11 am at Sunnyside Church

Good Friday, April 18th | 10am at Rev. Chuck Currie's house (this will be a simple service with Scripture reading)

Easter, April 20th | 10:30 am joint worship service with the people of University Park Church and Sunnyside Church in Sunnyside Church's historic sanctuary All are welcome.

#GetCovered: The Story of Erica Martinez

My latest on The Huffington Post:

"It is particularly important that young people get covered so that no accident or illness leaves them with medical bills and debt that rob them of the opportunity to further their education or one day own a home."

#GetCovered: The Story of Erica Martinez

Churches Still Ejecting Gays and Lesbians

Bigotry in churches is keeping young people from the pews.

Some are staying away because they don't want to participate in institutions that offer hate in place of God's love.  Others are literally being ejected from their churches because of their sexuality. 

Bobbie Pierce is an example. His congregation, Ambassador's Bible Chapel in Newberry Township, has removed him from membership and refused him communion because he's gay. Their leadership says this is an act of love meant to force Mr. Pierce to change his sinful ways but homosexuality is not a sin: bigotry is.

It is vital that progressive communities of faith continue to preach God's message of radical love for all to counter act those that preach hate. This debate has implications not just for who attends church but how gays and lesbians are treated in the public square. Anti-gay hate laws continue to be justified, in a form of theological malpractice, with Christian teachings.  We know better.  God calls us to be a just society filled with grace and not judgement.  Bobbie Pierce and others like him need to know he is welcome in God's house.

There Are No Strangers In God's House: A Homily on Matthew 25:31-46 by Rev. Chuck Currie from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

Arizona's SB1062 Is A Matter Of Sin

Arizona's SB1062, a law which would allow religious people to discriminate against LGBT people, is a legal decedent of Jim Crow. This is not about religious freedom but about bigotry. A generation ago people used the Christian faith to justify discrimination against African-Americans and interracial couples. That was a misuse of the faith and only possible because white supremacists superimposed their beliefs over those taught by Jesus. Using faith today to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians is just as twisted. This law is sin and the GOP legislators who voted for the law - no Democrat supported SB1062 - have made themselves the political heirs of George Wallace. Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) can still veto the bill but has voiced her personal belief that businesses and individuals should have the freedom to discriminate against anyone they wish. I applaud faith leaders in Arizona, like The Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer, conference minister of the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Christ, who have spoken out against this moral travesty. Love your neighbor, taught Jesus. Discrimination is not love nor is it a hallmark religious freedom. Reach out to friends and family in Arizona and tell them that as a person of faith you oppose discriminate and embrace God's love - a love that extends to God's gay and lesbian children.

- Rev. Chuck Currie


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Church Stops GOP Gun Raffle "Honoring" King, Lincoln

Earlier this week, news broke that the Multnomah County GOP would hold a gun raffle in honor of President Lincoln and The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As I wrote in The Huffington Post, with this a truly dishonorable act the GOP aligned themselves with voices of hatred and racism, and against all that Lincoln and King stood for. I am glad to report that Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral has cancelled the event.

When I learned the event would be held at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral my assumption was that the leadership there new nothing about the event or the controversy. Churches often rent out space to community organizations. Sometimes those organizations do not fully disclose their intentions. So I reached out and asked that the cathedral consider cancelling the event and that by doing so they could send a powerful message that the planned raffle was inappropriate and immoral. My understanding is many others reached out to the Cathedral’s leadership.

The Greek Orthodox Church, like the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church, is part of the National Council of Churches. Together we have worked to curb gun violence in our nation. Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral is an important community leader in Portland. We can all be thankful they see the world with deep moral clarity.

- Rev. Chuck Currie

The Oregonian: Portland church says it will no longer allow Republican fundraising dinner tied to gun raffle

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Answering The Call: A Homily For MLK Sunday On Isaiah 49:1-7

In churches and synagogues and mosques…in schools and our houses of government…in community centers and union halls…the people of our nation gather this weekend to honor once again the legacy of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Dr. King was not just a civil right leader (though that would have been enough).  He was a Christian minister who called us to build up the Kingdom of God in the best prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament. 

Leading a non-violent revolution of social change, his words shaped the history of our time.  The walls of white supremacy could not withstand the reading of the Gospel message when preached by Dr. King.  Jim Crow, so powerful and full of pride, crumbled when confronted with the weapon of love unleashed by Dr. King and all those who participated in the civil rights movement. 

Our reading this morning from the Book if Isaiah centers on the concept of the call to ministry within our tradition. 

All of us are called to ministry.  In our tradition we believe in the priesthood of all believers.  This does not mean, however, that we are all called to the same tasks.  

Dr. King was called to prophetic ministry – preaching the word of God to a world that didn’t often want to hear it, envisioning the way the world could be instead of the way it was, and organizing others to do the same.  

In 1959, Dr. King wrote: 

My call to the ministry was neither dramatic nor spectacular. It came neither by some miraculous vision nor by some blinding light expenence on the road of life. Moreover, it did not come as a sudden realization. Rather, it was a response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me. This urge expressed itself in a desire to serve God and humanity, and the feeling that my talent and my commitment could best be expressed through the ministry… Dunng my senior year in college I finally decided to accept the challenge to enter the ministry. I came to see that God had placed a responsibility upon my shoulders and the more I tried to escape it the more frustrated I would become.[1]

Those who are called to prophetic ministry often run from the task.  Moses did.  He argued with God.  I think you have the wrong person, he said.  There must be someone better.  Jesus himself was burdened deeply by his calling.  Like King, he knew his path would end in death.  At times he became frustrated and other times required solitude for reflection. 

Even if we are not called to be a Moses or a King we are still called to be followers of Jesus.  That means we inherit the mission of Jesus, a mission he announced when he began his ministry in the Gospel of Luke:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

   because he has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

These words spoken by Jesus come directly from the Book of Isaiah.  In speaking them, Jesus was linking his ministry with the ministry of the Hebrew prophets. 

Dr. King drew from those same Scriptures as his lead the Civil Rights Movement.  He preached in a sermon called “A Christian Movement in A Revolutionary Age” that:

When Moses walked into the courts of Pharaoh and thundered forth with the cry “Let my people go,” he introduced into history the concept of a God who was concerned about the freedom and dignity of all his children and who was willing to turn heaven and earth that freedom might be a reality.  Throughout the history of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament, we see God active in the affairs of men, struggling relentlessly against the forces of evil that beset them and seeking to mold a people who will serve as his children, as partners in the building of His kingdom here on earth.

The God of our fathers is a God of revolution.  He will not be content with anything less than perfection in His children and in their society.[2]  

We still need that sense of revolution today.  Some use that term and think of violence but we are called to non-violence.  We need to be revolutionaries to make sure that everyone is free.  We know this is not the case.  The very voting rights that Dr. King fought for are under attack.  Gun violence and domestic violence and political violence threaten too many the world over.  People are enslaved by poverty the world over.  Climate change threatens existence.   We are not living in the Kingdom of God.

We need a new generation of freedom riders.  This time, however, there is no need to travel anywhere.  We don’t need to go down South.  There are plenty opportunities for work in our local communities.  We can and should continue to do this work in our churches.  At the same time, all of us should examine how we are living our lives.  Do our lives in this moment of history serve God fully?  If not, what changes can we make in what we do and how we act to better live out our Christian faith? 

Let me end with words from Dr. King:

"More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."

Amen. 

© The Rev. Charles S. Currie, Jr., M.Div. 

---

[1] http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol6/7Aug1959MyCalltotheMinistry.pdf

[2] http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/christian-movement-revolutionary-age#

Merry Christmas To All!

Christmas Eve at Sunnyside Church with the people of University Park Church

Christmas Eve in Portland 2013

This Christmas Eve in Portland join the people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church for a special joint 7 pm candlelight service in Sunnyside Church’s historic Southeast Portland sanctuary located at 3520 SE Yamhill Street. The public is welcome at this family friendly service (children are encouraged to stay during the service but nursery care will be available).

Visit the Facebook page for Christmas Eve in Portland (and invite your family and friends!)

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church are progressive and Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church. Preaching Christmas Eve will be The Rev. Chuck Currie, a minister in the United Church of Christ, who serves as the minister of both congregations in an ecumenical partnership.

University Park Church, located at 4775 N. Lombard, worships Sunday morning at 9:30 am. The congregation is known as a place of radical hospitality and has been a beacon of justice for the LGBTQ community.

Sunnyside Church, where worship is held each Sunday at 11 am, is the home of the Common Cup Family Shelter, and has long been involved in the fight to end homelessness. The congregation also hosts a community meal program, a middle school program called the YMCA's The Roost, and Camp Fire summer programs

“My contention has been and still is that even in the midst of war, deep global poverty and environmental chaos caused by humanity, the message of the Prince of Peace is as relevant today as it was over 2,000 years ago,” writes Rev. Currie. “What happened on the day Jesus was born? God broke through into the world again -- but this time not with the force of the Big Bang or some other cosmic event -- no, this time it was with something even more powerful: the miracle of the birth of a child filled with promise and hope. Both that miracle and the message that this child preached as an adult, born first homeless and poor, is what Christmas is about.”

Rev. Chuck Currie to Lead Center for Peace & Spirituality

The Rev. Chuck Currie will join Pacific University in Fall 2014 as director of the Center for Peace & Spirituality and university chaplain.

Full story.

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Time to Come Out as People of Faith for Marriage Equality

My latest today on The Huffington Post:

"Most Christians once opposed the fight for equality for gays and lesbians. Today many Christians and other people of faith are at the forefront of the fight to end discrimination against the gay and lesbian community -- even working to support marriage equality."

Time to Come Out as People of Faith for Marriage Equality

People of Faith: Fight Poverty By Supporting The Half In Ten Act

We've watched poverty grow ever since 2001.  Without President Obama's effort that growth would even be more stark.  But we need a plan to reduce poverty, not just slow the growth, and that is why the National Council of Churches and other people of faith, are supporting the Half in Ten Campaign.  Now is your turn.  Your member of Congress needs to hear that you want them to co-sponsor the Half in Ten Act of 2013.

Action Alert from the Half in Ten Campaign

On May 23, 2013, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) introduced the Half in Ten Act of 2013, calling for poverty reduction to be a national priority. This bill will help mobilize public and political will toward our shared goal of dramatically cutting poverty over the next decade and promoting shared economic growth that renews the American Dream. 

By creating a Federal Interagency Working Group, a coordinated effort across federal departments and offices charged with developing within six months a national strategy to cut poverty in half in 10 years and eliminate child poverty and extreme poverty in our nation, the bill promotes accountability for progress by helping identify problems and successful initiatives and ensures that those with the greatest barriers to joining the middle class are included in efforts to create greater opportunity for all.

Importantly, the bill recognizes that cutting poverty in half in 10 years will require steps to create good, family-supporting jobs as well as to strengthen our network of work and income supports to provide greater economic security to millions of families.

We must build support for this critical legislation and for the policies that will enable us to reach the Half in Ten target. Poverty must be a national priority, and the Half in Ten Act of 2013 is the first step. But this will only happen if we tell our elected representatives to support the bill.

Take action now and urge your member of Congress to support the Half in Ten Act of 2013!

From @ThePortlandTrib To @CNN: How The Media Ignored Progressive Faith Voices On #DOMA

The Portland Tribune asked yesterday: What’s the Rev Running for? Well, nothing.  Jim Redden put forth the question in this context:

The Rev. Chuck Currie must be glued to his computer. The liberal minister of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church is frequently the first to email a comment to the press about breaking social news. He did it again on Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Currie’s remarks supporting the court’s ruling were the first to reach Portland Tribune, arriving just 10 minutes after the breaking news alert from the Washington Post and more than 45 minutes before those from Gov. John Kitzhaber, who also supported the ruling.

It took more than another hour for Mayor Charlie Hales to email his support for the ruling, followed by praise from Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian 20 minutes later — slightly more than two hours after Currie’s email.

Like millions of Americans, I was glued to my computer yesterday morning – watching SCOTUS Blog, actually – to hear what decisions the court might make.

The United Church of Christ, the denomination in which I am ordained, became the first mainline Christian denomination to endorse marriage equality back in 2005, noting:

The message of the Gospel is the lens through which the whole of scripture is to be interpreted. Love and compassion, justice and peace are at the very core of the life and ministry of Jesus. It is a message that always bends toward inclusion. The biblical story recounts the ways in which inclusion and welcome to God's community is ever expanding -- from the story of Abraham and Sarah, to the inclusive ministry of Jesus, to the baptism of Cornelius, to the missionary journeys of Paul throughout the Greco- Roman world. The liberating work of the Spirit as witnessed in the activities of Jesus' ministry has been to address the situations and structures of exclusion, injustice and oppression that diminish God's people and keep them from realizing the full gift of human personhood in the context of human communion.

My two current churches, reconciling congregations in the United Methodist Church, are strong supporters of the LGBTQ community.

It is important for clergy to speak out on moral issues.  Otherwise, we leave a void filled by the religious right.  The Portland Tribune’s own coverage of the reaction to the SCOTUS decision on DOMA quotes no religious leaders supporting the decision.  Instead, they quoted the Oregon Family Council, a conservative body that claims to articulate Christian values while operating a political action committee that gives 100% of their money to GOP candidates.  My churches don’t get involved in partisan politics (though as an individual I have sometimes made personal endorsements in races). 

What we do is take an active role in advocating on social issues – from marriage equality, to immigration reform, to voting rights, to ending gun violence.  We do this from our deepest understandings of what it means to be faithful people in a democratic society.   

It is important to know that faith leaders across Oregon and the nation are speaking out in favor of marriage equality.  That story got missed yesterday by a lot of the media, including CNN.

DOMA Ruling One Christians Can Support

As a minister ordained to preach and teach the Gospel, I support the Supreme Court ruling today invalidating the Defense of Marriage Act. Homosexuality is not a sin. It is a sin to discriminate -- against gays, people of color, women, children, immigrants... It is a sin to exclude whereas Jesus welcomed. The Greatest Commandment is to love. Christians and other people of faith should welcome this decision even as we should work to undue the damage inflicted on the civil rights of Americans by the court’s decision yesterday to dismantle the heart of the Voting Rights Act. Truly, this Supreme Court has a very mixed record where civil rights are involved.

- Rev. Chuck Currie, Minister, Sunnyside Church and University Park Church, Portland, Ore.

100 Years Of Ministry At Parkrose Community @UnitedChurch Of Christ

Portland's Parkrose Community United Church of Christ celebrated 100 years of ministry yesterday. I was sorry to miss the celebration service for this faithful, progressive Christian community that I had the honor of serving for three years but I did send the following message to be shared during the worship service: 

"Back in 2006 – when I first arrived for what was originally planned as a short stint as your interim minister – the future of Parkrose Community United Church of Christ was uncertain. The people of this church, not unlike the brave crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, wouldn’t accept defeat, however. Instead you made difficult and bold decisions that have brought you into a new home, in partnership with another congregation, and in ministry with our city’s homeless community. Building up the Kingdom of God became more important to you than maintaining just one building. You answered God’s call to be open and affirming to all. For some of you, this work will be your legacy. And because of that this church will remain foundational for youth in this community for years to come. As a former pastor of Parkrose Community United Church of Christ, I continue to hold you in prayer (and to miss you) as I watch from a distance as this special community of faith continues to grow and respond to the still speaking God."

It would not surprise me if one day Parkrose Community United Church of Christ celebrated two hundred years of faithful ministry. The church is filled with wonderful lay leaders and the gifts of ministry brought forward by The Rev. Don Frueh.  

There Are No Strangers In God's House: A Homily On Matthew 25: 31-46

This morning the people of University Park Church and Sunnyside Church had a special joint worship service before members and friends took part in the Portland Pride Parade.

You can watch the video of my sermon homily on Matthew 25:31-46 here.  The text is below the fold.

There Are No Strangers In God's House: A Homily on Matthew 25:31-46 by Rev. Chuck Currie from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

A Pre-Portland Pride Parade Worship Service: There Are No Strangers In God's House

The people of University Park Church and Sunnyside Church invite you to “A Pre-Pride Parade Worship Service” - a special joint worship service of the two congregations, which will be held at University Park Church (4775 N. Lombard) on Sunday, June 16th at 9:30. 

View this service on Facebook. Invite family, neighbors and friends.

Directly after the service the members from the two churches will head downtown to join the Community of Welcoming Congregations in marching in the annual Portland Pride Parade. All are welcome. 

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church are progressive and Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church. Preaching that morning will be The Rev. Chuck Currie, a minister in the United Church of Christ, who serves as the minister of both congregations in an ecumenical partnership. Rev. Currie is a contributor to The Huffington Post whose ministry has focused on opportunity and hope for those living in poverty, and for the civil rights of all. 

University Park Church, located at 4775 N. Lombard, worships Sunday morning at 9:30 am. The congregation is known as a place of radical hospitality and has been a beacon of justice for the LGBTQ community.

Sunnyside Church, where worship is held each Sunday at 11 am (except June 16th- when there will be no service at Sunnyside) is the home of the Common Cup Family Shelter, and has long been involved in the fight to end homelessness. The congregation also hosts a community meal program, an affordable day care program, and Camp Fire’s summer program. Sunnyside is located at 3520 SE Yamhill. 

A Year Of Partnership And Mission

It has been nearly a year since my appointment to serve Sunnyside Church and University Park Church was made.  This week I updated the congregations on our progress.  You can support the work of progressive Christianity in Portland with a gift to support our ministries.

Dear Members and Friends of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church,

We’re just a month shy of the one-year anniversary of the appointment that brought a United Church of Christ minister to serve Sunnyside Church and University Park Church, two Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church.

Members of Sunnyside Church, University Park Church & Ainsworth Church read #OccupyTheBible.

At the Annual Conference of the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church – held this June in Boise – our two congregations will be presented for a special award for the ways we have lived out this new partnership.

Together we’ve held joint services for Christmas Eve, Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday, Ash Wednesday, and Easter. These services have drawn together far more people into our churches than either church could have ever done alone. Media attention has followed. At the same time, along with the people of Ainsworth United Church of Christ, we’ve held successful and well-attended adult education programs this past fall and spring using the books Remedial Christianity and #OccupyTheBible. We’ve used social media this past year aggressively to get out our message. We'll worship together again soon at University Park Church on June 16th at 9:30am, and then those who are able and interested will gather downtown with the Community of Welcoming Congregations to march in the annual Pride Parade. There will be no service that morning at Sunnyside. More information will follow.  

Now we are launching a new “partnership planning process” to more intentionally discover ways our two congregations can be in mission together for the benefit of the community as we preach a progressive Christian message of hope. We're also kicking off a Thursday morning Bible study for all interested members and friends for the summer months. 

During this past year we’ve also gathered for special social occasions – a summer BBQ and Christmas drop-in – not to mention potlucks at both churches. Pastoral care has been offered. Memorials have been held. We’ve had a baptism and welcomed new members at Sunnyside. University Park Church has done food drives for those suffering hunger and Sunnyside Church has teamed up with Bread for the World to ask Congress and the President to do more to fight hunger.

Members of both congregations became active this year in the effort to reduce gun violence and to promote marriage equality. 

In the midst of all this, we’ve wrestled with a challenge about how best to assist people experiencing homelessness around University Park Church (and fought off fines imposed by the city for allowing people to sleep on our campus). At Sunnyside Church, we dealt with staffing and building issues. The leadership of the congregation made the difficult decision not to renew to building user agreement for the Sunnyside Swap Shop, a much loved program, and the future of The Roost, the after-school program housed at Sunnyside, is in question after Camp Fire decided they could no longer be the sponsor (they’ll still be operating the hugely successful summer program at Sunnyside). All of this impacts us in many ways, including financially. We still have a lot of work to do. 

This note just touches on the many ways our two congregations have been in partnership and mission. As we prepare to move into a second year of ministry together there will be hard choices to confront about what it means to be church in our time. Hard doesn’t need to equate with bad, however. We need to be thinking in terms of what legacy we what these two churches to leave – what legacy we want to leave – for the next generation…and about resurrection, about how we bring new life to our work of proclaiming the Gospel. 

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church are blessed with tremendous lay leaders who care deeply for the church and for the common good of our community. Few churches are as fortunate. All of you are in my prayers. I invite your prayers as well as we move into a second year of ministry together.

Your pastor,

Rev. Chuck Currie 

 

University Park Church worships each Sunday at 9:30 am and Sunnyside Church worships at 11am.  All are welcome.

Fix IRS; Citizens United

News that the IRS targeted conservative organizations for special review as part of the non-profit certification process is deeply concerning.  It reminds me of the Bush-era IRS investigation of the United Church of Christ.  The Obama Administration needs to quickly fix the problem but much of this is the messy result of the Citizens United court decision and thus the fix will require an overhaul of corrupt campaign finance laws.  The Washington Post notes:

Campaign reform groups have been pressing the IRS for several years to conduct greater oversight of nonprofits formed in the wake of the Citizens United case, given that many have become heavily involved in elections.

“But this isn’t the type of enforcement we want,” said Paul Ryan, a senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. “We want nonpartisan, non-biased enforcement.”

Our government should work better than this.  No one should be targed simply for their political views.  At the same time, our election system should not be the rigged, corrupt system put in place by Citizens United.

Psalm 23: Fear Not In The Valley | Reflecting On Our Week

Psalm 23: Fear Not In The Valley | Reflecting On Our Week from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

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President's budget doesn't reflect our values

Today I've joined Sister Simone Campbell, leader of "Nuns on the Bus," in co-authoring an op-ed published in The Hill critical of the budget choices under consideration in Washington:

"As faith leaders, we have spoken out consistently about the moral bankruptcy of Republican federal budget proposals over the last 2 years, and we have supported President Obama’s commitment to protecting the poorest Americans from cuts to crucial programs like food stamps and Medicaid. The president's just released budget, however, falls short of the moral vision many faith leaders have for this country and the president's own ideals as embodied in his second Inaugural Address. While the Obama administration’s 2014 budget has some admirable measures and is far superior to the House GOP plan, it does not go far enough in promoting the common good and protecting the vulnerable."

President's budget doesn't reflect our values.

The Kingdom Resurrected

This morning the people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church celebrated Easter in Portland together in Sunnyside's historic sanctuary.  It was a beatiful morning with wonderful music performed by members of both congregations and much lay member participation.  Below is the text of my sermon.

The Kingdom Ressurrected

We come to this place this morning – gathered as two church communities, as family and friends – to celebrate the Resurrection.  Even in times when humanity has walked away from God the reality is that God has never abandoned God’s creation, with which at the beginning God declared to be “well-pleased.” The moment of the Resurrection of Jesus stands in history as the most profound example of God saying to the powers and the principalities of the day that not even death can silence God’s call for us to be a people of reconciliation, compassion and mercy.

Even today we experience the Risen Jesus in worship, in prayer, and sometimes even in personal moments of revelation. Jesus is still calling to us, like he did to those frightened first disciples, to spread the good news that the Kingdom of God is already here and that hope born out of our experiences with God demands that we seek a create a world where justice, kindness and humbleness overcomes evil and turns the darkness around us into the brightness of noon.

This is a time of rebirth and redemption. 

Theologians and lay people debate to this day whether or not Jesus was physically raised or whether the disciples (and later Paul) interacted with the spirit of Christ. Like Marcus Borg and others, I think that debate asks the wrong questions. It doesn’t matter. What matters is in ways that may very well surpass human understanding Jesus revealed himself after the cross with the ones he taught and loved, and that his spirit still moves many today in wondrous ways.

Walter Wink once wrote: 

Killing Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it. It was like shattering a sun into a million fragments of light.

It is the power of that light that calls us today to be a Resurrection people, a people who in community and enveloped in the spirit of love reach out to build up the Kingdom of God so that all people might have new life. 

Let’s remember that Jesus came to shake up the world. The Gospel of Luke chronicles the beginning of his ministry:

16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

Jesus was a teacher, the Son of God sent to help bring the world back into right relationship with our Creator. He wanted us to learn from him, to follow him, to see the world in new ways. But why did his death have to be part of the lesson? One possible answer comes from Barbara Brown Taylor, the Episcopal priest, scholar and author. She writes in this excerpt from her book Home By Another Way:

Jesus probably died right side up, since all four gospel writers agree that there was a sign above his head. That being the case, he probably died of suffocation, as his arms gave out and his lungs collapsed under the weight of his sinking body. Blood loss is another possibility. Heartbreak is a third. Whatever finally killed him, it came as a friend and not as an enemy. Death is not painful. It is the dying the hurts.

Another thing that was finished was the project he had begun, way back when he first saw what kind of explosion it would take to break through the rock around the human heart. Teaching would not do it. Neither would prayer nor the laying on of hands. If he was going to get through, he had to use something stronger than all of those, and he had to stake his own life on its success. Otherwise why should anyone believe him?

That project that Jesus came to start was the building up of the Kingdom of God, what The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would call the Beloved Community.  Taylor continues:

Self-annihilating love was the dynamite he chose. “No one has greater love than this,” he said on the last night of his life, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Having explained it to his friends, he then left the room to go do it. Less than twenty-four hours later it was over.

Jesus did not go to the cross as part of some vengeful God’s need for a sacrifice. He went to the cross because the Roman authorities saw the Kingdom of God as a threat to the Empire of Rome. Crucifixion was a crime reserved for enemies of the state.  Jesus went knowing what his fate would be but believing there are ideas and principles worth dying for.

We read in Matthew 22:36-40 as Jesus is asked by a Roman sympathizer:

36‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ 37He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

Jesus kept company with women, with lepers, with the poor, with tax collectors and with children, and said to them that the Kingdom belonged not to the rich and the powerful but to the lowly and the outcasts. His way threatened to turn the Empire upside down and the religious authorities who conspired with Rome to keep their positions and their comforts were quick to try and hand Jesus over to the cross. This is where, tragically, the myth built up that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. But all religions, including our own Christian faith, have had leaders who have abandoned God for the favor of emperors. In reality, we need to remember that not only was Jesus was Jewish but that so were his supporters.

The Greatest Commandment challenges us still - and the reality of the Resurrection, in whatever way we might understand it, forces us to wrestle with the idea that there are no real endings…even in life (Jesus did not die when he died, and neither do we).  But there are many possibilities for new beginnings.

What we need is a Resurrection attitude in which we can envision the world in the new ways that Jesus envisioned when he proclaimed the Kingdom.  And we need to be willing, as Jesus was, to carry our crosses in the pursuit of this better life.  Eternal life may great us when we die but Jesus taught that the Kingdom was in the here and now and that it was an ideal worth dying for. 

As a people of the Resurrection, we need to work toward new life that protects our environment that we have been given stewardship over so that God’s children in generations to come inherit the sustainable earth we have been gifted. 

As a people of the Resurrection, we need to work towards an end to gun violence – and violence of every kind – and follow instead the path of Jesus, who practiced non-violence.  This work of ending violence must extend from our neighborhoods to every corner of the earth.

As a people of the Resurrection, we need to be concerned, like Jesus was, with children and the elderly, with those living in poverty, and all those on the margins.  This calls us to join the struggle for equality for all people in ways both big and large, to be concerned about freedom for people everywhere, to be concerned about education for boys and girls, to demand safe streets to walk on along, and for paths that people can walk that lead from hopelessness to hope. 

Some will say that such hope for the world is too idealistic or the work to hard.  But I have experienced the Resurrection.  I know there is hope where darkness exists because I have experienced the Risen Christ in my heart, through our Scriptures, and in moments of worship such as this.

And I’ve seen moments of Resurrection in our world.  It happened when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison to become a president.  It happened when people – just like us – tore down the Berlin Wall as the armies of the world’s superpowers stood down.  Those were moments of Resurrection, life pulled back from death, and in each of those moments – just like each time a volunteer feeds a hungry child – the Kingdom is born anew and the life of Jesus reaffirmed. 

No, Jesus did not die on the cross.  His life endures.  We are the inheritors of his mission.  Let us proclaim today: 

18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, because (God) has anointed (us) to bring good news to the poor. (God) has sent (us) to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 

Amen.

Easter In Portland 2013

The people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church invite you to “Easter In Portland” – a special joint worship service of the two congregations, which will be held in Sunnyside Church’s historic Portland sanctuary (3520 SE Yamhill Street) on Sunday, March 31st at 10:30am. An Easter Egg Hunt for children will precede the service at 10am. All are welcome. 

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church are progressive and Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church. Preaching that morning will be The Rev. Chuck Currie, a minister in the United Church of Christ, who serves as the minister of both congregations in an ecumenical partnership. Rev. Currie is a contributor to The Huffington Post whose ministry has focused on opportunity and hope for those living in poverty, and for the civil rights of all. 

University Park Church, located at 4775 N. Lombard, worships Sunday morning at 9:30 am. The congregation is known as a place of radical hospitality and has been a beacon of justice for the LGBTQ community.

Sunnyside Church, where worship is held each Sunday at 11 am (except Easter – when the service will begin at 10:30am ) is the home of the Common Cup Family Shelter, and has long been involved in the fight to end homelessness. The congregation also hosts a community meal program, an affordable day care program, a neighborhood “swap shop,” and Camp Fire programs.

People Of Faith Stand Up For Marriage Equality #OU4M

Oregon voters will be asked to consider marriage equality in 2014 - and this time people of faith will be leading the charge.

This morning Oregon United for Marriage launched a campaign to qualify a measure to make marriage equality the law of the land.  A packed church hall was the site of a diverse faith leaders breakfast where clergy and others became some of the first to sign the petetion.

"As religious leaders, we stand in solidarity with Oregon United for Marriage," said the Rev. Tara Wilkins, pastor of Bridgeport United Church of Christ and executive director of the Community of Welcoming Congregations. "Many of our religious traditions support the freedom to marry, and we believe the time is now to make it legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry in Oregon." Rev. Wilkins notes that the proposed initiative protects religious freedom, and no religious community will be forced to marry same-sex couples. Over 250 clergy and faith leaders have already signed on in support of the Freedom to marry in Oregon. "Marriage is about families and the freedom to marry reflects our values of treating all of our congregants the same, said Rev. Wilkins".

When the General Synod of the United Church of Christ endorsed marriage equality in 2005, they noted:

Rev. Chuck Currie signs the petition for marriage equality.

The message of the Gospel is the lens through which the whole of scripture is to be interpreted. Love and compassion, justice and peace are at the very core of the life and ministry of Jesus. It is a message that always bends toward inclusion. The biblical story recounts the ways in which inclusion and welcome to God's community is ever expanding -- from the story of Abraham and Sarah, to the inclusive ministry of Jesus, to the baptism of Cornelius, to the missionary journeys of Paul throughout the Greco- Roman world. The liberating work of the Spirit as witnessed in the activities of Jesus' ministry has been to address the situations and structures of exclusion, injustice and oppression that diminish God's people and keep them from realizing the full gift of human personhood in the context of human communion.

In that spirit, I signed my name to the petition this morning as a United Church of Christ minister serving two Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church.

Some religious leaders in Oregon will obviously oppose marriage equality.  But they can no longer claim to speak for God or for the church universal.  A generation ago many churches used the Bible to oppose interacial marriage.  They were wrong then.  Many Christians today believe it is wrong to use to Bible and the teachings of Jesus, which call for inclusion and justice - to oppose marriage equality today.  

The Rev. Dr. Walter John Boris of the Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ speaks out in support of marriage equality.

Support The Violence Against Women Act! #VAWA

People of faith across America rallied in support of the Violence Against Women Act - which passed the Senate with strong bi-partisan support.  But the Act faces an uncertain future in the U.S. House.  Who could be against efforts to stop violence against women? These men.

Tell the House to pass the Violence Against Women Act.

President Obama: Please #TalkPoverty In #SOTU

President Obama is set to soon deliver his State of the Union Address.  We need the president to follow-up his powerful Inaugural Address with a serious discussion about how to reduce poverty in his message before Congress.  That is what I shared with President Obama in a letter earlier this week. You can send a message to the president as well.

Via the Half in Ten Campaign:

Use social media to inspire President Obama to: (1) speak out for struggling families during his address, and (2) protect critical programs that reduce poverty in his budget request to Congress. February 12th is the President’s first State of the Union address in his second term. The fiscal showdown didn’t end on January 1st. Instead, Congress kicked the can down the road and many of the most important programs that support struggling families in our country are still under threat. So, let’s take to Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to support the President’s statements on cutting poverty in his inaugural address and ask for continued support of low-income programs in the state of the union and budget proposal. Together we can show the White House why these programs are so important, and who has inspired us to support them.

The Half in Ten Campaign is support by the Juctice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ, along with many others in the faith community.

Photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_State_of_the_Union_Address