Former PCUSA moderator, Rick Ufford-Chase arrested while protesting the Columbia Free Trade Agreement in front of the White House. (Photo Credit: Presbyterian Peace Fellowship)
Former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly, and current Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Rick Ufford-Chase was recently arrested outside the White House while protesting the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CFTA). Explaining his opposition to the CFTA, he said the PCUSA is “opposed to free trade,” and he encouraged a coalition between “labor and religious folks” to resist free trade agreements. This act of protest reflects Ufford-Chase’s belief that Christians should actively subvert mainstream culture. He explained his radical convictions in detail at the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE) conference in February, 2011, where he told educators to “build up the community of resistance.”
Ufford-Case spoke on Romans 12:1-2, in which St. Paul calls Christians to “not conform to the patterns of this world.” The Presbyterian activist confessed he struggled to accept some of Paul’s teachings because the Apostle’s “convictions could not be reconciled with my own experience of the importance of challenging entrenched notions of power and privilege, racism, sexism, and anti-gay feelings and attitudes in the world around me … I could find no clear way to reconcile the supposedly establishment, status quo beliefs of Paul with my picture of Jesus, who clearly challenged the culture and power dynamics of Palestine.”
Eventually Ufford-Case “gave up” trying to solve this dilemma. Then, he recalled, he found scholars who proposed a solution in the books, In Search of Paul and The First Paul. In these books, the authors claim only seven of the thirteen letters attributed to Paul were actually written by him. With this view of scripture, it was simple for Ufford-Chase to discount Paul’s uncomfortable moral teachings as fraudulent, and focus on writings that emphasized non-violence, peace, and diversity. He said that “in order to really understand Paul, we’ve got to sort out first, what are the authentically Pauline voices in the Bible.”
Ufford-Case described the significance of the Roman empire as the context for Paul’s life, as the Roman Empire meant “peace through victory.” He said the United States is today’s version of the Roman Empire. And he esteemed “Paul’s effort to stand against the Roman empire,” telling attendees to apply the Apostle’s example to our time. The “characteristics of empire in our time,” are the polarization of wealth, violence as “the empire attempts to extend its reach ” and the “massive dislocation of people … on the outside of the empire looking for a way in.”
To Ufford-Case, “empire in our time” means the “imposition of [our] values on the rest of the world,” and the exclusion of others. To illustrate this problem, he told the story of a homeless illegal Guatemalan immigrant he met in New York who endured extreme conditions to find work, even living in the desert, and was eventually laid off. He said this story was “the most vivid example I can come up with of the reality of empire in our time.” Instead of perpetuating this “imperial theology,” he told the educators to create “a community that is built on God’s values.” He said “there will be peace on earth …when all is fair and just,” and asked attendees to “stand with those excluded by empire … [those] without documents or status.”
The solution, Ufford-Case said, is creating all inclusive communities on the “margins” of the empire. He explained that “inviting all people into this new community is the most powerful act of subversion imaginable to stand against empire in our time.” In this new community, “no one will ask for documents proving citizenship in the empire,” and those without documentation would even be able to find employment from members of “subversive” communities. Ufford-Chase lamented the “increasingly regressive laws” in the US concerning immigration, and warned that “it’s becoming more and more difficult to be seen as anything but subversive” when accommodating illegal immigrants.
To great applause, Ufford-Case said this new community will “have to stop fighting about sexual orientation,” because “God is entirely capable of overcoming every barrier our society constructs in an effort to keep us from becoming the powerful new community of believers.” He said that “after reading carefully the authentic (emphasis added) Paul,” it is clear that homosexuality is acceptable, thus “we will be communities of inclusion, not communities of exclusion.”
According to Ufford-Chase’s reading of the New Testament, “we are invited into the work of countering the violence in the world around us, bringing God’s justice, distributive justice” to the world. As an example of distributive justice, he cited the 1979 Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. He praised it because “illiteracy dropped” and “health care became available to people across the country.” He brushed aside the glaring problematic elements of the Soviet-backed, Marxist regime, saying, “no movement is perfect” but “it was a powerful moment of change.” Apparently, a selective reading of scripture can support nearly any cause.
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