The City and Congregation Workgroup
Meeting Highlights
- First Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
July 2, 2002 - Second Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
September 27, 2002 - Third Meeting
Los Angeles, CA
November 6 - 10, 2002 - Fourth Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
February 7, 2003 - Fifth Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
March 7, 2003 - Sixth Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
May 1, 2003
Second Meeting
Charlottesville, VA
September 27, 2002
Narrative
The City and Congregation Workgroup convened September 27, 2002 for an all-day session at the Colonnade Club on the lawn of the University of Virginia. The theme for the day was "Learning to Speak the Concrete Word: Theology and Critical Issues Facing Charlottesville."
Our first guest was Karen Waters, Executive Director of the Quality Community Council, a city-sponsored umbrella organization for Charlottesville's low income neighborhoods: Garrett Square, Prospect, South First St, 10th and Page, among others. Ms. Waters presented a paper on the history of housing in Charlottesville, specifically the segregationist practices of the city in the early part of century. Waters' presentation provided an enlightening glimpse into the origins of today's housing dynamics. She stressed the need for affordable housing and discussed the role the church can play in this critical issue.
Following Ms. Waters' presentation, workgroup members introduced themselves, sharing their reasons for joining the workgroup and the connection they've drawn between faith and social justice in their own lives.
Following lunch, there was a panel discussion of Charlottesville issues by community activists Joe Szakos (Virginia Organizing Project), Audrey Oliver (Public Housing Alliance of Residents), and Jennifer Tibbs (Westhaven). Szakos shared some of the many activities that citizens have been engaging throughout the city and state. Central to the organization's commitment to social justice has been the living wage campaign. Each Friday, if you are driving on West Main St, you'll see a number of demonstrators soliciting honks from cars in favor of higher wages for service workers at the Courtyard Marriott. The hotel has become a symbolic space in which the dramas of poverty and privilege have been playing out in the city. Szakos asked the simple question, "Should someone working full time be living in poverty?" On that question he built a compelling case for the need for higher wages for workers in Charlottesville, and the ways the church can get involved in the struggle. Specifically, he asked, "What if, during you coffee hours, you asked your high-level business executives when the last time they spent some time with their workers. Ask them if they'd be willing to share lunch with a few of their workers and hear their stories. This simple personal encounter would open eyes and do much to communicate the conditions of workers that any Christian would find unacceptable."
Audrey Oliver shared her perspective on the city from South First St, a public housing complex in Charlottesville. She proudly spoke of the shared sense of life for residents there, coupled with a sense of frustration at stigmas attached to the neighborhood. Oliver recounted incidents of racial profiling and the fear that residents have for police. Yet, she also spoke of efforts brewing among residents to take their community back. She spoke of people like herself, committed to the neighborhood, finding creative solutions to its quality of life issues. Jennifer Tibbs added helpful insight into life in Westhaven, another symbolic space where residents of the old Vinegar Hill neighborhood were moved after urban renewal demolished their homes. Again, Tibbs highlighted the humanity of her neighbors, so frequently overlooked or dismissed in public conversation.
The day finished with a discussion of assigned reading, which included a piece from Dietrich Bonhoeffer entitled, "On the Theological Basis of the Work of the World Alliance." In it he spoke of the necessity of the concrete word:
The word of the church to the world must therefore encounter the world in all it present reality from the deepest knowledge of the world, if it is to be authorative. The church must be able to say the Word of God, the word of authority, here and now, in the most concrete way possible, from knowledge of the situation. The church must not therefore preach timeless principles however true, but only commandments which are true today. God is 'always' God to us 'today.'
The passage challenged us to seek with earnestness the concrete word that God is speaking for us today in Charlottesville. Given the issues that animate the life of city, what is God saying? What is his response, and what will His people's response be? Silence or 'righteous action'?"
Readings
- Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, "On the Theological Basis of the Work of the World Alliance"
- "Living Legacy: Separate, but not equal," The Daily Progress, July 30, 1995
- "A Community in Turmoil: Charlottesville's Opposition to Public Housing," from The Magazine of Albemarle County History