‘If Not Here, Then Where?’ - Adam Slate - New Unity - 4 May 2025
/‘If Not Here, Then Where?’
Adam Slate - New Unity - 4 May 2025
‘The Place Where We Are Right’ by Yehuda Amichai
From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
Introduction
A few weeks ago on Easter Sunday, after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Equality Act, I lit a candle affirming New Unity’s commitment to the safety and pastoral support of transgender and non-binary people. I expressed concern that shifts in the political climate around this issue would embolden people already inclined to express violence toward trans people, which a recent Home Office report has said is at an all-time high and increasing faster than every other hate crimes.
And I talked about the depictions of celebrations in the media that seemed not to appreciate the complexity of sex and gender issues. That same Home Office report identified that comments by politicians and the media may have been a driver of that increase.
Since then, several people in the congregation have reached out to me to say that they’re not sure how they feel about the ruling, or even that they support it in their context. That the Supreme Court’s interpretation of an existing law was handled as sensitively as it could have been. I would characterise most if not all of the people who have reached out to me as trans-affirming and/or working to educate themselves about trans issues.
Those of you who contacted me this week seem to appreciate that vulnerable people supporting each other is essential to challenging patriarchy. That there aren’t many things white-centered, Western, male-focused power structures like more than when marginalised groups fight with each other for the small concessions afforded to them rather than working together for a bigger piece of the overall pie. People in this congregation understand this.
But part of what those of you who’ve reached out to me have said was that you don’t or wouldn’t feel safe saying how you feel. That you don’t trust how you might be treated, even here at New Unity, if you were to express yourself out loud.
As a minister, I do make political statements. I have spoken about the existential threat of climate change, the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers, the killing of Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories and the complicity of the US and UK, and excessive use of force by police. And about the profound complexity of the sex and gender conversation, and the need to protect people in the LGBTQ and trans and non-binary communities until that conversation has been resolved in a manner that protects human dignity.
As a congregation, you have appreciated both that political engagement based on our faith values is part of our Unitarian legacy, and that you don’t have to agree with my views which–no matter how much I educate myself and what communities I’m in dialogue with–will always be limited by my experiences as a white, straight, cis-gender, man.
But just as I express views and engage in work to protect vulnerable people, I will also make sure that everyone who enters this community with good intentions, respect for the inherent worth of every person, a healthy curiosity for differing perspectives, and a commitment to be in relationship with others at New Unity… will be treated with respect and dignity, and have access to the pastoral and safeguarding support available to this community.
This is what radical inclusivity looks like. There are issues I’m willing to sacrifice my safety, my reputation, and my job for, but silencing people who express themselves respectfully, honestly, and non-violently is not one of them.
Since the feedback I got after the Easter service, I’ve wrestled with where to go next with this. I’ve had discussions over the past few weeks with congregants, trustees, with my partner, and with my own ethical-spiritual conscience. It’s not just congregants who get concerned about the reaction you might get from saying something people don’t want to hear. I wondered if it might be better to just let this sit for a bit.
I mentioned this to someone earlier this week, that I was wrestling with whether to bring this back to a Sunday gathering, and they asked me, “If we can’t have this conversation here–within the New Unity community, where we say we strive to be radically inclusive and we are welcome here regardless of what we believe or don’t believe–where can we ever have these conversations?”
Unitarian Faithful Witness
Shortly after the violent Hamas-led attacks on civilians in southern Israel and the beginning of Israel’s devastating counter-attack on Gaza when it became clear that civilian deaths would be overwhelming, I was scheduled to lead a service at a church in Scotland. I felt it would be helpful to say something about the situation in Gaza, but I was also aware that this could be a terribly divisive issue. I decided I would focus on our Unitarian values, those things our Unitarian moral grounding calls us to.
I believe that Unitarian faithful witness leads us to value all lives equally, honouring the humanity that lives in every person. We all have a need to express ourselves and feel safe and loved regardless of our identities. We need to be attentive to where those human needs are being compromised–in society and in our own communities.
During challenging times of conflict, people of faith have a role reminding us to grieve those places where people are experiencing fear, loss, or vulnerability.
As Unitarians, we need to consider deeply the mandate to love our neighbor and the stranger, which we mostly consider in the abstract but sometimes we really need to sit with.
And I've been in too many faith spaces–congregations and even clergy groups–where people have not been willing to bring up topics, ask questions, name issues. Having the courage to do this, with curiosity and respect, is another way we can offer faithful witness.
As a tradition that respects the diversity of views in the world, we can model how to be in community even around areas where we don’t agree, regardless of who we are and whom we love, what we believe or don’t believe. We can model how to listen and speak even when we feel fragile; disagreeing and continuing to respect and love each other anyway.
Lastly, in the midst of all this, we still need to hold space for all those other things going on in the world–race issues, class issues, ethnic issues, people’s need for asylum, violence against women and minoritised populations including state-sanctioned violence. Compassion and activism are not zero-sum activities–they're not either/or. We are called to pursue and support justice for oppressed people wherever we are able.
Nonviolent communication
As we engage with complex issues where we may have conflicting needs and perspectives, it’s important to find ways to communicate so that we hear each other. That’s particularly important because Unitarianism is what is called a “covenantal, or relational, faith,” meaning we’re joined not by a common doctrine or belief, but rather by our relationships to each other. It’s why we take time in our Sunday gatherings to nurture those connections by sharing joys and sorrows, and greeting each other.
Because of the messiness of being human, we have to find ways to exercise what our executive committee chair described this week as ‘living dissent.’ And we need to do it in a way that protects our relationships with each other and safeguards this supportive, loving space we’re creating here.
Conflict itself is not bad. Healthy relationships are forged and strengthened through episodes of rupture and repair, much like a muscle is strengthened through exercise by small tears and then healing.
One framework for this kind of engagement is known as ‘nonviolent communication.’ It was developed over 50 years ago by psychologist, and mediator Marshall Rosenberg. I’m curious, does anyone have experience with it? Rosenberg taught the value of communication that focuses on uncovering people’s unmet needs and figuring out how to meet them. He identifies four steps:
Making objective observations,
Sharing how they make us feel,
Identifying our needs behind those feelings,
And then make requests based on those needs.
Notice that this framework is focused on ourselves. There’s no step for telling another person what we think of them or their ideas, only how it makes us feel and how that connects to what we need.
When someone conveys to us a judgment or criticism, Rosenberg advocates rather than taking it personally, it’s more productive to see it as the person expressing an unmet need. This allows me to retain the power to move the conversation in a productive direction.
Nonviolent communication takes practice and requires time to develop the self-awareness to do it well–and this message is not intended to be a training, but can you get a sense of the difference? How communication that expresses judgment or criticism–the kind of communication we’re exposed to everyday–can constitute a kind of violence?
I won’t say that there’s never an appropriate time to express judgment or criticism… but recognise it for what it is. When we use it, we signal–perhaps even involuntarily–that we’re engaging in verbal aggression, and people will respond accordingly. Nonviolent communication helps us de-escalate conflict and express disagreement and dissent in a more collaborative and productive way that conveys interest and curiosity about another person’s experience, and seeks to fill our unmet needs.
The Tolerance Paradox
One of the ways people push back on this idea of a community that welcomes radically diverse ideas and encourages dissent is to point to something called The Tolerance Paradox; that by becoming too tolerant, we make room for intolerance. I think this can be true, but covenantal communities protect against intolerance through our commitment to relationships, pastoral care, and safeguarding mechanisms. Even just by setting up these structures, we signal that behaviour that compromises people’s safety and dignity isn’t acceptable, and is inconsistent with the kind of mutually respectful relationships that we’re nurturing.
Branson
Years ago I had a job organising sporting events around the United States, and one event took place in Branson, Missouri, a very conservative city in a very conservative part of the country, at a venue run by a devoutly religious family. Most of the people who worked there had fundamentalist Christian values.
As part of the weekend, we hosted a dinner with a guest speaker who gave a talk about biomechanical injuries and how to avoid them. He gave a fairly lengthy explanation of how evolution has impacted our body mechanics. I saw several of the staff who worked at the venue visibly stiffen when the talk reached this point.
It was a very awkward five minutes. Over the time I’d been working on this event, I’d become friends with a number of employees, and I’d also gotten to know the guest speaker. And their two widely diverging systems had come into conflict around the subject of evolution.
This kind of discord occurs all the time--the kind where perspectives are so different that they’re not easily reconciled. We see examples in our daily personal interactions, and they underpin major conflicts in politics and religion. And although we don’t discuss it quite as much, it’s also true here at New Unity.
So what happened at that dinner in Branson? We left at the end of the evening as friends. Not because we resolved anything, or because we talked it out and came to consensus, or even understanding. We left as friends... because we came as friends. We left as friends because for the preceding year we’d been working together, spending time together, getting to know one another, developing trust, and displaying goodwill toward each other.
Conclusion
It’s a lesson that can serve us well in all sorts of situations where relationship is as important as ideology. And it’s a good model for our Unitarian community.
I can’t promise that you’ll never be uncomfortable here. That we’ll never disagree. That you’ll never feel hurt. Covenant relationships are a messy way to be in community because they’re 100% human, and being human is messy. But when we commit to this idea of covenant, there’s a path forward. My prayer for us is that we stay in relationship with each other. That we risk sharing ourselves, our feelings, our concerns. When we make this work, we create something that rarely exists outside these walls.
I have so much respect for this congregation and the people in it. And I know we can bless each other on this journey we're on.
May it be so.
