 Greetings, friends! Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for November 7, 2013, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from the Reverend Eric Anderson, Minister of Communications and Technology, and your podcast host. In the 20th chapter of Luke, Jesus debates some Sadducees who did not believe in a resurrected life after death. They put a very complex question to him, designed to trap him, but he steps aside and says that the new life and the new age are very different, and the complexities of this life simply don't apply. Then he tells them, and the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living, for to him all of them are alive. Questions can break things. You've done it, haven't you? I know I have. I've listened to somebody assert something spinning out a grand statement on the ultimate nature of things, or alternatively some minor declaration of fact, and I've spotted some flaw or believed I did. And rather than offer a contradiction, I've laid a trap. Oh, speaker, I've said, here's my question about what you've just said, and then I've sat back to watch the struggle as they cope with the inconsistency. The sad you see stand on ground that's very familiar to me, I'm afraid. Now mind you, I've been in Jesus' place too, with somebody else spotting the flaw in my assertions, someone who thrusts that crowbar of a question which I'd somehow failed to notice into the whirling gears of my thought. I've felt the wheels grind to a halt with the teeth tearing away and watched the sprockets bounce and roll away blazing into the dark. Metaphorically, that is. But Jesus now, he seizes the crowbar and makes it part of the machine. The sad you see's lengthy example serves simply to demonstrate that the resurrection in which they don't believe is so far outside their experience that the question itself proves nothing. New life says Jesus is beyond marriage or unmarriage. It's beyond the question. So let's cut to the chase. Do the dead live or not? And Jesus tosses his own crowbar into the sad you see's mental machine. Electionary, for reasons best known to its editors, omits the response. They no longer dare to ask him another question. Even across the centuries I can see those burning mental sprockets rolling away. Jesus' argument, however, which we frequently call a proof text, is less effective in our day. My seminary professors many years ago would have properly graded it harshly indeed, and a contemporary audience does not have that kind of reference for the ancient texts. And so it leaves the question of a new resurrected life squarely before us. As for me, I believe it. I have evidence but no proof. The evidence of generations of frequently frightened women and men who experienced the living Christ and declared it despite being dismissed, discounted, and sometimes detained. I have the evidence of people of faith whom I've known and trusted. And I have this life given by the Creator. I've heard the whisperings of the Spirit. I've felt the promptings of the Savior. I have no crowbar of a question that will mangle a contemporary Sadducees' mental machine. And even if I did, I shouldn't use it. What I have is just experience, and confidence, and hope. That our God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And to this God, all of us live now and live forevermore. Here's a prayer for this week. Do not give us a crowbar to break our neighbor's mental machine, O God. Give us a lever for our own, that it might always turn aware of your bright hope in this world and all of the worlds that may yet be. Give us confidence not in the perfection of our logic, but in the perfection of your love. Give us assurance it's not of our immortality, but of your gracious care. To see that we may live now and live anew. The name of the crucified and risen one, Jesus the Christ. Amen. In the news this week, the safety of the most vulnerable among us, particularly children, is the goal of local church's safe conduct policies. They establish standards of conduct which church leaders should follow, both the pastor on the youth group trip and the Sunday school teacher in the classroom. The guidelines for these policies have significantly evolved since most of our churches adopted them some years ago, according to the conference's minister of faith formation, Karen Zeal. In those first iterations, churches made sure to do background checks on those who worked with children, gave them training in proper procedure and made sure that adults did not work with children alone. Other critical aspects have been given more attention in the recent guidelines from the insurance boards, particularly systems from monitoring staff and volunteers and providing them with useful feedback. Make sure to visit our website for links to the insurance board's church assessment tool and safe conduct template. There is an old saying that runs, the eyes are the windows of the soul. At the Westfield Congregational Church UCC in Danielson, pastor the Reverend Jonathan Chapman works each week to ensure that his worshipers' souls can be nourished by the eyes as well as the ears. He uses homely objects like pitchers and plates to adorn the communion table, and he uses dramatic sweeping fabric across the meeting house to help tell the story of that day. Last Thanksgiving, for example, vegetables rose from the altar in great mounds. When the service was over, some of those vegetables went to local food agencies and some went home to become part of the Thanksgiving feasts in the worshipers' homes. Reverend Chapman lent his skills to the worship space at last month's annual meeting of the conference, and he has established the Westfield Center for Liturgical Creativity to make resources available for other local churches who are interested in bringing a new visible life to their worship. Today is the formal first day on the staff of the Reverend Dominique Atchison, our new coordinator for the Sacred Conversations on Race Ministry. We will have a profile of her on our website next week, so please look for that. And we hope that you'll join us in giving her a warm welcome to the Connecticut Conference. And we're grateful today to have conference archivist John Van Epps join us in the studio for this edition of Touchstones with History. With the appointment of a director of our Sacred Conversations on Race, it might be helpful to review what our conference has and has not accomplished over the centuries. Slavery existed in Connecticut in the colonial era, primarily as house servants or fieldhands. Several of our ministers as leaders of their communities owned slaves. There's the important story of Venture Smith, who bought his freedom in the late 1700s, wrote a book about his experiences, and was active in the town and church of East Hadham. By the late 1700s, many of our churches in clergy were anti-slavery, but the abolitionist movement was not strong until later in the 1800s. The first action by the General Association was a resolution in 1788 that, quote, the slave trade is unjust and that every justifiable measure ought to be taken to suppress it. It also voted to appoint a committee to petition the General Assembly for some effectual laws for the abolition of the slave trade. The next year it was voted to prohibit the slave trade in Connecticut, to abolish slavery for all persons born after that date, and to allow for the gradual emancipation of existing slaves. However, slavery did not end completely until the 1840s. Much of the fervor for this movement in our churches came from the New Light evangelicals of the Second Great Awakening in the 1790s. A significant impetus in the abolition movement was the Amistad event of 1839. Our Farmington Church and others were active in the defense of the captives and then in their housing following their release. At this time James Pennington was pastor of what is now Faith Church in Hartford. He and others helped to provide assistance to the Amistad people and to eventually arrange for their return to Sierra Leone. Out of these and other efforts arose the American Missionary Association in 1846. This group provided for schools and colleges to educate blacks in the South, especially after the Civil War. Amos Beeman was pastor in the 1840s of what is now Dixville Avenue Church in New Haven. He became active in the Underground Railroad to aid escaped slaves to reach freedom in Canada. Several other clergy were involved in this effort, including the pastors of the two churches in Guilford. Almost every month at the consociation meetings there was a discussion on the topics of abolition and slavery. Eventually by the mid-1840s both pastors were forced to resign because of their anti-slavery views. The anti-slavery and abolitionist advocates then formed Third Congregational Church in Guilford. After the formation of our conference in 1867 the attention was on other matters. In 1899 there was a resolution expressing sympathy for blacks in the South suffering from mob attacks, destruction of their homes, and denial of education. A resolution in 1915 protested segregation in the federal government and called for the end of the discrimination in public service. Then in 1952 the conference pledged to work toward a quote non-segregated church in a non-segregated community and to confront its own membership to eliminate prejudice. Several resolutions followed in succeeding years dealing with race relations and several churches and members were active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, especially Edwin Edmonds of Dixwell Avenue Church. You can find the current headlines at any time on our website visit us at ctucc.org slash news. The Connecticut Association of the United Church Educators offers a workshop titled Refuel Through Relationship Enhance Your Faith Formation Ministry seven times this month. The first one is November 12th in Goshen followed by the 13th in Talland, the 14th in West Hartford, the 16th in South Britain, the 18th in Norwich, the 19th in North Haven, and the 21st in Fairfield. And you can have a conversation with the conference minister Kent Solati will be in Fairfield on November 14th and in Litchfield on the 21st. The Saints group of retired clergy will have their fall gathering on November 19th in Cheshire and you can learn about sacred dance at a stepping stones workshop on December 3rd in Southington. Registration is open for the Christmas at Silver Lake Retreats held at Silver Lake December 6th through 8th. There are two retreats that weekend. One is for 5th and 6th graders, the other for 7th and 8th graders. Learn more and get your child signed up at silverlakect.org. You can always learn more about what's coming up in the Connecticut Conference by visiting us at ctucc.org slash events. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to you for listening and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission, basic support, changing lives to the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson, the minister of communications and technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence, the guidance and the grace of God.