Category: Social Justice

Please join us on Sunday (8 April 2018) at 11:00 AM for “The Right to Go to Hell” by James T. McCollum.

Seventy years ago on March 8, 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down an 8-1 decision in favor of Vashti McCollum vs. the Board of Education of Champaign IL.

Mrs. McCollum — an atheist — objected to so-called “voluntary” classes in religious instruction in her young son James’s elementary school.

She objected on the grounds that they were not only inappropriate for public school but also that they were not voluntary at all (considering that the children who did not wish to participate were ostracized by their peers and even coerced by their teachers to attend).

Justice Hugo Black wrote the majority opinion and the American Unitarian Association was one of several religious groups supporting the decision.

We are honored to welcome Jim McCollum to our pulpit today to talk about this historic decision — still all too timely in many ways — from the eyes of the child at the center of it.

Jim is married to the Rev. Betty Grace McCollum who has spoken several times at All Souls.  This will be his first time in our pulpit.

Please join us to make him welcome and do join us at 9:15 AM for the documentary film about this case — “The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today.”

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service.

Children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

Please join us on Sunday (18 March 2018) at 11:00 AM for “Moving Mountains in Shreveport” by Rev. Mack McCarter.

We welcome Rev. Mack McCarter (founder and coordinator of Community Renewal International) back to our pulpit this morning.

CRI works to build safe and caring communities here in Shreveport and across the nation through building relationships.

Mack says:

“We are fulfilled only as we serve others. We are complete only as we give ourselves to others. And we are perfected only as we seek to love others. This is our task: to become other-centered rather than self-centered.”

This Sunday continues our season of focus on peace, social justice, and the interdependent web as we turn our attention to our second and seventh principles along with our second and fifth sources.

Find the principles and sources of Unitarian Universalism here.

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service.

Children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

Please join us on Sunday (14 January 2018) at 11:00 AM for “Thus Conscience Makes Cowards of Us All” by Henry Walker (retired civil rights lawer and long-time member of All Souls).

Religious education classes for children and youth are offered during the 11:00 AM service.

Children and youth attend the first 15-20 minutes of the service and then are dismissed to class.

Please join us on Sunday (22 October 2017) at 11:00 AM for “Fine and Flawed, Proud and Problematic” presented by the children, youth, and adults of All Souls.

On 15 and 22 October 2017, Unitarian Universalist congregations across North America have been revisiting the #uuwhitesupremacyteachin that began last spring.

Originally spurred by a hiring decision at the denominational level that revealed a pattern of white supremacy in hiring decisions, the original purpose of the teach-in was to take an honest look at the way white supremacy culture has affected not only the world outside our doors but also the more subtle ways it has been present within our faith tradition as well.

Our history of working for justice is a proud one in many ways but part of beginning to heal the wounds of institutional racism is looking honestly at those wounds — seeing them for what they are, and acknowledging our own complicity.

In this service, the children and youth will look at ways we go forward and build a better world for all of us.