Michelle Bentley, MDiv 1986

Founder, North River and South Loop Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Chicago
Associate & Interim Sr. Minister, First Unitarian Society Chicago
Chaplain, BRASS Foundation (Substance Abuse Comprehensive Program) and LaRabida’ Children’s Hospital for the Chronically and Terminally Ill
Dean of Students/Faculty, Meadville Lombard Theological School (1994-1999)
Sr. Minister Third Church Chicago
Professional Development Director, Ministry UUA
Expert Pastoral Consultant for Cook County Public Defenders’ Capital Cases
Founder & Director, Sankofa Project Archives

 

The wise council of the radical democratic and radical prophetic traditions lies at the center of the Unitarian Universalist faith. Our Unitarian Universalist social ethicist James Luther Adams once wrote, “Every personal problem is a social problem, and every social problem is a personal problem. Personal and social transformation cannot be separated; they are integral parts of the whole. I believe every personal and social problem is also a global problem.”

Many people experience existential trauma. Our personal issues are family system issues; community and societal issues; local, national and global issues. Our congregants’ lives interface with health, education, welfare, criminal justice, and economic systems, both within the church and certainly beyond its walls. We are, after all, part of all that we have encountered, part of the interdependent web of existence.

May we, as Unitarian Universalists, respond to the troubles of the world, strangers, neighbors, and ourselves in the spirit and tradition of people like Harriett Tubman and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, Malcolm X and Martin King, Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony, James Reeb and Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Tillie Blackbear and Russell Means, Rabbi Einhorn, Caesar Chavez, Grace Boggs, and Ronald Takaki. They and countless other women and men sacrificed and cared enough to transmit values that underpin the struggle for dignity, decency, equity, sustainability, freedom, and justice for all.

Oh the wisdom, joy, and grace we shall receive.

—UUA Pamphlet, Unitarian Universalist Views of Church