Sophia Lyon Fahs Lectures

Rev. Sean Neil-Barron, Lauren Farley, Tim Atkins, and Mx. Katharine Childs

Building community requires courage, skill, relationship, and heart. Community organizing brings us together, unites us in purpose, making joy and meaning out of struggle and challenge. This Fahs Lecture will explore the UU soul of community organizing, the call to meet the moment and build the world we dream about.

In this panel presentation, we explored stories of bringing more accessible spaces and radical welcome to our congregations and religious education programs. The panel was moderated by Mx Katharine Childs, LREDA Board President, who was joined by Gretchen Maune, the UUA's Accessibility Resources Coordinator, and Elizabeth Foster and Imari Nuyen-Kariotis from EqUUal Access. 

Religious educators are champions of community and adaptation, fighting the forces of injustice, and using teamwork to tackle the BIG WORK of faithfully becoming a more rooted, more loving Unitarian Universalism.

The 2023 Fahs Lecture brought together a panel of religious educators to explore the future of UU faith development: Aisha Hauser, Mx Katharine Childs, Kirsten Hunter, Emmalinda Maclean, and QuianaDenae Perkins.

Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt draws on her recently published book, Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal: Black Women, Labor, and Environmental Ethics, to speak to the interconnections between inherited ancestral wisdom and climate justice. This lecture invites us to build beloved community as an Earth honoring faith.

Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt holds a Ph.D. in religious ethics and African American Studies from Yale University. Her academic work focuses on environmental ethics of liberation in a womanist and Latina feminist frame. She served for five years on the core faculty of Starr King School for the Ministry, four years as the Director of Racial and Ethnic Concerns of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and briefly as its Interim Co-President. Betancourt’s ministry centers on work that is empowering and counter-oppressive. Her book Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal: Black Women, Labor, and Environmental Ethics was published by Lexington Books in January, 2022

On June 25th, GA attendees joined LREDA to shift our focus to the growing edge, centering voices of BIPOC UU Youth and Young Adults.  The Fahs Lecture addresses the sacred work of "leading out" learners of all ages to foster deeper understandings and renewed inspirations for this ministry as they share their experiences and insights for our future.  

 Panel Convener - Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson  and Lecture Panelists - Kennedy Mattson, Karishma Gottfried, & Andreas Rivera Young 

The 2020 Fahs Lecture focused on how to think critically about stories, especially those from Indigenous peoples, and how to push back on the erasure of Native people from the past and the present. with Dr. Natalie Martinez and Dr Jean Mendoza.

Whether we consider faith formation, growth, social justice and/or dismantling white supremacy, Unitarian Universalists could use an identity update. This presentation embraces who we are and challenges who we think we are. Seeing ourselves as a Community of Communities changes our future and it is key to the Beloved Community with Dr. Paula Cole Jones.