Posts by Ed Sunday-Winters

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Letter from the Pastor

by Ed Sunday-Winters

After living through the COVID years, I’m not sure that I will ever think about years, months, and days in quite the same way. I would like to think that I will greet each new day with a deepening awareness of the gift that it is. As true as that is, I know myself well […]

Letter from the Pastor

by Ed Sunday-Winters

Generous is a word that comes quickly to my mind when I think about our church. In these nearly five years we have been together, I have watched time again your willingness to help those near and far. Today, I am thinking about your eagerness to assist the Ukrainian people as they experience the devastation […]

From the Pastor

by Ed Sunday-Winters

Yesterday, I heard Governor Scott say that the COVID restrictions were being lifted. Today, our Gathering Again Team said it is time for us to worship in person in the Sanctuary. This means that on June 27th those of us who feel comfortable doing so will gather in our sanctuary for worship. Those who are […]

A Note from Our Pastor March 2021

by Ed Sunday-Winters

Did you ever think that going to a church supper would mean driving by the church and having someone hand you a quiche to be eaten at home? When did you first imagine that you could experience the sights and sounds of worship at Greensboro United Church of Christ while viewing your computer? Would you […]

Our Open and Affirming Covenant

by Ed Sunday-Winters

In 2015, the members of Greensboro United Church of Christ entered an Open and Affirming Covenant. They did so two years before I came to serve as their pastor. That they had done it was one of the reasons that made me want to be their pastor.  After much prayer, discussion, and believing that the […]

GUCC Reads Fredrick Douglass: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

by Ed Sunday-Winters

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.
For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”
The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.”

Food Distribution Volunteers Needed

by Ed Sunday-Winters

This request comes from Jenna O’Donnell at Hunger Free Vermont: As many of you know, the Farmers to Families food distributions are shifting to a new format, starting next Monday (July 6th). And they need our help! There will be distributions happening in 20-25 different locations across the state for the months of July and […]

A Creation Justice Covenant

by Ed Sunday-Winters

This summer we read Jim Antal’s, Climate Church, Climate World: How People of Faith Must Work for Change, at Greensboro United Church of Christ. We gathered for five weeks to discuss our planet and our responsibility to care for it. The experience was rich and sobering. We took account of the ways we have already […]