Faith, Community and Social Justice
Mission Statement
Our mission is to raise awareness about racial injustice, focus on developing solutions, and foster community collaboration for positive change.
Vision Statement
We envision a world where racial justice is woven into the fabric of society, dignity, equity, and opportunity for all.
UUG Faith and Community Committee
The UUG Faith and Community Committee was established in 2020 to focus on racial justice. We began by creating The Pledge to End Racism, which is mounted and displayed on the wall in the UUG Pulpit. This Pledge can be signed on our UUG Website.
We then formed a Gettysburg-wide representative Committee, which resulted in a joint decision to name that committee Adams County Pathways to Racial Justice to carry out our mission.
Membership on this committee includes the Unitarian Universalists of Gettysburg, Gettysburg College Office of Multicultural Engagement, the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, the Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice, and representatives of the Gettysburg Ministerium (Gettysburg Presbyterian Church and St. James Lutheran Church) in partnership with the YWCA and the Justice Ministries for Lower Susquehanna and Delaware-Maryland Synods, ELCA.
We offer educational multicultural concerts (Deeper Than the Skin in 2024) and quarterly Unity Dinners. We support local anti-racist projects, including the film Adams County Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania by Brad Wade.
We coordinate with other regional activist groups, including the Chambersburg Racial Reconciliation and the Carlisle Moving Circles Friendship Dinner groups.
BLUU
This link will take you to the official Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism Website.
Black Lives of UU provides information, resources and support for Black Unitarian Universalists and works to expand the role & visibility of Black UUs within our faith.
In response to the Black Lives UU movement, we have adopted an eighth principle. We commit to “Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”
Visit their site here: www.blacklivesuu.com/
Hunger
We are committed to food justice for our community and want everyone to have access to nourishing, healthy food.
We make frequent contributions (both financially and in service) to the local soup kitchen and the South Central Community Action Programs’ (SCCAP) food bank.
LGBTQ Issues
Unitarian Universalists and our congregation have long been supportive of our lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, intersex, and queer/questioning sisters and brothers. Shortly after becoming an official congregation with the Unitarian Universalists of America we embarked upon a course of study that led to us becoming an official “Welcoming Congregation”. Our ministers are delighted to marry same sex couples. Our sexuality education curriculum welcomes youth of all orientations. We host an annual ice cream social during Gettysburg Pride.
