“The Sin of Sodom”

 

Genesis 18

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

August 10, 2025

This morning’s topic is sin. Specifically the sin of Sodom. Which is, incidentally, probably not what you think it is. But we’ll get to that a little later. 

First, though, I wanted to talk about sin in the United States of America. 

Earlier this week, I sat around a table with other faith leaders here in Manhattan. Meeting the needs of our neighbors is always high on the list of agenda items, and the conversation turned to those in our community who don’t have safe and adequate shelter. As you might expect, folks who live and work in the downtown area have noticed those without homes more lately, probably because there are fewer options for safe shelter in the summer months. 

In the winter, we have the Center of Hope, but homelessness doesn’t take a break when it gets warmer outside. And numbers have been creeping up at Common Table, too: 70-75 mightly dinner guests were the norm in July. Those who volunteer regularly at Common Table or Center of Hope or the Breadbasket any of the other social service agencies in town, know these neighbors by their names. We recognize them as beloved children of God - just like the rest of us. Full of beauty and complexity - full of good jokes and inappropriate ones, too - ready to open a door or share a smile - sometimes surly or angry, sometimes joyful or mischievous. Our neighbors are beings with hopes, dreams, fears, worries, desires, needs. Just like the rest of us. 

I said I’m going to talk about sin. I’m getting there. 

So, as we were discussing our neighbors at this ministerial meeting, someone mentioned that they had recently been in a meeting with some downtown business owners. And the same topic - our neighbors - came up. Only in THIS meeting, our neighbors were referred to as a “vagrancy problem.” 

Now, I am not naive. I understand that groups of people - all kinds of people - are imperfect and can cause problems. But this language - this referring to our neighbors as a “vagrancy problem” is sinful in a couple ways. First, there’s no humanity in it. People should not be referred to as a problem. Full stop. Second, the problem here is not our neighbors. The problem is that we live in a world where some have so much and others have so little. The problem is that low-wage jobs don’t cover the high cost of housing in our community. The problem is that people born into poverty typically do not have adequate means to access education and training to get out of poverty. The problem is that safety nets for those experiencing mental health and addiction issues are worn so thin, they’re barely hanging together.

We talked about what we can do as faith leaders to help change attitudes about our neighbors. And I said, “You know, we have so many stories in our faith traditions about hospitality and about caring for those on the margins. Those stories are incredibly powerful. But fewer and fewer people participate regularly in a community of faith. I hope that the people in our congregation know those stories and take them to heart. I hope they would feel them bubbling up inside if they ever heard someone refer to our neighbors as a ‘vagrancy problem.’ I hope they would speak up and gently correct the person - maybe even by telling a Biblical story.”

Our stories are powerful. And our stories are currently very much at odds with some of the other stories we’re hearing out there in our country. 

Speaking of sin, earlier this week I found myself exploring the ICE website. I know, I know. I sacrificed my algorithm so you don’t have to. I found myself there because I saw a social media post from the Department of Homeland Security and it was so shockingly atrocious that I had to verify it was real. 

It said: “Serve your country! Defend your culture! No undergraduate degree required! Join dot ice dot gov” 

I’m sorry to say, it was real. I’m also sorry to say that if you click through to the ICE website you get an image of Uncle Sam pointing his finger at you, saying “America Needs You! America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.” And then it advertises a signing bonus of up to $50,000 and student loan repayment of up to $60,000. 

And if you click through ad actually look at the jobs available, hoo boy, many of them have a starting pay of $90-  $110-  $120,000 a year. $100k a year to commit atrocities, but we can’t find money for……take your choice - fill in the blank. 

These other stories are also powerful. Stories of xenophobia and fear of outsiders are currently running rampant. Stories that attempt to justify the dehumanization of our neighbors. Stories that pit us against them. Stories that try to conflate “serving your country” with locking people up in cages. And “defending your culture” with kidnapping children and disappearing beloved parents, aunties, and grandfathers. 

A culture that glorifies white supremacy and Christian nationlism? This is not the culture Christ-followers have been taught to defend. 

Instead, our stories - the ones Jesus taught - point to a different way. A way rooted in kindness, compassion, and care. A way that reminds us to love every single other. A way that compels us to shout on behalf of those who have been silenced. A way that insists there is enough and spare - for everyone. A way that insists we keep hope alive even when we are in the depths of despair. A way that reminds us, as Rabbi Dr. Joachim Prinz said, “Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept.” [1]

What did Jesus say was the most important thing? “Love God. And love your neighbor as yourself.” And who are our neighbors according to Jesus? Well, there’s a whole story about that and you can find it in Luke 10, but we’ve got to get keep keepin on here or we’ll never get to the sin of Soddom. 

Now, I know what you’ve been taught about Sodom. If there’s one thing anyone knows about this story it’s that it’s about the sin of homosexuality, right? 

Wrong. 

That’s not the issue here. 

What IS the issue is that when strangers show up at the gate, enter the city for the night, and seek shelter, the citizens of Sodom react as though they are under direct attack. 

“Sodom Needs You! Sodom has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out!” 

While Lot has welcomed the strangers (who are angels, we’re told) warmly, the men of Sodom want nothing to do with them. Lot welcomes them at the gate, insists they stay in his home rather than on the streets, feeds them dinner, and comes to their defense when danger comes knocking at the door. 

The men of Sodom angrily yell at Lot: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” Or some translations say, “so we can have sex with them.” The Message says, “so we can have our sport with them.” But let’s be more accurate: they were threatening to rape them. And, as we know, rape isn’t really about sex, it’s about power and control. And in this instance, it’s about an attempt to exert power over vulnerable guests. It’s about fear of the other that leads to violence. It’s about “defending our culture” from outsiders. 

Incidentally, I don’t want to gloss over Lot’s horrific behavior in the 19th chapter of Genesis. I’m still salty that he’s never called out for his sin (see what I did there?). When the mob arrives at his doorstep, asking him to sacrifice the guests to the rapacious crowd, Lot attempts to protect them by offering up his daughters instead. I know. It’s awful. There’s nothing I can say to redeem his actions here. 

The men of Sodom are angry at Lot for another reason, though. They say, “Who does this immigrant think he is, judging us? Do what we say or we’re gonna hurt you worse than we planned on hurting them.” In other words, “Don’t forget, Lot. You’re an outsider, too. And we don’t like outsiders around here. Go back where you came from.” 

There is a broad consensus among biblical scholars that the sins of Sodom were inhospitality and arrogance. These men thought they were better than everyone else around them, especially foreigners. And rather than welcoming the strangers in their midst, rather than seeing travelers as neighbors imbued with the image of God, they saw them as threats. They labeled them “problem” and dehumanized them. In their fear and loathing, they lashed out in a show of dominance and with threats of violence. 

There’s nothing uplifting about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s a sad, scary story. Lot begged God to save the city, if he could only find 10 decent people there. 

In the end, he couldn’t save them. They were too far gone. 

It’s not an uplifting story. It’s a cautionary tale. A tale about what can happen when a group of people listen to the wrong stories for too long. A reminder that our sacred stories compel us to live lives rooted in hospitality, bravery, compassion, and respect for all our neighbors. 

It’s up to us to stand up for kindness and decency. It’s up to us to look around and see who is being left out or is at risk, and make sure they’re taken care of. And let’s promise to do it in a less problematic way than Lot did, okay? 

We have our sacred stories of neighboring to light the way and give us strength. 

When the voices of fear and hate are loud, we give thanks for our alternative narratives of love and care. May we never stop telling the stories. And may we never stop listening with open hearts. 

NOTES:

[1] https://www.joachimprinz.com/civilrights.htm

“Follow the Clews from Panic to Possibilities”

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan

July 27, 2025

What’s this? [holding up a ball of yarn]

Well, yes, it’s a ball of yarn. But it’s also a CLEW. I recently learned that our English word clue, as in a bit of evidence that helps guide us as we’re solving problems, comes from this much older word: clew, a ball of yarn. 

How did these two very different meanings come to be represented by the same word? That’s right - the story of Ariadne’s clew that we heard a few minutes ago. 

Moved by compassion and love, Ariadne gave Theseus a clew - a ball of yarn - to take with him into the maze on his quest. Holding tight to the yarn, he was eventually able to follow it back out again to safety and freedom. The clew is what guided him. His ticket to safety and freedom, saving him in a time of great trial and adversity. 

This summer our shared worship services have been crafted in conversation with an article by Nekeisha Alayna Alexis entitled “What is the opportunity here? Re-tuning from panic to possibilities.” [1] Alexis reflects on what it’s like to live in this particular moment in our nation’s history - when every day it feels like there’s a new assault on freedom and decency. Rather than allow panic to drag her down into a feeling of futility and impotence, Alexis is choosing to, instead ask herself and others, “What is the opportunity here?” She says, “This question re-tunes me toward possibilities.” 

Panic is all around us, to be sure. Not only in the national news, but here, closer to home. Just in the past week, I’ve found myself involved in several conversations about local challenges that are inducing panic:

• There is grief and anger as K-State announced that the Spectrum Center - a long-time beacon of hope for the LGBTQ+ community at K-State - has been dismantled. 

• There is frustration and uncertainty as working parents scramble to figure out before and after school childcare now that many of our community’s after-school programs have been slashed, due to funding cuts. 

• There is rage and horror as we continue to follow the Core Civic legal case in Leavenworth, hoping and praying that the city’s refusal of a detention center is honored. 

Grief, anger, frustration, uncertainty, rage horror - these are all valid and useful emotions. Panic is often right there mixed up with them, is it not? How might we follow Alexis’s lead and honor the valid emotions we have while simultaneously moving from panic to possibility? 

What are the clews all around us that might help us see opportunities in our midst? 

[Clew #1 rolls down the aisle. Caela picks up and “listens”]

THE FIRST CLEW: Only Love Can Save Us Now

Oooh, this clew is actually a song from Kesha’s 2023 album, Gag Order. The song is “Only Love Can Save Us Now.”  The verses of the song are filled with pain and angst as Kesha begs God for help and imagines victory over her foes. The chorus, though, has a different tone - a tone of joy. The beat pulses vibrantly and with urgency as Kesha sings the same phrase again and again: Only Love Can Save Us Now. 

 

Some context for those who aren’t acquainted with Kesha: she rose to prominence in the early 2010s with club-happy songs like Tik Tok and Timber. In those early years, her persona was 100% a good time party girl. She was raunchy, hilarious, scantily clad, and churned out banger after banger. The music was joy in sonic form. Music that makes you forget all the negative things in your life. 

In recent years, though, it’s become clear that she’s not just a party girl. Kesha has begun to share about some of the panic-inducing challenges in her own life. And it turns out, she’s been through a lot: an abusive relationship with her former producer followed by a decade-long legal battle, an ongoing struggle with bulimia, and, more recently, a chronic immunodeficiency disease which has almost killed her. 

Throughout it all, Kesha has proudly identified as a queer artist, strongly supporting LGBTQ+ communities. Journalist Amy Rose Spiegel writes that 

“Only Love Can Save Us Now,” … was partially conceived as [Kesha] observed the inequities that compound every day as queer and trans people are vilified and assailed across the US. 

“Saying it’s heartbreaking is not enough,” Kesha says, and she’s right—it isn’t. She’s trying to figure out what might be more actionable. “What I’ve accepted in my life is, you keep marching forward. I don’t have the answer, and I’m not a politician, but that’s the energy. It gets really exhausting seeing attack after attack after attack on the queer community,” she says. [2] 

Sometimes, I find myself overwhelmed by the hatred all around us, and I can feel paralyzed by panic. In those moments, I often hear Kesha’s voice in my ear: “Only love can save us now.” It sounds so simple, but it feels like a powerful clew we can hold onto. When all else fails, we can hold onto love. 

[Clew #2 rolls down the aisle. Caela picks up and “listens”]

THE SECOND CLEW:  Beautiful Fundamentals by Javier Soto

Ah, yes, the second clew is a fictional book mentioned in a work of fiction. Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2022 novel, Carrie Soto is Back, tells the story of professional tennis player, Carrie Soto, who, at the age of 37, comes out of retirement to reclaim her Grand Slam records. From early childhood, Carrie is coached by her father, Javier Soto, who has a strong belief in the power of fundamentals. In fact, he wrote a bestselling book on how important they are: Beautiful Fundamentals. 

As we continue to ponder how to move from panic to possibility, let’s get inside Carrie’s head as she reflects on how important fundamentals are when we’re trying to do hard things: 

Legs, arms, toss, hit, follow. 

Hour after hour, day after day, the same drills. Sometimes not even hitting an actual ball but just doing the motions, feeling the routine of it. My dad would even make me do it in front of a mirror, watching each movement in my body as I flowed through the form. 

I remember getting so frustrated at the repetition—the sheer boredom. My father made me practice long after I’d perfected it. 

And I would rail against him when I was a kid, but he would not be swayed from his plan…

“Do you think about breathing?” he asked me one afternoon on the courts when I was complaining. “You are breathing, with your lungs, every second you are alive, no?” 

“Yes,” I said. 

“But do you think about it?” 

“No, my body just does it.” 

“Think about how little else you could do if you had to think about how to breathe every time you did it.” 

“Okay…” 

“I want your form to be like breathing. Right now, hijita, you are still doing it with your mind,” he told me. “We will not stop until you have done it so many times, your body does it without thinking. Because then, you’ll be free to think of everything else.” 

I don’t know if I understood it then or just resolved to do as I was told. But when I joined the junior circuits and then the WTA, and I looked at the other women I was playing, I could see how slowly most other players reacted. 

My father had crammed my forms, my stances, my strokes into my mind with such repetition that it made its way into my cells. It lived in my muscles and joints. It’s true, still, today. 

And so, with every ball that comes at me, my mind remains free to run through every single shot I have in my arsenal, to consider the flaws in the court. I can better anticipate a bad bounce, or find a shot my opponent isn’t expecting.

And then comes the moment when I make contact with the ball—and in that split second, muscle memory takes over. [2]

What are the fundamentals that allow us to do what Carrie describes in this passage? What are the things that we must practice again and again and again until they are like muscle memory? Smiling at a stranger - staying hydrated - listening to the wisdom of children - seeking to truly understand the perspective of those who are different than us - tuning out the noise and listening to the voice of love within - ensuring we are caring for our bodies as well as our spirits - holding healthy boundaries with our time and energy - speaking to ourselves and others kindly and with respect - making time to appreciate and create art ….

These, and many others, are the fundamentals of humanity. And there is beauty in returning to our fundamentals in a time of panic, because as Javier tells Carrie, when these things are “like breathing” then our bodies do them without thinking. And then we are “free to think of everything else.” 

[Clew #3 rolls down the aisle. Caela picks up and “listens”]

THE THIRD CLEW: Asset Based Community Development

The final clew is a bit of that “everything else” we can be freed up to think about once we’ve practiced the fundamentals again and again. 

With this final clew we’re moving away from stories and into the “hey, here’s something to hold onto as you move into your week” portion of this sermon. Otherwise known as “homework.” 

This third clew is “ABCD”: Asset Based Community Development. It’s a mindset and method of caring for our communities. And it’s a simple but POWERFUL tool for moving ourselves and our neighbors from panic to possibilities. 

Here’s a very basic definition from the Tamarack Institute: 

“Asset Based Community Development” looks for and starts from people’s gifts and strengths (assets). These assets equip people to create local opportunities and respond to needs and challenges in their neighbourhoods. ABCD goes beyond any individual’s gifts or particular group’s strengths to consider how these may come together to create broader changes for the common good within a community.

Where a deficit-based approach starts by identifying needs, asset-based community development identifies and builds upon community strengths. ABCD empowers individuals and groups to come together, with institutions in support when required, to develop their strengths, working together to build on the identified assets of all involved! 

While entire organizations exist to do the work of ABCD, it’s also a tool individuals can use. It something YOU can use in our community to help weave strong connections - to help care for your neighbors. 

And this is where I have a challenge for each of us: would you be willing to hold onto the clews you’ve been given here today and go into the world to help move the needle from panic to possibilities? 

Would you be willing to talk to your neighbors - your literal neighbors who live near you - and get to know them better? I know, I know, this can feel impossible. Some of us struggle with social anxiety. Some of us already KNOW that our neighbors are very different from us. Some of us are short on time. Some of us are very introverted. I get it. I’m not saying this is easy, but I am inviting you into the work. 

If you’re open to this task, I’m going to ask you to share your e-mail address with me on this clipboard that’s coming around. I commit to emailing you this week with more specific instructions for how to complete your mission. There will be options - some as simple as having a short conversation with a neighbor, some as complex as making an asset map of your neighborhood. And I’ll be there as your coach and cheerleader every step of the way. 

The world is full of panic. How powerful would it be if our three congregations came together and committed to moving the needle towards possibility? 

May the clews lead us onward. And may the Spirit of Love that lies around and within us knit us together - giving us strength for the journey. 

NOTES: 

[1] https://ambs.edu/news/what-is-the-opportunity-here-re-tuning-from-panic-to-possibilities/ 

[2] https://www.self.com/story/kesha

[2] Reid, Taylor Jenkins. Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel (p. 256).

[3] Tamarack Institute https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AJhkc_6ynNkd6lK5XGMaA3td40Qf5Ipa/view 

 

“That They May All Be One”

John 17:1-5, 17-26

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

June 29, 2025

I won’t ask you to raise your hands - you can just raise them silently in your heart - but how many of us have been somewhere like a Thanksgiving meal or a potluck dinner or whatever and someone says, “Let’s bow our heads and say grace,” and then they start in on a prayer that goes on for about four hours while your stomach grumbles? That’s a little like what Jesus does in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. What we heard this morning is just a short excerpt from a much longer prayer that Jesus prays shortly before his death. 

And so we are privileged to listen in on a conversation between Jesus and God at a critical moment in Jesus’s ministry. In fact, I don’t think it’s overstating to say that we are listening in on the hopes and dreams Jesus utters from his deathbed.  

Faced with his imminent execution, what does Jesus want to talk to God about? His friends, that’s what. And, by extension, us. 

His prayer is for his followers, who would eventually become the Early Church and are our faith ancestors. He is worried about them because he already sees the divisions among them. He already sees how they will argue over tiny things after he is gone. He already knows that they will fight about little things that seem big and they will wage wars over bigger things that seem all-encompassing. 

Jesus has been around humans enough to realize that we don’t all agree and that sometimes it gets ugly. My guess is, he wouldn’t even be too surprised by the divisions in our world today. People have been arguing since the dawn of time. The topics change, but the underlying fears that drive our animosity never seem to die. 

And so, into a world every bit as fractured as ours, with leaders just as terrifying as some of ours, Jesus spoke these radical words of hope: “God, may they all be one.” 

Even in the midst of great conflict, Jesus had an audacious hope that we, his followers, might find a way to be one. Talk about a radical prayer. 

**********

It’s interesting how, during the times of greatest division we humans often decide to make a concentrated effort to come together. 

For example, the worldwide ecumenical movement really had a moment in the early part of the 20th century. Inspired by the events of the two major World Wars that swept the globe during the first half of the 20th century, Christians all over the world took seriously Jesus’s call to come together across their differences. 

It was in 1940, just after the initial occupation of France, that a 25 year old pastor’s son who came to be known as Brother Roger rode a bicycle from his home in Geneva to a tiny town in central France called Taize, just south of the line of German occupation. Roger and his sister, Genevieve, housed and hid Jewish and Chrsitian refugees in this small home for two years before it was occupied. As soon as Allied Forces liberated France in 1944, Roger returned to France and founded an ecumenical monastic community in Taize. 

Brother Roger fiercely pursued the seemingly-impossible ideal of Christian unity. Although he was Protestant, he took communion at a Catholic Mass every morning and even took communion from two Popes during his lifetime. The community he founded continues today and draws thousands of pilgrims from all over the world from every conceivable Christian denomination and from other faiths. The influence of Taize has spread all over the world, even to places like Manhattan, Kansas where churches like ours continue to sing music from Taize.[1]

**********

We are connected to this wider story of the ecumenical movement in even more explicit ways, of course. As a part of the United Church of Christ, ecumenism is in our DNA. The seal of our denomination, our official logo, includes words from John 17: “That they may all be one.”

It was this particular snippet from the 17th chapter of John that so captured the imaginations of our UCC faith ancestors that they decided to form a new denomination from several different streams. In the 1930s, the Congregational and Christian Churches merged to make a new denomination. Around the same time, two other denominations, the Evangelical Synod of North America and the Reformed Church in the United States came together to create the Evangelical and Reformed Church. After the war, in 1950 the Afro-Christian Convention and Black Congregational churches merged to create the Convention of the South. Finally, in 1957 all these streams merged to create the United Church of Christ. 

Our denomination was created with the goal being a united and uniting church. Rather than a top-down approach where we all pledge to believe certain things and do things a particular way, we agree to put relationships first – remembering the love God has for each of us and committing to the hard work of loving even through significant disagreements. 

One of my favorite stories about the founding of the UCC is told by a black and white photograph. In the photo, Fred Hoskins from the Congregational Christian side and James Wagner from the E&R side are shaking hands at the merger of the UCC in 1957. They were our first co-presidents. What the photo doesn’t show is this: other than this handshake, the new denomination had very little holding it together. The UCC was formed in 1957 but had no rules or doctrine established. Our Statement of Faith wasn’t even created until 1959. And we didn’t have a constitution or bylaws for the first four years of our existence. 

It was a bold move to say, “Let’s just shake on it and trust that we’ll figure out the details later.” And, of course, it wasn’t easy. I’ve heard stories from people who remember tension in their own congregations during this period. Groups of people and even whole congregations left rather than joining the new denomination. It wasn’t as easy as the photo makes it look.

And in recent years we’ve learned more about the parts of our history that didn’t make it into the photograph at all. Back when I was in seminary we were taught about the four streams that fed into the United Church of Christ. We weren’t taught about an important fifth stream: the Afro-Christian Convention. Those congregations and their leaders were mostly subsumed by the predominantly-white churches. It wasn’t until 2022 that the UCC’s Historical Council voted to officially recognize the Afro-Christian Convention as a fifth, co-equal stream of the UCC. The Rev. Dr. Yvonne Delk helps us understand how the wider church could have buried this part of our own history for so long. She explains that the UCC has primarily seen our Afro-Christian churches as “an object of the UCC’s mission rather than a subject that could inform its mission.” [2] In June of 2023, just two years ago, the Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer, who was then our General Minister and President, publicly apologized for this “white supremacist rewriting of our history.” [3] 

It turns out that trying to hold together a large group of people with diverse backgrounds, theologies, political viewpoints, and lived experiences is pretty hard work. Figuring out how to hold together a denomination that confesses Christ as our head and doesn’t have an earthly ruler or group of rulers to tell us the exact rules to live by is messy. And yet, the UCC is still here all these years later, doing our best to make it work. 

In just a couple weeks some of us will travel to Kansas City to attend the UCC General Synod. We’ll hear spirited debates between people from all over the world who don’t agree on every topic being discussed. We’ll participate in worship services that feel very different than what we’re used to. We’ll connect with people who are members of congregations that don’t look or act or sound like ours. And we’ll do all of this mindful of the covenant we share with one another as members of this big, messy UCC family. We covenant to walk alongside one another - even in all our differences - as we try to follow in the ways of Jesus together. We’re not together because we all believe the same things or have everything in common. We’re together because we continue to choose, on a daily basis, to accompany one another on this journey of faithful living. It’s as simple and as hard as that. 

In a world that is so deeply divided - and in a world where we often find it difficult to feel connected to many people and groups that say they’re Christian - it’s no small thing to sit in these pews week after week and try to follow Jesus together. And it’s no small thing to say we are a part of larger ecumenical and interfaith communities and movements. Every time we open our hearts and try to understand people who seem so very different than us, we are doing the very thing that Jesus prayed for on his deathbed: trying to find a way to be one. 

It’s not easy work. It’s hard. And so we give thanks that when Jesus was at the end of his life, he prayed for our unity. His followers needed it then. God knows we still need it now. 

Come, Holy Spirit, make us one. Amen. 

NOTES

[1] Information about Brother Roger and Taize from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taizé_Community, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Roger and the Taize website. 

[2] https://www.ucc.org/afro-christian-traditions-status-as-distinct-ucc-stream-gets-historical-council-support/ 

[3] https://www.ucc.org/from-synod-stage-dorhauer-apologizes-to-afro-christian-convention-for-rewriting-of-our-history/