Banned Books Week is underway, Sept. 22 through 28, and the United Church of Christ has resources uplifing the belief that banned books have a special vocation, a particular calling in our faith communities: to help expand and enliven the image of God and empower us to reckon with truths that demand our loving accountability.
The UCC’s Join the Movement Toward Racial Justice campaign offers a Banned Books Blessing and resources to help in this ongoing battle. In this time of intense political polarization, there are an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. This includes books by authors of color, by LGBTQ+ authors, by women, and books about racism, sexuality, gender, and history. These are the books most often targeted by bans
Sharon Fennema, curator of Join the Movement toward Racial Justice, has written A Reflection for Banned Books Week.
“I wonder if people who seek to ban books likewise understand this power of stories as movement-makers, and are deeply afraid of and unsettled by it,” she posed. “How tempting it can be to create a protective bubble around ourselves that keeps us comfortable and confirms all we know to be true, beautiful and good, especially for those of us who society is set up to privilege and whose stories dominate our collective imagination.”
The Rev. Rachel Hackenberg, publisher of The Pilgrim Press, said we must resist these bans that can align with Christian nationalism.
“Efforts across the U.S. to ban books often have a religious undercurrent, as conservative Christian parents and politicians strive to purge libraries of any material they would not teach in their own homes or affirm in their own churches: predominantly, books by/about people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community. These efforts are a longtime tool of white Christian nationalism and its pursuit of dominance and deference in American culture,” she said.
“Our spiritual formation, regardless of creed, is enriched by a diversity of stories. Our social wellbeing, regardless of religious stripe, benefits from the wisdom of history. How can Christians confess our sins against others if we do not learn about slavery or the Holocaust? How can Christians form mature, healthy relationships if the only books we read about sexuality are shame-based?”