Damascus Road founders reflect on history, future

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 28 October 2000

AKRON, Pa. -- Since its inception five years ago, Damascus Road has challenged the Mennonite community to confront racism. More than 35 institution-based teams have participated in the anti-racism project's training sessions.

With plans to expand training at the congregational level, Damascus Road will also experience a transition in leadership. Two of the anti-racism project founders, Regina Shands Stoltzfus and Tobin Miller Shearer, are stepping down from their roles as co-coordinators.

In a letter to the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Table steering committee and core training team, co-coordinators Stoltzfus and Shearer emphasized that they came they came to their decisions separately.

"We're humbled and awed by the strength and vibrancy present throughout the Damascus Road network," they added.

In addition to the steering committee and institution-based teams, the Damascus Road program includes a regular newsletter, eight core trainers and team organizer Conrad Moore. Damascus Road is part of the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S. Peace and Justice program.

As they prepare to move on, Shearer and Stoltzfus have reflected on Damascus Road's history.

When they met in 1993, Stoltzfus was an MCC staff associate for urban peacemaking in Cleveland. Shearer was working with race issues in New Orleans.

"I was interested in having the church be more accessible to me, my family, my congregation," remembered Stoltzfus, who is African-American. "I would go to [church institution] meetings and wonder, 'Why are there so few people who look like me?'"

Along with nine other people, she and Shearer planned "Restoring Our Sight," a conference for Mennonite church people interested in race issues.

"We were overwhelmed," said Maggie De Leon, who helped plan the event and now is part of the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Table. "We were expecting about 50 people, and 250 showed up."

Building on ideas from the conference, a task force came up with the idea for a model in which a group from within an institution would be trained to "dismantle racism." Through analysis and discussion, these team members would confront racism on a personal and systematic level, and then prepare a plan to address racism within their institutions.

From the beginning, the Damascus Road model was powerful and at times controversial. Some participants resisted the emphasis on racism as a structural force, or training session activities that divided participants into "caucuses" of white people and people of color.

In that setting, Shearer said, "You've got the potential for a training to explode every time."

He and Stoltzfus said that they, too, have faced painful realities in the sessions. For example, Shearer said, they have learned to combat group dynamics that automatically shift authority to a white male leader no matter who is actually in charge.

In order to address attitudes so deeply ingrained, Stoltzfus said, "It takes partnerships of white people and people of color. People really have to work together."

The results of Damascus Road's work have been felt throughout the church. The nature of the teams, which must be balanced in race and gender, bring together people from institutions who might not ordinarily work together.

Linda Bontreger, a member of Goshen College's team, remembered, "In hearing the personal stories that were shared, racism no longer pertained to 'someone else.' I now identified racism with faces, names, and woundedness that gave the terminology 'racist' an entirely new identity in my mind."

J. Ron Byler, associate general secretary of Mennonite Church USA, noted that the new church structure has anti-racist language in its bylaws, guidelines for including people of color at all levels, and a vision and goals for itself as an anti-racist institution.

"It is unlikely any of this would have happened without the persistent voice of the Damascus Road program calling the church to change," he said.

The Damascus Road model has evolved over the years to become more specifically Anabaptist and Bible-based. They recently ended their contract with Crossroads, a similar anti-racist project whose members had assisted Damascus Road with training sessions.

"We felt a real urgency that the process be spiritually grounded, that the framework for dismantling racism would be Biblical, rather than having a secular framework draped with Bible verses," explained Moore.

Participants have responded positively to the changes, and Shearer and Stoltzfus are optimistic about Damascus Road's potential. The vision for the future included more emphasis on training at the congregational level.

Bontreger noted, "Bringing people from diverse backgrounds into the church will backfire if we only open the doors to the church house and fail to open our minds and our hearts to what the Holy Spirit has to say about the relationships He has intended for us to share with our diverse brothers and sisters in Christ."

Another new "branch" of the Damascus Road tree will be sessions focusing on "Internalized Racist Oppression" in people of color.

"This is when people of color believe the things racism says," Stoltzfus explained. "If we believe that we are inferior, then this gets manifested in how people carry themselves, family systems, how parents approach the schools."

Both Shearer and Stoltzfus will remain in their positions until some time between January and March 2001, depending on when new co-coordinators are hired. They will both also continue in a limited training and consultation role through 2001.

Stoltzfus plans to continue her seminary studies and pastoral responsibilities at Lee Heights Community Church in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as her role as vice chair of Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries. Her decision was partly prompted by a desire to spend more time with her family.

Shearer's plans are unclear, although he plans to continue writing. He, Stoltzfus and Iris De Leon-Hartshorn, MCC Peace and Justice Ministries director, will soon release a co-authored book on race issues.

"Just as God called us into this work together, God is calling both of us to lay it down," Stoltzus said. "I am confident that it will be picked up by capable hands."

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org