By his own admission, Ron Buford grew up in a conservative environment. As an only child of adopted parents, Buford frequented a Protestant Evangelical church. Now, Buford directs the United Church of Christ's (UCC) campaign to welcome all people - especially gays and lesbians - to the church.
The openly gay African-American entrepreneur spoke at Tufts on Tuesday to a small crowd of mostly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students. He discussed his own involvement in the UCC as well as what he called the death of the progressive movement.
When he was in his 20s, Buford realized that the evangelical church he had grown up supporting would never accept his homosexuality. He began to search for a new church.
"I thought, 'Maybe this church thing isn't all it's chalked up to be; maybe I should just kick it to the curb," Buford said.
As he began to investigate different churches, Buford kept returning to the UCC, impressed with its progressive ideals and values. The UCC demonstrated its open-mindedness in 1972, when it became the first denomination to ordain an openly gay minister.
Additionally, no overarching governing body dictates policy for the UCC; rather, each church sets its own relative agenda.
In Dec. 2004, Buford was at the helm of the launch of a UCC advertising campaign called "God is Still Speaking" - a campaign that encountered its fair share of resistance and controversy.
An attempt to attract churchgoers and to promote discussion about current issues of bias in religion, the campaign oversaw a short television advertisement depicting a bouncer turning away gays and minorities from the entrance of a church. The ad celebrated the UCC as a church where all people are welcome.
Although the major networks refused to air the UCC's ad, a number of cable companies did. Buford proudly noted that 7.1 million visitors have visited the campaign's Web site since the campaign started.
A new television advertisement is slated for release this spring, and a third is anticipated before the campaign ends in 2007.
The name of the campaign, "God is Still Speaking," comes from a 17th-century sermon given by Pastor John Robinson to the passengers of the Mayflower as they set out to establish one of the first English colonies in the New World.
Many of these travelers, now known as the Pilgrims, were religious separatists fleeing religious persecution from the Church of England.
"God has yet more light and truth to break forth from out of the Holy Word," Robinson is reported to have said during the 1620 sermon.
"Our message to the progressive movement is that we have to get off the fence," Buford said. "We've been very wishy-washy about what we believe and who we are [in an attempt to appeal to a larger base]."
Buford likened the struggle for LGBT rights to that of African-Americans during the civil rights movement. Alluding to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Buford said that after King's death, "his dream was essentially unstoppable" and that it was King's passion that spurred such success in the advancement of civil rights.
"The one thing I don't see among progressives today is that kind of fervor," Buford said. "We almost belittle it."
He noted that even within the left, those who dream big are often called naive. Buford also criticized the progressive left for speaking more to its base than to the outside to foment change in opinion.
According to Buford, while conservative Christians in the U.S. have been very effective in professing their beliefs within the public sphere, progressive Christians have lagged behind.
"Really, the religious right is doing exactly what they should be doing - telling everyone they know in every possible way [their message]," Buford said. "The problem is not what the religious right is doing; it is our silence."
