First Unitarian Church will hold a two-hour public discussion of Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want. This Beacon Press book by Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen is about the growing threats to American democracy and what we can do about them. It’s the Unitarian Universalist Association “Common Read” for 2017-18.
The discussion will take place on Sunday, April 8, from noon to 2:00 p.m. in the Brunner Chapel. Daring Democracy is available online at InSpirit, the UUA bookstore, or beginning March 4, at the church’s Book Corner. The book is easy to read, and despite the enormity of the issue, provides practical and positive approaches to revitalizing democracy. Both adults and teenagers will be inspired by its many examples of pro-democracy actions.
Daring Democracy is also an important follow-up for our congregation. Some 200 Democracy Spring marchers came through Wilmington in April 2016 on their way from Philadelphia to Washington, where they conducted one of the largest acts of civil disobedience ever held at the Capitol. About 30 of these marchers slept on the pews and floor of our sanctuary, met with our youth, and were fed dinner and breakfast by our members.
Frances Moore Lappé, whose 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet argued that global food deficits are the result of food policies favoring meat production over human consumption of grains and vegetables, calls democracy “the mother of all issues.” She met Adam Eichen, 49 years her junior, during the Democracy Spring action. Their book brings together her long experience and his more recent activism, starting with the Occupy movement.

Join us on April 21 at 9 a.m. for a meeting with American Promise as a follow up workshop to our discussions.