Sam Gurwitt Photo
For Jack Perkins Davidson and JaQuan Beachem, religion has a role in politics, and art and theater have a role in religion.
They’ve been showing what that means in some of the higher-profile events making the news these days.
Perkins Davidson is a reverend at Spring Glen Church in Hamden, and Beachem is the church’s ministerial intern, as well as a student at the Yale Divinity School. Both talked about politics, theater, and, of course, religion in an appearance on WNHH Radio’s Dateline Hamden Monday morning.
Perkins Davidson at a protest in April.
Perkins Davidson has been a mainstay of recent protests pressuring Hamden to fire Officer Devin Eaton after he opened fire on an unarmed black couple in April. (Read more about that here and here).
He said his activism frequently draws criticism. But that doesn’t stop him.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding about separation of church and state,” he said. “I see the delineation as: I as a clergy person cannot get up in my pulpit and say I believe that this candidate will fix all of our problems.”
Putting pressure on politicians to do the right thing, he said, is another matter.
“There is a long, rich tradition in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament… of prophets holding political leaders accountable and being sort of the moral compass and calling them out when they are leading unjustly,” he said.
At a protest in October.
When it comes to police-accountability protests, he said, “it’s important for me to show up and do the work, and call out when well-meaning white people, well-meaning white liberals, reinforce racism, and reinforce racist systems.”
In doing so, he said, it’s important to amplify the voices of people of color. He said that at first, he just listened to their testimonies, at one point holding the megaphone for others to speak. Only once he had heard their concerns and their experiences did he add his voice.
“Imagine New Worlds”
Both Perkins Davidson and Beachem said they always try to let art into ministry. Before studying ministry, Beachem studied theater at Bard College. The tools and lessons he learned there, he said, play a role in how he approaches ministry now.
Oftentimes, he said, “I’m crafting a liturgy. That is an abstract and artistic form.” And in order to do that, he said, he has to listen to his congregation, just as he learned to do studying theater.
In a theatrical production, he said, “the director comes in with a vision, an idea — blocking and such — and you’re putting this on other bodies, and sometimes what you envision… is not right, or doesn’t really work.”
In ministry, he said, he constantly has to improvise and shift what he’s doing according to what he hears, or sees, or feels from the congregation. Theater, he said, also gave him some tools to do that.
“I strive to listen with my body,” he said. He said yoga, meditation, and fitness help him do that.
Perkins Davidson, right, with Rabbi Brian Immerman, left, at a protest in March.
And art can play a more direct role in religion, said Perkins Davidson. Building a better community, he said, is a spiritual and artistic endeavor. It requires using art “to help inspire people and imagine new worlds, because if we exist in an unjust system, we need the skillset to be able to imagine what doesn’t currently exist and that comes from artistic expression.”
Watch the full interview below.