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Saturday, May 11, 2002

By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Just by showing up in Pittsburgh today, the Rev. Bill Sinkford, the new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, offers a glimpse of a steadily diversifying faith.

More than 90 percent of the religion's members are white. Sinkford is the group's first black leader. He's in town to dedicate a new building in Murrysville and give a Sunday sermon at the Unitarian Universalist church on the North Side.

As president of the UUs, as the church is commonly called, Sinkford, 55, is making an effort to be more visible.

Beyond his role of advocating the church's generally liberal views, he talks about everything from racial justice, to sexual identity to issues of clergy and pedophilia.

Speaking on the phone from the church's Boston headquarters, Sinkford is calm and deliberate when he says the deep pain in the Catholic church is troubling.

"It's a level of betrayal that will reverberate in all religious communities," he said.

It happened in his churches in the early 1990s when a pedophile pastor was convicted of child abuse. Sinkford believes churches have a responsibility to report the allegations and backs legislation that makes it mandatory for clergy to do so.

"It is my deep wish that churches can be safe places," he said. "But the reality is that evil is not entirely outside. Anguish is inside the church."

Sinkford, an honors graduate from Harvard and a former marketing executive, is president of the 1,055 independent congregations in the United States, Canada and Mexico that make up the Unitarian Universalist Association.

The association was born in 1961 when Unitarians -- who reject the notion of the Trinity, merged with Universalists -- who preach that all souls will be saved.

There are eight churches and 1,300 adherents in the Pittsburgh area.

Today, the association has 220,000 members and is growing even in the Sunbelt, a region known for its traditional and conservative faithful.

More than half of the association's active ministers are women, and the church ordains gays and lesbians and performs same-sex unions. The church's membership is moderating as it brings in more Asian, Latino and African Americans.

Sinkford is proud of the church's action on racial justice.

Last year, it called for and helped to bring about reparations for the black American survivors of the Tulsa race riots in 1921 Oklahoma.

He believes racial justice is important to the faith, but he urges his members to show up as allies for economic, educational and other issues that matter to people of color.

Minorities will be attracted to the church when Unitarian Universalists embrace "lives in deeds not creeds," he said.