Society for Clinton Hill

Reverend David Dyson: Retiring from LAPC, but Remaining Connected to the Community Interview by Naomi… http://t.co/tDNvsxrW

Reverend David Dyson: Retiring from LAPC, but Remaining Connected to the Community Interview by Naomi Dickerson

Interview by Naomi Dickerson

Reverend David Dyson, “Dave” (as he likes to be called), pastor of the Lafayette Avenue
Presbyterian Church for eighteen years has created a town hall and center for spiritual and material support for groups and individuals as well ideas and plans of brilliance that benefited the residents of Fort Greene/Clinton Hill and the greater borough as he continued the human rights legacy of the church that adopted him in 1993.

Q. What lead you to the ministry?

A. I grew up in a sleepy little township just south of Pittsburg that had two primary institutions: football and the Presbyterian churches. I went to one of the two big ones. During high school, seminary interns would come out for training. They were post-grad college types, they played guitars and they sang civil rights songs. This was integrated politically and culturally with church work. It was a breakthrough for me. These were socially conscious role models playing guitars. They taught about the work and ministry of Martin Luther King Jr. I had heard his name, but had not gotten into the roots of non-violent resistance to decades of repression. This captured my imagination as nothing else ever had in my rather sheltered life.

During my first year of college, Dionne Warwick gave a concert of Burt Bacharach songs. I loved Burt Bacharach. At the end I was told that Martin Luther King was shot. I had been influenced enough by King to consider the Christian ministry as a vocation. But now I was completely subsumed by the event of his death. One of my southern fraternity brothers made a disparaging racist remark when I told him about the assassination. I descended into a fury. Rather than commit murder my revenge was to commit myself to Martin Luther King’s cause and also to his profession. Pittsburg had one of Pennsylvania’s seven seminaries, so I enrolled there and at the University of Pittsburg to get a joint Masters in Theology and Public Administration, then was
ordained in 1973.

Q. What were some of the important experiences for your development from that point?

A. While in the seminary, I got involved in the United Farm Workers movement. Chavez was there and real farm workers were recruiting people to picket grocers who were selling grapes. King had been a big endorser. Delores Huerta, who was a co-founder of the union with Chavez said to me: “you’re not happy here, come to California and work with me and Caesar”. I did, I joined the farm workers – went to California as a driver and body guard to Chavez. Driving through the mountains and valleys of California was formative. We worked together intimately for three years and Chavez became like a second father. He was a deeply spiritual Roman Catholic disciple of Ghandi as King was and used the tactics and philosophy of non-violence.

From the farm workers I was recruited to the textile workers and stayed twelve years – was on the road with them as strike support, PR, community organizer, union organizer – it as draining work. At the end I wanted to settle down. I had missed a lot of my daughter’s growing up.

Q. Was it then that you decided to link up with a church?

A. Riverside Church called while I was in Mexico. They wanted a CEO. I went for two years but it was too much of a desk job. At the Lafayette Avenue Church I was able to be back with people. The legacy of the church was appealing. I am only the seventh pastor since the Civil War.

What ever I’ve done in these forty some years, I’ve considered it all forms of ministry. Chavez, textile workers, farm workers –this was all forms of ministry.

Q. In your sermon yesterday you talked about having a time when it feels like the wine has run out. Have you had such a time?

A. The time at Riverside was difficult. After seven years with the trade unions, my career wasn’t what I expected. I felt “out of wine”. That particular place, I had built my expectations up much too high. But LAPC was my Garden of Gethsemane. The promise and prospect of this place resurrected me. This has been a great group of people – we can go to dinner or a movie. It was good when I came, I met Richard Burlage, Selma Jackson and many others.

Q. Was there a time when you felt you had made a wrong choice?

A. I admired William Slone Coffin, the Yale Chaplain who was an anti-Vietnam war activist and supporter of Dr. Benjamin Spock. He was my mentor during the Vietnam years. I felt the Presbyterian ministry made a mistake in the battle against gay ordination. I thought about going to another denomination, The United Church of Christ, as my mentor did and urged me to do. Last year, President Obama changed this policy. I’m glad this happened before my retirement. Why are we always behind the curve and not ahead of it?

Q. Why is this the case?

A. This is due to a fundamental misunderstanding about what Christianity is about, worship versus following Christ in his manner of reaching out and being inclusive. For me, the Sermon on the Mount is the Gold standard. The Sermon on the Mount had not a word about what to believe in, only what to do. Three centuries later, Nicene Creed
had not a word about what to do, only what to believe. My ministry has been about taking us back to the Sermon on the Mount and the values and tone established in the introduction to the sermon in which Jesus established a preference for the poor, for those who mourn, for the “meek who shall inherit the earth”. Jesus was not about starting a religion, but a way of life. LAPC is an example of a new movement within the American Presbyterian Church, the “Emerging Church” that accepts this critique and consists of those who are more interested in what they can do with their lives than in being dictated to.

Q. What leads you to retire at this time?

A. I was here eighteen years. The national average is ten. At the ten-year mark I considered leaving but all the job offers were in DC. There is no assistance here at the church, but you really must do the additional work of rentals to survive. You must be here at 6AM and stay until late cleaning up. I had a partial knee replacement on the left but I still have problems. It’s due to the football earlier and hard work. I cannot put in the time visiting nursing homes and shut-ins, it’s harder to get around. Eighteen years is long enough.

Q. What are your plans now?

A. Spend time with my grandson. Folks around the country want me and my wife Sally to visit. With her teaching and my ministry we couldn’t. I’m still on some boards. I chair the Worker’s Defense League board. It helps people with un-employment insurance cases. And I work with the Riverside Adult Language Center. This is the largest English language school in the city. I’m on the board of PACC. I’m fond of the Women’s Press Collective. It helps low income women develop media skills. I will keep close with labor connections, unions are under attack. I spent time in Central America but I’d like to go to South America. I will be back for some weddings and some baptisms. There is no lack of things to do.

Dave Dyson is the recipient of many awards including: the Letelier-Moffit Human Rights Award (1989) shared with the National Labor Committee, the Jose Tomas Mazariego Award, honoring a slain Salvadorian unionist (1991), The Martin Luther King Jr., (1994), the Witherspoon Society award for pastoral leadership (1997), the United Farm Workers of America award (2000), an award from the Cooperative Culture Collective/Juneteenth Committee (2007), and from the Pratt Area Community Council (2010).