January 2006 Archives

I sit overlooking a lake near Orlando, Florida. The UUMA's Committee on Ministry for Anti-racism, Anti-oppression and Multiculturalism is on retreat. We talk of situations, of problems and solutions. We share our own stories. The UUA has organized a transformation committee to do this work. They have wisely chosen to look at one institutional change at a time. We look at cases. Situations involving ministers in real concrete situations facing the processes and procedures that our community of faith has instituted to regulate and regularize our interconnections.
Our conversations are deep and sometimes when we look at a case we jointly experience the pain of doing this work. The Lake is good, and reminds us that we are sustained and renewed always.

This is a true story.  The new minister is introducing himself to the congregation.  He is telling the children about himself, and gives a few concrete examples of what a minister does.  A little girl is puzzled and shouts out.
"You can't be a minister!  You are a boy!

That congregation had had twenty one male ministers since the boats landed in the 1630s, and one female minister.  That one woman had been the minister that had christened that little girl, and told her stories during stories for all ages, and she was what a minister looked like for that little girl.

Doug Muder writes about the ways that the feminization of the churches based on his personal response to a sermon by a student minister.  Anecdotal evidence has its power, but I am not convinced that Unitarian Universalist churches have completed the overthrow of patriarchy and established a hegemony based on the ways of women.

Not too long ago a young woman who attends our services came up to me about 10 minutes before the service, she indicated that she had left her boyfriend, and she was now homeless.  Her presenting situation was that she needed to get her stuff at her old apartment and was much afraid.  I was about the do opening words, I hugged her and said we would help, could she sit wait in my office.  I asked a male high school teacher if he could help.  He had no information to go on, but I choose him for his non anxious compassionate way with people.  He worked with the young woman and the sheriff and by the end of the service she had experienced the caring community.  I can give other examples.  I don't know how our response would have been different if my school teacher congregant and I had been embodied female, but the kind of incident that Doug's student minister spoke about is part of being church, and has been since we all just gathered by a river.

While some of us may experience some growing pains being called upon to talk about our feelings does not make us "feminine,"  men have been trained to suppress feelings and there is considerable clinical evidence to indicate that such inhibitions are not healthy emotionally, relationally, or in terms of spiritual growth.  Women have worked to overcome many of the less empowering aspects of their social formation and so should men.  We are engaged in transformation,  some will experience it as feminization of our churches, and if men refuse to engage this new manifestation perhaps we will experience a withdrawal of men.  But we can create communities where women are encouraged to assert their ideas and celebrate the creative side of conflict, and men are encouraged to talk about feelings and listen to others when they are upset and need hug.

No more boring airplane trips.

The first season is now available at ITunes. I missed an episode of Commander in Chief and found it available for download within days.

I would like it if religious liberals learned to produce video that could be put on a computer and watched when the spirit moved me.

In an entry entitled Onward Christian Tee Shirts, Healing Hagar takes note of some brutal art work. They didn't include this one, which has horrified me for decades and which is my fully illustrated answer to how Unitarian Universalists Christians differ with the more orthodox.

For those among my readers who want more insight into the social agenda of vicarious atonement theology (which Channing called that "monster") there are more bumper stickers on this site. There is a logic in that madness.

Google has its strengths and it has its limitations. Sometimes I find more about a subject than I would ever ask, and sometimes I find nothing about something important if obscure to the internet world of commerce, scandal, and happenings.

I was thinking of writing a little essay on the subject of church growth. I still may. I was thinking that I might say a congregation is stronger with a smaller membership if they are active, than say a big congregation with few active members. Not a shocking idea, but one that doesn't get talked about in this age in which we privilege quantitative measurement rather than qualitative appraisal.

A wonderful title flashed in my mind, I thought "Better smaller but better." But then I remembered that that was a quote from V.I.Lenin, who was celebrating a split in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Lenin was arguing that the Party had too many opportunists, too many drifters and a split between the lean and mean Bolsheviks and the sloppy and pandering Mensheviks was really a good thing. Nothing to do with churches obviously.

Not that there is a copyright on titles, after all how many books have the same titles. Lots.

But I confess. I was afraid that I would be red baited. Red baiting is going around these days, even on UU blogs. Somebody might call me Comrade So Bold, as if reading Marx or Lenin was a sign of mental degeneration. Of course this would come from a person who is still waiting for weapons of mass destruction to be unearthed, or who thinks that Secretary Rice is a "Negro leader." Liberals have an amazing tolerance for slow learners.

Then I thought Lenin also said "one step forward, two steps backward" and I think, gee that must be a Russian dance step. So, "Better smaller but better" was probably a Russian folk idiom. Lenin was no poet, he was a polemist.

۬So I checked by putting the words "Better smaller but better" into Google. Nothing. Now I think Google is illiterate. I can find detailed quotes about a simple parish minister like myself through their search engine and I can't find one from one of the guys who made the twentieth century so stressful.

I read with concern some information about my UU community. Is this true? It can't be!

I assume that there is a variety of ways of doing things in UU congregations, but signing a delegate card for someone who had been in the congregation a few weeks. Bad Practice.

The congregation in which I was a lay person discussed everything that was to come before the UUA General Assembly including resolutions. When I went on to ministry, I assumed that was the way it was done, and tried to make it my practice after I was ordained. Two congregations resisted making it official, others were grateful that the church was taking their connections to the wider association seriously.

My home church elected the delegates in a competitive election and paid the registration fee and a small subsidy toward the expense. I have tried to likewise, and while I haven't convinced every church to be that strict, the delegates have been chosen by a announced open process. The delegates from congregations I have served have represented the congregation's discussions and ideas at GA with one exception (a youth who got his ideas from the YRUU.) No one should be a delegate to GA who isn't at least discussed by the board after being selected by the Association Affairs Committee. I prefer my delegates elected by the nominations committee and annual meeting, but I haven't been able to convince the lay leadership of that yet.

And I hear that preachers preach partisan politics! I can see UU ministers preaching peace, and against all sorts of injustice, but the idea that one party is good and the other bad isn't church for me. I ask my colleagues in chapter meetings and they agree; issues yes, Republican bashing no. But I hear it happens.

There are Republicans and Democrats in the congregation I serve, and a scattering of Libertarians. I have an affirmative action policy toward democratic socialists, but no takers yet. Fascists need not test my tolerance. I work to be inclusive, but I have my limits. Remember Channing said no one would be excommunicated, except for the death of goodness in their hearts. I would think that is a practical guideline when it comes to violent and coercive politics.

Is this a mild mannered rant? I suppose so.

I do find some of the complaints about the UUA interesting. Although they don't reflect my experience, I have always assumed where there is smoke there is fire. I suspect many complaints could be addressed by good practices at the congregational level. In fact some of the complaints and concerns like growth can only be handled by good practices at the congregational level. The UUA does not grow the congregations, the congregations grow the UUA.

I was dealing with a technical support person at Apple yesterday.  I was put on hold a half a dozen times and told that they couldn't help me twice, but finally I got some one to see the justice of my case, and I got the service that I needed.  Not the service that I wanted, but what they will do will do, and that is all I can ask.

I thought about that when I read Scott Wells post "who complains about the UUA" and my own history of complaining about individual staff and problematic programs resident at 25 Beacon Street.  I suspect I have had and continue to have more complaints than the most dedicated UUA critic.  Four decades of experience, close observation, and my own vision of what our movement can and should be gives me lots of fuel for the fires of critique.

But over the years I have come to know the players, and I have heard the rational for the programs and I have witnessed a lot of the comings and goings of headquarters staff.  Knowing the people involved has modified my response.  Now, I assume that most everyone involved is working with good intentions, and while I may disagree with a decision or policy,  it is a disagreement with people I hold in regard.  Back when I was in LRY, and even later when I was a young adult I took my disagreements personally, and railed against the bureaucrats at '25.'

Now I understand, when dealing with the UUA repeat the following prayer:

GOD, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom
to know the difference.

There are some things that can be changed. We might get Emerson demoted and Parker promoted.  But as long as the UUA is a hierarchal and departmentalized corporation with the staff accountable to the President, and the President and Moderator elected by delegates and most trustees elected by their Districts the accountability will be diffuse and the corporation will have a life of its own.

Ramie Wilson writes "imagine an America where a woman's right to reproductive choice is no longer protected by the Constitution. I thought about a country where abortion providers are forced to refuse women access to health care. I pictured the frightened faces of women -- especially women without economic means -- who are forced to rely on doctors who perform illegal abortions in often unsafe and unsanitary conditions."   She writes an informative article which puts the issue of "the right to choose to have an abortion" as a concrete justice issue,  article but it does not tackle the important work of reframing this right so that people can identify with it as a human justice issue.  I prefer "the right to be a Mother, without coercion or shame."

Chalice Chick has opened up a discussion about "fixing the UUA."  There have been several ideas, several of which might be embraced by enough folks to make it a serious proposal.

For example, what about moving the UUA HQ out of Boston!  Enough congregations might support a business resolution to move and  it would be an interesting debate at General Assembly.  If we sold the quaint and crowded headquarters buildings in Boston and bought real estate in a less expensive city, we could get nice offices and a real hotel for those who travel from out of town to do business with the Association, and increase the endowment at the same time.  I doubt it would make much difference in the UUA culture however,  there are few if any Bostonians working in professional positions at the UUA HQ.  The notion that Brahmins control the HQ is an urban myth, and won't die even after we get to Missouri.  (Please pick an air hub with cheap housing, and good medical care, so the salaries can cover living expenses. A Canadian city with a warm climate sounds ideal.)  But on a related proposal,  I will vote against any reduction of staff, unless some one can find a way to do the work that they do.  Those who argue that staff doesn't work hard have no idea how hard they work.

Some have observed that we pass a lot of resolutions of immediate concern.  It is hard to remember them all.  But even if we increased the super majority required to pass such resolutions, most of the resolutions would still pass since the sentiments contained in the resolves enjoy the support of most UUs.  Conservative UUs refuse to acknowledge how liberal their co-religionists really are, and how much they enjoy making statements witnessing their liberalism. On the other hand,  asking the drafting committee of new resolution to make it sound more religious is a great idea, but isn't that going to get a reaction from the folks that objected to the suggestion that we be more open to the religious language?

Philocrites asks how does one make change in the UUA?  He suggests a Guide Book for the new change agent.  I have seen change in the UUA over the years, in fact I am a habitual UUA reformer.  Since I was a youth, I have joined with others to affect some change by organizing grass roots efforts in support a reform, in the form of a business resolution, or amendment to the by-laws.  But with all my efforts, more change has come from Presidents who run on reform platforms and who actually implement some of their ideas in programmatic and structural change.  Much of Bill Sinkford's original platform is still waiting for the capital funds and free time to turn them into programs and proposals.  His idea of decentralizing the UUA out of Boston and creating centers of excellence at Meadville and Starr King for developing programs remains a good idea, whose time has come again and again.  So the most effective way to get an idea out there, and get it debated, is run for President.  But Presidents seem less energetic about reform after they have been elected, especially in the second term.

I have seen change, and I have seen reform.  But with all the changes and reforms, I don't think that the UUA has been fixed.  Perhaps Roger Kuhrt has identified the problem.  He calls it hypercorporatism.  The UUA HQ doesn't function as the administrative and program offices of an Association of Congregations, it functions as a denominational headquarters separate and apart from the community of congregations.  And the corporation gets enamored with its identity and generates programs to promote itself.  The congregations have become consumers of services, rather than partners of each other.  Our little reforms do little to change such a culture.  We can't "fix" headquarters without a different way of relating each congregation to each other congregation.  And running for President won't change the inter relationship of congregations,  it can just reshuffle the staff, move the staff West, and change the priorities of the corporation.

Christian churches in their majority witness for peace and justice, and stand for enduring values in contrast to the intrigues of power politics. A prominent evangelical Christian theologian argues that American evangelicals have entered into an unprincipled alliance with power and violence by supporting the unjust war against Iraq. Christian just war theology makes it clear that war can only be fought as a last resort, and if fought must never target civilians, must make its aims clear and limited, and must observe ethical standards in treatment of prisoners. The United States has abandoned all pretense to adherence to just war standards and has resorted to the immoral "our ends are good, and they justify our means" rational.

Some religious communities including Unitarian Universalists have remained independent of the dominant culture and the powers that be, and witnessed for peace and justice instead of exclusive privilege and triumphalism.

Check out Wayward Christian Soldiers by Charles Marsh.

Walked around Sante Fe this afternoon. We have been free to walk during the early morning, and lunch breaks, but today we skipped lunch and finished our business by two.

Spent time looking at art. This is Sante Fe. Did several galeries and the Museum of Contemporary Native American Art. Like all museums some of the art was exciting and bold, and some was interesting and puzzling. Settled into a easy chair in the Museum store and started reading a wonderful book on Native American foods. Some great vegetarian recipes.

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley writes:

"The year is still new, and I find myself reflecting on 2005 and even the end of 2004. It was a time of disasters-many brought on by nature: the tsunami that hit South Asia and parts of East Africa; Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastating the Gulf Coast of the United States; the earthquake in Pakistan.

These natural disasters remind us that we are all part of the interconnected web of existence. But in some way, natural disaster masks another kind of disaster-the kind that can be prevented: the disaster of social and economic injustice. Hurricane Katrina showed the human face of racism, poverty and its consequences right before our eyes. And yet, in the news media last week, we learned of a plan hatched by rich developers to rebuild New Orleans. It is a plan that does not include housing the city's poor; nor does it call for the poorest residents of the Lower Ninth Ward (most of them Black) to have the first right of refusal to live in the community they once called home. And we learned that several hotels in New Orleans have evicted hundreds of people whose bills were being paid by FEMA; people who lost their homes and nearly everything they owned; people who have no place to go.

Now I know that the corporate sector has to make money if they want to stay in business. But what does it mean when the richest country in the world lets so many people fall through the social safety net.

Unfortunately, we don't need a hurricane or a flood to see poverty, for each day, poverty kills thousands of people in this country. Each day, hundreds of thousands of people go hungry. Every day, too many senior citizens face the awful choice of cutting back on their medicines or on their food. And others-including families with young children-increase the army of the working poor who struggle to make ends meet without a living wage.

So often, we think of Dr. King in terms of racial justice, and certainly, that was one of the issues he championed along with peace (or non-violence)and economic justice. So, it seems appropriate to focus on economic justice as we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Mr. Luther King, Jr. This especially so given that King spent his last days in Memphis preparing to stage a march in support of black sanitation workers fighting for a fair wage.

One sanitation worker on strike at the time, Taylor Rogers, who is now 79 years old remembered how Dr. King "put everything aside to come to Memphis to see about the people on the bottom of the ladder, the sanitation workers."

This was part of King's campaign with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize a Poor People's Campaign to address what he felt was a crisis of economic disparity. He had crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor," had descended on Washington, and was prepared to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience until the Congress enacted a poor people's Bill of Rights.

This poor people's Bill of Rights called for jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. King saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor"-appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness."

If Dr. King could see that military spending has continued to escalate (far beyond the 1968 level) and that Congress has approved massive tax cuts that benefit the rich, he would not be silent. He was not fighting for fair wages and supporting the organization of unions because he enjoyed this kind of thing, but he did it because justice was central to his theology. In a speech he gave to the sanitation workers the day before he was assassinated, King stated, "You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor."

He knew that he was risking his life by challenging the status quo. He did it because it was one way of acknowledging the value of every person, no matter what job they do. "So often" he said, "we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."

The inherent worth and dignity of every person was a foundation of Dr. King's theology as it is part of mine. It is the first principle of the faith that we claim as Unitarian Universalists! The inherent worth and dignity of every person-the men who pick up your garbage each week; the clerk at McDonald's, the maid at the Holiday Inn who will change your sheets and towels when you take your next business trip or your next vacation; the hospital worker down the street who empties bed pans; the clerk at Wal-Mart, a store I've never been in, by the way, because of the unfair way they treat their workers.

All these service workers and the work that they do has worth and dignity! In a 1961 speech at an AFL-CIO convention, King stated, "Our needs are identical with labor's needs-decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor."

Elsewhere in his writings, King made the justice issue even clearer, challenging the soul of who we are as a country when he said: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." He then offered a critique of our country as a "thing-oriented society" versus a "person-oriented society."

How do we escape the prospect of spiritual death that is much more real since Dr. King left us? Part of my response is to remember King's words that "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Two weeks ago, I visited my congresswoman to tell her that I do not support the budget cuts from social programs or the tax cuts for the rich--both of which she voted for. My next step is a letter to her. In whatever way you find, let us not be silent about things that matter.

A Luta Continua (the struggle continues)

A sermon excerpt - January 16, 2006, Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa

Hills. Mountains. It is good for the human soul to behold the earth rising up toward the sky and falling down in to ravines and valleys.

Florida is beautiful, but it is so flat. I miss the rises. Marjorie and I arrived in Albuquerque yesterday afternoon. We met two colleagues, rented a van and drove up to Sante Fe by way of the scenic route stopping for a little browsing in an old mining village which apparently has been converted into a dozens of art galleries. The rents for setting up a gallery in Sante Fe must be really high, or the tourists must drive this scenic road a lot, to make it worthwhile. We didn't see may customers, but there were lots of vendors and quite a few artists.

I am here in Sante Fe for the January meeting of the UUMA exec. Our agenda is full. There is work relative to the UUA policies and ministers that we spend lots of time working on. But in our polity the association of ministers and the association of congregations are partners rather than antagonists. Some ministerial colleagues would love it if the UUMA were a union, and fought for ministers rights with congregations and the association. I have more experience as a trade unionist than 99% of my colleagues (three unions, steward, secretary treasurer of a local, and a field organizer) and I can't imagine how such a minister's union would work. Already we help by creating model contracts for parish ministers with congregations, and creating best practice guidelines. But the UUA is as association of congregations is not an antagonist to ministers, and ministers are not antagonists to their congregations. The UUA can't implement its policies without ministers, and ministers interests are bound up in the health and welfare of strong congregations. We are not employees, we are clergy, and the UUMA is an association of clergy. I am sure the conversation will go on.

So this morning I am a mile higher than yesterday. Loving it.

We live in time of symbolic politics when both Democrats and Republicans are more concerned with their image than with substance.  Politicians who do nothing to advance the concerns of People of Color or address the growing racial divide in our nation will parade their admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr. today.  While there are some excellent representatives of the people who are also Democrats, most Democrats support for the issues of communities of Color is week,.  But still the Republicans actively oppose these measures.  We are stuck in the politics of the better of two evils, because Republicans whose rise to power was a direct result of openly exploiting the "white backlash" are the most brazen in saying one thing while doing quite the opposite.  It is important to understand both political parties, lest one become misled by their rhetoric.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes: "If he were alive, King would almost certainly oppose GOP economic policies, which squeeze the poor. ..there is much in King's background and social philosophy that Republicans have repackaged to suit their aims.  Nevertheless Martin Luther King, Jr. is an icon to exploit and exploit him they will.

Also check out this article by Hutchinson on manipulation of King's legacy.

There was a struggle to make Martin Luther King's birthday a legal holiday, now there is a struggle to make it mean something.  Resolve that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday doesn't become another shopping holiday, but a commemoration.  Make a day of service, not a day off.

MLK Day timeline

€¢ April 4, 1968 Dr. King was assassinated.

€¢ U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan introduced
legislation to create a federal holiday to commemorate Dr. King.

€¢ 1973 Illinois became the first state to adopt MLK Day as a state holiday.

€¢ 1985 U.S. officially observes Martin Luther King Day for the first time.

€¢ January 20, 1986 The United States observed the first federal MLK Day.

€¢ January 18, 1993 Martin Luther King Day holiday was observed
in all 50 states for the first time.

I've read nearly all of King's writings.
I've listened to twenty of his sermons.
I want to suggest that based on what I have read and heard
that the power of King's preaching -
and the power of his moral leadership -
was that it was rooted in his appeal
to the most insistent of all human desires,
the desire for justice. . .
and his own struggle to keep hope alive
in the face of a hard, hard struggle.

Preachers make a distinction between topical sermons,
prophetic sermons, and pastoral sermons.

Topical sermons are sermons about something,
about religious education,
about why it is good to join a church,
about how reason is a good thing.
Topical sermons arise from the role of the preacher as teacher.

Then there is prophetic sermons,
Prophetic sermons denounce the wrong doing in some public situation,
and inspire the congregation to rise up and do something about it.

or for preachers like me, who are little less in to denouncing things,
I might tell a story about somebody who breaks through prejudice
and obstactles
to be the kind of person that makes a difference.
to witness justice and peace.
I call that the prophetic story sermon.

Finally there is the pastoral sermon,
The pastoral sermon addresses some spiritual issue
people might be struggling with.....
facing our losses, how to deal with difficult people,
forgiving ourselves for being human.

Sometimes the pastoral sermon has a story,
of someone is an example who recovers from addiction,
or someone who reconciles with a enemy.

When I listen to King,
he must have not taken notes in preaching class,
because he combines all three in one sermon...
in all sermons......

He will talk to his listeners about not be jealous,
not trying to keep up with the Jones,
not living beyond one's financial means,
by putting on a show,
and how we should care for one another,
and then start preaching about how caring for one another
means overcoming poverty,
and keeping hope alive.

His prophetic preaching was experienced as loving
because he did not simply denounce wrong doing,
he combined hope, and perserverence,
and forgiveness of others as well as yourself
in every sermon.

He would refer to the segregationists, as "our brothers"
King understood that this is the secret and the strength of all prophetic preaching
in every great religious tradition of all history.
Hope and justice are inseparably bound.

As Dr. King put it, "not the power of Pharaoh,
nor the cumulative power of all the legions ever assembled"
are mightier than hope and justice allied.

It has long been held that Preachers and Priests make for lousy TV, one can't make a decent action adventure story out of the day to day work of the clergy, and it would people in the United States might find the idea of situation comedy in bad taste. (The British have a different sense of the comic.) The television series The Book of Daniel (which is action packed in a Desperate Housewifes sort of way) is catching some attention from those who are attuned to the media's portrayal of religion. Albert Mohler asks "is this a satire on Liberal Christianity."
See also Jesus Politics.

Religious liberalism arose not on the basis of abstract principles, but within a concrete social context. Unitarian Universalist church historian Conrad Wright probes how some of our principles reflected the historical conditions of the time (and place), and suggests that subsequent social changes challenge those principles. Conrad Wright writes in Walking Together:
"Liberal religion articulated a value system that derived its strength from the social arrangements made possible by the discovery of the resources of the New World. But those resources were not limitless. The infinity of the private individual was plausible enough on the shores of Walden Pond, when there was no closer than Concord Village a mile away: it is hollow rhetoric on the streets of Calcutta or in the barrios of Caracas. The progress of humankind onward and upward forever may have seemed an axiom grounded in history to James Freedman Clarke: it seems something less than that to the residents of Middletown, Pennsylvania. The principle of religious toleration was easy for Jefferson, who could not see that it did any injury to his neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no gods, but the principles of toleration takes on a sharper edge when the decisive differences are not in the realm of speculative theology, abut on the question of apartheid and what it is others should be forced, despite their opinions, to do about it."

So what is permanent and what is transient about liberal religion? Contemporary religious liberals assert that it is a religious principle to work to build a world of peace, democracy, equality and justice - we may disagree whether such a world can be attained, and just what such a world might look like, but social justice and overcoming violence and coercion have become foundational to our religious community. Our spiritual ancestors shared these values with us.

Yet Wright points out that their understandings of these principles were based on their peculiar social situation. He doesn't mention, but I will, that one particularity of that social situation of early American religious liberalism was that it rested on power, and privilege. That power and privilege was based on an accumulation of wealth that resulted from: the conquest of North America, and its peoples; the privatization of the land; the institution of slavery; and the exploitation of impoverished laborers in a rising industrial society. North America's economy today is the product of that historic accumulation.

So religious liberalism arose in a social context, and the social context was based on a history which many of us would describe as unjust, exploitative and contrary to the principles that we espouse. Our contemporary Unitarian Universalist movement exists in a social context as well, and many of us would argue that the social order in which we exist is contrary to our values, and principles. The difference between us and our spiritual ancestors may be that we are aware of the contraction, that we can understand that our religious values call upon us to transform our social situation.

The founders of religious liberalism saw the best hope for their values in their new republic, and its unfolding destiny. Today, Unitarian Universalists are much less optimistic about the wonders of an American future, than our spiritual ancestors.

One of the tasks of Unitarian Universalist theology is to articulate what is the basis for our optimism. We continue to articulate an optimistic theology and social vision. But what is the basis for that optimism. If not the republic, then have we really come to embrace a set of abstractions; such as the triumph of reason and science, the potential of human beings to do good, or love overcoming evil?

What does it mean to affirm the goal of a world community of peace and justice? And what are the means toward that end?

Below are some quotes that help reveal the less visible aspects of racism.

Today, racism is far more camouflaged than it was [before the civil rights movement.] It is buried in institutional practices. It is hidden in coded language and subtle messages some people get when they shop, or look for a place to live or for a taxi, or have dealings with the police.

Project Hip-Hop, 1997

Racism is so universal is this country, so widespread and deep seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

Shirley Chisholm, 1970

If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is most nice, nonhating people who perpetuate racial inequality.

Ellis Cose, 1997

Black people know that sometimes their greatest enemy is. . . white people of power who would never utter a racist sentence in public, yet who quitely and privately do everything they can to keep black people as the slave class in this society.

Carl Rowan, 1991

In an article entitled "We shall overcome . . .  Liberals, " writer Micheal Goldberg reviews a Philadelphia political rally held by religious right leaders who have openly entered into the political struggle to confirm Samuel Alito.  The so-called Justice Sunday appropriated the rhetoric of the civil rights movement for its drive to gain control over the federal judiciary.

Meanwhile liberals wonder whether or not the IRS will investigate us if we mention that Jesus was a pacifist and would object to war stance of both Bush and Kerry.  The use of some African American clergy for right wing rallies will not change the democratic, pro-civil rights orientation of African Americans, but it will lend legitimacy to the political right.  Check it out

Also read this commentary in Prodigal Sheep.

I was an early adopter to the IPod.  In fact I liberated my SO from captivity to Windows (but there are no applications for the Mac) by giving her a IPod.  Now she is now a liberated (and computer virus free) IBook user.

So I have  a few gadgets for my IPod (this one is my second, my first is functioning usefully as a Linux voice recorder.)  I have a connector to plug it into my car radio cassette recorder, and a mike attachment to turn the IPod into a voice recorder.  Since the IPod carries an electonic calendar, address list, and notes I have not needed a PGA for three years.  I never did get that graffiti thing down.    So, I can be sold an useful IPod accessory.

But what the hell is this good for?  Mathew Honan writes: "Is that a joystick in your pocket? Why, yes it is. Levi's announced its new line of RedWire DLX Jeans, available worldwide in fall 2006. The jeans feature a built-in iPod docking cradle, joystick and retractable headphones.

Designed for both men and women, the jeans are designed to be compatible with most iPod systems. A special joystick is built into the jeans' watch pocket, with four-way controls to allow the wearer to play, pause, track forward, track back and adjust the volume control without ever removing the iPod from the pocket.

An iPod docking cradle is housed within a side pocket. Levi's designed the pocket so that the iPod buldge is "virtually eliminated." The cradle has a red conductive ribbon that allows users to remove their iPod from the pocket to view its screen while staying connected. The jeans are machine washable once the iPod is removed.

A white leather patch and joystick, bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching, and minimalist buttons and rivets allude to the iPod's famously pure design."

Since 34 million of IPods were sold last year,  I guess I will have to get used to such announcements.  There was a spartan purity to be a Mac user before the IPod.

January 10, 1908

Mohandas Gandhi, is jailed for the first time, for refusing to register as an Asian in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is released on January 30, 1908.

Some times new Unitarian Universalists are curious about why so many of our congregations consider saving the whales a social justice issue.  Whaling!  Didn't that go out with Melville's generation.  Now days it is just those Japanese who take a few whales as  a cultural delicacy, right?

Wrong!    Many thousands of whales are being killed every year, and several species are on the verge of extinction.

The Independent reports that "We cannot be excused our culpability. Almost anyone born before 1960 ate whale - in margarine or ice cream - wore it as a cosmetic or fed it to their pets. The peak of whaling was not the brutal days of Melville's Moby-Dick, but the 1960s when, in one season alone, floating factories "processed" 6,158 blue whales, 17,989 finback whales, 2,108 humpback whales and 2,566 sperm whales - not including the thousands killed by the Russians, unreported to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The whale, too, was a victim of the Cold War. "
Read the Independent report

Is Micheal Moore's vision of a more democratic, more inclusive United States distorted by white privilege?  Kenyon Farrow & Kil Ja Kim seem to think so, they write:

"[W]e think Michael Moore is a white nationalist. . . .

Some will be confused by our use of white nationalism since it's a term usually reserved for "extremist" organizations. To the contrary, we consider white nationalism to be normalized in US social relations since by white nationalism we mean the project of nation building that is driven by the experiences and history of white people. White nationalism, however, is more than just being white-centric, per se. Rather, white nationalism is the project of maintaining or expanding the white nation-whether established along state lines or as socially created communities or both-in ways that reflect the anxieties, fears, dread and aspirations of white people. As such, in a white nationalist discourse, whiteness and US civil society as well as the racialized and sexualized project of citizenship that maintains both are not confronted. Instead the point of departure for a white nationalist approach is: what stands in white people's way of being able to claim the nation as rightfully theirs? A white nationalist project therefore is fixated with what government forces, "subversiveness" from below or shifts in the global economy threaten the rights of the white citizenry.

I find this critique of Moore challenging, because if he is engaged in revisioning the white nation state then Unitarian Universalists need to probe deeply into the vision behind our social justice statements and resolutions.  Does this critique extend to Unitarian Universalism?  Kenyon Farrow & Kil Ja Kim's complete critique of Moore can be found on

Model Minority: A Guide To Asian American Empowerment.

Paul Dorn writes:  "As with many features of life in the US, transportation is rife with class contradictions. National transportation policy, especially since WWII, has effectively been controlled by GM, Exxon, and their associates (not coincidentally the biggest cabal of capitalist villains on the planet). These corporate interests have used their considerable political influence to ensure that highways get funded and transit systems don't, creating an extensive system of subsidies to encourage driving and discourage alternatives. The automobile-centered US transportation system has been created to maximize profits, not to enhance personal mobility.

The prioritization of automobiles by government transportation planners has had numerous detrimental effects, with the most damaging impacts borne by poor and working class people." 

Paul has a good outline of some of the distortions that our dependence on automobiles has introduced into our way of life.

I am becoming convinced that the "moral value" that religious liberals must proclaim to the world is that one can not achieve just ends by unjust means.  The idea that one can "defend freedom" by violating the rights of citizens is just as absurd as the notion that one can install "Iraqi freedom" by invasion and mass violence against the civilian population.  Peace can only be achieved by non-violence,  and justice can only result from just works.

Columnist Bob Herbert in today's New York Times argues that G.W. Bush has ignored the wise counsel of Edward R. Murrow, who memorably told us, "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
He continues: "few things are more important than making sure that a president with a demonstrated tendency to abuse the powers of his office is not allowed to lay the foundation for the systematic surveillance of the American people.  For a president - any president - to O.K. eavesdropping on U.S. citizens on American soil without a warrant is an abomination. First, it's illegal - and for very good reasons. Spying on the populace is a giant step toward totalitarianism. In the worst-case scenario, it's the nightmare of Soviet-style surveillance."

One of the threads that emerged in the recent conversation about theology that took place in and among Unitarian Universalist weblogs focused on the "big words" that theologians use. It was argued that words like eschatology, soteriology, and ecclesiology are words that indicate an advanced and specialized education, and so ordinary lay folk can not do theology.

Most of these words indicate concepts that people active in a religious communities have struggled with, for example ecclesiology refers to theological thinking about the nature of the church. What is the purpose of religious community? Is it to provide a sanctuary from a world of woe, or is it more like a filling station, which energizes its members so that they can function in the world? Does it deliver a message that informs us that our hope is in another world, or does it deliver a message about a vision for transformation of this world? Is it a model of the beloved community, or is it more realistic to think of it as a dysfunctional family where we learn the skills of family therapy and practice the spirituality of being non-anxious presence? I have heard all these ideas expressed about the purpose of church.

When we attend worship the opening words almost certainly contains a message about what the church thinks it is about, as do the hymns, the prayers and mediations, the sermon, and other service elements. Our theology of religious community is announced in pamphlets in the literature rack. It is also made manifest in the practice of the church, we ask just how welcoming is the church that says its mission is radical inclusion? and just how pluralistic is the church that claims to be informed by wisdom from the all the world's traditions?

We encounter ecclesiology, we reflect on what we hear and read, and we talk about it with others, and hopefully we practice our understandings about what religious community is supposed to be.

I believe lay members do theology "without knowing it." So how do we come to understand what we are doing, so that we can do it more intentionally?

I will explore this idea further in subsequent posts.

That geek test gave me a 7.662% and dismissed my application.

I read Latin, and a few other languages in addition, and know my mythologies. I have programmed a mainframe with punch cards in Fortran, run statistical analysis and I am a historian.

Alas I bought a Mac in 1985 and have kept up had to learn to write some applescript, and keep up with the shareware.

Star Wars got old, and the Lord of the Rings was slow.

So they have very definate ideas about what it takes to be a geek. I just follow a different drummer.

The idea of taking concrete steps to remedy and to prevent discrimination - in employment, housing, education and access to programs - for all historically marginalized and oppressed racial and cultural groups and for women originated in the 1960s. It was modeled on the GI bill of rights and other programs to support veterans. In the 1970s affirmative action programs were instituted to include people with disabilities.

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way in the 1967: "This is a day which demands new thinking and the reevaluation of old concepts. A society that has done done something special against the Negro for hundreds of year must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis." Unitarian Universalists have supported affirmative action to eliminate discrimination and advance equality for four decades. Beginning in the 1970s Unitarian Universalists extended affirmative action to overcome discrimination based on sexual orientation. The second and sixth principles are wishful thinking without a commitment to affirmative action.

Affirmative action programs have been among the most effective instruments in deconstructing institutional racism. But those who are privileged by racism have raised many counter arguments seeking to discredit affirmative action.

It was argued that affirmative action constituted some kind of reverse discrimination. Manning Marable effectively answers that argument: "Given the fact that the average white household's net worth is ten times that of a black families, and that the overwhelming majority of leaders in business, government, banking and the media are upper-class white males, the argument that whites suffer "reverse discrimination" is absurd. Justice demand affirmative action based on race and gender to address continuing patterns of inequality in America."Some of the anger generated against affirmative action stems from illusions stemming from the ideology of Whiteness as Kenneth B. Clark pointed out: "The illusion of classlessness among whites led them to believe that all whites had opportunities to succeed until blacks came along. every psychologists knows there are individual preferences in every group. Every white applicant for say, a policeman's job, believing he'd get a job or promotion were it not for affirmative action, is engaging in a fascinating sort of idiocy."

Another objection has been raised is that somehow affirmative action confers a stigma, that the woman or minority who has a job has it not because they are qualified, but because they benefit from affirmative action. Answering that objection is Andrew Hacker "How, it is asked, can people go through life, knowing that they have been hired not on their inherent talents, but to fill some quota or to satisfy appearances? Not surprisingly, white people seem to do most of the worrying about this apparent harm to black self-esteem. In fact, there is little evidence that those who have been aided by affirmative action feel many doubts or misgivings. For one thing, most of them believe that they are entitled to whatever opportunities they have received . . . . Nor should it be forgotten what feelings of unworthiness seldom plague white Americans who have profited from more traditional forms of preferment." [How many Veterans complain about Veterans preferences?]

On January 6th of 1832, William Lloyd Garrison along with 15 others, founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society at the African Meeting House in Boston.

By 1833, Garrison helped establish the American Anti-Slavery Society with fellow abolitionists Arthur Tappan, Lewis Tappan, and Theodore Dwight Weld. This organization sent lecturers across the North to convince whites of slavery's brutality.

Links to:

Today in history

Anti Slavery Society

William Llyod Garrison

G.W. Bush continues to assert that he has the right to thwart the laws. Charlie Savage reported in the January 4th edition of the Boston Globe of that President has issued "a ''signing statement" . . . declaring that he will view the interrogation limits (in the recently passed torture ban) in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said".

But leaders of his own Party in the Senator publicly rebuked Bush's stance. Charlie Savage writes in the Boston Globe of January 5th: "Three key Republican senators yesterday condemned President Bush's assertion that his powers as commander in chief give him the authority to bypass a new law restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees.
John W. Warner Jr., a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, issued a joint statement rejecting Bush's assertion that he can waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees to protect national security.

''We believe the president understands Congress's intent in passing, by very large majorities, legislation governing the treatment of detainees," the senators said. ''The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation. Our committee intends through strict oversight to monitor the administration's implementation of the new law."

Separately, the third primary sponsor of the detainee treatment law, Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told the Globe in a phone interview that he agreed with everything McCain and Warner said ''and would go a little bit further."

''I do not believe that any political figure in the country has the ability to set aside any . . . law of armed conflict that we have adopted or treaties that we have ratified," Graham said. ''If we go down that road, it will cause great problems for our troops in future conflicts because [nothing] is to prevent other nations' leaders from doing the same."

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the senators' statements ''mean that the battle lines are drawn" for an escalating fight over the balance of power between the two branches of government.
''The president is pointing to his commander in chief power, claiming that it somehow gives him the power to dispense with the law when he's conducting war," Golove said. ''The senators are saying: 'Wait a minute, we've gone over this. This is a law Congress has passed by very large margins, and you are compelled and bound to comply with it. "

Articles found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0104-02.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0105-01.htm

We have long since grown accustomed to thinking of Blacks as being "racially disadvantaged." Rarely, however, do we refer to Whites as "racially advantaged," even though that is an equally apt characterization of the existing inequality.

Harlon Dalton, 1995

As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see the corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism does affect them because they are not people of color: the do not see "whiteness" as racial identity.

In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Peggy McIntosh, 1988

Whiteness in a racist, corporate controlled society is like having the image of an American Express Card. . . . stamped on one's face: immediately you are "universally accepted."

Manning Marable, 1997

"Why bother?"  What difference does "doing theology" make to Unitarian Universalism and to liberal religion in general?  If we are content with the present state of our faith community,  then "doing theology" is sort of like having dessert, a great addition to our life, but not essential.

The first source of our discontent that motivates us to do theology are challenges to religious liberalism.  People ask questions that we can't answer without going back to the sources of religious liberalism and the best practices of  our community.  To "do theology" for the purpose of apologetics, (explaining the tenets of the tradition in the light of challenges) is a commonplace in Unitarian Universalist publishing and preaching.  We witness "why I am a UU" and we can explain why freedom is better than coercion, and why pluralism challenges us to grow to include the other,  but for the most part apologetics is conservative.  It helps our community understand itself and it aids the process of adopting new members into the existing community.

  Theology can either serve the status quo, or it can provide a vision for transformation.  I am convinced that religious liberalism faces new challenges and that the old answers do not suffice, because we must change to meet these challenges.  I am not content with the present state of  our faith community.  Thus for me apologetics is not sufficient, we need theology that envisions a new way of being religious liberals.  I have no interest in continuing to do  theology that serves our present way of being religious liberals, and I do not experience it as a loss that such theology is in crisis.  Such theology rationalizes Unitarian Universalism's privatism, and isolation from social realities.

In subsequent essays I will comment on some of the Unitarian Universalist "liberation" theologies, theologies of transformation,  and theologies that envision new ways of being in relationship with one another that are contributing to the renewal of our faith community.  For those readers who are anxious for examples of such work, I suggest that they check out some of the books on my sidebar. Some are by Unitarian Universalist authors, some are not.  Such is dialectic that is theology.

Jodie Janella Horn writes: " I have developed a recurring fantasy of taking President Bush, grabbing him by the hair and slamming his face on his desk repeatedly while screaming, "Family values? I'll show you family values. I'm moving to Canada so I can afford to have a family." Hell hath no fury like a lioness without cubs.

She explores the findings of a new book that exposes the societal and financial reasons that today's twenty- and thirty somethings are finding it nearly impossible to stay afloat. (see below.)

Horn writes that many young people do not see the solutions to their problems in politics,  and given the way the two parties have been working for the last three decades they are right.  But with the same amount of energy one would invest in moving to Canada (another of her fantasy solutions) and trying to start her life over there, she and others could make a significant change in how this country is governed.  Being a citizen is not a spectator sport.

"Strapped : Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead" (Tamara Draut)

Image.  Family values begins at home.  MoveOn  Library.