August 2006 Archives

Every now and then Unitarian Universalists engage in a hairsplitting argument, is it classism, or is it racism?  This is related to that other non productive distinction making argument, does the oppression of poor women stem from class or patriarchy?  Round and round the argument goes, and the liberals can't decide which oppression is more oppressing for y'all poor folks.

In the United States, race oppression has always been part of the domination system and related to class oppression.  The social system that gave rise to both class oppression and race oppression was and is patriarchal.  That social system has historically privileged heterosexuals, and institutionalized a double standard relative to propertied class male conduct and female conduct, as a result it sexualized the relation of propertied classes to the oppressed non-propertied classes.

Class oppression and gender  oppression are both pillars of the dominant power elite within the social system.  It is absurd to reduce one to the other, or to separate one from the other.  Attempts of feminists of the dominant and aspiring classes to combat "sexism" without dealing with class has trivialized feminism, so that today we have privileged women who actually believe the slogan "you have come a long way baby" - and act on such  narcissism in a society where African American and Native American women see their men humiliated and their families destroyed -and rationalize this betrayal by the claim that such racialized class violence are not "women's issues."

So what about race and class?  The form of racial oppression that has become institutionalized in the United States arose out of the breakdown of the old system of class oppression in the British North American colonies in the seventeenth century.  To make a long, and complex story short and simple, the English arrived with a laws about servitude that had served them well across the pond.  The English considered themselves to be a race, different and hostile to the Irish race (and other Europeans as well.)  The psychological and cultural differences between the English and other peoples were explained by "blood" rather than enculturation.

Concepts of race as applied by the English elites to the Irish was to consider the Irish to be "savage" and incapable of civilization, but when the English encountered the Africans and the indigenous Americans these people were considered even more savage than the Irish.  In Virginia in the 1670s, the "excluded" of the colony (including African and Irish) formed alliance (against the Indians in the case of Bacon's Rebellion) and engaged in resistance and revolt against the plantation owners.  The revolt was suppressed by violence and the elite began to create a new system of rule to prevent this alliance from ever happening again.  The concept of Whiteness was invented and institualized in the decades that followed.  In the new racist order the Irish (and poor English) were still poor and oppressed, but now they were "racially" the same as the planters.  They were to consider themselves superior to the African descended peoples and to be enemies of the indigenous peoples as well.  Subsequent immigrations of Europeans reveal the same patterns, the Swedes were called "honkies" by the Anglos, but they learned English and became white.  The peoples from southern and eastern Europe were racially oppressed and then made white through assimilation as well.  Whiteness in contemporary America means "not colored" and "not racially oppressed" but for many people of European descent that has come at the price of forgetting ones distinct heritage.

(As a side note. In recent years Jews have become white, and white folks now talk about Judaism being a religion and not a race!  Since "race" is an invention of oppression, what that means is that the Jews are no longer to be racially oppressed (but they are to be religiously discriminated against!))

Race and class in the United States have functioned together to oppress the majority of the people.  The Irish were victims of racial oppression when they were oppressed as another race, and another form of racial oppression continued when they were seduced into giving up being Irish for "whiteness." The oppression of ancestor denial!  The Africans were turned into slaves (a form of class oppression) and after the end of slavery a caste system was established that perpetuated a division between "white" and "colored" working people.  Sharecropping was a class oppression but the white sharecroppers were lynchers and the Black sharecroppers were lychees.  In a twentieth century steel mill, the workers were all oppressed as "proletarians," but "Blacks" were janitors and laborers, and "Whites" operated the machines.

It can be argued that the Native American peoples were victims of race oppression but not class oppression.  That is true as long as "Natives" remained in their own distinct communities and those communities were self sufficient.  But most  people who identify as "Native" live outside of the surviving "Indian communities" today,  and they experience racism and class oppression and are victims of patriarchy as well.*  "Natives" not living in "Indian communities" are not counted by the administrators of the conquest (the Bureau of Indian Affairs) as not being "Native" at all, and yet they are subject to impoverishment and violence by racist institutions.

It does not make sense to a person of color who has experienced oppression to participate in arguments with "white identified"  liberals about whether a particular incident was a result of race, class, culture or patriarchy.  Incidents happen, and they happen within a context of a racialized class society that is patriarchal.  The idea that one can distinguish a classist incident from a racist incident from a sexist incident is to reduce these oppressions to bad attitudes, rather than to see them as interrelated forms of the same domination system.

Now my answer to the "white identified" liberal is not the one the UUA approved anti racist training program has taught us.  Make a conscious choice to overcome the formation process that has taught you to be white!   Become a human being of European heritage if you will.  Whiteness was and is a racist identity.ˆš  Your skin color, mortgage and diploma do not make you part of the elite, despite your illusions.  Join the human race and join with the struggle to  help end all forms of oppression, since they diminish all who would be human. If you have some relative privilege, use that power for the benefit of all.  Don't engage in narcissistic guilt about your "whiteness," or denial about your power.  It is our way of relating to each other that perpetuates both the elites and their ways of dividing us.  Each of us are either part of the solution, or we are part of the problem.

*For example.  I cannot live life as a Cherokee, without living as a gendered person in gender equality and interrelationship.  To live in a patriarchal society is to experience oppression racially, culturally and as a man, because the demands of patriarchy are foreign to my ancestors ways of being men and women.  Thus given the linked nature of oppressions, I am oppressed by this culture's "sexism" and cultural racism.    Now that is not feminist orthodoxy, but that is why people of color reject feminist orthodoxy as being more about privileged white women than it is about being liberated yet gendered human beings.

ˆš I am an anti racist activist and was before the UUA training programs were invented.  I have never figured out this question: what is an white ally?

Doesn't the notion of "ally" imply that anti racism is something people of color do and "white" people help them do it?  Ten years of the UUA anti racism program and forty years of anti racist activism, and I still think that everyone must struggle to overcome this destructive and divisive social construction together.  But the rhetoric of anti racism in my religious community has been shaped by an analysis that sees no link between class and race, and seems to think the category "white people" designates an objective reality rather than a social construction with a history.

I continue to strive toward clarity.

What is a white anti racist?  Doesn't a commitment and years of activism to realize that commitment to anti racism undermine one's whiteness?  Just asking.

Before Bill Sinkford said no to orthodoxy,  just asking such a question was to invite stonewalling  with formulas from a trainer.  Privilege = class, and Power + prejudice = racism.  That was supposed to be an analysis!  And what do you say about the Latino housekeeper who is rapped by her African American corporate manager macho guy employer? Is she a victim of race, class, or sexism?  My answer, she is victim of all the above and so is he.

I returned from a one week trip to Pasadena to lead a interim start up retreat, meet with as many members of the Throop Memorial Congregation as I could, and lead the worship service on Sunday.  It was a good trip. 

1. The congregation is a middle sized church with a small membership.  The congregation has a very large building, in addition to its sanctuary and large parish hall, it has class room space for 100 young people and adequate office space for minister, administrator and religious educator, and one office being used for storage.  The congregation has a number of programs, and the space is rented out to many community groups, including a Montessori school.  The building was built for a much larger congregation, so with two Sunday worship services the building could easily house a 500 member congregation.  The congregation is multi generational, with the common pattern of lacking a critical mass  of young adults.  (It goes have a critical mass of school aged youth.)  There are nine people on staff, including the quarter time youth advisor, child care worker, custodian, handy man, administrator, religious educator,  two quarter time musicians, and soon there will be an Interim Minister.  This is a congregation with a lot of potential. 

2. Pasadena reminds me of Cambridge(the one in Massachusetts.) Both have about the same population, and just a scattering of high rise buildings.  Most of the "downtown" is two or three story buildings, and the many church buildings are not diminished by high rise commercial structures.  Pasadena is an art and theatre center for the Los Angeles area.  The cost of housing also reminds me of Cambridge, I found an apartment nearby in Los Angeles for a little less than I was finding in Pasadena.  Pasadena like Cambridge is part of huge Metropolitan area, so it operates like a small city inside a big urban sprawl.  Pasadena is about the same distance to the beach as Cambridge, but much closer to the Mountains.

3.  The weather while I was there was much dryer than Florida.

A mountain picnic table not far from Pasadena.

A rabbi, a minister, and a priest were playing poker when the police raided the game. Turning to the priest, the lead police officer said, "Father Murphy, were you gambling?"

Turning his eyes to heaven, the priest whispered, "Lord, forgive me for what I am about to do." To the police officer, he then said, "No, officer; I was not gambling."

The officer then asked the minister, "Pastor Johnson, were you gambling?"

Again, after an appeal to heaven, the minister replied, "No, officer; I was not gambling."

Turning to the rabbi, the officer again asked, "Rabbi Goldstein, were you gambling?"

Shrugging his shoulders, the rabbi replied, "With whom?"

_______________________

The fundamental religious question. With whom?

And every week at this time we answer it. With each other.

Our offering will now be taken and received.

beliefnet jokes

A woman was walking along the beach when she stumbled upon a genie's lamp. She picked it up and rubbed it. Lo-and-behold a genie appeared. The amazed woman asked if she got three wishes.

The Genie said, "Nope. Due to inflation, constant downsizing, low wages in third-world countries and fierce global competition, I can only grant you one wish. So, what'll it be?"

The woman didn't hesitate. She said, "I want peace in the Middle East. See this map? I want these countries to stop fighting with each other."

The Genie looked at the map and exclaimed, "Gadzooks, lady! These countries have been at war for thousands of years. I'm good, but not THAT good! I don't think it can be done. Make another wish."

The woman thought for a minute. She said, "Well, I've been trying to find the right husband. You know, one that's considerate and fun, likes to cook and helps with the housecleaning, has a great sense of humor and gets along with my family, doesn't watch sports all the time. That's what I wish for. A perfect husband."

The Genie looked at the woman for a minute and said,

"Let me see that map again."

Wishing on a lamp is one way to realize one's dreams,
but joining with others in with a conmon vision,
and working to realize that vision the covenant of this church.

Our offering will now be taken and received.

There were 500 plus nations in North America before Columbus, many more on the southern continent. Languages as different from one another as Korean is not the same as French. Different forms of social organization. Theologies and spiritual practices radically different from one nation to the next. Yet, we continue to hear of Native American spirituality as if there were an identifiable practice under patent to the "race."

For some years I have kept my Cherokee background close, only talking about it with friends. It was part of me, but to share it among UUs caused folks to approach me gushing about their spirituality. When I heard their story it seemed to be some sort of bird watching thing. My grandmother spoke Cherokee, had her distinct set of practices, and was a nominal Presbyterian.

I recoil from the term Native American if I detect that the speaker (or writer) is writing as if this term designates a definite group of people.

(I used to like the terms First Nations, or First Peoples - they had a plural ring to it. For a collective term I prefer American Indian, and then when designating a particular group of people say Cherokee, I use Cherokee Indians.)

Garrison, why don't you like the Unitarian Universalists? Now, as one of "them," I don't take offense to your jokes, but I have heard through usually reliable sources that you harbor some hostility, so I am curious.

Olav Nieuwejaar
Milford, NH

Olav, my ill-feeling toward the UUs is due to their relentless evangelizing among the dead, as evidenced by a UU publication I saw that claimed Emily Dickinson as one of theirs and also Walt Whitman. They already have Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Jefferson and Louisa May Alcott - shouldn't that be enough for them? Emily Dickinson was Lutheran, as evidenced by her poem, "Success is counted swedish by those who ne'er succeed," but the UUs are ransacking the past for people who might have been thinking along UU lines and claiming them as members in good standing. Next thing you know they'll be claiming Elvis.

from the Prairie Home Companion Website

This is a summer rerun from a post in October 1995

I see an analogy between cross cultural borrowing, and scholarship. If one is writing a paper, one makes an effort to cite the source of an idea, or information. If one quotes, one makes sure to quote exactly. It is not appropriate to distort what another writer has written in order to make polemic. And if the other writer has expressly forbidden the use of his/her words, it is considered unethical to use those words in one's paper. Most writers agree, and vigorously defend their copy-write.

The Hopi do not want any one using their ceremonies. The Cherokee say you are welcome to incorporate some of practices, but do it with respect. The Reform Jews say learn from us, but do not do our ceremonies out of context. Orthodox and Conservative Jews are insulted by non Jews doing Jewish things.

At the Super Bowl 2005 there was a program of dancers in what appeared to be native Americans fashion, doing a modern dance, dressed in totally green lycra...save for the head dresses, that is an example of distortion and misuse of Native cultural ways .

This is a summer rerun from a post of November 2005

Off to Burbank.

I got to the airport early because that is what the airport advisories said that is what we should do. Being here during code orange was pretty much the same as the last time I flew out of here in June (for St. Louis to go to GA.) The early morning crowds for the first flights of the morning were orderly, security was routine. I don't usually carry any liquids in my check in, so that was no problem. The laptop went through without having to be turned on. I have a camera and a radio in the checked baggage. I hear that it was okay last week as well.

Marjorie's friend in came down from Philadelphia on Saturday, she will be with Marjorie until I get back. She did experience more than usual hassle at security. I think a lot of it has to do with the airport, and what we expect. If I was coming back by way of LAX (Los Angeles's big airport) I would look forward to a lot of stress, but I don't anticipate to much problems going through Burbank. Some of the big city airports are always on the verge of breaking down. Tampa serves a big metropolitan area (Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and the Gulf Coast sprawl) but does it with some degree of efficiency. I am just barely a frequent traveller, about nine flights a year, but I do notice that some airports are bottlenecks and some handle traffic efficiently.

Is it all management? Or were some airports built to handle traffic and crowds better than others? It is something to think about, especially when we hear ambitious ministers who want to turn old First Unitarian with its fair to middling size parking lot and its modest social hall into a megachurch. There may be limits imposed on our organizations by the buildings we build, limits that we can not overcome without major revisioning of physical plant.

Known as Throop Memorial, "the First Universalist Parish of Pasadena is the oldest liberal religious congregation in Pasadena. It first met in 1885 and organized a year later under the leadership of the reverend Florence Kollock of Chicago. She was the dynamic minister to Amos Throop, a wealthy businessman, who had come to Pasadena from Chicago, to retire. Instead he became one of the first mayors of this new city, helped finance the new Universalist Church building at Walnut and Raymond Sts., and founded Throop Polytechnic Institute, a trade college that later changed its name to California Institute for Technology
(Cal Tech) "

(by Paul Sawyer of the Throop Memorial Church website

Wednesday morning I will fly to Pasadena.  I will be spending several days with the congregation of the Universalist Society of Pasadena (Throop Memorial)

Last Spring, after my spouse, the Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley received a call to the San Diego church I was offered the interim ministry of this historic Universalist congregation.  Marjorie's surgery was in late May, and it quite to our shock and surprise the gall bladder that was removed was involved with cancer.  First things first,  June and July Marjorie was recovering from surgery and she needed support and hands on support.  Her daughter and sister flew down to Tampa from New York and Philadelphia respectively so that I could go to General Assembly.  During the summer there have been others who have been with Marjorie while I preached somewhere, or did some writing. 

Now Marjorie is recovering, she has driven her car, and she is up and about and looking good.  The radiology treatments will be ending soon, and the chemotherapy is not having the awful side effects that we were worried about. 

Last month I made the decision that I could go to Pasadena for several days for consultations, in August, September and October.  We arranged for one of Marjorie's friends or sisters to come down while I was gone.  Now it looks like I might go out to Pasadena for several weeks in October.  In the last week I have begun to plan the interim with Pasadena,  which just a few short weeks ago I assumed would be winter before I began. 

Marjorie's doctors are quite pleased with her recovery and response to treatment.  Big evaluations coming up in several weeks.

I will try to write from Pasadena, but I will be busy with meetings.

Lizard Eater advises us to learn to give testimony, to share the story of our experience with liberal religious community.  She advises:

1. Make it personal-Don't preach. Tell what involvement in your church has done for you. Use the pronouns "I", "me", and "mine".

2. Make it short-Three or four minutes should be enough time to deal with the essential facts.

3. Keep your church central-Always highlight what belonging there has done for you.

LT at TheLivelyTradition wonders [is it] the church that saves[?]  I don't want to repeat the argument that "religious community" is insufficient as a source of transcendence. Some agree and some disagree.

As I understand LT's point, to be saved requires a transcendent source.  The religious community is of this world, a product of human interrelationship.  How then can it be sufficient for salvation? 

Lizard Eater may object, but I wasn't speaking of salvation, I was speaking of why I have found the church to be meaningful, even transformative.  And a chorus of Unitarian Universalists could sing, we are already saved.  The Unitarians and Universalists have been singing that song with various lyrics since Murray got of the boat in New Jersey.  I will not touch on the question as to whether Murray intended his audience to hear the message in such a facile form, but that many did can not be denied.

But that doesn't stop a small but determined collection of Unitarian Universalists from thinking about salvation.  We point out that the testimony exercise that Lizard Eater has creatively modified for our use was originally about the saving power of Jesus.  I continue to insist that any religion worth practicing is about "salvation."*  I further insist that despite our longs standing neglect of this central question of religion, that few of us can claim that our salvation is complete, and that our sanctification is irreversible.  I think Channing was on the right track about salvation through the development of character, it is a failure of the Unitarian side of our tradition that we didn't develop that idea, settling instead on the nonsense that we were too good to be damned.

For me salvation is about relationship with the source of being, to be saved is to be in right relationship with that which generations of people have called God.  For me, Salvation means wholeness, right relationship with that " transcending mystery and wonder affirmed in [many] cultures, that moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the the forces that creates and uphold life."  Many people come to  churches because they hope that perhaps that community will help them with relationship development "with something beyond me,"  lately we have been calling this seeking after "spirituality."  The God that people have been taught is dead (for them,) and they wish to renew their relationship with that _________which lives.

It strikes me that what people are saying is that they are experiencing religious community as a means to grace, that participation in a church is similar to participating in a sacrament.  I agree with LT, the idea of the church saving souls (fully realizing the souls relationship with the divine) seems to make the church itself the object of our devotion, our ultimate commitment.  But if participation in eucharist, matrimony, holy orders, baptism,confirmation, confession, and extreme unction are considered to be means to grace in the road to salvation in the Catholic tradition, I am not sure why we can't consider participation in religious community to be a blessing, instituted among us to aid in our growth toward wholeness to rephrase the idea of sacrament for our use.

Read all of the TheLivelyTradition post to see how LT develops his thinking about the problem of salvation within religious community in a throughly Protestant way, with its emphasis on decision.

*Each religion has an idea about what it means for human beings to be whole, or to realize their full potential, or to be fully Aware, or if this world is hostile to God, to leave this world and go to a perfect world.  This idea that religion is about salvation I owe to the Rev. Scott Alexander - whose Universalism includes brokeness and incompletion, and whose humanism includes Transcending Wonder and healing grace.

Quotations out of context by the Protestant Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr(1892-1971) are often employed by neo-conservatives to justify their foreign policy of violence and great power hegemony. But Niebuhr was sharply critical of nationalism and an advocate of genuine democracy, which meant that people would participate in making the decisions that affect their lives. Todays neo conservatives use the words democracy and freedom as code words for rule by the corporations and trade without restrictions such as labor standards and ecological safeguards. And Niebuhr spoke out against the great power chauvinism of the United States and the tendency of American Protestants to justify this misuse of power. Niebuhr wrote:

If the ministers of our great urban churches become again the simple priests and chaplains of this American idolatry, subtly compounded with a few stray Christian emphases, they will merely add one more dismal proof in the pages of history that a religiously sanctified self-idolatry is more grievous than its secular variety. This is how the gospel becomes a salt that has lost its savor.

The gospel cannot be preached with truth and power if it does not challenge the pretensions and pride, not only of individuals, but of nations, cultures, civilizations, economic and political systems. The good fortune of America and its power place it under the most grievous temptations to self-adulation. If there is no power and grace in the Christian church "to bring down every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God," the church becomes not merely useless but dangerous.

We Protestants speak critical words about the idolatrous pretensions of the Roman Church. But some of these pretensions are actually more plausible than this miserable identification of the "laws of God" with a particular form of democracy....

Christianity and Society, Spring 1950, in Love and Justice, p. 97.

A British audiology expert, named Dr. Aziz is warning that listening to music at high volume causes the brain to hear phantom music. This is different from the common occurrence of having a song "stuck" in your head because the sound is continuous and appears real.  Dr Aziz, whose research involving 30 sufferers is published this week in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, said: "Having a song in your head every now and then is quite normal but musical hallucinations can be quite distressing." He predicted the condition will become more common as people are inundated with music from their iPods, radios and TVs, plus music played in public places.

"People who are bombarded by music tend to hear music," said Dr Aziz. "I suspect the rates of hallucinations in orchestral players will be higher than normal. So, as we hear more music every day, cases will probably go up."

Mark Prigg writing in the Bristol Evening Standard reports that Aziz's research research suggests sound hallucinations occur when people move from a stimulusrich environment to one with few auditory stimuli - for instance, from using an iPod on the Tube to entering a quiet office. With no sound via the ears, the brain generates random impulses it interprets to be sound. It then matches these to memories of music and a song begins in the head. This may explain why Beethoven was able to compose after going deaf.

Is this a bad thing?  I guess that depends on what music your head decides to play!  Some older folks in Britain are reported to be quite comforted by the phantom playing of Abide With Me.

I once was the mentor to very personable young man, a Taoist who had discovered Unitarian Universalism and wanted to be a minister. He didn't know much about the liberal Christian tradition which nurtured both Unitarianism and Universalism and what I found problematic, he didn't care. Anything that happened before he became a Unitarian Universalist was irrelevant to "his ministry."

He knew what kind of minister he wanted to be, and it had little or nothing to do with what Unitarian Universalists had been before he came among us. He was a new breed.

I offered my advice, and some tutoring. But I did not feel that this candidate was going to do as well as my mentee assumed. He went to Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association (MFC) and he got a "3."

The MFC works hard to see the minister in all the candidates that it interviews. If it experiences a minister who it can recommend to serve Unitarian Universalist congregations it awards a "1" -which means "cleared for settlement." This is not a ringing endorsement, it simply says "we think this minister is ready for service to our congregations." If the minister who is interviewed is unprepared in one or more areas, but otherwise they experience the candidate as a minister, they award the candidate with a "2." This means do some work, document it, send it in, and we will clear you for settlement. No need for another interview.

The "3" means that we see the candidates potential, but find that candidate unprepared for ministry, come back when you are ready. A "4" means that the committee does not experience you as a minister in this interview, and we discourage you from trying again. But if you do the work, you can come back for another interview. If the committee awards the candidate a "5" then the committee is saying that they see no purpose in that candidate continuing to pursue ministry.

The committee told my student that they experienced a disconnect between his paper work and the person that they met in the interview. The paperwork constitutes the transcripts, recommendations, evaluations, and essays that the student submits, and the committee said that paperwork was impressive, but the person they met in the interview was disingenuous, and evasive. They told him that he did not connect to the members of the Committee in his interview, but seemed to think that he should perform for them.

He received a "3" which I took to be a yellow light, a warning that the committee experienced some of his relational arrogance and wanted the candidate to deal with this before they could recommend him for ministry. Ministers experience rejection all the time, and good ones learn from the experience and grow as a result.

But my student was livid. " They" had had their chance, "they" were guardians of the status quo, "they" lacked discernment, for he was a religious genius.

He didn't go back, nor is he among us contributing to Unitarian Universalism in any other way. Since most of whom feel called to Unitarian Universalist ministry will experience some kind of "rejection" along the way, I have concluded that the ones who actually become good ministers are those who experience these "rejections" as part of the discernment process. Those who reject anyone who gives them feedback, and who try to paint those who give hard feedback as their enemies have no ears to hear, and no eyes to see.

Yes, this story has been told again and again with the main character being a male Buddhist, female Humanist, Christian vegetarian, for both gay and straight candidates, and for white and candidates of Color and would be ministers who may even have gotten a "4." But we do have a lot of minister-want-to-be s who think ministry is something that is about them expressing their unique self, and don't think they need any evaluation or assessment to do that.

Writing to Bishop Spong Kurt Kenworth from Claremont, California writes:

"Recognizing that the Bible consists of many books by many authors over a 1,000 year period of time, and assuming that no major additions to the Bible have been attempted since the King James Version was published 400 years ago or so, and further noting that a stupendous amount of information about changes in the secular world, which seem to be accelerating, are now before us do you think a major addition, such as another "testament" or "New Testament No. 2" or an authorized supplement to the Bible (other than modern era re-translations that have been printed even in the 20th century, and which appear to be entirely self-serving) is in order?

Spong replies:

Was there no new insight to come out of Christianity after it was recognized by Constantine in 313? When Augustine related Christianity to the thoughts of Plato in the 4th and 5th centuries, was none of that worthy of being incorporated into the Canon of Christian scripture? When Thomas Aquinas rethought Christianity in the 13th century in terms of the thoughts of Aristotle, was not some part of that work worthy of inclusion? Were there no voices out of the Reformation that rose to the level of scripture? When liturgies were shaped in the 13th century, should not the account of that have been incorporated into our sacred story?

What is in the Bible is a political decision,  some books made the cut and some were rejected as not authoritative or heretical.  But at the time of Jesus some of the books in that are now in the "Old Testament" were not yet accepted as scripture, and of course none of the books that make up the "New Testament."  Decisions were made and what these humans decided was "scripture" became The Word of God For The People Of God.

Would it be a good idea to include new books in the Bible?  As I see it only the United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutherans and Protestant Episcopalians would even entertain such an idea.  Maybe we need a new Pope, but opening the canon won't happen on Benedicts watch.  But still, assuming that the People of God were consulted, what books would you include?

Theologian David Ray Griffin writes:

Like all empires, the Roman Empire was brutal.  Those territories already subjugated were kept in line by producing "awe and terror" in their peoples.  Rome practiced what we would today call "state terror."  Although states today lie to restrict the term terrorism to the nonstate variety-that variety is always far less deadly than state-sponsored terrorism. 

Rome practiced terror not because Romans were sadistic but because terrorism was deemed effective.  What Rome cared about most  was what it called honor. . .

We can understand this concept of "honor" because it is the same thing the United States called "credibility."  Long after it became clear that America's war in Vietnam was a disastrous mistake, countless political and military leaders argued year after year that we could not leave, because we would lose "credibility."  And so we continued to lose tens of thousands of American soldiers and kill hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people, year after year, all for the sake of maintaining our credibility."

So our leaders engage in unrestrained violence in our name all for the sake of maintaining their image as people who will stick to their policy despite all evidence that it has failed?  That doesn't seem mature or rational does it?

Have we have redefined or concept of "leaders" from people who lead according to a vision of maximizing human potential and benefit, to those who avoid responsibility for their concrete actions, but seek instead to maintain an image of strength by always being ready to inflict violence.  That is a mentality too common among adolescent males!

As I probe the problem of abuse of power the more I find that our theological social ethics may need to be informed by the techniques developed for the classroom management of unruly teenagers, bullies in particular. 

Albert Schweitzer observed that each generation projects their own theological understanding onto Jesus, and he gave up the search for the historical Jesus. I respect his observation but cannot follow to his conclusion. If one respects that Jesus was a second Temple Jew who spoke in the metaphors of his time, and responded to the violence and oppressions of his time, then we can "meet Jesus" and gain some insight from his wisdom. It may not be the wisdom we would have him speak, but it is wisdom nevertheless and we can learn from him. If his culture had set up a religion that worshipped the Buddha, I suppose Schweitzer could have given up on the search for the historical Siddhārtha Gautama as well.c

Peacebang observes Unitarian Universalist ministers quote Buddhist sources a lot, I confess to doing that myself. But does that make me a Buddhist? No, It makes me a Unitarian Universalist who is quoting Buddhist sources when they help illustrate a Unitarian Universalist sermon. I have observed that Catholics quote scripture to preach Catholicism, and Baptists quote scripture and come to Baptist conclusions. The original meaning of these scriptures are not impossible to discern, but teaching the wisdom of a Second Century Jew doesn't interest Baptists or Catholics, any more than it does to the average wisdom borrowing Unitarian Universalist trying to be inclusive. We have learned to quote just about anything that helps us make the point we want to make, and we don't become Taoists, Buddhists, Jews, or even Christians by our choice of readings or sermon illustrations.


Many Unitarian Universalists share in a faith tradition that has a humanist orientation and is informed both by liberal Protestantism on the one hand and Transcendentalism on the other. This tradition has taught us to be open to the wisdom of the world's religions, but from what I observed that means retelling some stories, holding up some compatible ideas and maintaining our distance from some of the "harder" teachings of these religions. I have heard many a Buddhist story in our churches and very few mentions of hungry ghosts, and the miraculous birth narratives of the Buddha. We love the Dalai Lama but we don't want to talk about the feudal hell hole that his monks ran in Tibet.


I don't think we are vague humanists because we don't tow the American Humanist Association line. Our humanist orientation includes James Luther Adams, who reminded us that God wasn't God's name, but was our ultimate commitment nevertheless. Our humanist orientation was informed by Emerson, who insisted that we would worship something and what we are worshipping we are becoming (which this Christian humanist took to mean I should worship something enduring.) Our humanist orientation was deepened by Hartshorne and Weiman who in different ways attempted to understand God as part of the cosmos and experienced in our ordinary lives. The impact of process thinking and empirical approaches to the divine on our movement can not be underestimated, and is reflected in the World magazine and our devotional materials. Our humanist orientation includes non theistic theologians like Sharon Welch and William Jones whose contributions to our movements theologies of transformation is ongoing and profound. They both claim humanism but are hardly classical Humanists.


From my vantage point our ministers are reading these thinkers, as well as other varieties of humanist thought including existentialism, critical theory, and varieties of feminism. That none of these thinkers are part of the classical Humanist canon is more a commentary on the limits of the Humanist canonizers than the death of humanist thinking among us.

Does Hafidha Sofia Acuay see something that many of us have been trained not to see?
She experiences our worship is "a show." In a post in which the presenting problem is an incident of "cultural appropriation" there she also shares an insight into worship, and what she says about worship is important for us to see as well. (I will write about her insights relative to cultural appropriation (and misappropriation) at another time.)
At first I found her suggestion that Unitarian Universalist worship was constructed as entertainment disturbing. I have defended the idea of congregation as "worshipping community" so many times to the skeptics and rationalists that I have the arguments down pat - we come together to give expression those values we hold in common, to aspire to that which is worthy. I have preached that sermon! I have explained that worship is shaping worth ( a usage idiomatic to Old English.)
Theology arises from embodied beings, and reflects personal perspectives and experiences. So two observations, then I will explain why I think she is seeing something that we need to look at.
1. Personally I am accustomed to the way we have done worship. I strive to create worship services that have coherence. So does my spouse, The Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley but she has different approach than I do. So when we talk about our upcoming worship services together we are challenged to explain why we use certain elements and why we arrange them as we do. We do not think of the format we use as consisting of slots to fill, but rather I see the whole service as consisting of interrelated parts. Still, after the order of service has been constructed for a particular congregation and has been used with that congregation for a long time, I know I fall into a routine. I start with the form that has become our worship format. I search for opening words, or I write them. I write my prayerful meditation. I think about readings, and how the offering fits into the whole. Those who join in worship in churches I have served have told me that it "all works together." But I am sure many young adults find my worship services somewhat old fashioned, or as one observed "contemporary content trapped in a Protestant form."
2. Hafidha's specific observations arise out of her experiences with a committee's attempt to create a ceremonial occasion in a big ugly convention hall. That space wasn't designed for the kind of worship that we do. Our worship culture was developed to be done in Protestant meeting houses, and its function was to teach a lesson. We have expanded our definition of worship to include various seasonal celebrations and community building rituals, but most people continue to see the sermon as a teaching event, framed by edifying music and readings. Most of the clergy at this point in our history will offer public prayer, and many lay people find public prayers and meditative readings meaningful, but it would be over the top to assert that Unitarian Universalists come to church to pray together. A few might do that, but most people indicate that they come to be with their community as they ponder a theme, or topic together. They want good music and they would think it is a good thing when the music works with the theme. That is our practice as "worshipping communities."
Many of our congregations meet in halls and auditoriums that facilitate performances for audiences rather than congregational engagement in shaping community worth, or praising God, or re-creating the cosmos or whatever your idea of the purpose of common worship may be. But we are not always sensitive to the space. Appropriate activity given the space is one of those lessons we learn from experience. What works in a chapel doesn't work in a cathedral, we can't do Quaker silent worship in a convention hall, nor can we do Protestant meeting house worship in one either.
For me, and for many others who plan worship, we think of worship as planned event that happens in a certain space, and at a certain time. I dare say this assumption Hafidha is questioning. She writes:

[I] personally loathe to plan worships. You must know that I have never known Muslims to "plan" worships; we got together and we prayed, basta!

and then again she describes a worship service she helped lead at an anti racist training:

I'm a strong believer in spirituality, but I hate the idea of telling people that it's time to feel holy now. My co-trainer, Toph, felt the same way I did, yet we managed to put together two very decent worships, one of which actually made me cry. But what?! We didn't do anything! The youth and the sponsors present brought their spirits into that space and made it powerful and worshipful. I was in awe that first night - of them and the community they created. I do not think we would have had the same conference without that.

The youth experienced a ritualized interaction that was personally transformative, I doubt whether the space was designed for worship, and I suppose that the time was whenever it was convenient for the participants. Our tradition has taught us to spend a lot of money to build sanctuaries designed for Protestant worship with Unitarian Universalist content that will be filled with people for an couple of hours once a week. The participants in our services are listeners, singers, and again listeners, save for silent prayers and ritualized sharing. The service that Hafidha and Toph "planned" was spatially transient and temporally ad hoc and open to facilitate participant interaction. The clergy, whether that clergy is Unitarian Universalist, mainstream Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish - because they have been narrowly trained in worship arts - experience such youth services as formless and too dependent on spontaneity. For the youth and young adults that may be a feature, rather than a fault. I often have this conversation with classically trained musicians, who argue that jazz is too free form, too ad hoc, too form less. Can an artist trained in one musical discipline appreciate an art that breaks out and defies the forms and conventions of that discipline? Can a liturgist? Yes, but it requires being comfortable with your own embodied self, and then transcending its limitations to appreciate the other point of view.
As I struggled with Hafidha's observation, it prompted me to ask these questions
First, is the form of worship that we continue in most Unitarian Universalist congregations a product of a different time and a different social set up?
Second, has society changed in such a way that the way our spiritual ancestors organized "worshipping communities" will become increasingly irrelevant to the way that new generations will "support each other in spiritual growth" and build covenant community?
And finally, what does it mean to be a worshipping community in a networked and high tech world?
I will continue these probings in future postings. This is the second essay on this subject, the first is here.

,

in the early nineteenth century, many Cherokee moved from Georgia, and North Carolina to Texas which was still a province of Mexico. They were seeking to avoid the many oppressions that they experienced in the United States.. They went West before the forced march to Oklahoma and Arkansas known as the trail of tears.

After the defeat of Mexico by white Anglo insurgents,* the Cherokee lands in Texas were confiscated and violently attacked by the "Texas Rangers." Many moved south and continue as the Cherokee Nation of Mexico. The United States contingents of the Cherokee include the Cherokee Nation located in Oklahoma as well as many independent bands in North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, California, and gatherings in other states.

It is an interesting site, they are claiming a deeper history in Mexico than I can verify. The linguists point out Cherokee is a Iroquois language. It is more likely the Cherokee moved south from the Great Lakes than they moved from Mexico and back again.

Daniel Gilbert writes:

Long before seat belts or common sense were particularly widespread, my family made annual trips to New York in our 1963 Valiant station wagon. Mom and Dad took the front seat, my infant sister sat in my mother's lap and my brother and I had what we called "the wayback" all to ourselves.

In the wayback, we'd lounge around doing puzzles, reading comics and counting license plates. Eventually we'd fight. When our fight had finally escalated to the point of tears, our mother would turn around to chastise us, and my brother and I would start to plead our cases. "But he hit me first," one of us would say, to which the other would inevitably add, "But he hit me harder."

It turns out that my brother and I were not alone in believing that these two claims can get a puncher off the hook. In virtually every human society, "He hit me first" provides an acceptable rationale for doing that which is otherwise forbidden. Both civil and religious law provide long lists of behaviors that are illegal or immoral - unless they are responses in kind, in which case they are perfectly fine.

After all, it is wrong to punch anyone except a puncher, and our language even has special words - like "retaliation" and "retribution" and "revenge" - whose common prefix is meant to remind us that a punch thrown second is legally and morally different than a punch thrown first.
That's why participants in every one of the globe's intractable conflicts - from Ireland to the Middle East - offer the even-numberedness of their punches as grounds for exculpation.

The problem with the principle of even-numberedness is that people count differently. Every action has a cause and a consequence: something that led to it and something that followed from it. But research shows that while people think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before, they think of other people's actions as the causes of what came later."


Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, is the author of Stumbling on Happiness.  The above is an extract from a larger article  describing research on the cyclical nature of conflict. New York Times, July 24,2006

What is adult religious education?  Many of our programs seem like watered down college courses, we have UU history courses and Bible study courses.  Some of our programs are designed to enable congregational transformation, such as Weaving the Fabric of Diversity, or Welcoming Congregation.  I have taught Spiritual Autobiography Courses, and quite a few new UU workshops.    I think I have taught Adult RE on and off for forty years, beginning as a young adult, then a lay leader, and more recently as a clergy person.
Most adults want education that helps them solve pressing problems in their life, and so while there are people who want to study UU history, and some others who want to take a course writing a sermon, the married couples with children don't come out for adult religious education classes.  It isn't a high priority for them.  So my students have been mainly young adults, and older single adults, with a few empty nesters.  But when I have co-taught marriage enrichment workshops, the committed couples made arrangements to attend.  It was so important to them, that they organized child care, or in one case the church provided child care. 
But where to find a couples enrichment program aimed at Unitarian Universalists that functioned to build both relational skills and spiritual values.  We have a new curriculum (in field test stage) and it is downloadable from the UUA Web Site.  It is designed to be inclusive of all couples, it does not assume marriage or holy union or other formal commitment.  I haven't fully examined it yet, but I will.  I am impressed with what I have looked at. 
  Marjorie and I have received training and were certified by the Association for Couple's Enrichment and worked with a peer group of trainers associated with Andover Newton Theological School.  It will be good to see a Unitarian Universalist resource for this work.
From the web site describing the new curriculum: 
Principled Commitment [has been designed to] enhance and support long-term, committed relationships that reflect the values of Unitarian Universalist Principles. Unitarian Universalist congregations can provide a nurturing environment for interpersonal relationships, and our basic Principles provide an excellent framework to support and enrich marriages and other blessed unions between loving partners.
Principled Commitment seeks to deepen participants' ethical, spiritual, faith, and Unitarian Universalist identity development. This is accomplished through the theme and activities of each workshop. In addition, each workshop includes a guided meditation and suggested readings from Singing the Living Tradition. Facilitators are welcome to incorporate meditations and readings from other sources or to invite workshop participants to share poems and readings relating to each workshop's theme.

On August 7, 1964,  after an alleged incident with a North Vietnam gun boat  the Congress of the United States passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution:

The resolution gave President Lyndon Johnson broad powers in dealing with North Vietnam, including sending U.S. troops.  News coverage relied almost entirely on official U.S. government sources so Americans assumed the North had launched an unprovoked attack. Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse (D-OR) and Ernest Gruening (D-AK), provided the only "no" votes. (peacebutton.info)

The incident never occurred. The President lied to the people of the United States. *

What concerns me is the liberal's capacity to forget the lessons of history.  People continue to experience shock and outrage that Bush lied about Iraq's nuclear weapon's program.  The Weapon of Mass Destruction rationale was a hoax, and that hoax was exposed by the weapon's inspectors before the invasion - Bush, Rice and Powell's lies were demolished by solid evidence by scores of independent sources.  It seems to me that if one is outraged now that may indicate that you refused to look at the evidence before the invasion.

But what concerns me is that after the liberal becomes outraged, "we were lied to",  they go in search of a Democrat that will replace him.  Lying to the citizenry is a characteristic of the entire political culture.  We must go beyond consumer politics, we must stop enabling a process by which "we chose" a pre selected candidate who tells us the lies we want to hear during his (or her) campaign.  To learn from history is to demand accountability,  to engage critically and assume that they are lying until they prove to you that they care about truth.

The Tonkin Gulf resolution was passed by Congress 42 years ago, the United States sent teen agers into Vietnam and they came back in body bags.  I knew too many of those soldiers to forgive and forget.  They were misused by a corrupt political process.  If we would only learn from history we would learn that "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely." The arrogance of Presidents is because of the power we give them with no accountability, and the result has been absolute corruption.  Those envisioned this federal republic were afraid that that would happen, and they tried to build checks and balances into the structure of the republic.  But they also assumed an informed and critical citizenry.  Perhaps we need to reconsider the building blocks of procedural democracy in our times, how can we hold power accountable?  A liberal religious political theology must take our experience with politicians that distort the truth seriously.    To be a prophetic religion we must address the corruption of our time.

*For those who believe lying to mislead people into supporting a war is a characteristic of the Republicans, Johnson was a Democrat.  We can document the lies of Carter and Clinton to justify military misadventures as well.  Lying to the public is a bi-partisan activity. Based on long observation of the American Presidents, Native Americans  would observe that lying seems to be part of the job description.  Now some citizens might resist the Native claim, even though the facts show deliberate falsehoods were spoken by President after President,  those who identify as "white"  seem to think that the "savages" weren't real Americans.

The Rev. William Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association recently wrote about worship, the following is a selection:

In many congregations I visit, the sense of awe, the sense of reverence, are growing with the sense of celebration. And my sense of excitement is growing as our worshiping communities live out the promise of what our faith can be.
Sinkford refers to Unitarian Universalist communities as worshipping communities, and we often think of our congregations from that frame of reference. In this essay, he is arguing that there is a revival in the quality and excitement of the worship experience in many of our congregations, and change makes us stronger as worshipping communities.
Has religious community always been this way? Is this a permanent fact of religious community. Sinkford asserts:
Worship is the central act of the religious community-not committee meetings or coffee hour, despite jokes to the contrary. The root of the word worship is the Anglo Saxon for worth, and worship is the way we celebrate what we hold worthy. We UUs together hold many values worthy, so the emerging common elements in our worship may simply be the way we express our faith community's common ground.
Is our common worship actually the way we express our common ground? Is that why Sinkford asserts that it is the central act of our religious community? We are living in a time of unprecedented social and cultural change. Will worship continue to be the central act of religious community in the world that is emerging?
__________________________________________________
Organizing worship as an activity is not a universal characteristic of all human communities. Native American scholars agree that Eastern Woods indigenous peoples had no worship services before the conquest (before 1492.) The villages had rites of passages and celebrations, but no time was set aside to praise God, or celebrate that which is worthy. There are plenty of stories of Native people finding the notion of sitting down for an couple hours on a special day to relate the Holy absurd. "We live with the Holy," they replied, "every day and every activity is spirit filled."
Young men and young women were expected to have "original revelations of the divine" as part of becoming adults. The rite of passage that the conquerors culture has chosen to call "the vision quest" was not a search for a personal spirituality. It was a way of knowing essential for participation in the common life of the community. To be a wise woman or man was to be a spirit-filled person. Those who were not spirit-filled were not to be trusted--not trusted with the hunt, not trusted with care of the household, not trusted with community governance, not trusted with relations with other communities, not trusted in war.
Worship was the not the central act of the various communities of Eastern Woods indigenous peoples, but they were not less "religious" for their lack of worship ... at least not as we intuitively use the word €˜religion.'
However, the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woods lived in societies that were not divided into rich elites and impoverished laborers, and which did not distinguish between sacred and profane. These societies knew no patriarchy. (All of these innovations the native peoples came to know after 1492, and it was then that they began to set aside time and places for worship.)
Let us think about the long history of the homo sapiens. I would suggest that for most of that history the spiritual life of human beings in community has had more in common with the indigenous peoples of this land than with peoples who organized "religious communities" separate and apart from the society as a whole.
Religious communities organized as voluntary organizations separate from society as a whole assume societies in which religion is contention with secularity, and/or with alternative ways of being religious.

The atomic bomb named "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 bomber, at 8:15 in the morning of August 6, 1945. This watch was on the person of one of the victims.

Christians speak of the crucifixion of the rabbi Jesus as a turning point in history. I am more of an Easter man myself, but I agree. Something old ended, something new came into being.

(Survivors watch was stopped at moment of impact.)


I would only add, history has a way of turning, making radical turns. Once it was possible to speak of democracy versus totalitarianism, and science versus superstition. After Hiroshima, such ideas no longer had the clarity and power that they once held.

I wrote this last year but what I wrote is worth saying once more

The Unitarian Universalist Blog Carnival is once again being celebrated on the blogosphere. This time over at The Chalice Blog.

Being a Unitarian Universalist minister I felt compelled to look up the origin of the word Carnival. Well it is a Roman Catholic religious festival involving parades, and games and feasting. This is all done in preparation for fasting or "giving up meat." Thus the word carnival is Latin for the farewell to meat.

No this Blog Festival is not a vegetarian plot. While I do recommend giving up meat, to participate in this carnival one simply has to post an entry in ones blog which is related in some mysterious way to the topic that the community is exploring.* The parade is virtual.

For you history buffs, UU Blog Carnival has its origins in a ancient Unitarian Universalist practice that began last month. Tradition has related that the saintly CK herself had a blessed vision, and when the good news spread among the faithful, pilgrims were seen in many lands bending in prayerful keyboard work.


*This flexibility is important for People So Bold since I have a hard time writing answers to direct questions.

The Rev. Mark Christian sent me a note.


Howdy,

Following the urging of a few folks--and my own curiousity--I have decided to add my name to the list of folks rearranging electrons into that post-modern info-formation called a blog.

I am trying to focus on issues around faith. What kind of faith do I/we possess? What does it demand? What are the paradoxes that faith creates. How do we sharpen and evolve our faith?

My goal is to keep entries very short--a few hundred words each. If you are interested feel free to pop in and leave me a note at http://freelyinfaith.blogspot.com/.

Mark Christian
First Unitarian Church
Oklahoma City, OK

Mark has a positive commitment to our Unitarian Universalist movement, he is able to see our faults and the strengths that we don't always use effectively. I look forward to a new colleague in the Blog-o-sphere. He already has a few postings.

I wrote of the farmers and townspeople who contributed to endowment of the St. Lawrence Theological School,  that endowment having been converted into a fund that supports Unitarian Universalist theological education today.  Scott Wells of Boys in the Bands comments: "I wonder how many sold church buildings went, ultimately, into that fund too."

The law requires that not-for-profit corporations that are going out of business transfer their funds to another not-for-profit corporation with a compatible mission.  This prevents a group of "trustees" from driving all the members out of a church so that they can sell the property to Walmart and retire to the Gold Coast (that is the one in Florida not the one in Africa.)

Local congregations that vote to dissolve have in recent times ceded their assets directly to the Unitarian Universalist Association.  I know of congregations that have been the beneficiaries of funds held by the UUA, because the UUA puts aside such liquidation funds for future church starts in the same general geographic area.  Sometimes the liquidated church transfers its assets to another church.  I am sure that some failing Universalist churches in upstate New York gave their assets to St. Lawrence Theological School, as well as the Universalist State Convention.

But this is People So Bold!    So my readers expect just a little prophetic crying out at the powers of privilege and their abuses (without making any one feel guilty or bad about themselves.)

There were three Universalist Churches in an industrial city in the Northeast.  There was also a Unitarian Church.  The Universalist Churches served the workers and small business people of this city, while the Unitarians served the teachers and the owners of some of the larger businesses.  About forty years ago the mysterious panic known as "white flight" struck this city and each of the churches began to lose members.  In response to their losses the leaders of these four congregations decided to consolidate and sold their real estate in the industrial city and moved to a beautiful little hill in a suburb by the sea.  There they built a lovely campus and had enough money left over from the sale of the former inner city buildings to have what is now a sixteen million dollar endowment.  While ministers and members have proposed that given the source of their wealth they might return something to the nearby city (which is ten times larger than the suburb by the sea) in the form of a community ministry, or even a new church start, the "owners" of this endowment have declined these invitations to restorative justice, instead spending their inheritance on themselves and cultural uplift programs in their lovely little suburb.

Again I ask, what was the intention of the original donors?  What was the mission of the people who founded and endowed those Universalist Churches?  When they contributed their tithe from working in a mill were they thinking that one day their small contributions would roll into big fund and establish a new congregation - a little "city on a hill" that would witness to white middle class arrogance and self indulgence?  The law tells a failing congregation to turn its assets over to a not-for-profit with the compatible mission.  Does that just mean a self involved club that will celebrate "our Universalist heritage" with two named Sunday school rooms; one named for Ballou and one for Dix.

Scott,

lots of Universalist buildings (as well as Unitarian buildings) were sold and  the money realized now contributes to our present funds.  Some of that money went to the UUA, some to State Conventions, and a hell of a lot to consolidated congregations that are supposed to being carrying on their mission.

This is a true story, it is about one city and one suburb,  but it is so similar to other stories, that it might seem like I am constructing an archetype for a story with a moral.  No this story is not an allegory, there is no sweeping generalizations in this story, no moral for the kiddies.  Those were real workers and real shop keepers who just believed in Universalism.  What does that mean to us?  What is our mission? Who do we serve?

I have read that the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) gives 250 thousand each to Meadville Lombard and Starr King. When one hears the statement that UUA gives money to these schools one gets the impression that it people like you and me who are supporting these schools through our contributions to the UUA's annual program fund.

As I understand it a substantial portion of this money is income from the St. Lawrence Education Trust, the endowment of a Universalist theological school that the Unitarian dominated UUA closed in an effort to consolidate our students into the Unitarian schools Harvard, Meadville, and Starr King. I was a Crane Theological School when the decision was made to close the schools, and there were not that many students preparing for UU ministry in any of our schools (and hardly any in non UU schools.)

Now the people who gave money to endow Universalist education at St. Lawrence had a vision for what they giving money for, and I wonder what they would think of the present set up. The people who graduated from St. Lawrence were evangelical about sharing their Universalism, and they went out and started new churches in any village or town or city where they could get an audience.

The Universalists raised money for their theological school by asking local churches to raise funds. And it is that money that subsidizes our present schools. When one reads the recruiting propaganda from Meadville and Starr King does it say "come and learn how to share our liberating faith among all people?" When one attends a fundraising event is that what we hear? What I read from both of these schools are blurbs about how Meadville and Starr King students do better than some unnamed other school at the revolutionary task of serving our present congregations.

Since the Divinity School was founded back before there was an American Unitarian Association, theological students have had a number of criticisms of their theological education. And sometimes they tell the school and sometimes something is done, but usually not.

In our time they bring their protest to the schools administration, or to the UUA's Director of Ministerial Credentials and for reasons having to do with power and priorities their good proposals become unheeded. Jess outlines some of the concerns of the current students at Meadville.

Who has the most interest in seeing that the students concerns are addressed? The Ministers who are currently serving are as a group very concerned with the quality of theological education, and with the future of the ministry. Most would agree with the list that Jess has put forward. Communicating with the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association that the candidate members are seeking positive program for change would be listened to, and there would be a response.

But change takes time, institutions need to make plans for 2009 right now, so students and ministers must be prepared for a programmatic approach to realize change. To make institutional change takes years of effort to build the consensus, to make the decision and implement the change. Most effort