"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."
- Frederick Douglass
In my post on Monday, I proposed that it would be a good idea for the Commission on Appraisal to examine our social justice work including our witnessing in the form of resolutions, etc. because it is a source of some controversy amongst us.
When I was an undergraduate, a long time ago, my English professor related a story about a famous colleague. His intent was to help us understand the life of the mind. In an interview this famous professor was asked what he did at the University, and he answered "I read Joyce." It was as I had been served up a parable. I came back to that story again and again. I read Joyce myself, but by god, there was a limit! To spend a life reading Joyce! I couldn't get my brain around that.
I first read I and Thou in 1964, probably the same year I heard the above story. Buber was difficult then, and Buber continues to be difficult. I have read Buber a many times. I am beginning to understand that professor, but unlike me, I am sure he understood Joyce for all his efforts. Buber's work influences my thinking, but how can I explain it! Perhaps to explain Buber is not what I am called to do. I am beginning to think based on my latest read of Buber, that I am called to apply Buber.
I was just in high school. The Presidential election was dominating the media attention, and attracting my attention. Who would win, Kennedy or Nixon? I asked my mother who she would vote for, she indicated that she might not vote at all! What? It seemed a contradiction to my Unitarian understanding. Well, she explained, my Father was a Democrat and she was a Republican, and if they voted they would just cancel each other out, and so they decided not to bother.
Later it occurred to me that my Mother was not excited about Nixon and my father was not excited about Kennedy, and their no vote pack would not last until November. They did vote, and the result indicated that the country was just as divided and nearly as uncommitted as my parents. I grew up in a Unitarian Universalism that was politically diverse, my congregation was made up of good religious liberals who expressed themselves as Republicans and Democrats. Several years later as a first time voter, I voted in the Republican primary against Goldwater, and ended up voting for LBJ. Then, I demonstrated against LBJ's on the day of his inauguration. My political orientation was becoming independent and critical to the politicians of both political parties. I am not now and never have I been a Democrat. I was a registered Republican for a few months. That was a long time ago.
On Friday, the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives attempted to shore up the crumbling facade of "support" for the continuing U.S. invasion of Iraq with a phony resolution calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The day before Rep. John Murtha, a hawkish Democrat and Vietnam veteran had denounced the U.S. occupation as not winnable and introduced a resolution calling for a repositioning of U.S. troops outside Iraq's borders. A furious debate ensued over the Republican resolution, during which Representative Schmidt (R) of Ohio announced "a telephone call" from a Marine denouncing Murtha which she reported said "Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run. Marines never do." This transparent cheap shot was met immediate boos, and denunciation of Schmidt. But who was this Marine that the Congresswoman quoted? Read and weep.
Schmidt is not alone in the use of this tactic. But it raises some interesting questions for Unitarian Universalists. Some would argue that commenting on this political hack's conduct is political, and Unitarian Universalists should be about religious questions and some how ignore these contentious questions. Yet, there is a whole history of criticism of the transgressions of political leaders going back to the ancient Hebrew prophets, Chinese sages, and indigenous shamans. But Unitarian Universalism in recent years has been infected with the notion that religion is a personal, subjective thing, and our congregations are organized to supply spiritual services to seekers.
That this "religion is about me" orientation is a departure from the liberal religious tradition should go without saying, we should simply ask our consumers to look at the history of religious liberalism. But I think it points to a bigger problem, the Commission on Appraisal beat around the bush trying to define what holds us together, commenting on our lack of a common theology. I have expressed my opinion on our common framework in earlier posts: we are not an religion light; we have a framework that arises from religious humanism and Protestantism; and we share a consensus on what is and what are not sources of authority for our religious positions. I am not sure we need a common theology, so much as a common understanding of what we are committed to do this world. This common understanding of our commitments must be theologically grounded, but why can't liberal Christians, liberationists of marginalized peoples, pagan revivalists, and humanists of various kinds all contribute their own theological understandings to that common commitment?
My political theology argues that human communities thrive under conditions of authentic relationship, relationships grounded in recognition of the creative and transformative nature of being in process. The story systems of Judaism, Christianity, the liberal humanist tradition and the Cherokee people inform my thinking and ethical perspectives. Therefore Schmidt has violated right relation, and is a contagion on the body politic.
But I can imagine a Unitarian Universalist coming to the conclusion that character assassination is violation from other political theologies.. Given my commitment that religious liberalism must be defined by a common public commitment to this world, I would be disappointed in a Unitarian Universalist who has no political theology, and seeks only personal religious meanings, or a Unitarian Universalist who has reduced their religious understanding to justify this kind of conduct from either Republicans or Democrats.
I was serving an historical Universalist church, and I was visiting shut-ins. The widows that I would visit that afternoon had been Universalists all their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them. Universalism was part of their heritage going back to the Green Mountain Revolution. They loved the church, which their families had raised and finished in three days after a mass meeting and songfest (rallye) led by Quillen Hamilton Shinn (1845-1907).
Both loved it when I came a visiting, and both always apologized that they hadn't gotten dressed up for the Pastor.
There is an aspect of the minister/congregant relationship which I have never fully accepted. Blame it on John Calvin. Seems the Reformer of Geneva instructed his clergy to visit every citizen of Geneva in their homes once a year. The purpose: to check up on the morals of the parish.
Thus "parish calling" was originally related to "the police" function of the clergy. (Does enforcer have a kinder ring to your ears.) And while we might love to think of pastoral care as a loving ministry of care, there are congregants who would be horrified to show any of their weaknesses, confess any of their sins, or share their problems. The Pastor might judge them "not righteous Unitarian Universalist!"
Not that Unitarian Universalist ministers are not called upon to enforce the rules, to guard the congregation against predators and disruptors. We are expected to be guardians of the community's covenant. But when a congregant feels called to put on the best face, and get dressing up for the Pastor (literally or metaphorically) I feel they have the wrong guy. Not my role! Not me! But it happens again and again.
I have witnessed the easy going, accepting style of liberal clergy all my life, and so this idea of Pastor as cop seems incongruous, but the ghost of Calvin's parlor spies goes on and on.
Gordon McKeeman. wrote: Universalism is not faith in the inevitability of heaven which supports me as I face death but faith in the reality of love. The old Universalist heresy claimed that God's love knew no limits and would find the sinner no matter how far from holiness she or he strayed. The fundamental nature of reality is love.
Universalism as it is commonly understood is the "everybody is saved no matter what" religion rather than the "God is boundless love" religion.
At the time of the rise of Universalism, the Calvinists and Methodists utilized the threat of hell to scare listeners into accepting Christ, and thus the Universalist emphasis on "no hell" was popular counter to deformed practice. But when Universalism came to be understood as assuring a positive result for our soul's final destination it had less appeal, especially among liberals. Liberals didn't imagine themselves as candidates for hell.
But the power of love, fundamental to reality and surpassing our willfulness is a gospel whose time is always now. To preach the larger hope, and boundless love, Universalism for our time.
It is so easy to shift away from this central message for our gospel, to preach greater understanding, and more inclusive ways of being, to preach justice and fidelity to truth. All these things are good, but they lack transformative power without the renewing the message of boundless love at the heart of the cosmos.
U.U. Enforcer wrote "I skipped J. Sparks' grave since he is best known for a sermon someone else did at his ordination." Funny thing what historians do to a man's reputation, they give prominence to some people and obscurity to others, and Jared Sparks should know this, he was a historian. Let us see what Britannica Online has to tell us about the good Doctor Sparks.
American publisher and editor of the North American Review, biographer, and president of Harvard College.
Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College, Sparks served as minister of the First Independent Church (Unitarian) from 1819 to 1823. From then until 1830, under his ownership and editorship, the North American Review became the arbiter of literature in New England. He was appointed the first professor of secular history at Harvard and served as president of the college from 1849 to 1853.
He was the author of biographies of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Gouverneur Morris. He edited The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, 12 vol. (1829€“30) and 25 volumes of The Library of American Biography (1834€“48). Sparks believed that patriotism obliged him, when editing source materials, to omit passages likely to cause international ill will, and he sometimes embellished what the Founding Fathers had actually written. The exacting scholarly standards of a later age rendered much of his work obsolete.
He was born May 10, 1789, Willington, Conn., U.S. He died March 14, 1866, Cambridge, Mass.
Those exacting standards of a later day! The idea that history writing serves a political purpose, and that historian is advised not to upset to many established opinions is still standard operating procedure. Historians who point out the flaws in the official story are labeled revisionists, and "controversial."
But in his own time Jared Sparks was the model of the public intellectual. The Dial was founded by the Transcendentalist Club to overcome the power of The North American Review.
While he was at the Baltimore Church, he was also chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives. Before he was ordained he was a published and well regarded author of Unitarian theological writings. Thomas Jefferson apparently appreciated his Unitarian Miscellany as the following letter from Jefferson attests.
To The Reverend Jared Sparks
MONTICELLO, NOVEMBER 4, 1820.
SIR, -- YOUR favor of September 18th is just received, with the book accompanying it. Its delay was owing to that of the box of books from Mr. Guegan, in which it was packed. Being just setting out on a journey I have time only to look over the summary of contents. In this I see nothing in which I am likely to differ materially from you. I hold the precepts of Jesus, as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man. I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent innovations as corruptions of His religion, having no foundation in what came from Him. The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere relapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible. The religion of Jesus is founded in the Unity of God, and this principle chiefly, gave it triumph over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged. Thinking men of all nations rallied readily to the doctrine of one only God, and embraced it with the pure-morals which Jesus inculcated. If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory, can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion, truth will prevail over fanaticism, and the genuine doctrines of Jesus, so long perverted by His pseudo priests, will again be restored to their original purity. This reformation will advance with the other improvements of the human mind, but too late for me to witness it. Accept my thanks for your book, in which I shall read with pleasure your developments of the subject, and with them the assurance of my high respect.
"And this day shall become a memorial for you, and you shall observe it as a festival for the LORD, for your generations, as an eternal decree shall you observe it. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove the leaven from your homes ... you shall guard the unleavened bread, because on this very day I will take you out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day for your generations as an eternal decree. - Exodus 12:14-17
Religions mark rituals of reference. remembering events that define the identity of the people. Often these rituals of reference mark memories of suffering, enslavement, humiliation, and then liberation and renewal. Christianity has the Passion which is answered by the Resurrection marked by Good Friday and Easter. Judaism has an ancient memory of slavery and a subsequent passing over to freedom, ritually celebrated at Passover. Judaism returns to this theme again and again in other rituals of reference such as Purim and Chanukah.
Many Native American communities recall the long marches of forced removals with rituals of reference. It is a scandal among indigenous peoples that dominant culture spiritual seekers come to celebrate Native American spirituality, because they seem in such a rush to be one with nature, and one with the dance, but clueless about the suffering and brokenness that the rituals seek to address.
The spirituals of the African American people arose to address terror and degradation. Slavery and after emancipation Lynch Law are the context for these songs of freedom. When religious liberals sing these songs, what suffering are they addressing? When we sing that we will let our light shine, what long nights of terror are we defying. What horrors do we wish to overcome? If we sing these songs with out deep congregational reflection on the context of their origins, and recognition that for the community of origin they are rituals of reference are we not celebrating cheap grace?
When questions of cultural misappropriation are raised around the singing of African American spirituals, it is not simply a concern that "white people don't clap on the right beat" or "y'all don't sing with gusto and passion" - the concern is taking a song that has context in community memories and represents a ritual of reference in the African American community, and seems to be used for some other purpose in the liberal congregation. Much of the writing on this subject by dominant culture ministers and musicians appears to be defensive and more concerned with rights, than with responsibilities.
Appropriate use requires communicating the context under which the song arose and the meaning in depth for the community of origin. In that context that the singing of such music would contribute toward our common struggle for wholeness and right relations.
I recall when I first identified with Unitarianism. (It was a few years before the merger.) A Jewish child, assuming I was Christian in an orthodox sense, expressed his objections to the divinity of Jesus. I answered that I was Unitarian and said that we thought Jesus was a prophet who taught love and human community. (I probably used other words, like brotherhood of mankind, it was the 1950s.) I guess I was 12, give or take a year.
Where did I get the "religious education" to be able to articulate a low christology in a playground conversation? And more importantly how did I form an identity to claim a Unitarianism as "me" separate and apart from Christian orthodoxy, and even my friends Jewish presumption that all gentiles are alike?
My formation was the gift of my parents in the fist place, and secondarily from my congregations religious education offerings. I can not credit the American Unitarian Association directly with my religious formation, but what the Association did, and did not do, influenced my parents, and my local congregation.
When I was child, Sophia Lyons Fahs was the major influence on both Unitarian and Universalist religious education. The two denominations' joint religious education program consisted of teaching an approach, and writing children's books. Books that could be read by parents to children, and when the child was ready, books that the child could read. The Sunday school teachers read these books as well. The Sunday school teachers taught Sunday school as a lay ministry, they were not volunteers who filled in on "the 2nd and 4th Sundays a month for 10 weeks." They developed their own plan, they did not receive a lesson plan that broke down the teaching goals for each session.
Our present religious education materials assume that our RE teachers are too busy to read books, they are too busy to be reflectively engaged in a lay ministry, that they are busy volunteers that need to be provided with a lesson plan so that they can deliver a curriculum.
Jess writes of concerns about our religious education program.
"Just got the UUWorld in the mail today, and it just goes to prove my point regarding the great disservice Unitarian Universalism offers our kids. We mean well, we really do, but we're collectively falling on our faces.
The so-called UU & Me! page, I'm sorry, it's awful. Direct quote from the section on "Ideas & Me!":
Q: Do we believe in Jesus?
A: We think Jesus was amazing.
Come on. What a non-answer, which is exactly the problem!!!"
I won't engage in critique of this web site's offerings, nor will I engage in defending it. The UU and Me! page is a religious education project of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, a congregation based on correspondence, which has recently moved into the internet age. Its intention is to minister to isolated UUs. Its religious education materials go way beyond UU and Me!, and they provide great resources for parents that want to "home school" their children's religious education.
The question Jess raises for me, however, is the role of the parent and the teacher. I am convinced that magazines, canned curriculums for busy volunteers, and web sites can ever be substitute for parents as educators, and dedicated "Sunday School" teachers. Congregations need to support parents as educators, and support the religious avocation, the lay ministry of teacher. The parish minister is called to be "teacher" to the congregation, and I can't see how this role can be fulfilled if ministers come to rely on packaged UUA material.
I think the UUA has a role to play as resource developer. But the religious formation of children is a responsibility of the covenant community, the congregation that seeks to be a center of transformation and renewal of right relationship. The UUA staff as a service providers can never be a substitute for religious community.
Back in Oct 2004, on the eve of the election Rev. George F. Regas of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California preached a sermon, in which he imagined how Jesus would admonish Bush and Kerry if he debated them. Regas never urged parishioners to vote for one candidate over the other, but he did say that he believes Jesus would oppose the war in Iraq, and that Jesus would be saddened by Bush's positions on the use and testing of nuclear weapons. In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.
Now the IRS is threatening his church that it may be endanger of losing its tax exemption. The present Rector J. Edwin Bacon said the church had retained the services of a Washington law firm with expertise in tax-exempt organizations. And he told the congregation: "It's important for everyone to understand that the IRS concerns are not supported by the facts." The tax law provides non profit status to religious organizations but forbids the endorsement of candidates, and pending legislation, Speaking about public issues of concern to a religious body is protected by the Constitution. The religious right flagrantly violates the law by specific instructions to congregants about who to votes for, and what legislation to support or oppose. Thus this appears to be a case of political interference with a church that opposes the Bush administration.
In an October letter to the IRS, Marcus Owens, the church's tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said, "It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season." Owens said that an IRS audit team had recently offered the church a settlement during a face-to-face meeting. "They said if there was a confession of wrongdoing, they would not proceed to the exam stage. They would be willing not to revoke tax-exempt status if the church admitted intervening in an election."
The church declined the offer. "I'm appalled," said 70-year-old Anne Thompson of Altadena, a professional singer who also makes vestments for the church.
"In a government that leans so heavily on religious values, that they would pull a stunt like this, it makes me heartsick."
Joe Mirando, an engineer from Burbank, questioned whether the 3,500-member church would be under scrutiny if it were not known for its activism and its liberal stands on social issues. "The question is, is it politically motivated?" he said. "That's the underlying feeling of everyone here. I don't have enough information to make a decision, but there's a suspicion."
The above is adapted from Common Dreams Newsletter, the full story by Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Felch
Mark Twain retorted that he was still alive, contradicting learned commentators who were reporting his death. It has been reported that Unitarian Universalism is dying. Apparently based on the way congregations report their voting membership to the UUA we are averaging a growth rate of 1% per annum, and this is smaller than the national growth rate. Thus the argument goes that we are losing "market share," and therefore experiencing relative decline. While this an area of concern for those of us who cherish the future of liberal religion, quantitative measurements do not necessarily lend themselves to uncontroversial judgments.
First, what is the nature of the growth of population in the United States? If the composition of the United States relative to race, ethnicity, age distribution etc. was more or less the same as it was in 1970 (the high point of twentieth century dues payers to the UUA relative to the U.S. population) then the UUA statistical decline in market share would indicate decline relative to this static conception of population. It would tell us that we did not need a cultural change within Unitarian Universalism, but rather an organizational one. We would need to build more big suburban churches. Train more "boss" ministers. We would need to do what we have always done, but better.
But if the US population is growing among people that we have never attracted: among non white, non Protestant, and not "middle class" (in the mid twentieth century meaning of that term,) then perhaps Unitarian Universalist growth would require that we look at the limitations of our cultural and religious identity. By 2050 the population of the United States will be more than 50% non white. Diana Eck argues that we have become the most religiously pluralistic country in the world with growing numbers of Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, earth centered traditions, and other ways of being religious not normative in America of just a few decades ago. In the 1970s, our members were typically highly credentialled employees of corporations and governments. The better paying of these jobs are disappearing, and now our employed U.U. membership often comes to us highly stressed and overworked, and we have many who are among the increasingly underpaid and under appreciated service functionaries (teachers, librarians, social workers, and technical level scientific workers.) The former often can't afford to live in the communities that they serve. Meanwhile we gaining a larger percentage of self employed professionals, artisans, and creative entrepreneurs who don't have to live in suburbia, and set up shop in small towns in the Mountains, and in the pine woods of the Southeast. Who will we grow among? What is the future of the suburb?
Dan Harper makes an argument that Unitarian Universalist ministers are educated to lead pastoral sized congregations, and if their leadership style was better suited for a larger church, then our Unitarian Universalist churches would grow. Perhaps, but it still leaves open the question, among whom would we grow?
There is considerable interest among Unitarian Universalists in the growth of large independent churches that serve the perceived needs of a consumer orientated population. These "market driven" churches are directed by staff, and the core supporters and power brokers are smaller core of committed evangelicals. They use innovative technologies to enhance the worship experience. It would be an interesting discussion if we could talk about the pluses and minuses of such an approach, and whether it could be adapted Unitarian Universalism. But we still need to ask, who joins these "mega-churches?" There is considerable evidence that they are the once upon a time constituents of the declining conservative and mainstream evangelical churches. Thus they are recycled UCCs, Episcopalians, Baptists, Disciples, Presbyterians and Methodists. These denominations are losing members, it isn't simply liberal Protestantism that is in decline, it is the old forms of denominational Protestantism.
Where are these mega-churches? They are located on sprawling campuses in the new growth suburbs fueled by white flight. Forty years ago we took that road ourselves, undermining our public ministry and turning us into a religion that serves individual seekers rather than a wounded world.
There is a second problem with the declining "market share statistic," by counting voting members of congregations are we really counting those who identify with Unitarian Universalism? No. we are simply counting those who a congregation chooses to report to the UUA as "voting members" for purposes of paying the annual program fund. Those of my readers who has been on a church board know that the number that is reported is an understatement of the size of the congregation. Thus, we need to distinguish between 1) those who identify as Unitarian Universalists, 2) the total constituency of Unitarian Universalist congregations, organizations, affiliate groups, and ministries, and 3) total number of voting members of Unitarian Universalist congregations. Is it possible that the first two could rise significantly while the third category would grow slower? I think that is not only possible, but we are experiencing that institutional dislocation at the present time. It is a fact that we have experienced rapid increases in paid staff in our congregations, and increases in attendance, yet slower increases in those who get reported to Boston. Perhaps this fact has more to do with the slow death of the form of historical Protestantism, than it does to the eminent death of the religious movement known as Unitarian Universalism.
Third, the growth of voting membership in congregations is uneven. Some congregations have experienced double digit growth, and some congregations have experienced absolute decline in membership. The Districts of the UUA in the Northeast of the United States have lost members or showed small increases, while the Districts in the other parts of the country have seen significant growth in total voting member registrations in the last decade. Why? Some of growth in the "sunbelt" has been fueled by rapid population growth, and some of the fall off in the "frost belt" is the result of declining and aging populations. But our "sun belt" congregations lack the endowments and capital funds to respond to population growth, while the "frost belt" congregations are often living off funds assembled by the generousity of Unitarians and Universalists in the nineteenth century.
It would be a good thing if we could discuss with confidence a growth strategy for Unitarian Universalism based on firm knowledge of demographics and precise knowledge of who our members are, but I believe that such a project is much more complex than citing our favorite statistics to bolster our pet arguments. Nevertheless, I suggest my critique opens several new areas of discussion even if that discussion is somewhat speculative without more information: 1) Can we continue to be a religion of the declining (in relative size at least) privileged white anglo culture and not expect to experience decline relative to the population of the United States as a whole? 2) Does it make sense to mimic the mega-church if the mega-church is really a parasite on the declining Protestant form of organization? 3) Are we going to continue to accept the suburban captivity of our movement? 4) While we may need large churches in urban communities and large suburbs as bases for our public ministry, don't we also need small house churches to tap the energy of small group ministries as ways of reaching entirely new populations and generation life styles with new ways of being church. Perhaps some of our ministers should be trained to be enablers of other peoples lay ministries while others will be trained to be boss ministers in a large budget mega-church. Let God call ministers to ministries based on personal discernment that may or may not fit into the church growth current fad of choice.
If I haven't tested my readers patience with my radicalism let me advance one more critique. If we continue to think of ourselves as a "denomination" - a nineteenth century invention of middle class white Protestantism and if do not adopt to the demographic changes that our country is undergoing we will eventually die. But if we reframe our self conception and come to understand ourselves as a movement of religious liberals in which covenant communities are not necessarily housed in expensive campuses, and led by boss ministers, we might contribute to transformation of the American religious experience. Once again.
I read the seminarian's blogs, and I applaud their efforts to define a personal theology, to come to grips with a Unitarian Universalist identity, to develop skills, and to find their unique preaching voices. All of these are essential, and I feel confident that these writers will have wonderful ministries.
But there is one little thing I would like to add to the conversation. The society in which Unitarian Universalists do ministry is very stressful, and the social support systems for most people in our society are weak or non existent. Churches are places where people come who need help, and some of these needy people present "mental health" problems. In many of our churches as many of a quarter of the membership is clinically depressed, and a significant number will tell you that they are "borderline." Narcissism is our most common character disorder and it can present as a "right to express myself" with demands and tantrums. Narcissism denied takes the form of long term antagonism. Other clergy will point out that I haven't even mentioned passive aggressive styles among board members, and burnout among volunteers.
Many Unitarian Universalist parish ministers spend considerable time and energy doing pastoral care with people whose problems are complex and long lasting. Within a few years of parish ministry you will be called on to do a memorial service for a congregant who has committed suicide, and deal with person who is a perpetual disrupter and antagonist. You will experience members of your congregation who divorce and come to church and have fights at joys and sorrows. Or you may have the visitor who is carrying a weapon, or who makes unwanted sexual advances at other visitors or members, or who becomes so enraged by your sermon that (s)he threatens you with violence. All these events, and many others I have experienced and these and many others have been experienced by other ministers as well.
So what does this have to do ministerial formation?
Well there is the spiritual preparation. If you are dependent on the members of your congregation for support, or if you need their approval to do effective ministry you will be disappointed. Developing a strong sense of your pastoral self requires a few years of practice in ministry, but it begins with spiritual disciplines such as prayer, journaling and mediation and those can be formed in seminary.
You can't have too many units of Clinical Pastoral Education. One is required, but I would recommend a second unit. Or a field work experience in a mental health facility, or crisis center. Doing some "ministry with youth" is another good place to pick up some experience with yourself working with people in crisis. I am not sure that interns get as much experience with "themselves as pastor" while working with difficult people. It is hard to convey the radical difference between "being a pastor" and being a friend, social worker, youth worker, and even an intern. The transference that you will receive as a "spiritual leader" is powerful, potentially transformative, and also potentially demonic. Reflecting in evaluation forms on the process of becoming aware of "yourself as pastor" becomes a cliché after awhile, but will be a matter of professional survival when you become the object of everyones projections of what a person of God should do (for them.)
Courses in pastoral psychology are useful, but not not as helpful as clinical experience. And learning to work with "colleagues" is essential. I have tried to create a support group of other ministers who discuss pastoral care concerns several times. They usually last two or three years and then we need to reconstitute them. (Ministers move, so a group of six colleagues will have turnover in three years.) But they are invaluable, for the moral support, as a means of self care, and as way of gaining perspective on some very demanding pastoral situations.
Ministry formation is both a matter of head and heart. My maxim is from a back country Palestinian rabbi. "See, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Be then as wise as snakes, and as gentle as doves." Matthew 10.16
Again, Philocrites has contributed to the Unitarian Universalist on-line community with a thoughtful post outlining his editorial policy relative to publishing comments. I found Philocrites post remarkably kind and well reasoned toward those who violate internet etiquette and standards of civil discourse.
Recently, I had to turn on the moderate comments switch on my weblog manager because of a troll, and I resent his violation of community. I also deleted his "comments" which had nothing to do with the post or conversation at hand, but rather boiler plate reiterations of long discredited accusations directed at one of our ministers and a liberal religious congregation that acted to guard its community against disruption. After deleting his comments, he accused me of censorship! Nonsense! Editorial discretion is not censorship, I am a publisher, not a government oversight agency. Publishers are responsible for the contents of their publications, including the writing of guest commentators.
Philocrites mentioned that he tries to keep his professional responsibility separate from his personal contribution as a publisher of a blog. My reasoning is a little different, I am an elected member of the Unitarian Universalist Association Executive, and as such I am very aware of the UUMA's Code of Professional Conduct and the Guidelines for Ministry. For me to tolerate trolling on my weblog would be condoning internet libeling and thus a violation of those professional standards. I promise my readers that I won't allow "commentators" to use my weblog in a way that violates professional relational standards.
I feel strongly that a Unitarian Universalist on-line community can enrich our religious movement with honest and civil dialogue on matters of importance to our faith community. But in order to do that the webloggers must honor standards of that bring credit to Unitarian Universalism.
