Unitarian Universalists: 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

,

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 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.

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 efforts at reform in the Unitarian Universalist movement go no where because the solutions require persistence. Students graduate and go off an become ministers, and new ministers have more than enough on their minds than to be concerned with the students back at the old school. The ministers who would be willing to work on the problems are a "out of touch" with the students and spend time trying to find ways to "get in touch." I had two interesting conversations at GA, the first with the UUMA Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism which was trying to figure out how to get in touch with students of color to offer mentoring. The other with some seminarians of color who were surprised that the UUMA was trying to offer mentoring, they had never heard of it. We made that decision three years ago I said, and then realized that is more than an eternity for the students.

But what about now? What about the present students who don't have the courses they need to prepare for ministry? There are some ad hoc solutions, grants for workshops, asking the local ministers chapter to help.

If one doesn't want to be forgotten in this Unitarian Universalist movement, one must speak up. Those of us who are working for better minister/student relations might be a little defensive that we didn't hear you when you were whispering to each other. But becoming aware of our own neglect and shortcomings is a common place in ministry, so bring it on.

TheLivelyTradition, Unity, The UUEnforcer and Chalice Chick have shared some thoughts about the proposed merger between Starr King School for the Ministry and the Meadville Lombard Theological School. I thought I would add a few observations.


1. Most students for the Unitarian Universalist ministry are enrolled in schools that are not "Unitarian Universalist theological schools." This has been true since the early 1990s, in those days Starr King and Meadville had small enrollments and were not generous in scholarship aid, and Harvard was becoming increasingly oriented toward training academics and less toward forming practicing ministers. Harvard in the 1990s had more students than either Starr King, or Meadville. But Harvard's enrollment of UUs has been declining, while Andover Newton has increased its enrollment of UUs. (It was substantial in the 1990s.)

It is a fact that we would not have been able to provide enough ministers to the congregations of our Association if we relied on Meadville and Starr King. The number of students has increased since the 1980s, and while Meadville and Starr King have increased enrollment their growth has not kept up with the increase in total aspirants. So since about 1991, their market share has gone from a plurality to a minority of all aspirants.

2. All theological schools whether UU or non UU are having financial difficulties. Denominational support has not been generous as it was in the middle of the last century. To overcome their financial problems they have increased enrollment to get more tuition, some of the schools have doubled in the last two decades.

The theological schools, UU and non UU, have admitted students who wanted to take some interesting courses to inform the students own spiritual seeking. Many of these students were affluent, "spiritual seekers" who had no vocation orientation. I was told by a faculty member at one the schools that has large numbers of UUs enrolled that most of the students had no interest in becoming ministers, not community ministers, not academic ministers, not parish ministers. Most of these students can pay their tuition out of disposable income. Some of these students will create some kind of non ordained, non fellowshipped ministry with no accountability to a religious faith community: they will be "spiritual directors," or "therapists." Many of these "not in the ordination track" students are Unitarian Universalists. The non UU schools who have admitted UUs for tuition have admitted UUs who were serious about ministry, and UUs who weren't.

3. The proposal to merge the two schools placed the administrative headquarters in Chicago. The proposal was prepared by a consultant and was not based on extensive interviews with UU ministers about the questions that really matter: what are we doing about the formation of ministers for this century? What is the role of the schools? What is the role of the ministers who are presently serving Unitarian Universalism, and finally what would like the UUA administration to do to enable theological education?

Those questions are not asked in the report, the report is narrowly focused on the assumption that Meadville and Starr King have a monopoly on quality theological education and that they would be better merged than remaining independent. That conclusion is not compelling, I have seen too many reports by consultants that were accepted at face value, so I want more examination and more discussion. I would like to see more involvement by thoughtful people who are not partisans of either of these two schools.

4. People who are advocating for a vision have an amazing ability to find statistics to support their conclusions. There is a study that says that Andover Newton graduates are the "most" successful parish ministers, but if we include community ministers then Starr King produces the most success. In both cases success is measured by survival in ministry over a number of years. But the merger consultant and Lee Barker have another statistic, they take a limited number of our largest churches and based on who is serving these churches observe that they served by graduates of Harvard, Starr King, and Meadville. They forget to tell us of course that more than half of our ministers with ten years in the ministry attended one of these three schools. We should add that even today that the graduates of these three schools have more ongoing connections (they are more likely to insiders) than all the graduates of other schools combined. I love statistics, but I am not gullible.

5. The rumor that the merger talks are on hold, because Rebecca Parker and Lee Barker have personality differences is gossip, gossip contradicted by the facts. I was in a meeting with Parker and Barker in which the two Presidents were more than cordial, where they both listened to some probing questions, and where they knew each other well enough to be able to say "that is a question that Lee has some insights on" and "that is one of Rebecca's main concerns in these conversations."

Parker and Barker are religious professionals pursuing different agendas and engaging in high stake negotiations. That they are "in conflict" goes without saying, that they have personalized the conflict was not borne out in their conduct. What was clear is that the two Presidents represented two different institutions and two different boards of trustees. The board of Meadville voted for merger. The board of Starr King voted for programmatic cooperation. Starr King wasn't interested in submerging themselves into Meadville, they have more students, and have restructured their internal organization to become "leaner and meaner."

As I see it the differences between Starr King and Meadville are strategic, not a personal conflict between Parker and Barker.

6. There is another player in these discussions that must be included, we need to hear the considered voice of the Unitarian Universalist ministry. The UUA President and Board can hire a consultant that comes to conclusions that help articulate the position of the UUA President and Board. The Boards of Starr King and Meadville have a responsibility to think about their institutions, and they may disagree about what is best way forward. But ministers have some idea of what works and what doesn't, and the only way that wisdom is tapped by the schools is through their alumni networks.

We need a way for experienced UU ministers to begin to think about what the future of UU ministry will be and what role theological education will play in that future. They might come up with a vision that goes beyond how to increase the market share of Starr King and Meadville among all those potential tuition payers.

7. Is it possible that UU schools might provide a better theological education for our future ministry if these schools were transformed and restructured? I think so. Is the present system of free enterprise theological education producing confident, entrepreneurial ministers who can lead pluralistic congregations from a position of theological depth and shared vision. I think not.

But the answer isn't necessarily institutional merger.

The is  an old Zen story,
that tells of an Emperor who wanted to understand
the Buddhist teaching,  the Diamond Sutra in particular.
So he sent for a old wise monk.

In his own good time
the wise old monk appeared before the Emperor,
he climbed the platform in front of the throne,
and rapped once on the table that stood on the platform.
He then descended from the platform and left.
The Emperor sat motionless for a few moments,
and then one of his courtiers decided to speak.

Excuse me"  inquired the courtier,
"may I ask you whether you understood?

The Emperor nodded his head "NO"

What a pity.... replied the servant
for the wise one has never been more eloquent....

______________________________________________________

It may be true,  you know, a single rap on a table  may be more eloquent than all the words.  It is possible that you might come to deeper religious insight in meditation on that rap,  than listening to the best of orators.

But that is not our tradition,Unitarianism and Universalism arise out of Protestantism and Protestants put the pulpits in the middle of the chancel, and the altar......if that table could be called an altar was put over on the side. Does our furniture express ideas, concepts, does its arrangement assume a grammar, are we not talking, but nevertheless communicating without words?  Our tradition put the teaching and preaching function in the center and the ritual that gave form to the community in communion was put on the side.

Now there are many, many Unitarian Universalists who believe that we need more rituals, more ceremonies that celebrate the sacred stories and the rhtymns of our lives.

We may find ways to express reverence without non verbal languages.  We may find more and more ceremonies that express our religious values, and perhaps those rituals will communicate to us deeply and that communication will not be through words but movements of the body, through sight,  and touch,  and taste,  and smell, and even silence.

__________________________________________________________

This little reflection on the non verbal aspects of religious language is more suggestive than analytic.  There are many scholars who have commented on the role of instrumental music, art, dance, and other languages that contribute to public worship.  We can all think of examples from private devotion and rituals that give our family lives meaning.  What is the language that the angel at the top of the Humanist Christmas Tree speaks?  What does that Buddha on my book shelf say to me?

LT has some important things to say in his comment to this post,  he argues that our understanding of ritual is formed by words that have been spoken.  But he also points out that there are words that still must be said if we are to have meaningful rituals in common.

I think of a Eastern Woods Native Peoples ritual, the Corn Dance.  The whole people dance to renew the cosmos, the join their energies to sun and soil to inspire the corn to grow.  It is non verbal,  there is a language of reverence inherent in this dance, but words are not spoken.  But every child is told the stories, they know how Corn mother gave her gift and how the people join the earth in the enterprise of renewal.  Story time is not part of the dance, and the dance is not part of story time.  Yes, the meaning is expressed with dance and drums rather than words, but stories with words have informed the understanding of the dancers.

Chutney has again advanced certain ideas about ministry,  and again I find that his observations miss the mark as far as Unitarian Universalist ministry is concerned.  His ideas may hold true for Methodists and Charismatics, but the order of ministry that exists in our Association of Congregations has its roots in the Reform tradition of Protestant Christianity.  We do now and have always aspired to be a learned profession.

The definitions that Chutney advances relative to professions come from the observations of sociologists, a 20th academic enterprise known for sweeping generalizations and for its trying to make facts fit into theories.  I find most sociology suffers from lack of historical perspective.  There is an economy of human effort, we are more likely to take yesterday's institutions and renew them, than we are to start from scratch.  As I have confessed on this weblog before, if another life I was trained as a social historian.  I can appreciate sweeping generalizations when they are helpful, but I try to see them in the context of concrete societies as they evolve over time.  So indulge me as I do a little social history.

To understand Unitarian Universalist ministry we must return to those days of before sociology was invented, let us look at Europe on the eve of the conquest of North America.  That was a time when theology was the discipline that informed the definitions, not sociology.  Elizabethans and their grandchildren believed that a professional was one who "professed."  And God called people "to profess." A professional had a vocation,  a vocation means "to speak."  Clergy professed "ministry."  Physicians professed "healing."  Lawyers professed "justice."  Military officers professed "order."  Interesting the world profess is the same root as  the word Protestant.

In 17th century usage and practice, "professors" or professionals usually had a University education, but not always, professional military officers were narrowly trained.  But professionals were trained by those already in the profession, usually by a combination of apprenticeship and peer review.

Professionals were accountable to other members of their own profession.  The professional association elaborated standards, and ethics, not as formally as a contemporary board of surgeons or a bar association, but nevertheless standards were articulated.  James Luther Adams would help us understand that these "voluntary organization" made a contribution to particular kind of democracy that emerged in England and the British North American Colonies.  Instead of the State regulating the profession, the profession policed itself.  Were these guilds, those medieval institution of artisans that latter day free market liberals loved to accuse of restraint of trade.  Perhaps, if we looked hard we could find self protection in some professional association conduct,  but primarily they were also organizations that created standards of practice, and supported aspirants.

Before the 17th Century the experience of Christendom since the Romans had been established churches, the bishops had been state functionaries.  Ordination had for the previous millennia meant to be a member of a religious order, ordination is a word that means "to be under orders."  The Reformed tradition advanced the notion that the "order of ministry" was an lateral association of teachers and pastors of the gospel and they were to accountable to one another, thus to be "under orders" was to be accountable to autonomous community of fellow professors of religion and not to the state church's Bishop.

Sin happens. Yes sinning happens, even by professors of the noblest callings and the corruption of noble ideas happens. During the four hundred years in which professions have played a role in modern society and during which the order of ministry in the Reformed tradition has functioned as autonomous learned profession. we have witnessed more than a few corrupt practices.  We could talk about the ministers associations reacting to Theodore Parker, and we could talk about the coverups of abusive clergy (that has happened in the ranks of ordained Reformed ministers, Unitarian, Evangelical and Congregational and Presbyterian.)  But despite our many falls from grace, most ministers have maintained the historic meaning of "profession," most of us feel called to profess a practice beyond a self protection society.  We associate with one another to hold ourselves accountable to ethical standards, and we are disappointed when a colleague fails the order of ministry (betrays their ordination oath, violates the code.)

The twentieth century saw a corruption of the notion of the learned profession and a decline of learning in favor of technique.  Once the professional was called to profess a vocational discipline and do ministry (service) to the commonwealth. Today some of the things that Chutney's sociologists have observed are true about modern professionals.  Serving themselves and protecting their own kind.  But just as we say democracy is the worst form of governance until we consider the alternatives,  we could also say that voluntary association is the most self indulgent and insular way of regulating a profession until we consider the alternative.  The alternative is external control.  There are some "ministers" who think they do not need to be accountable to anything, save the holy spirit.  They scare me.

Unitarian Universalist ministry is not over regulated by a bureaucracy despite what Chutney asserts.  Ministers are accountable to their colleagues, and to the congregations. After the first few years of ministry, the work of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee has little or nothing to do with their ministry.  Yet they are constantly learning to do ministry.

The 1400 plus members of the Ministers Association (UUMA) constitutes a voluntary organization that holds ministers accountable and aids in formation through collegiality.  There is a constant dialogue between the ministers and the UUA and MFC about the standards for ministry.  There isn't a top down bureaucracy that has created the credentialing process, rather there are ongoing mutual consultations that create and recreate the process.  We are constantly working to reform the process.  Protestants believe in reform, reform and more reform.  At this point in our history, from my observation point I would argue that UUMA exerts more influence on the MFC than the MFC exerts over the ministers.

The Ministerial Fellowship Committee is a committee of 14 people, ministers and lay people who meet 3 times a year for a total of 10 days.  They do some work by email and phone.  There are 3 professional staff people and 3 support staff people who serve the MFC (they have other duties and report to the President of the UUA, but they serve as support staff for the MFC.  For years candidates and observers have agreed, the committee does everything they can to recognize a minister from among the candidates that present themselves for interview.  I see no evidence of the congregations demanding the tighter regulations  based their experience with unformed ministers, (if Chutney knows of cases among real and existing Unitarian Universalist congregations with real and existing Unitarian Universalist ministers then it would be helpful if he could find a way to share this information.)  Based on what I can see as a member of the UUMA executive committee, we meeti with the MFC on a regular basis and with the staff twice a year, the MFC develops policy based on its own experience, not congregational pressure.

Do some lay people believe that schools make ministers. I think that some do.  Do some ministers put on a show about their credentials.  I think that some do, I am always bemused at a young guy who feels the need to introduce himself as the Rev. Dr. so and so...in a room full of professors and surgeons. But many of us refrain from such credential dropping, rather we rely on the authenticity of the relationship and the power of our gospel.

So I am a "professor of ministry,"  my vocation is to articulate and institutionalize the gospel of transforming love, and I am accountable to a community of witnesses that goes back to an gathering in an upper room a long, long time ago.  Most of my formation has happened in service to congregants and in collegial relationship to other practitioners of this ancient profession of ministry.  I appreciate the ministers and scholars that professed when I sat as a student at Crane Theological School, Andover Newton Theological School, and occasionally for me at Harvard Divinity School, and while they didn't make me a minister, they helped me see connections, find better ways to give voice to my vocation, and appreciate other points of view.  A professional is formed not by schools, but by accountable practice of that profession.  The schools at best are an intensive introduction to that practice;  at worst they are a tuition grabbing corporation trying to survive by baby sitting spiritual seekers.

See also TheLivelyTradition which critiques Chutney's notion that congregations form the clergy and having failed to own this task they turn to bureaucracy.  See also the Cambridge Platform that introduces us to one relationship between the order of ministry and the whole people of God in the seventeenth century New England congregationalism, the clergy are given a lot of power, but that power is given by the congregation.  See also the charter of Harvard college founded so that the churches wouldn't have an ignorant clergy.