Tag: #UUAGA

Process or Love? – A Reflection on Article II

.Reading time 11 minutes.

I’m wading in…

Mostly because I have brought up the concern about Unitarian Universalist values and specifically the Seven Principles having no reflection of “love” since I first started seminary in 2012. I’ve been yammering on about it ever since.  I’ve consistently preached about this deficiency and ministered from a place of needing to address what feels to me like an emotional vacuum.

While I have great respect for the individuals of the Commission, their intellect, their labor and intentions, from my perspective, Article II still misses the mark.  To be clear, this is not about their work as much as it is about the structure of Unitarian Universalism.  For the uninitiated: “Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Bylaws, Principles and Purposes, is the foundation for all of the work of our UUA and its member congregations and covenanted communities”[1].  Article II contains the Seven Principles and Six Sources and according to the provision for amending the bylaws (ARTICLE XV Section C-15.1. Amendment of Bylaws – 6) the Association is due for an update.  The update in graphic form looks like this, with love at the center:

Yes, this is pretty, but I wonder if in this ambitious project, Unitarian Universalists may have missed the opportunity to think deeply or wrestle with what we truly mean by “love”.  Are Unitarian Universalists afraid of love?  The parallel that comes to mind is the UU approach to racial justice where we are very good at and quick to point out what whiteness does in the world (supremacy, exclusivity, historical oppression, etc.) but we are less willing to unpack what whiteness is.

As for Article II, “love” feels like a bystander.  There is a sweeping assumption here that everyone shares a common understanding of what love is.  This is far from the case.  The current rework of “values” seeks to literally center love within 6 distinct values: Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, and Generosity. Creatively, Unitarian Universalist Religious Educators have adopted “Jet Pig” (the first letter of each value) as an acronym to teach and operationalize the newly organized values.  But what about accountability?  Where is loyalty?  Where is repair?  What about forgiveness? What about ingenuity and understanding?  The properties that Jet Pig names are all well and good if you live in a world where you don’t have to actively fight for your identity every day; where you aren’t struggling to eat; where you don’t have to argue with the government to get them to understand that someone really does need access to Medicaid…or that you are a whole and legitimate human being.  With all due respect, love, that is, the real world love that is necessary for an intentional community that is committed to one another through the real struggles of human life, must have more muscle than plush toys, platitudes, slogans and songs.

Starting with governance, and not trusting love as an organizing principle unto itself bows to the very “white supremacy culture” that UUs say they are determined to dismantle.

What is Needed

Because of the complexity, and frankly the real lived importance of love, I firmly believe that the bylaws are the wrong place for what Unitarian Universalism requires in this crucial moment.  What UUs need in order to be the transformational place that our rhetoric says we are, is to make the statement of our values a stand alone commitment.  Having principles, values, or whatever as part of the bylaws prioritizes democratic process over content…and THIS is the problem.  Bylaws are a bit like Roberts Rules that way; they tell you how to do things regardless of what is being done.  But shouldn’t what Unitarian Universalists do first and foremost be love? Shouldn’t the bylaws be created out of love? Are we saving lives or running meetings? A faith community needs for things to be in a different priority order than we currently have them.  We can’t place love at the center after cherry picking what we think is non-offending and lofty enough for everyone to agree on.  Love needs to point the way toward everything we do…including creating bylaws.

Starting with governance, and not trusting love as an organizing principle unto itself bows to the very “white supremacy culture” that UUs say they are determined to dismantle. The organizational commitment to bylaws and process structures goes directly back to the 1961 merger and the focus on documentation, committees and legalities.  Historically it goes back further.  One, if not the most important value to proto Unitarians and Universalists who largely came from places of privilege and or cultural homogeneity was “liberty”.  “Liberal religion” was always first about the individual right to an expression of belief.  The resistance to coercion and having the tools to resist that coercion runs deep.  But in a modern and truly diverse world, individual liberty is only one concern. By sublimating our values to the structure of bylaws, we are challenged to hold love as a functional overarching priority.  Instead, individual rights and expressions of freedom emerge as a true Unitarian Universalist creed.

Recently, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) made statements that claimed that black people during Jim Crow held stronger more conservative aligned values which he claims was a good thing.  Regardless of what one may think of black conservatives, this repackaging of violent history requires a response.  Outside of the fact that black people were blocked from voting because of Jim Crow policies (oh the irony!) he and the rest of his cronies like Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) are invested in rewriting black history to tell black conservatives that “really…pre-Civil Rights Movement racism wasn’t that bad” and “we overcame!”  They are willing to trade on the lives of the people who died for the right to vote, the right to be housed, the right to education, the right to not be raped and the right to not be lynched simply to put a someone who has shown himself to be a dangerous bigot in the white house.  How does Jet Pig respond to that?

In addition to the Article II Commission members, I have immense respect for Unitarian Universalist Religious Educators.  Religious Educators are asked to carry the maximum burden of laying moral building blocks for our culture while being provided with the minimum tools and often the minimum of pay and resources (something in dire need of correction).  I am beholden to them for being willing to literally put lipstick on a pig, but we can and must do better for and by them.  By doing better for Religious Education in Unitarian Universalism, we will do better for all of us.  Religious Educators have been saying for years that we need a stronger statement and position on our moral and ethical positions as part of what we teach.  Why not listen to them and just do it as opposed to forcing them to once again, be the most creative people in our communities with the least amount of support because of our fetish for bureaucracy.

Unitarian Universalists have the opportunity to do something no other faith community does: we can start with a “Statement of Love”.  Because we are not bound by creed, doctrine or dogma, we can put love FIRST…not at the center, not at the side but FIRST.  Love can be our motivation and our destination.  But that will require talking about love, wrestling with what love expressed in the lived actions and felt hearts of a truly diverse world actually means.  This is the tough work ahead of Unitarian Universalists.  It is a challenge that cannot sit comfortably on its long held assumptions about individual liberty.  Considering what the world currently is, and what some would like it to become (see Project 2025), it may be the most important call to action that we have ever received.  The time is now.  My only worry is that we will be too averse to the messiness of actually loving one another and too tied up in the process of processes to answer the call.

–ALD

Liberation vs. Colonial Pews

.Reading time 7 minutes.
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First Parish in Cambridge Interior – Colonial Revival (renovation ca. 1914)

Listening to Rev. Joan Javier-Duval’s sermon at the closing worship of the UUA General Assembly, there was one word that resonated particularly deeply with me: Liberation.  Her message is a beautiful arc of what moving toward liberation can actually look like and I hope we take her challenge and continue crossing bridges to the other side.  But what does liberation look like for Unitarian Universalism?  Too often, and too easily, our energies get focused exclusively on the liberation of others.  So, I want to echo and amplify a significant part of Rev. Javier-Duval’s message, that the liberation must also be an internal ‘crossing over’.

Meetinghouse Original
First Parish in Cambridge Interior  – Gothic Revival (ca. 1870s)

The congregation of First Parish in Cambridge has an ongoing debate about getting rid of the high backed colonial pews in our meetinghouse.  These pews are not original. They were installed in 1914 when all of the New England Unitarian churches were embracing a colonial revival.   It was an aesthetic choice.  In fact, at that time the entire interior of the meetinghouse was gutted and done over in ‘colonial revival’ and the original Gothic revival decor (see image) was erased.  The congregation was trying to capitalize on something that had never been a part of the physical expression of the church building although the colonial history was inescapable in every other aspect of the community.

Today, these pews shape how we worship and how we experience our time together.  I cannot force the hand of my congregation…the church belongs to them.  Removing these pews will be their decision alone.  At the same time, I recognize that the potential removal of these pews is also a metaphor for the act of liberation that is most necessary across the wider Unitarian Universalist denomination.  Simply put, in order to liberate Unitarian Universalism we must first de-colonize Unitarian Universalism.  Intentionally, systematically and universally de-colonizing Unitarian Universalism is one step that will invite people of color, people with disabilities and people who otherwise would not have been thought of as fully human by the likes of our early Unitarian heroes, to feel whole in our our spaces our communities and our theology.

How can we cheer for the removal of Southern Confederate statues while our own congregations cling to celebrating Northern scholars and influencers who were apologists for slavery and white supremacy?  How can we reasonably invite land acknowledgement rituals in our spaces when we as a denomination never consistently acknowledge Unitarians as the theological progeny of the Puritans who were responsible for the removal, death and erasure of native people from their land and history? (See my previous post: Failure of My Faith for more on this subject.)

If we truly want to embrace liberation within our faith, then Unitarian Universalism should not get a pass in the national reckoning on histories and legacies of oppression.  Here are a few ideas for what de-colonizing Unitarian Universalism could look like:

  • Laying bare the disconnect between the colonial project and the modern inclusive, anti-oppressive movement.
  • De-centering Western religious history in what we teach, what we preach and how we practice; placing it instead as an equal in the global spiritual narrative.
  • Retiring harmful Puritan worship formats and content and/or reserving them for specific times and purposes when they are appropriate.
  • Asking white UUs to fully explore cultural whiteness, letting go of frameworks that regard people of color as problematic or the “other” to be solved.
  • Require congregations to assess their relationships with local communities of color providing them with resources, options and measures to build those relationships.
  • Rewrite the UU Principles to include the word “love” prominently along with an affirmation (not apology) of racial, religious and cultural diversity and a statement acknowledging the harmful colonial origins of the tradition.

We cannot continue to make excuses for our colonial roots if we are going to be the leader in creating modern inclusive spiritual community.  Our spiritual potential is too great and our future too important to be hampered by a brutally flawed past.  We cannot build a modern structure on the un-level surface of colonialism.  Doing so has already left the relatively new structure of Unitarian Universalism unstable.  It is not too late.  This is not cancel culture, but corrective culture.  This is liberation.  We have the opportunity in this moment of national reckoning to identify the flaws of the past, build a new foundation, and be informed by and aware of the past while placing it in its proper context.

We are not done.  Unitarian Universalism deserves a blueprint for change and a variety of actionable ways to make that change a reality. The question we are left with now is whether or not our faith is willing to be as strong in action as it is in words.  Are we willing to endure the pain of real liberation?  De-colonize Unitarian Universalism, NOW.

-ALD