patrickmurfin

The 2008 Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly (GA) got underway in Ft. Lauderdale Wednesday evening.  Pointedly sub-titled A Meeting of Congregations to set itself apart from the atmosphere of a movement convention of individual devotees that critics have charged annual GAs had become, the meeting has been racked with controversy for months.

The main convention hall is “inside the security perimeter” of the Port of Ft. Lauderdale. As a result, Department of Homeland Security regulations required that government approved picture identification has to be presented to authorities each time individuals accessed the building.  Convention credentials will not suffice.  Permissible IDs include driver’s licenses; state issued picture IDs, passports, and military IDs.  Not acceptable would be things like school and employment IDs or tickets in-lieu of licenses.  The announcement of these restrictions set up a howls of protests, including calls to relocate the meeting.

Critics were particularly concerned that UUA youth, who might not possess the required ID would be harasses as perhaps would some non-driving elderly.  Undocumented immigrants, more of a theoretical component than an actual presence at most GAs, would also be affected.  Others objected loudly on civil liberties grounds.  When the Board of Trustees, faced with enormous financial penalties for canceling the event in Ft. Lauderdale and even greater logistical headaches in trying to find a suitable alternative site on six months notice, voted to keep the GA in Florida while negotiating accommodations with local authorities,  some UUs, including well known ministers and lay leaders, announced that they would boycott this years meeting. 

Meanwhile the Board was also taking sweeping actions aimed, in their point of view, at reorienting the UAA as a pure “association of congregations.”  Gone in the seeming blinking of an eye was the entire UUA youth structure, Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU), with vague promises to recreate a replacement based on Congregational participation.  The whole semi-autonomous youth movement, based on the con culture was snuffed out. 

Equally as dramatic was the chopping block offered to the scores of officially recognized Affiliate Organizations.  Interest groups ranging from the theological (Christians, Humanists, Buddhists, Pagans, etc), to the issue oriented (peace, civil liberties, animal rights, vegetarianism, etc.), to cultural (history, music), to professional and technical suddenly found themselves  “disaffiliated” and without a range of UUA support ranging including web-page links,  discounts for advertising in the UUWorld magazine, and access to time slots for programs and presentations at GAs.  Although the ensuing uproar caused the reinstatement of some access, bitterness remained as critics—I among them—accused the Board of being carried away by the movement of Congregational Polity Purists—or more harshly, fundamentalists.

Perhaps not directly related, but just as controversial were moves to strip the UUA’s two remaining official theological schools, Meadville-Lombard in Chicago and Star King in California of direct Association support in favor of and aid to students approach.  The argument was that a majority of students destined for the UUA ministry now study at unaffiliated schools and seminaries and that they should have equal access to UUA support.  Supporters of the existing schools predicted that the move could be a crippling blow that could force the closing of one—or maybe both—institutions.  It was also argued that only affiliated schools could offer the in-depth theological, philosophical, historical and cultural contexts unique to liberal ministry in the UUA.

As controversy swirled, two other concerns worked against the Ft. Lauderdale meeting.  First was the simple fact that a lot of people were simply not eager to go to south Florida in Mid-Summer.  Let’s face it, it is unbearably hot and humid for too many Yankees.  Secondly the soaring cost of fuel—which has nearly quadrupled air fares, for instance—has put the meeting economically out of reach of more potential delegates than ever.

For whatever reason, attendance at this year’s GA is dramatically down to about 3,000.  As a result the UUA stands to loose $200,000 to $300,000 dollars on the meeting.

If energy costs remain high—as is universally expected—and the economy remains weak, future GAs may need to be scaled back as well.  This could fit into the plans who would like to restore the annual meeting to a central role in policy governance for the UAA by converting it to a meeting of congregational officers and ministers.  In recent years the high costs of attendance have meant that many delegates were essentially self-selecting—the members of any congregation who could get away from work and family and self-fund the not inconsiderable costs.  Critics have charged that this has skewed the meetings.  Conservatives and others who object to the “politicization” of the UUA blame that trend for streams of activist, left leaning resolutions—now called Actions of Immediate Witness—and broader policy statements evolved in the multi-year Study Action Issue process.

What ever happens, future GAs may rely more on possible distant, electronic participation.  More of the the cultural and education aspects of the annual meeting might be made up in District Assemblies, or perhaps in super-regional conventions held in alternate years to GAs.

Meanwhile, pre-GA meeting held earlier in the week have been providing some fireworks of their own

On Tuesday the Board of Trustees met.  Among the topics up for discussion was the Congregations Come First initiative, which has provided the theoretical underpinning of recent board actions.  According to Jane Greer, in the UUA General Assembly Blog of the UUWorld:

“UUA President William G. Sinkford expressed doubt about the Congregations Come First initiative, which has been a basis for much UUA decision-making, including the rigorous new rules for organizations wishing to become independent affiliates and the reorganization of the international office. "I was one of the early voices calling for an emphasis on congregations," Sinkford said. "However, I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with that trajectory." He said that he had become much more aware of "trans-congregational" populations, especially among UU youth and young adults and the community of color. The idea of having only one way of being Unitarian Universalist (by being a member of a UU congregation) sounds fundamentalist, he said. "Fundamentalism doesn't fit our theology or religious culture." While Sinkford declared continued support for Congregations Come First, he did call for increased recognition of those Unitarian Universalists who fall outside congregational boundaries”

Sinkford is entering the last year of his presidency.  His words of caution were welcome to many of us.  He is however, faced with an unprecidently activist Board under the leadership of Moderator Ginny Courter.  As an essential lame duck, he will have a hard time reining in the board unless he can rally support from the delegates at the GA.  It is unclear if he is willing to challenge his old friend and close support Couter and the board in any really overt way.

On a second front, the annual pre-GA meeting of ministers heard the widely respected Rev. Christine Robinson  preach the annual Berry Street Sermon (named for the very adress given annually at the very first loose association of Unitarian ministers in early 19th Century Boston.)  According to the blog Jess’s Journal:

“Her basic premise is that Unitarian Universalism as a whole is crying out for a greater spiritual depth, a depth that has not been seen within living memory, a depth that begins with the personal spiritual life of the minister. She wants to see our denomination work to enable our ministers to be “Imagineers of the Soul,” able to teach our people, and help them heal from whatever spiritual shame and hurt they have experienced, and then to feed them what they need to grow as spiritual beings…

“…The other point Christine made today that resonates with me is how easy it is for those who have been deeply shamed about their spiritual experiences to do the exact same thing to those around them, but in the other direction — say if someone wants to talk about god or prayer in one of our congregations. And, ‘in the spiritual community,’ she said, ‘scorn is deadly.’

Whatever the impulses, this is likely to send up warning rockets to Humanists, agnostics and atheists, who have been feeling put upon and shunned since Sinkford announced his call for the restoration of “the language of reverence” early in his tenure as president.  Humanists dominated the old American Unitarian Association (AUA) and the early decades of the UUA to the point that Christians and theists often felt persecuted.  But over the last two decades, their influence has dwindled as congregations began to reflect a general cultural yearning for greater spirituality.  This tendency has been accelerated as ministers graduating from seminaries have been increasingly theist, just as the flood of Humanist ministers changed the Unitarians in the post-war period. 

Robinson reflects that shift.  She herself has moved from “largely atheistic” to agnostic to “a more traditional definition of God.”  Although not traditionally Christian, her recent sermons have extolled a spirituality that draws on pagan traditions as well as American Transcendentalism.  Yet her call for ministers to be allowed to express spirituality without being “shamed” or “scorned” will undoubtedly be seen by some unhappy humanists as a call to “sit down and shut up.”

Looking ahead to the GA, all of these issues will undoubtedly play out one way or another.  I wish I could be there to participated.  But like so many others, GAs have become far to expensive to attend.  I will be keeping track of developments on the UUA web site and encourage others to do the same.

Over on the Unitarian Universalist History Chat list, Spanish scholar Jaume de Marcos recently set off a lively conversation about the incorporation of Wiccan and other pagan elements into Unitarian Universalist worship.  Jaume demonstrated that Wicca was not the seamless continuation of an ancient Celtic religion as its adherents would claim, but cobbled together from various sources and largely made up by the fertile minds of certain British eccentrics and self-styled wizards.  Some folks were against   the introduction of a pseudo-religion.  Others fretted about an abandonment of traditional Unitarian Universalist theology (what ever that is.)  Still others worry that it is more evidence the UUism is sliding into being simply “an interfaith religion” with no core identity at all.  As usual the discussion was lively and informative.  This was my contribution.

I am less alarmed than some by the introduction of some pagan elements occasionally to UU worship even if it is not my personal cup of tea.  But that may be because I’m out here in the stodgy, plodding Midwest where in our sensible shoes sort of way we seem to be immune from the wildest excess that might creep in elsewhere.  You will not see us beating drums naked in the woods or sacrificing a chicken in the old baptism font.

Inclusion of some pagan rites, whether historically accurate or cooked up in some Victorian eccentric’s garden, does not alarm me if the practitioners do not believe that they are literally invoking specific gods, goddesses or spirits who will perform specific tasks or expect the congregation to do so.  While there are Wiccans out there—and other organized and semi-organized pagans and neo-pagans—who really, really do believe that every incantation uttered is both real and true, those are not the folks who are comfortable being part of a UU community any more than a Christian who literally believes he/she is consuming the body and blood of Christ in communion will be comfortable.

One of the most basic attributes of Unitarian Universalism is it’s allergy to fundamentalism of any stripe—any creed or mythology held to be literally true in all of its particulars and that denies the truth of any other belief. 

Scour the literature of our movement and you will find little mention of it, but what philosophically unites us more than anything else is our comfort with religious mythologies, practices, and even ritual as metaphors allowing us to explore aspects of the sacred—which I call The Greater.

Thus many of us can participate in Christian communion as a symbolic act and an exercise in community, blow the Shofar, tangle our legs in unnatural positions and mouth chants in dead Sanskrit.

The incorporation of pagan or neo-pagan elements to worship in the last couple of decades may be startling to some, but it is really no different.  It allows us to metaphorically explore traditions that are not novel to us at all—Pantheism (infused in UU cultural genetics by Transcendentalism), Panentheism, and Pandeism (the spiritual child of the Enlightenment, step child of Deism, and a way of synthesizing spirituality and science.)  Rising ecological consciousness and the adoption of the Seventh Principle—“respect for the inter-dependent web of existence of which we are a part”—has almost compelled us to find ways to express these ideas metaphorically in worship.

Sure, there has been some clumsy, clunky, inelegant appropriation.  There was bound to be.  Perhaps we should do better.  Maybe we are.  The popularity of The Great Story metaphor among us today may be more appealing in the end than invoking questionable Celtic goddesses, Native American spirits, or Hindu deities.

The Sunday before Christmas the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock—like hundreds of other UU congregations—held a Solstice worship.  A lay member invoked the four cardinal points at the beginning and dismissed them at the end.  European Solstice rituals were explained.  A symbolic Yule fir illuminated.  Our congregation was not literally rapt by Druidic myth (or a sloppy modern interpretation of it).  But we were powerfully moved by the great metaphor of cyclical re-birth, the yearning for light in darkness.

The next evening we heard the Nativity story read from the Gospel of Luke and sang with gusto to great Christian Christmas hymns.  We came nearly to tears as we lit candles hand to hand in the darkness and sang together “Silent Night.”

We worshiped well and deeply both times.  May the Metaphor be with you!