Submission 295
Bruce Pollack-Johnson
Unitarian Universalists of Mt. Airy (Philadelphia, PA) 7325
What is your suggestion or idea?
Section C-2.1. Purposes.The Unitarian Universalist Association will devote its resources to and use its organizational powers for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. Its primary purposes are to assist congregations in their vital ministries, support and train leaders both lay and professional, to foster lifelong faith formation, to heal historic injustices, and to advance our Unitarian Universalist values in the world.
The purpose of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to actively engage its members in the transformation of the world by fostering spiritual wholeness and collective liberation and building Beloved Community through liberating Love.
What is the reason for your amendment idea?
This section can function as our collective mission statement . In recent years, if you monitor the leading-edge thinkers and theologians in our UU movement, the phrases that you hear over and over, that are motivating to so many of us, are Beloved Community and collective liberation . One aspect of the 8th Principle that has not yet been incorporated into the Proposal is "Journeying toward spiritual wholeness" . As co-author of the 8th Principle , this is very important to me, because it is what makes us a spiritual (faith) movement, rather than just a political movement (our Italian friends say that UUism sounds like a political party to them!). Racism and other oppressions damage the souls of both the oppressed and the oppressor. We all can only become whole spiritually by dismantling them. We are about helping all people thrive as their true selves, whole and flourishing . This is the idea of Beloved Community. Our movement has evolved from a focus on individual freedom through most of the 20th century to a balance between individual freedom of conscience and collective liberation. The brilliance of the merger of Unitarianism and Universalism is this balance between the head and the heart. This proposed wording moves us closer to a true embodiment of this balance.
Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?
We had several conversations about this, involving around 15 of our members, which is about 1/3 of our active membership and 1/5 of our total membership. A subset of us came up with this wording together.