#460 | Kerry Lusignan | Condense and include Sources

2023 Article II Amendment Idea Submissions Amendment Ideas
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Submission 460
Kerry Lusignan
Westside UU Congregation (Seattle, WA) 8232

What is your suggestion or idea?

Replace, edit and combine Section C-2.3, Inspirations with edited and expanded Sources, as follows:Section C-2.3.Sustaining Sources.

As Unitarian Universalists, we are inspired by sacred and
secular history, understanding, and knowledge. We honor the pluralism of our
lineage, and we discern and build upon the sources of our faith as we move
forward. These sources include:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder,
affirmed in all cultures, which renews our spirit;

Spiritual teachings from our Judeo-Christian origins,
earth-centered traditions, and other world religions and leaders, which inspire
us in our ethical and spiritual life and which center justice and love for one
another and for nature;

Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of
reason and such fields of verifiable knowledge as the sciences and mathematics;

The creative arts, which reveal to us the face of life’s
beauty and joy and its enduring truth and meaning, and which open our hearts to
emotions of joy and gratitude.

These sources ground us and sustain us in ordinary,
difficult, and joyous times. Grateful for the religious and cultural ancestries
we inherit and the diversity that enriches our faith, we are called to ever
deepen and expand our wisdom.

What is the reason for your amendment idea?

This amendment retains some language from the proposed revision but restores, as well as edits, specific Sources that many have found missing from the Commission’s proposed version. Many UUs find this language still needed and relevant to describe distinctive and important elements of Unitarian Universalism, key to our living tradition, our diversity of belief and practice, and our welcome.

This amendment condenses the Sources and tries to address some of the thorny issues about referencing specific religious traditions, which may include some but exclude others and may not acknowledge that we welcome all beliefs but also use discernment. We do not honor troubling ways in which religions have also been used.

Also, it expands secular humanist sources to include mathematics, denotes the verifiable nature of these fields without setting this kind of ““truth”” over others, and adds ““the Arts,”” previously proposed by Rev. Rick Davis (see p. 62 of Theology Ablaze: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Unitarian Universalism, by Tom Owen-Toole, p. 62.) This proposal apparently gained much enthusiastic support previously. Note that I changed one word, from ““feelings”” to ““emotions.””

I shortened the Sources to make room for these additions and to allow combining this language with the current proposed revisions, while still maintaining a flow. Edited and moved around language seeks to address some of the competing considerations mentioned above.

Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?

Yes, this idea has been floated and discussed with fellow congregants and other UUs since late last year, starting in feedback sessions on Article II, and continued in a public Facebook group I founded, Blue Boat Passengers, to continue these conversations. Additionally, I have participated in and monitored many other online UU groups and discussions to try to understand the full breadth of opinion on these issues.

I am on my congregation’s Ad Hoc Article II Team, started when we were without a minister and now continued with our new minister’s participation. We held two information sessions about Article II last year, and three sessions related specifically to GA, the amendments process, and delegates recently. We created public resources and discussion spaces. I have sought to address, reconcile, and incorporate all feedback I have received, and I encourage further comment. One person likes the Inspirations section as is. Others responded favorably to my amendment, saying it feels alive, science is important (but not more than other sources), humanism is needed, etc. I also proposed adding only the ““Secular Sources,”” if needed to combine with other proposals, but wanted to show full idea and flow first.

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Formatting did not work on my submission. Here, I’ve put deleted text in brackets and added text in bold:

Section C-2.3.[Inspirations] Sustaining Sources.

As Unitarian Universalists, we [use, and] are inspired by[,] sacred and secular [understandings that help us to live into our values. We respect the histories, contexts and cultures in which they were created and are currently practiced] history, understanding, and knowledge. We honor the pluralism of our lineage, and we discern and build upon the sources of our faith as we move forward. These sources include:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which renews our spirit;
Spiritual teachings from our Judeo-Christian origins, earth-centered traditions, and other world religions and leaders, which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life and which center justice and love for one another and for nature;
Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and such fields of verifiable knowledge as the sciences and mathematics;
The creative arts, which reveal to us the face of life’s beauty and joy and its enduring truth and meaning, and which open our hearts to emotions of joy and gratitude.

These sources ground us and sustain us in ordinary, difficult, and joyous times. Grateful for the religious and cultural ancestries we inherit and the diversity [which] that enriches our faith, we are called to ever deepen and expand our wisdom.

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Good, except I don’t know of the existence of a single UU “faith,” and many humanists, atheists, etc. chafe at such a religious term. It makes me cringe emotionally and intellectually, and I’m one who doesn’t consider UU a religion. But, other than that, good job.

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I love the thoroughness and careful thought that has gone into this suggested amendment. I also have a couple comments/suggestions.

  1. First paragraph:

I would add the phrase about cultural awareness (which might require some other editing) to specifically address the issue of cultural appropriation. I appreciate the concerns others have raised about saying we respect all the cultures and histories in which the sources arose; this is a way to approach the concerns behind that phrase in a way that might be more acceptable.

  1. Fifth paragraph (fourth source)

I don’t know how to phrase it, but I think this source should refer to life’s pain and sorrow as well as its beauty and joy. The importance of any religion is that it helps us deal with the whole range of life’s experiences (as you mention in the last paragraph).

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@beccaboerger, I like suggestion 1. I don’t disagree with suggestion 2, but someone else was the original author of “the Arts” addition, and I know it got a fair amount of support previously, so I didn’t mess with it much (just changed one word, because I like the root and associations of “emotion” more). The closing paragraph does address the joys and sorrows aspect though (and was re-added to this amendment at the request of someone in our congregation).

Personally, I agree with you that feature of addressing both joy and pain is especially true of art, which serves as solace in ways other sources might not and also addresses complex difficulties sometimes more effectively than prescriptive, fact-based, and other nonfiction/less expressive modes do. Would be interested to hear other’s thoughts as this part of the amendment hopefully goes forward.

@drc I think “our thing” is already taken. :wink:

Unitarian Universalism is a religion–for tax purposes and in other ways. Organizations of similar-minded people that aren’t religious wouldn’t be congregations or other religious bodies (but, say humanist organizations, philosophical societies, or what have you.)

UUism is not the only religion that doesn’t necessarily require a belief in God or an afterlife and that welcomes doubt and free inquiry. I personally agree this needs to still be spelled out for us, though, and thus feel strongly about continuing to include a specific reference to our Sources, including secular ones.

“Faith” on its own is not a word I associate exclusively with theistic connotations, although I suppose as specified here, “our faith,” that would be the more usual read. (A really zealous atheist got mad at me when I spoke of an “atheist’s faith” (was thinking of existentialism, for example) and when I said that i am “still atheist in many ways.” Her argument was that atheism is absolute, all or nothing.)

I don’t see us expunging spiritual/religious language from any part of Article II, as that would also violate our freedom of belief, but maybe there are other words that could represent the balance better. Maybe “our religion” in the first instance and “our community” in the second instance? But in my view, regardless of our personal beliefs, we can’t get around UUism being a religion, or then we are talking about something else.

@Janet my wording included reason, science, and mathematics, as well as verifiable, not just “science,” but I agree that “empirical” also gets at a key commonality re these sources. Someone else in my congregation said they don’t necessarily associate “humanism” with science. Possibly we run into as many problems trying to group, label, and succinctly describe secular sources as religious ones—and then what about Art (or the arts)? It is both secular and religious! I am happy with it having its own section, and agree with you that I am fully committed to this being included in the revisions.

(There’s plenty of back and forth on the Sources/Inspirations already! This comment addresses responses including reference to amendment #85; see link.)

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PS: Maybe something like this, if this section gets revised?
“The creative arts, which reveal to us the face of life’s beauty and joy, its struggles and sorrows, and its enduring truth and meaning, and which open our hearts to emotions of joy, solace, and gratitude.”

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I like the succinctness of this proposal. I started out with something similar to this but our congregation thought that it was too similar to the existing sources to have a chance at passing. Therefore, we tried to broaden the scope to match not just sources but also where we get inspirations from. Sources of wisdom vs. inspirations are definitely different concepts that we still havent fully articulated.

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There is support both for retaining the Sources as they currently are and for keeping the Inspirations as proposed. This version took a sort of middle-way approach of trying to see if they could be combined.

My schedule is not very predictable at the moment, but I hope that if I’m not available, other congregants/delegates interested in this amendment will be able to attend a big collaboration of people working on Sources/Inspirations. Even though we all took different approaches, I do feel there is commonality!

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Here’s another idea for changes trying to incorporate some of the comments received on this draft already (The redlining is just between my two drafts, showing only recent changes, not comparing them back to the proposed revisions yet). Getting wordy and would need tightening again, but here is a draft:

[As Unitarian Universalists, w] We are inspired by sacred and secular history, understanding, and knowledge. We honor the pluralism of our lineage, and we discern and build upon the sources of [our faith] Unitarian Universalism as we move forward, mindful of the cultures in which they evolved.
These sources include:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which renews our spirit;

Spiritual teachings from our Judeo-Christian origins, earth-centered traditions, and other world religions and leaders, which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life and which center justice and love for one
another and for nature;

Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and empirical exploration and processes in such fields of verifiable knowledge as the sciences and mathematics;

The creative arts, which reveal to us the face of life’s beauty and joy, its struggles and sorrows, and its enduring truth and meaning, and which open our hearts to emotions of joy, solace, and gratitude.

These sources ground us and sustain us in ordinary, difficult, and joyous times. Grateful for the religious and cultural ancestries we inherit and the diversity that enriches our community [faith], we are called to ever deepen and expand our wisdom.

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Alternatively: " We honor the pluralism of our lineage. Moving forward, we discern and build upon Unitarian Universalism’'s sources, mindful of the cultures in which they evolved."

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Alternatively: " We honor the pluralism of our lineage. Moving forward, we discern and build upon Unitarian Universalism’'s sources, mindful of the cultures in which they evolved."

This is great wording.

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Thanks! Slightly edited wording for this part: " Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and empirical methods in such fields of verifiable knowledge as the sciences and mathematics;"

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I like this phrasing. For me, it is definitely more acceptable than “respect the histories….”

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I think this is getting closer …

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This is great! I really like this reworking ….

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@KLusignan
@Janet
I remember in an earlier thread somewhere in these discussion someone had issues with the concept of “verifiable knowledge,” since scientific theories are not generally verifiable but rather falsifiable; we don’t know that they are true, only that we haven’t come up with any test in which they are not true. To avoid getting dragged down that rabbit hole and to make the language simpler, perhaps we could amend

Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and empirical exploration and processes in such fields of verifiable knowledge as the sciences and mathematics;

to read

Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the empirical exploration and processes of science and mathematics;

or more simply

Humanist teachings, which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the empirical processes of science and mathematics;

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@rholmgren, yes, how to distinguish but not privilege the nature of science and math’s contributions is a bit sticky. We don’t want to say that they represent “truth” while spiritual sources are something lesser. But in my view, nor should we dismiss what is unique about their kind of contribution, especially since valuing this source is one of the thing that makes UU’ism special. (I don’t want to say “unique,” because I know there are plenty of other theist scientists. There are Christian Darwinists, the Dalai Lama said that if spiritual teachings and scientific discoveries conflict, listen to science, etc. But actually formally recognizing these sources I believe is still important to UUism.).

The thing is, we have listed features of religious teachings that make them important to our spiritual growth (in this version, condensed, and with features uncoupled from specific religions). Thus, why not the secular sources as well?

I fear that too much pruning away of language diminishes these sources’ value. If we only put “empirical processes,” I think “empirical” is one of those words that some people will just kind of skip over as jargon-y or high-falutin’ (even though it has a specific meaning). And though I used it, “processes” is definitely a buzzword, and “methods” might be better.

I agree that the double negative feeling of “falsifiable” or “testing to eliminate false assumptions” is way too convoluted to get into this language. My mom, a science teacher, talked about testing hypotheses and supporting them by data.

I still think there is probably a way to keep tinkering with the language to find a clear and concise way to capture the essence of what science and math have to offer us (look at the huge advances to our quality of life through the development of medicine over the centuries, for example–science certainly is one of the great potential tools for achieving equity, despite any historical misuses.)

I am really interested to see all this will get hashed out in a few hours at the workshop!

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The issue, as I see it, is that science and collective empirical reasoning are indeed a privileged sources of truth and knowledge but only in the domain of the falsifiable. And there is much that falls outside that domain. Like religious belief, values, ethical norms, etc. So it is not, for me at least, a question of not privileging one source of truth over the other, but recognizing that there are different domains of knowledge with different epistemological “regimes” (gak, better word needed here).

If memory serves, I believe this is what John Locke was getting at in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

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I don’t disagree, but I guess I am using “privileged” differently–that is, in a larger sense of privileging this regime or domain OVER others, generally. Just as fiction and poetry and other arts can touch on truths that science can’t, I do think that science has its unique window into the truth, and this is as good a description as any. I still doubt we can work the “falsfiable” language in without a lot of wordiness. But I could be wrong.

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OK, I get it. I’m actually liking the phrase you just threw out there “science has its unique window into the truth.” I think it needs a just little modification to make it clear that it is not the only truth or perspective on the truth.

I have a couple of hours this afternoon to think about this. Maybe I’ll have an inspiration or two …