The Unitarian Universalist Association will devoteuse its resources to and use itsorganizational powers for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. Its primary purposes are to assist congregations in their vital ministries, grow new congregations and new outreach approaches, support and train leaders both lay and professional, to fosterprovide support for lifelong faith formation, and express the broad consensus of our congregations in using both words and deeds to heal historic injustices, and toadvance our Unitarian Universalist values in the world. The purpose of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to actively engage its support its congregations and other affiliated organizations in their efforts to help their members in the transformation oftheir freely chosen individual and collective paths to further understand and achieve their own best values. We expect our members’ values of love and mutual respect to help transform individual lives, church communities, local communities, and the worldthrough liberating Love..
What is the reason for your amendment idea?
The amendment’s primary purpose is to make it clear that the UUA’s role is to support congregations, and that the congregations in turn support members in their freely chosen paths. The UUA may express the broad consensus of the congregations in promoting values, but the original draft implied too much of a top-down relationship between the UUA and member congregations and members.
In addition, the original verion was vague about how ““love”” will transform the world. The revised version makes it clearer that this happens through members growing to understand better how to achieve their best values, which in turn results in members’ freely chosen actions with transform the world, starting but not ending with their own transformation.
Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?
Posted and discussed at Blue Boat Passengers Facebook group
This is good. I sure like the verb “serve” in the current Article II because it clarifies the relationship between the UUA, so maybe we could swap in “serve” for “assist” or “support”. If the UUA wants to stop serving the needs of member congregations, that should be a whole separate discussion, distinct from changes to principles and sources.
I agree that this is all too wordy. My excuse is that I was trying to keep as much as possible of what the Article II Commission proposed, while adding in language to reflect various concerns. So, the wordiness stems from a desire for compromise, which leads to adding in content without subtracting content.
I think Tim is on the right path. I am not sure we need to root an amendment on the Article II language. I recommend a straight forward statement:
The primary purpose of the Association is to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new congregations, extend, and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions and implement its principles.
I agree with you Jay. I like much of what Tim Bartik includes in his amendment idea, but if we want to make it clear that the UUA is a service organization (and not the central animating force of UUism), short and to-the-point is better.
Tim, a number of people in my discussion group recommend the substitution of “spiritual growth” for “faith formation,” as the term “faith formation” connotes for many a creedal religion.
So adding Portia’s suggestion to Sarah’s rewrite:
or same thing with markup removed:
The Unitarian Universalist Association will use its resources and powers for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. Its primary purposes are to assist congregations in their vital ministries, grow new congregations and new outreach approaches, support and train leaders both lay and professional, provide support for lifelong spiritual growth, and express the broad consensus of our congregations in using both words and deeds to heal historic injustices and advance Unitarian Universalist values in the world. The purpose of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to support its congregations and other affiliated organizations in their efforts to help their members in their freely chosen individual and collective paths to further understand and achieve their own best values. We expect our members’ values of love and mutual respect to help transform individual lives, church communities, local communities, and the world.
I think this is a better description of UUA’s role than the original. I would suggest considering adding:
The Unitarian Universalist Association will use its resources and powers for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. Its primary purposes are to assist congregations in their vital ministries, grow new congregations and new outreach approaches, support and train leaders both lay and professional, provide support for lifelong spiritual growth, and express the broad consensus of our congregations in using both words and deeds to address and heal historic and evolving injustices and advance Unitarian Universalist values in the world. The purpose of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to support its congregations and other affiliated organizations in their efforts to help their members in their freely chosen individual and collective paths to further understand and achieve their own best values. We expect our members’ values of love and mutual respect to help transform individual lives, church communities, local communities, and the world.
1)Addressing injustices adds a very active component to healing injustices.
Cannot limit our purpose to healing only historic injustices because we are seeing and will continue to see injustices we have never seen before, such as injustices from the climate crisis, threat to democracy, massive homelessness, gun crisis, corporate animal agriculture, reproductive oppression, food insecurity and hunger, generational oppression so that the young can no longer afford college or home ownership and more. These injustices are not generally historic and should also be addressed and healed.)
As this is getting long, and the latter half seems to contain much of the same content as the first, if it wouldn’t make sense to just stop after “…advance Unitarian Universalist values in the world.” Then delete everything from “The purpose…” (I note the second sentence already starts “Its primary purpose…” )
Would any content be lost by doing that? A shorter version would certainly be easier to read and understand.
I agree. I like “nurture” better than “advance” in the last sentence. Thanks for catching this. I was focusing more on making it less wordy.
The proposed amendment would read,
The Unitarian Universalist Association will use its resources and powers for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. Its primary purposes are to assist congregations in their vital ministries, grow new congregations and new outreach approaches, support and train lay and professional leaders, provide support for lifelong spiritual growth, and express the broad consensus of our congregations in using both words and deeds to address and heal historic and evolving injustices and to nurture Unitarian Universalist values in the world.
There are many “ands” in that last sentence, but I’m not seeing an easy way to address that. It might make sense to shorten the end of it to read, “…congregations in addressing and healing historic and evolving injustices and in nurturing Unitarian Universalist values in the world.”
Absolutely !
“If the UUA wants to stop serving the needs of member congregations, that should be a whole separate discussion, distinct from changes to principles and sources.”
This should be out in the open.
Yes, I do think some content would be lost by the omission of these last two sentences. They explicitly place respect for the autonomy and well-being of congregations and individual UUs at the center of the UUA’s mission. In essence, they spell out what is meant by serving member congregations.
Given the increasing centralization of the UUA, it feels right to explicitly name congregations’ and individuals’ freedoms at this moment.
@Janet Your point is well taken. My objection is really to the form of the original statement, which has two different statements of purpose, which are retained in this revision.
If you read the original, text, the form is
Purposes. The Unitarian Universalist Association will devote…for religious, educational, and humanitarian purposes. Its primary purposes are …
The purpose of the Unitarian Universalist Association is …
It seems to be of two minds (at least). I’d like to see an amendment that would remove at least one of the sentences that starts, “The [primary] purpose …”