@Sally and @ktschurr there is or was an exception that I had asked someone to check on before we used this construction, but we happily agree to "the correct use of all “‘that’s’ and ‘whiches’” in the document. 
2 Likes
@henleyn Thanks for your concern. Yes, we are open to this, and it was a concern to drop it because we know this Source had been added by a long process, but without listing the other religions in a way that were deemed by consensus to be appropriate, respectful and inclusive, we didn’t see how to fit it in.
Happy to include a friendly amendment to restore the language as is and then have the Commission work with it, or leave it more open-ended to restore or integrate this language during the process many of us are envisaging during the coming year (cited by @CharlesD and linked to earlier in this thread), to convene a group to study the “religions” language, and we would specify that this would include CUUPs and others who worked to have this Source added.
Question to Charles DuMond and @KBurek . We remain a bit confused about the “friendly amendments to the amendments” process and how the Commission may work to integrate and tweak submissions afterwards. Thus, we phrased our suggestion for the friendly amendment that is more complex as we have done above, and accepted the “correct use of that and which” amendment. @Janet is sending an email to the Commission and copying the Board that links to these two friendly amendments. Please advise of if we need to do something further.
Thank you!
I have been asking on the chat about friendly amendments and I have been told in categorical terms that there are no friendly amendments today or tomorrow and that they have not clarified the process yet.
Long story short, we are open to this but have no idea about process or feasibility and we cannot discuss it at the mic tomorrow.
1 Like
Thanks, but as I said, hardly the most important issue today—right now I am focussing on why Robert Murphy’s microphone was not opened to speak about the Health Equity AIW.
2 Likes
Sally - Thank you for your concern.
The situation with the AIW presentations (Thursday) was very strange. Delegates could see me and the moderator knew that I was supposed to speak. I sent chat messages. For some reason, the microphone wasn’t unmuted. Several delegates expressed concern.
I hope that delegates will vote to admit the Health Equity AIW.
Robert Murphy
1 Like
Sorry, Robert! That must have been so frustrating! That is the one thing I am paranoid about during these sessions … sudden, weird technology failures.
1 Like
Janet - Let us hope for the best.
It’s possible that the Health Equity AIW will be accepted because of today’s vote. If so, the proposal will go to a vote on Saturday. We can hope that there will be a discussion for the General Assembly.
With best wishes,
Robert Murphy
2 Likes
I am glad that it is on the ballot, and hope that delegates vote for it. I intend to e-mail the moderators tonight to register a protest. I am already writing one responsive resolution, this may call for another. (not many free hours between now and 5:30 tomorrow deadline)
@henleyn a follow up to your comment that I hope will clarify somewhat. Sorry we rushed our replies yesterday because we were under the impression that perhaps we were supposed to be sending an email to the Commission before speaking at the mike or something (our amendment is #6 so it might have gone Thursday).
We still don’t know how the friendly amendment process is supposed to work and await word, so it is true we can’t make any promises. But I was able to give a response that we would not oppose this particular friendly amendment because it has been previously discussed, unlike some of the other suggestions that came in later here on Discuss.
Actually, this Source came out of my draft quite late in the process. There were no objections to “earth centered,” but the objections were to ways of including other religions, so that “earth-centered” by itself didn’t seem to work. Thus, we kept the religious sources very generalized, much as the Commission did.
But the “earth centered” Source is a bit different. It was added more recently in 1995, after much collaboration and work to get it passed. Feedback after our amendment was submitted indicates that “wisdom traditions” wouldn’t really be inclusive of the earth-centered traditions. So a simple fix where we could submit explicit language as a friendly amendment might be just a word or two, such as “religions and earth-centered traditions.” Another place where a concise addition might possibly fit in is the introductory language.
For a longer reference, I think the earth-centered language would have to be worked on along with other religions, in the process envisioned by the Commission and cited by @CharlesD (see answer 28 above). We would definitely support this process during the coming year and a resulting amendment to be proposed perhaps by the Board (or 15 congregations). But we don’t know if we are allowed to suggest an indefinite “amendment” like that or just say that we would fully support such a process.
We also don’t know how much the Commission may adapt language. For example, we heard that if two amendments for the same section pass, the Commission would reconcile them. Thus we suggested that we might just propose restoring the earth-centered traditions in its entirety and let the Commission then adapt the language.
So the most accurate thing to say is, we are open to restoring this language in some way but don’t know enough about the process after GA to make a more specific suggestion without more instruction.
Thanks very much.
There’s a lot I like about this amendment, particularly the revisions to the sources language from the current Article II. In line 45, I prefer the word “understandings” (or “understanding”), which seems more compatible with the sacred. I think of sacred understanding, rather than sacred knowledge. Knowledge has a surety and a completeness to it that I don’t associate with the ever growing nature of sacred understanding. But overall, I like the amendment.
1 Like
Thank you Kerry for all of your hard work on this, and as a delegate, I support your version of this particular amendment. It’s important to me to see broad coalitions working on any amendments as well as responsiveness by the originator to questions posed. Again, thank you. I personally do think it is important to list the sources, and I appreciated the broadened scope of your proposed amendment.
4 Likes
Thanks for your response. I am happy to continue working on language. I think earth-centered traditions is not the same as listing Christianity, Judism, etc. It is it’s own category, as acknowledged in our present Sources.
Please let me know when there is clarity about friendly amendments. Based on what Charles said, at the Mini-assembly, I thought the people who originated with priority amendments could accept friendly modifications.
Nancy
Nancy S. Henley, MD
Mobile 919-604-6693
1 Like
Hi Nancy,
Yes, you are right. He did say that the sponsors of amendments were the ones to write to the Board and/or Article II Study Commission with the friendly amendment request. We would like to work with you on this. As Kerry said, we originally started with the language of the current sixth source, but removed it at a relatively late date for flow and balance (not substantive) reasons.
However, as of yet, we do not have a super clear notion of the time frame involved.
We do know that this cannot happen today, as we cannot submit a friendly amendment until our amendment actually passes and we will not know that until tomorrow morning.
If our amendment does pass, then we will work with you on the friendly amendment.
I hope this helps …
Janet
2 Likes
Thanks. Will look forward to follow up.
2 Likes
@henleyn yes, That was my understanding as well about sending amendments. But when @Janet checked, we were definitively told not to send an email at this time. Indeed, none of the amendments yesterday included addition of friendly amendments to the amendments. However, we are willing to send an email at the appropriate time quoting the language above (and have tagged UUA staff in our responses for follow-up). I agree that “earth-centered” is not a specific listing and may work better than, or combined with “wisdom traditions.” It was a member of CUUPs from my congregation who talked to me about the distinctions, and I would certainly be happy to participate in any continuing conversation on these issues that happens including any of the already existing stakeholders (the people who worked to pass the Sixth source, those looking at other religions they want added, scholars and educators and religious professionals etc.–in short, others far more qualified than me!).
The bottom line is that we support this friendly amendment, but the parameters for doing so remain unknown to us!
3 Likes
Many UUs are humanists. (Wikipedia states “the majority of Unitarian Universalists in North America identify as Humanist,” so it must be true). I think many future UUs will be humanists. Yet the proposed revision leans away from humanism, which I think will have the impact of having humanists feel less welcome. I notice that words such as “faith,” “spiritual,” “religious,” “ministries,” and “sacred” are used 11 times, yet “science” and “humanist” or “humanism” are not used, and “reason” and “secular” are each used only once (and I’d rather not use the word secular because I see it as a loaded term, and can be interpreted as anti-religion).
I see the Article II Study Commission proposed language as being out of balance, and I seek balance so that theists and atheists, mystics and agnostics, humanists and deists can feel equally welcome. My perspective is that this amendment is the best of the prioritized amendments at providing more theist/humanist balance.
6 Likes
Science & liberalism go hand in hand, so science should be in the identity statement of our liberal faith. If you vote to take science out of Article II, please then tell your congregation all about it, and ask for their honest opinion. To get their honest opinion, tell them that you won’t judge them for their honest responses. You won’t call them fragile, hide-bound, backward-looking, challenged, or struggling. Then listen to what they have to say about your vote to remove science from our foundational statement of shared identity. In my congregation, the loss of science seems like the change that is most objected to.
2 Likes
amending where this reply appears
Complete statement offered at Article II General Assembly amendment 6-23-2023
Delegates and all of us, 51 is one of 3 prioritized Inspiration amendments for your consideration. I had the privilege to choose to commit to reading 1,900 comments and spend 40 plus hours with revised Article II. Of all the work I saw, Becca Boergers, amendment 53, was the most inclusive short form Inspirations amendment. It did not get prioritized for this GAs vote, but the work continues.
Of the two long form Inspiration amendments, prioritized by the Study Commission and Moderators, I preferer the holistic Janet Leavens (51) rather than the literal Patricia Shifferd amendment 1. But I believe a shorter form of Inspirations better represents our UUA article II.
At the same time, I won’t vote for Mathew Johnson’s short form amendment 5, even though I very much resonate with the Johnson’s inclusion of the phrases “scientific understanding” and “making meaning.” Johnson’s emphasis of “direct experience” is right but the amendment is incomplete.
*Cut off here: by Time. not that it makes any difference. i could not see a timer in the breakout room as I did not have my view set on “speaker” my error.
The rest of my statement was inclusive, giving context to Inspiration Amendments 51, 1 and 5 which is relevant for understanding the vote for or against 51. The text of my statment below.
I hope we do not settle for the binomial description of inspirations, “sacred and secular”. I believe that some part of all of us is touched by the inspiration’s phrase- world religions, wisdom traditions, indigenous knowledge, humanist teachings, science, and the arts.
I will not vote for Inspirations amendments 51, 1 or 5. And I will vote for allowing our association to continue amending the revised Article II.
I believe we are headed toward a beloved consensus with the Study Commission. I Also believe we need to improve what our bylaws allow us to do together.
I am sorry to have taken more space than just one pro or con statement. Had I had a better understanding of when amendments were going to appear (more than having just one hour prior to the Thursday General Meeting) I would have withheld comment until today (Friday 6/23). It is important to me to be in accord with all attending and I mean no disrespect to our Study Commission or moderators.
3 Likes
I can see how the values are a recontextualizing of the principles, but the inspirations section as written mostly just remove the other fundamental part of our common covenant. We can do better than just referencing the fact that all inspirations are either secular or spiritual. The sources of inspiration must be balanced because of their relationship to each other.
Frankly, we appropriated almost all of our beliefs from other cultures, and I don’t feel comfortable taking credit for the legacy of humanity. It’s disrespectful to not acknowledge the actual history of our species and the religions that set the groundwork before us.
What really inspires us and moves us toward action is that which speaks to the heart, and we need a strong, poetic answer to why we believe in equity and justice and pluralism.
One thing makes us more unique among religions is our secular justification of morality. Being able to derive moral values without needing to reference an objective system of Gods is an incredibly powerful statement. I don’t think it can be understated how important it is to be able to justify ehtical actions as coming from secular sources.
Yes, a list will never be complete, but does that mean we shouldn’t even bother? Having an exhaustive list was never meant to be the point.
6 Likes