Steven Myles
06/30/2023
Dear UUA Board of Trustees,
I have been a UU for over 46 years. I helped start a new UU congregation in Houston in the ‘90’s and I am writing to you today to tell you of the harm I felt watching GA last week. I am one of the people Rev Frederick-Grey referred to in her remarks:
“Even more dangerous during times of significant change, some people begin to cling to some fabricated imagination of a mythical past. We see this among white nationalists in our country. We also sometimes see it within ourselves.”
I am hurt deeply by being lumped into the same category as the white nationalists referred to and I am hurt by the inferences that I am participating in what was described as
“Small uncompromising groups that seek to undercut the democratic process by obstructing their congregations and the UUA from living into our values and commitments.”
My primary goal and the goal of those groups referred to was to encourage awareness and discussion in the general UU population since many ministers were not doing it and were in fact preventing awareness and discussion of opposing views. I find it rather disingenuous to imply we are the ones “undercutting the democratic process” when the UUA had only one candidate nominated for each open position on the Board of Trustees or the Nominating Committee (save for one petition candidate) and only one candidate for President. Democracy requires choice and choice requires having all the information.
I support UUA Leadership’s goal for making things more equitable for everyone in our religion, but it is coming across as “we know the right answer” instead of a true give and take inclusive discussion for moving forward. There is value in all points of view. The proposed new pluralism value says “we covenant to learn from one another in our search for truth and meaning.” That means people who might hold different views.
Given the magnitude of the proposed change, we have spent insufficient time in true grass roots development and debate. GA is not grass roots nor is it the place for substantive discussion. That should have been done in the the congregations before GA22 and GA23 but Covid got in the way. The amount of time given this issue at this year’s GA was way too little. The last major principles modification in 1985 took 7 years. This one will have taken four with two of them severely hampered by the Covid pandemic.
I do not believe the ends justify the means and, in your zeal to deliver results, I cannot help but feel the UUA not living into the free and responsible search nor using the democratic process to change Article II.
There has been little to no opportunity to hear both pro and con opinions on the Article II Proposal. My congregation refused to provide any dissenting information to its members and I hear similar stories from many other congregations. Many amendment submissions mentioned not hearing about the proposal until too late in the process and suggesting starting over. What’s wrong with that? UU World ceased having a letters to the editor section or publish anything criticizing or opposing UUA’s actions. And the recording of GA General Session IV where some dissent was expressed has not been made public, yet. That does not engender trust.
There was insufficient transparency in the working of the Article II Study Commission during the development of their proposal. No publishing of the results of the surveys taken during the spring of 2021 asking for feedback on the existing seven principles. No published accounting of the congregations that responded and no follow up with those who did not. No indication that the principles would be replaced until 3 months before the deadline and right before the holidays.
For some reason that I fail to comprehend, congregants were not listed as stakeholders in the Article II Study Commission’s final report.
The process and the criteria used to reduce the 400 plus submitted amendments to the Article II Proposal to 15 for discussion and voting at GA was not transparent.
Despite the good work you have done, UU Membership is at an all-time low and will likely drop further, for who can take a religion that proposes to eliminate its core principles in one fell swoop seriously? Our principles are not a “fabricated imagination of a mythical past” and they are not a creed, but they are what we all have supposedly covenanted to affirm and promote.
I can only hope that the Board of Trustees, our new President, and the members of the Article II Study Commission are true to their word and make the next 12 months transparently open for discussion.
Steve Myles
Where are the 7 Principles? 