One of the most important events at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly is the Ware Lecture, where we invite an important thinker from outside our movement to speak to us on a topic of interest to Unitarian Universalists. Previous speakers include theologian Rheinhold Neibuhr, Martin Luther King, Jr., poet Mary Oliver, and scholar Elaine Pagels.

This year, the speaker was Van Jones, an activist working to tie issues of environmentalism and social justice, particularly poverty concerns, together to create real change, and he had a warning for Unitarian Universalists: “Y’all are about to mess up and be successful!” when it comes to needed social and environmental change.

A good description of his lecture can be found on the UUA website, along with a video (WMV format, or Real Media) of the event.

In this speech, given in July of 2005 to the Spiritual Activism conference, Mr. Jones sides with Rabbi Michael Lerner in calling for an alliance of spiritual progressives across the board to enact real changes in our society, and speaks particularly to the anti-religious bias that is a very real presence in many progressive organizations.

The Religious Left Fights Back

by Van Jones

Rabbi Michael Lerner is stirring up trouble again—thank God.

Earlier this week, Lerner was the main organizer of a national gathering in Berkeley, California, for the religious Left. His “Spiritual Activism” conference was intended to help launch a much-needed new initiative: the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP).

Lerner has been the spark-plug for many progressive, faith-based undertakings over the years, including Tikkun magazine. But this latest effort is an order of magnitude more challenging than anything he has attempted thus far. And given the stakes for our ailing would-be democracy, the birthing of NSP may prove to be his most important calling.

Lerner wants to help forge a new alliance of “religious, secular and ’spiritual-but-not-religious’ progressives.” This alliance will someday expose and challenge the cancer of American consumerism. And it will oppose the religious Right’s abuse of scripture to promote war, intolerance and ugly corporate agendas.

(Read on … )

Bearing witness to the world around us is a large part of Unitarian Universalist faith. A beautiful, and heart-wrenching, example of this principle in action can be found in the writings of Dr. Charlie Clements, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, who traveled to Kenya “to assess the political and humanitarian crisis that has engulfed the country in the wake of the flawed presidential elections of December 2007,” along with an emergency delegation. This account was posted on the UUSC hotwire: A Human Rights Weblog, and more accounts can be found beginning here.

The UUSC’s page regarding the Kenya crisis can be found here. Dr. Clements has since provided testimony to the United States’ House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the situation as well.

A Lone Kikuyu Vendor in Eldoret

by Dr. Charlie Clements

The women vendors led us to a wide alley where large trucks come to be repaired. There, in a shaded corner, was a man with a sewing machine. He cuts open the large fiber sacks and sews them into awnings and other items.

Despite his ready smile, he had a sadness about him. He told us that he’s Kikuyu and that he and his family are living at the show grounds, where we just visited, because their home was burned by a mob. He said he only feels alive when he comes here to be among his colleagues. Yet, his working is not without risk: he has to come after 9 a.m., when some of the roadblocks and small bonfires along the roads are not manned, and return to the IDP camp before dark. The women told me he is one of the few Kikuyu traders around.

(Read on … )

Welcome to the holiday shopping season!

Unitarian Universalists do celebrate Christmas, generally, and in this culture that usually involves giving gifts. However, it is interesting and worthwhile to examine how we can meld our faith lives and our “outside of church” lives when it comes to issues of consumption.

In 2001, the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly adopted a Statement of Conscience entitled “Responsible Consumption Is Our Moral Imperative.” The process for generating these statements has changed recently (PDF), but at the time this one was written, a study-action issue on some kind of social witness was selected each year by congregational delegates at the General Assembly, sending it out to the individual congregations for study and discussion over a two-year period under the guidance of the Commision on Social Witness. Each year at General Assembly, a drafted statement resulting from those two years of study would be presented to the delegates to be revised and approved. So, this study-action issue was chosen at the 1999 General Assembly in Salt Lake City, and the statement was drafted and approved in 2001.

The ideas presented in the statement are not unfamiliar in Unitarian Universalist circles, but are very thought-provoking in the context of the holiday shopping rush.

For consideration: What, if anything, has changed in this consumer-based culture since this statement was adopted? With what do you agree or disagree in this statement? How do these ideas inform individual choices in how we spend our money and other resources, particularly around the holidays? What is the nature of gift-giving in a religious context?

From “Responsible Consumption Is Our Moral Imperative”

the 2001 General Assembly Statement of Conscience

Our Unitarian Universalist faith calls upon us to approach the ethic of responsible consumption with a passion for seeking truth, a thirst for making justice, a vision of interdependence, and a willingness to re-examine our individual actions and beliefs. Becoming responsible consumers means putting into action our religious Principles of the inherent worth and dignity of all people and the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.

We each begin a personal journey toward responsible consumption from a different place. Wherever we start, we must be mindful of our behavior, attentive to the voices and needs of others, and conscious of the natural rhythms of the world. Our journey continues through education. Through secular and religious education programs, we must challenge ourselves to rethink the underlying assumptions that guide our choices. Through dialogue in small groups, we nurture each other’s environmental consciousness and examine competing claims of what individual responsibility actually means. Our journey is fulfilled through activism. We will work together for legislative changes that will reduce over-consumption, environmental degradation, and the unjust distribution of resources.

(Read on … )