Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 6:05 am

It’s ironic, isn’t it, that at the very same time as a heated debate on the very nature of our movement’s involvement in and responsibility toward our society’s role in creating peace in our world, one of our own was commissioned as an officer in our nation’s military?

No, not at at all. Our Military is all about Peace Making. A good deal of what I say in Iraq was teaching conflict resolution, rule of law, many techniques that you’ll see taught in UU Churches, but appliec to a whole country.

What’s sad is the heated debate has subsided with success in Iraq, and bewilderment of what to make of Obama’s surge in Afghanistan. At least that’s how it’s seemed to play out as far as I can tell.

If the “surge” goes south in Afghanistan, except to hear more talk of peace making.

I have heard little on the actual proceedings in SLC but I understand only an hour was devoted to talk on the resolution. That’s not right given the effort that went in locally. This resolution deserved a vote.

Comment by PG

July 6, 2009 @ 8:48 am

“Our Military is all about Peace Making.”

Once the country is sufficiently under the military’s domination, yes. An occupying power promotes peace because it needs peace in order to accomplish its goals. But prior to the occupation, during the course of an invasion, the military of necessity will be in a violent, non-peaceful role in order to establish its dominance. (U.S. military in Japan during the post-war occupation: peace-making. U.S. military in Japan prior to the occupation: dropping atomic bombs.) The situation in the Balkans is not comparable to that in Iraq because the U.S. never was an occupying power in the Balkans.

Unless the UUA is going to be downright pacifist as a fundamental part of the religion (like the Quakers), I think it needs to be very careful of making statements that imply military service — including in the parts of the military that actually kill people — is incompatible with being part of the UU denomination.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 9:34 am

The situation in the Balkans is not comparable to that in Iraq because the U.S. never was an occupying power in the Balkans.

We did help liberate the Balkans from the Germans though. If we had liberated the Yugoslav directly, we might have helped them create a Yugoslavia that would have endured.

That aside, a Peace Making resolution should drive pacifists out of our Churches either.

One of my problems with the resolution was the scalability from the individual to the international.

We’ve witnessed great progress and great human costs to make wars a far less likely way of resolving international conflicts.

We’re left with stateless combatants now for the most part, and then civil wars, but there has been huge progress in resolving conflicts and it didn’t start with individuals.

A more peaceful world can be Engineered and a peace making resolution ought to be prefaced by a history of what’s worked and what hasn’t. Specifically…without the strawmans in this resolution.

It deserved more discussion. I would like to have seen a vote on it.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 9:38 am

That aside, a Peace Making resolution should NOT drive pacifists out of our Churches either

Sorry about dropping the NOT…my Church’s draft would have been hard on pacifists and I thought that wrong.

I felt our group felt pressured to reach a consensus document and the result was something vague, or worse, would drive out pacifists.

Comment by Jess

July 6, 2009 @ 9:55 am

Consensus on an issue like this is what we need in order to publish a Statement of Conscience, and we simply didn’t get there.

As I said over at CC’s, a full hour of Plenary time is pretty impressive, especially since the debate was substantive. The major discussion over this issue happened in congregations, and at G.A. in the mini-assembly where close to THIRTY unincorporated amendments were crafted along with a good number of incorporated ones.

If the delegates had not had the option to defer this statement for another year, my feeling is that it would have been voted down. I don’t think that would have served anyone well, particularly not our military UUs. Deferring the vote for another year offers an opportunity for more and deeper reflection on the specific issue of what it means for an individual UU to serve in the military, and the need to find a balance where we can support those individual callings as a faith community while also supporting the ideals of peacemaking.

So, really, Bill, when you ask for more discussion — that’s what the delegates gave you. A whole year with room for more discussion, and hopefully a much better statement by next year’s vote.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 11:16 am

So, really, Bill, when you ask for more discussion

I would have preferred a vote up most. We did the same thing in our Church although there we had the reason our peacemaking group were the only ones talking about it.

This should have been put to a vote though at UUA.

Otherwise it looks like the whole thing waxes and wanes with the intensity of the larger “peace” movement. When they tank, the issue tanks.

What ever framework UUs could offer on the looming issues of War at the moment get tanked with it.

This was a terrible platform for many reasons, the chief one being its ambiguity.

I would have much preferred a specific vote on supporting 20k more guys into Afghanistan. The debate on that would have said more on UU thoughts on peace and war; justice and injustice; than this statement.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 11:27 am

Here Jess, I guess this is what sticks in my throat.

If the delegates had not had the option to defer this statement for another year, my feeling is that it would have been voted down. I don’t think that would have served anyone well, particularly not our military UUs.

We worked over a year and I think had a similarly poor draft statement. But I don’t agree that voting it down would have done anyone a diservice.

The vote and hopefully peoples explanations for why, would have been much more enlightening then postponing a proposal that had not hope of passing. Better to see the results of that, and start over if need be.

Comment by Jess

July 6, 2009 @ 11:54 am

Bill, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Statement of Conscience process really is. This is a Study-Action Issue, selected by the delegates of the General Assembly in Saint Louis in 2006 for a three year study, followed by a year of implementation if the Statement of Conscience resulting from the three year study is approved by the delegates. Voting the statement down means that no further action is taken on it, unless it is re-proposed as a Study-Action Issue, and re-studied for three years, and then re-approved as a Statement of Conscience. See the Commission on Social Witness for the official language on how this works.

By postponing the statement on Peacemaking for another year of study, we have more time to consider what our Association really would like to say about the very broad issue of Peacemaking, which while related to our country’s current military actions is not meant to be a timely denunciation or approval of them.

What it sounds like you were looking for, particularly with your call for more troops in Afghanistan, is an “Action of Immediate Witness,” which is a statement the delegates of a specific General Assembly make about an issue with a timely call to action on that issue, like the six passed this year.

With a Statement of Conscience, meant to be a wider statement on a wider issue, consensus is actually more important than timeliness.

Comment by PG

July 6, 2009 @ 12:42 pm

Jess,

Inasmuch as this wasn’t going to result in a statement saying that Bush’s surge in Iraq was GOOD and Obama’s increase of forces in Afghanistan is BAD, I don’t think you’re going to get Bill’s approval.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 1:37 pm

I know what it is Jess… and as a document intended to endure, as a statement of conscience, I thought it should be put to the test.

As for Bush’s Surge, I was a Rumsfeld guy and favored rapid Iraqization. I remember McCain skewering Rumsfeld at hearings on this one. I was skeptical of the surge but very happy with the results.

I don’t know what to make of Obama and AfPak but I’ve become a solid Petreaus supporter and as long as he’s onboard, I’m with Obama here.

The big issue I had in mind though was Korea and the missles where UU and former SecDef Perry has come out pretty aggressive. These Statements are of little value to me without putting them to the test of what guidence to they offer for the decisions at hand (or how would they have guided us in the past).

What was presented at UUA, and what my Church came up with, failed any tests I could apply. Proof was a member at Chruch telling me we finally had a document we all could agree with. Great I replied, if we all agreed with it, yet had such radically different thoughts on Iraq, would did it say? It just muddled everything in the pursuit of consensus.

I would have preferred a vote put to the congregation pre-Surge of Out NOW or go with the Surge, instead of a deeply muddle document intended to offer consensus.

Comment by Jess

July 6, 2009 @ 1:57 pm

A vote for or against the “Surge” has nothing to do with a Statement of Conscience. A Statement of Conscience’s very purpose is to articulate consensus on a broad issue, stating the foundations upon which our movement can agree. The implementation of the statement is then supposed to be a matter of interpretation, much like any political discussion where individuals might share goals but differ widely on how to achieve those goals.

I don’t think we’re going to agree here, Bill, because I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing. As far as I’m concerned, the Social Witness process is working here, with the vote by this year’s delegates to delay issuing a statement without consensus. The original question that congregations were asked to study was “…should the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war…and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through nonviolent means?”

And on that same page, detailing this specific Study/Action Issue, the Peacekeeping Core Team offers this:

Although some interpreted this as a call for debate between just war and pacifist perspectives, the Peacemaking CSAI Core Team believes that the heart of peacemaking is seeking to find solutions that encompass all truths, rather than creating a competitive battle between two positions.

Therefore, the Core Team is following the spirit of the rest of the text of the SAI in inviting congregations to engage in a full exploration of violence and peacemaking on all levels. Physical, psychological, and institutionalized violence permeate many aspects of our lives. The process of disengaging from all forms of violence is no simple matter. But both just war advocates and pacifists would agree that we need to work with all possible speed to reduce violence and war throughout the world.

It seems to me that you’re not interested in the process as set out by the Commission on Social Witness for studying this specific issue of Peacemaking, but only on our movement making a statement of some sort in support of your particular ideas on how our government is handling current military operations — this is not the issue, plain and simple.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 6, 2009 @ 6:53 pm

I spent a year on my Church’s group, some of it from Baghdad last year, hashing out our Church’s drafts.

I was interested and still am.

A Statement of Conscience, whether boardly accepted, or professed by just one, shows value by guiding action in a particular action. We turn to the statement as our guide for action. So my question was how does UUA’s statement, how did my own Church’s statement guide us on particulars: what’s happening in Iran, North Korea, today in China with the Uiqhurs. If the statements so muddled they allow everyone to draw vastly different guidence, to react in widely different ways, then I think we need to question if the Statment any good.

If this tested had been tested that way, I think it would have been a better product. It wasn’t and in part I’m afraid it’s because the “peace movement” today looks awfully different than the “peace movement” in 2006. To be that bound to the moment on an enduring statement a very bad thing. Better to have put this statement to bed. A year won’t result in anything better. It’s going to take bigger work for that.

Comment by Joel Monka

July 6, 2009 @ 7:20 pm

I agree that a year won’t help. Either it says, “Every UU is free to believe what they want about war, and their beliefs are equally valid”- in which case it is meaningless, or it says, “Peacemaking is central to our faith, but we’ve agreed not to be too hard on our deluded members who are serving with the forces of violence”, in which case we’ve just alienated a lot of members. I just don’t see any way around the central dilemma- how do you declare a credal statement for a creedless faith?

Comment by Bill Baar

July 7, 2009 @ 3:48 am

“Every UU is free to believe what they want about war, and their beliefs are equally valid”

Jess, as UU’s we covenant as seekers towards truth, not in agreement on truth. That means we can believe seem UUs have gotten what truths they’ve found very badly wrong. I certainly believe that about many things said by many UUs. We are all free to believe and we are free to explain how others have fumbled it.

In now way is a SOC or lack of SOC a statment that whatever is valid.

In fact lack of SOC should drive us to deeper reflection. SOCs tend to become slogans to avoid deep thinking. (Who knows what the Nicene creed is about?)

“Peacemaking is central to our faith, but we’ve agreed not to be too hard on our deluded members who are serving with the forces of violence”

Peacemaking is central to the faith of service members too. In no way is their contradiction. When I was in Iraq, I was making peace. The service members I worked with believed it too. It was central to my faith as a UU. (And I wasn’t the only UU in Bhagdad those weeks either.)

What’s really missing is a sense of what it means among many UUs to be in the service, and worse, many UUs in the Service or with Family members in the service, reluctant to talk more about it.

Anyways, both of your propositions here: that the peacemaking soc would drive out service members by definition, or that lack of a SOC makes a statement about that anything goes, are very very badly wrong.

Comment by Bill Baar

July 7, 2009 @ 3:50 am

That means we can believe some UUs have gotten what truths they’ve found very badly wrong.

sorry…on my first cup this am.

Comment by Jess

July 7, 2009 @ 10:10 am

Bill — you’re actually critiquing Joel, not me, with your last two comments. And I actually agree with most of that critique, go figure. :-)

Comment by Bill Baar

July 8, 2009 @ 7:56 am

I know…like I said, I was still on my first cup.

Comment by hafidha sofia

July 8, 2009 @ 9:47 am

I tend to think UUs should focus on learning how to make peace themselves, before making any broad statement about the movement or the US or the world. The UU fellowship in my town (several hundred members) is using Marshall Rosenberg’s non violent communication-based curriculum in their RE classes. This is a great start. I think a real push to incorporate non violence and partnership in the way we conduct church business, in the way we relate to one another at church - in offering non violent skills to congregants and members of surrounding communities is a great way to spread peace; not just the NOTION of peace, but the practice of peace.

And as for our military personnel; they need support. A lot of military are young adults, and so I’m especially concerned about that.

Comment by Jess

July 8, 2009 @ 10:15 am

Hafidha — I agree, it would be time well spent to spread individual practices of peace. My covenant group this year spent some time talking about non-violent communication, and a book on it made the rounds of our church as well. I think it’s an excellent place to start, rather than spending so much time and energy trying to make an all inclusive world-view statement. And if we are going to make the world-view statement, which is what the SoC process seems to expect, it would be nice to at least acknowledge that peacemaking is most effective on the individual level, first, rather than trying to impose a certain view of it on governments and nations.