Philocrites : Chris Walton on religion, liberalism, and culture

Update for readers: Why is it getting so quiet around here?

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Ric Masten, UU 'troubadour,' dies at 78.

The family of Ric Masten, the "troubadour poet" and Unitarian Universalist community minister who reached out to other men with prostate cancer for the past decade, has announced that he has died. Masten is well-known among most Unitarian Universalists for his song, "Let It Be Dance," which his family sang around his bed as he passed away.

Frances Cerra Whittelsey profiled Ric Masten for UU World back in 2004. A new biography of Masten, Troubadour and Poet by UU minister Stephen Edington, has just been published; the UUA's Skinner House Books is publishing Masten's last collection of poems, Going Out Dancing, later this month.

Posted by Philocrites on 10 May 2008 at 4:26 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, May 8, 2008

More from Paul Rasor on 'prophetic nonviolence.'

by Philocrites

Paul Rasor's longer essay, "Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Toward a Unitarian Universalist Theology of Prophetic Nonviolence" — from which his UU World essay "Prophetic Nonviolence" was adapted — has now been published in the Journal of Liberal Religion [pdf].

There's also a ton of material related to the congregational study/action issue on peacemaking at UUWiki. And, if you're truly dedicated to following this topic, you can listen to Paul Rasor talk with Meadville Lombard ethicist Sharon Welch and University of Colorado peace studies professor Ira Chernus [mp3]. I did, and I think it's cool that KGNU "Connections" host and UU layperson Kathy Partridge hosted the conversation — but I have to say that three smart people who agree on just about everything make for a very dull hour. It would have been more interesting if the three scholars sharpened their disagreements enough so that listeners could grasp that they are making somewhat different arguments.

Posted by Philocrites on 8 May 2008 at 10:03 PM | 3 comments

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

UUA, UUSC raise funds for Burmese cyclone victims.

by Philocrites

The Unitarian Universalist Association and the UU Service Committee are raising funds to assist the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which hit Burma this past weekend, killing as many as 100,000 people, according to a U.S. government estimate today. (Here's the official announcement at UUA.org.) UUA-UUSC disaster fundraising efforts raised $2 million after a tsunami devastated Southeast Asia in 2004 and $3.7 million after Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.

Posted by Philocrites on 7 May 2008 at 4:44 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Latest updates to my Guide to UU Blogs.

by Philocrites

Friends, there are now approximately 180 blogs in my freshly updated annotated guide to Unitarian Universalist blogs. (The UUpdates aggregator currently lists 338, although that number includes a number of lapsed blogs.) I don't even try to keep up with more than a fraction of them anymore, but I have visited each over the last month to try to make sure my categories still apply.

This edition of the Guide bids farewell to Kinja's UUBlogs Digest, the aggregator of choice for many over the years, but happily there are new ways to keep up with UU blogs. I've also added a new UUA Elections category as the campaigns get going for the UUA's 2009 election of a new president.

Posted by Philocrites on 3 May 2008 at 11:14 AM | 0 comments

Guide to Unitarian Universalist blogs.

by Philocrites

A work in progress, this directory is my annotated, selective guide to the ever-expanding Unitarian Universalist blogosphere. It replaces my first Guide to UU Blogs, which I began in January 2004 and am no longer updating. (Skip the introduction.)

Click to continue . . .

Posted by Philocrites on 3 May 2008 at 10:53 AM

Do you have a Unitarian Universalist blog?

by Philocrites

If you have a blog that discusses Unitarian Universalism and that is not yet listed in my Guide to UU blogs, please promote it in the comments below. I'm selective about the blogs I include in my guide — I'm primarily interested in blogs that discuss religion, so blogs on other topics that simply happen to be written by UUs probably won't make the cut — but please do let me and my readers know about your blog.

Posted by Philocrites on 3 May 2008 at 10:00 AM | 49 comments

Thursday, April 24, 2008

My favorite time of the year.

by Philocrites

This is my favorite time of year in Boston. For me, spring truly arrives when the trees on the State House grounds next to my office burst into bloom during the last week in April — as you can see in this photo, taken yesterday, or this one, taken a year ago tomorrow, or this one, taken ten days earlier in April 2006. (Hmm, why so early in 2006?) In this photo, you can see the steeple of the Arlington Street Church through the blooming trees of the Boston Public Garden. You can see more of my Boston spring photos over the years at Flickr.

Posted by Philocrites on 24 April 2008 at 9:55 PM | 1 comments

YRUU's transformation continues.

by Philocrites

There are new developments this week in the relationship between the UUA and the continental UU youth organization YRUU, although details are emerging somewhat piecemeal. The second meeting of the Youth Ministry Implementation Working Group — the administration-appointed task force that is sketching out the future of UUA-sponsored youth programs — took place the weekend before last, at the same time as the meeting of the YRUU Steering Committee. Then this past weekend, the UUA board met and passed several resolutions related to YRUU.

UU World reporters are working on stories about both meetings, so a more complete picture will emerge in a week or so when they've finished their reporting. (Hopefully the final texts of the board's resolutions will be made public soon, too.) In the meantime, some information is showing up here and there. Here, for example, is the April quarterly report to the board of the UUA's Lifespan Faith Development staff group, which includes the Youth Ministry Office.

In addition, the YRUU Steering Committee has now publicized its April 17 letter to the UUA board. The letter recognizes something that was not acknowledged directly in earlier statements about the UUA's future financial support for Continental YRUU:

We have been informed that the proposed budget that you will be reviewing does not include funds designated specifically to YRUU as it has during pervious [sic] years, but rather includes a broad Youth Ministry line item. The implication of this change is the cessation of YRUU specific funding and therefore YRUU activities and governance structure.

Acknowledging this fact, the Steering Committee urges the board and the UUA leadership to fund several of YRUU's priorities out of the broader Youth Ministry line item that is in next year's budget.

The Steering Committee also informs the board that it plans to host online elections for a representative body (as yet unnamed) to advocate for youth once its term expires in June.

Since I don't yet have access to official language of board resolutions, and since I didn't attend the board meetings myself, I'll withhold comment on the board's actions. One, however, is being publicized by the Steering Committee: The board has place the Youth and Young Adult Empowerment Resolution on the 2008 General Assembly agenda.

Posted by Philocrites on 24 April 2008 at 9:01 PM | 0 comments

Previous entries . . .

Keeping up

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Who owns a congregation?

Who, then, is the owner of a congregation? Who plays the role of stockholders in a business? Not the members. Not the board. Not the clergy or the bishop or the staff. These all are fiduciaries whose duty is to serve the owner. Symbolically, we might say God or Jesus is the owner. But God's whole will is too big to guide one congregation. Instead, the board's job is to discern our mission, the small piece of God's intention that belongs to us. Or to put it differently, our job is to find the mission we belong to, the real owner for whose benefit we hold and deploy the congregation's resources.

Dan Hotchkiss, Alban Institute 4.21.08; via The Lead (04.23.08)

Catholics divided by pop music for Mass

Imagine a bizarro world where all the 25-year-olds want Mozart and all the 60-year-olds want adult-contemporary. The kids think the adults are too wild. The backlash against "Kumbaya Catholicism" has anyone under 40 allegedly clamoring for the Tridentine Mass in Latin, while the old folks are most sentimental about Casual Sunday (even more rockin', the Saturday vigil Mass), and still cling to what's evolved from the lite-rock guitar liturgies of the 1970s. The result, for most parishes, has been decades of Masses in which no one is entirely satisfied, and very few enjoy the music enough to sing along. . . .

It's been a long time since anyone at church was singing the hosanna from "Jesus Christ Superstar" or Cat Stevens's "Morning Has Broken" at the offertory. Even the vast catalogue of the St. Louis Jesuits — the stalwart, lite-rock ballads heard in almost any Mass for the past few decades ("One Bread, One Body"; "Be Not Afraid"; "For You Are My God") — has come under assault.

Hank Stuever, Washington Post 4.16.08 (04.21.08)