by Austen Petersen, Director of Religious Education
At the New Orleans General Assembly in 2017, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Commission on Institutional Change was established and charged by the UUA Board of Trustees to conduct an audit of white privilege and the structure of power within Unitarian Universalism, and analyze structural racism and white supremacy culture within the UUA. Last June, the COIC published a report of its findings called Widening the Circle of Concern. Since then, our WUU Board and Program Council leaders have been studying the report and starting to make changes in our own congregation.
Over the last few months, I’ve participated in workshops sponsored by the UUA and my professional association, LREDA (the Liberal Religious Educators Association), to explore how we Unitarian Universalists can practice having meaningful and deep conversations about race, identity, and change within our organization at multiple levels.
This past month I took a course entitled Commission on Institutional Change: Education for Liberation, hosted by our Southern Region. This is a group spiritual direction experience that has woven through it the Commission on Institutional Change Report’s recommendations on “educating for liberation.” The group spiritual direction format worked especially well in this context by helping me to stay engaged in the conversation, which is an expression of our 5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
This past year has brought a dramatic upheaval of our nation’s democratic process, and it has been deeply meaningful to me to approach the insurrection on January 6 through the lens of educating for liberation. It would be so easy to opt out of the conversations that we need to have about race and racism in this country, to opt out of the conversations about the attacks on our democracy and democratic process. Group spiritual direction invited me to slow down, process what has happened, and consider what I might do to help democracy thrive around me. For me, the answer is a religious call to vote in every single election, to knock on doors (masked) and try to get folks to register to vote and stay engaged. My answer is also to be in community with other Unitarian Universalists to talk about how these experiences have impacted us. It has helped me immensely to share common theological anchors as I wrestle with questions of engagement. In particular, I’ve long admired the important globally reaching work of Paulo Freire. (You can learn more about him here or here.) Among other things, Freire is a proponent of the idea that all students are co-creators of knowledge. Using that as a spiritual anchor, I have been thinking about what it means for us to be co-creators of our realities: of democracy, of the ways in which we engage with each other, of affirming our own identity as human.
This past month I also took a class hosted by the UUA for facilitators for the Renaissance Module training series for directors of religious education. I’m honored to be one of many facilitators of those modules, so I was invited to be part of the training to talk about what changes are needed to make the Renaissance Modules more inclusive and affirming of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) folks. We drew heavily on the recommendations from the Commission on Institutional Change Report.
One of, perhaps, the most important takeaways for me has been a reminder that this is a process, not a task that will be completed by a set date. One of our agreements at the outset of the class was to expect and accept non-closure. We are invited to sit with the question, sometimes with discomfort, instead of trying to come up with a solution or fix a situation. A powerful lesson, indeed! We are all on this journey together, and if we can make the journey joyful, we should do that. Here’s to joy and lifelong learning.
I close with a further offering for those wishing to dive deeper. Are you thirsting for more about the theology of Unitarian Universalism and the COIC? This article is for you. I’ll note that this is an article by Rev. Rebecca Parker, former WUU member and former Starr King School for the Ministry President. One of the helpful questions she addresses is the idea of pluralism in our Unitarian Universalist beliefs. Do we contradict ourselves by believing many things? I don’t think so, there is much to hold, and an entire community to do the work.