Table of Content

Just when you think you've hit the bottom of the barrel, the bottom falls out. A public censure of Todd Eklof just issued leaves me stunned. No hint that adults can disagree, or that people put themselves out on principle. Or that some people think he's correct.

The ideological basis, the high-handed tone and the cringing prayer. This is calculated to hurt and embarrass Eklof, so no irony there. "Honest and diligence" indeed. Lord, spare us. This letter is a betrayal of our heritage.

I've not been a member for years, but the UUMA is now good and dead to me. The signatories can (to put it nicely) get lost. I'm embarrassed for them; they should be ashamed of themselves.

Read for yourself. The original is at https://www.uuma.org/news/466020/UUMA-Board-and-Executive-Team-Issues-Public-Letter-of-Censure.htm. I'm reposting it here as, though it's a public letter, documents tend to vanish.

UUMA Elected Board of Trustees and Executive Team Issues Public Letter of Censure

16 August, 2019

Rev. Dr. Todd Eklof

Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane

Dear Todd,

As the leadership of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, we are writing this letter of censure regarding the content and the manner of distribution (at the 2019 General Assembly) of your book, The Gadfly Papers. We hope this action will be received as an invitation into awareness, acknowledgment of the hurt that has been caused, and an opportunity for restoration, reconciliation, and engagement in the ongoing work of the UUMA, not as an attempted resolution of an “issue.” The content of your book has caused great psychological, spiritual, and emotional damage for many individuals and communities within our faith. Because of the widespread impact, we are making this censure public and distributing it to all members of the UUMA.

As the continental leadership of the UUMA, our responsibility is to uphold our values and our covenant. We believe you have broken covenant. We write this letter to ask you to seek understanding of the harm that has been done and to work toward restoration. We would welcome the opportunity to help guide and support a public process of restoration, which we expect would foster widespread learning about what it means to be a covenantal faith.

We understand from your book that you want to encourage robust and reasoned debate about the direction of our faith. However, we cannot ignore the fact that logic has often been employed in white supremacy culture to stifle dissent, minimize expressions of harm, and to require those who suffer to prove the harm by that culture’s standards. Further, we believe that dismissing testimonies of real people to the profound and pervasive pain of white supremacy culture and its many forms of oppression by simply categorizing them as safetyism or political correctness is both morally wrong and antithetical to our values as a faith tradition.

We believe that you have violated the spirit of the Ethical Standards in our Code of Conduct detailed in our Guidelines for the Conduct of Ministry, which call us to:

Honesty and diligence in our work

Respect and compassion for all people

The work of confronting attitudes and practices of unjust discrimination on the basis of race, color, class, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, physical or mental ability, or ethnicity in ourselves and our ministry settings

As we call you to be accountable to your colleagues, we also call ourselves, as UUMA leadership, to be accountable to our members and to our covenant and values. We recognize that our current ethical standards leave room for ambiguity about what kinds of speech and behavior are racist and oppressive. Our commitment to the ongoing work to revise our Guidelines, clarifying expectations of anti-racist, anti-oppressive conduct in the practice of ministry, seems more crucial each day. We are also working to revise the accountability processes to ground them in values of justice, integrity, and healing rather than in their current legalistic frame.

It is our deepest desire, not to exclude people, but to welcome everyone into this work, recognizing that our members represent a wide spectrum of perspectives, experience, readiness, and willingness to engage. While we wish to be sensitive to that spectrum, we also must balance that against the stark and painful fact that people of color, indigenous, trans, disabled and other marginalized communities have testified over and over again to the spiritual, psychological, emotional, physical, and moral damage that racism and oppression have caused. Those impacts are not up for debate.

Grounded in our mission, with profound sadness for hurt that has been caused, and with deep longing for the promise of what can be, we close with this prayer of lament:

Spirit of Reason and Passion,

We hear again the cries of pain from those of marginalized identities

Pain inflicted all too often in the name of UU values and principles.

Their hope is dying, crushed once again by dismissal and devaluation

Is there room for all of us in this faith?

Yes, this is a faith for us all.

This is a faith where love is stronger than hate

Where justice is our mission and beloved community is our vision.

Where relationships are key to our individual growth and understanding.

We are a faith that balances mind and heart, and embraces both in spirit.

May we live into that balance.

Recognizing the power of our words to manipulate and harm.

May we remember the power of relationship,

And work toward restoration when covenant is broken.

Embraced by Love,

Striving towards Justice,

We pray.

Blessed Be

In faith,

The UUMA Board of Trustees and Executive Team

Wendy Williams, President

Rod Richards, Vice President

Richard Speck, Treasurer

Elizabeth Stevens, Member At-Large

Walter LeFlore, Member At-Large

Christana Wille McKnight, Member At-Large

Darrick Jackson, Director of Education

Janette Lallier, Director of Operations

Melissa Carvill Ziemer, Director of Collegial Practices