A few days ago, Transient&Permanent started raising the issue of having a special General Assembly, called by 50 congregations in three different districts.  I didn't get an exact focus for this session, and came away with the impression that some folks want to get the Trustees to rescind the disaffiliation.  

Politywonk sees it differently.  Polity refers to our system of sacred governance, rather than specific measures produced as it does its job.  Those measures are political decisions, on which honorable individuals, working from the same set of principles, can disagree.

ChaliceChick beat me to it the other day when she quoted from George Orwell's Animal Farm.  She lifted up the end; I have a different passage in mind, a more ambiguous stage of progress in the beginning of the transition (now you see where that Ascension stuff was coming from, eh?).  It describes the relocation of the pigs from the farmyard to the farmhouse, and the increasing mystery, as a result, about what they were up to.

I lift up this passage to note the shift of power from the districts to the trustees which began with the 1898 trustees.  They added Sam Eliot to their ranks and two years later elected him the first executive president of the AUA.  

Various changes in the bylaws occurred over the years, culminating in the 1925 dissolution of the last major local power -- the Western Conference -- into the AUA board structure.  At that point, essentially, the ground was laid for consolidation with the Universalists and the highly centralized Trustee-driven organization which has recently disaffiliated so many of us.

How did we get from the Radical Reformation -- with its locally experienced and elected clergy -- to this Vanguard of the Proletariat-looking formation?

It's an clear but tedious path --traced back to our very RR roots.

The RR overthrew the bishops -- we all know that.  And in so doing, they elevated the congregations -- we all know that, too.  

So asyou read the following heresy, please remember that Politywonk is a Universalist, who believes there is good to be found -- and learned from -- in everyone.  Even bishops...

Yes, when we overthrew the bishops, we eliminated some GOOD they had been doing.  Specifically, they had been doing a very good job of assimilating local community-based ministries into the Roman Catholic community.  It was not the Pope but the bishops and archbishops who praised local leaders for the good they did, outside the diocesan (parish) structure.  And to this day, it is local bishops and archibishops who advise the Pope whom to praise/canonize when he visits their territory.  And then -- and here's the key -- when the pope visits, even he makes himself available to the people and when he speaks, praises to them their local leaders.

Furthermore, relations among bishops became a growth engine for creative and women's ministries known as religious orders; the shepherds could ask each other about the real-life impact of a local leader whose adherents wanted to replicate in new locations.  

Our trustees, instead, challenge us to "remember right relations."  Is one parishioner getting too much power?  Maybe other people losing touch with their own inner vision?

But in reality, most of us want to follow a leader who knows what they're doing.  We don't have time to keep reinventing wheels, when perfectly good vehicles are rolling outside our door, with friendly, inspired leaders reaching out to help us on board.

But that presents a leadership conflict.  UUA Bylaws set up a self-referent central leadership.  The Trustees define "our vision" in their own retreats.  They not only lack, they eschew on-the-ground spiritual ties.   There is a history to this: Sam Eliot, back in the 1920s, called for a shift from congregational to evangelical ministry; he wanted a corps of strong voices sent forth to further the association's vision.  The districts were to be not listeners to the people, but coordinators for these missionaries.

Thus, instead of locally-generated religious leadership, we have, on behalf of the Trustees, an incestuously interwoven [and completely non-transparent] Ministerial Fellowship Committee which reserves the right to vet all aspiring ministers (through the Regional Subcommittees) -- including the "community-based."  (Can you say 1984?)  

Let's have a show of hands -- how many of us have had a Trustee come into our congregation for an extended conversation about our spiritual lives?  Does your Trustee know which of your congregants belong to which affiliates and why?  Do they know who does what good works?  No.  When they come, don't they *appear,* present their current agenda to the small group of interested folks, and then leave?  

And often, they don't even show up.  They prefer to hear about us from our ministers -- who were vetted by that incestuous MFC process.  That doesn't mean the ministers are happy about it -- but our grumblings about denominational polity usually pale next to our congregation's immediate needs.

Did you know that the Catholics don't let their bishops get away with this?  At the same time we Protestants were eliminating bishops and putting all our eggs in the congregational basket, the Catholics were engaged in the Councils of Trent.  And the thrust of these was to increase local accountability for the quality of clergy.

Among other reforms, the bishops and clergy -- previously relatives of nobles who lived wherever their wealth could afford -- were to reside in and serve only one territory.  There they were to make regular appearances.  (This led to the appearance of cathedrals -- seats of bishops/archbishops.)

And not only were the bishops to live in the diocese/archidiocese, but they were to  visit each parish on a regular basis, fulfilling for the first time their pastoral functions of preaching and then listening.

And that, my friends, is all I want for us to require of our trustees -- a little democratic reform which the Catholics have had for almost five hundred years.

Therefore, I propose a special Generat Assembly to amend the UUA Bylaws as follows:

"Every trustee shall visit every congregation or congregational cluster in her or his district every year.  These visits shall be scheduled with and announced to the congregation or cluster not less than four months in advance.  Each visit is to include a tour of the facilities and acquaintance with the congregational financial health, as well as not less than 60 minutes for open question and answer conversation with any members who choose to attend.  Follow-up questions are permitted and the trustees are entitled to request time to research and write a full answer.  These answers are to be submitted within a month and prominently posted in congregational media."

From this accountability, I believe we can begin to reverse the twentieth century centralization without losing its benefits (of which there are many).  Pastoral visiting is much more likely than protesting or seceding to produce a spiritually balanced program that serves our members.  

How do we pay for all this?   I am sure some of you can come up with some suggestions...