Monthly Archives: May 2023

Will the Unitarian Universalist Association Split Completely?

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I just bought a book titled “A Gadfly Report”, written by retired UU minister Dennis McCarty, who has written many other books in the past. It is a critical analysis of the “Gadflies”, the infamous faction among UUs who reject the efforts to eliminate White Supremacy Culture among UUs.

20230515_143606

The book is being sold here:

And here is McCarty’s own account in Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/dennis.mccarty.90

At one point, McCarty mentions that Todd Eklof has founded a new group, called the North American Unitarian Association. So I looked it up.

https://naunitarians.org/

And found this list:

https://naunitarians.org/about/

Current Board: The founding NAUA members have elected a provisional Board of Directors. A new Board will be elected at the first Annual General Meeting.

  • President: Rev.  Dr. Todd Eklof, Spokane WA.
  • Vice President: TBD
  • Treasurer: Lynn Jinishian, Spokane WA.
  • Secretary: Frank Casper, Atlanta GA
  • Directors at Large:
    • Ron Strange, Port Townsend WA
    • Terry Anderson, PhD, Edmonton AB
    • Candace Schmidt, Spokane WA
    • Richard Gammon, Spokane WA
    • Robert Jinishian, Spokane, WA
    • Mike Long, Charlotte, NC

Note the large number of leading members from Spokane, WA, which is Todd Eklof’s base of operations. Clearly, this is little more than a fan club of his. Including Frank Casper, who I have seen in Facebook. After seeing how arrogant he is, I blocked him in disgust.

Because of the decentralized and libertarian nature of the UUA, these people cannot be excommunicated from the Unitarian Universalist movement, but it is clear they want to create an outright split among UUs. After all, Todd Eklof himself said so, even titling a chapter in one of his books “I WANT A DIVORCE”.

I have written about this matter before:

Reopening Old Wounds Among Unitarian Universalists

A Debate in the UU Subreddit Over the 2017 Hiring Controversy

Another Fight in Reddit Over Rev. Todd Eklof’s Publicity Stunt of 2019

Another call for Unitarian Universalists to stop fighting for consistent racial justice

Reading and Reacting to “The Gadfly Molehill”

Too many people seem to have become UUs, ironically, out of an elitist desire to reject and scorn religious fundamentalism, not a desire to improve themselves and their society for the good of all. But religious fundamentalism is itself a form of bigotry. Why abandon one form while clinging to others?

McCarty’s new book should put the final nail in the coffin of Todd Eklof’s credibility. He is a TRAITOR and should be rejected by all those loyal to the principles of Unitarian Universalism. He came from the Southern Baptist Convention…..and in my mind, he still belongs there, not among UUs!

Activists Against Bigotry Must Oppose ALL Bigotry!

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Look at this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_May_Cameron

Barbara May Cameron (Standing Rock Lakota, May 22, 1954 – February 12, 2002) was a Native American photographer, poet, writer, and human rights activist in the fields of lesbian/gay rights, women’s rights and Native American rights.[1][2][3][4]

Cameron co-founded the Gay American Indians (GAI), in 1975 with Randy Burns, an Alaska Native. GAI was the first gay American Indian liberation organization.[6][7] The reason for founding GAI, according to Cameron, was that Native American gay people had different needs and struggles than the gay white community. Moreover, there was in general a lack of support for people of color within the lesbian and gay community.[2][8][9][10][7]

It is because of people like her that the concept of intersectionality was invented.

https://www.intersectionaljustice.org/what-is-intersectionality

what is intersectionality

The concept of intersectionality describes the ways in which systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of discrimination “intersect” to create unique dynamics and effects. For example, when a Muslim woman wearing the Hijab is being discriminated, it would be impossible to dissociate her female* from her Muslim identity and to isolate the dimension(s) causing her discrimination.

All forms of inequality are mutually reinforcing and must therefore be analysed and addressed simultaneously to prevent one form of inequality from reinforcing another. For example, tackling the gender pay gap alone – without including other dimensions such as race, socio-economic status and immigration status – will likely reinforce inequalities among women.

This makes perfect sense. Homophobes tend to be racists as well, because the atttitude is the same, judging people by their group membership and not as individuals.

This video I made talks about different forms of bigotry:

And that’s why I can condemn Milo Yiannopoulos, despite his being a gay man, for also being racist and anti-feminist. He actually enables homophobia too, because most other conservatives/right-wingers/regressives would see him as an useful idiot, and the moment they don’t see him as useful anymore, they will dispose of him.

Oh, they already did that!

The Downfall of Milo

And so his being gay is irrelevant.

From “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” to [[I Kissed Christianity Goodbye]]

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Read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Kissed_Dating_Goodbye

I Kissed Dating Goodbye is a 1997 book by Joshua Harris. The book focuses on Harris’ disenchantment with the contemporary secular dating scene, and offers ideas for improvement, alternative dating/courting practices, and a view that singleness need not be a burden nor characterized by what Harris describes as “selfishness”.

By the late 2010s, Harris reconsidered his view that dating should be avoided, apologizing to those whose lives were negatively impacted by the book and directing the book’s publisher to discontinue its publication.[1][2]

In I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Harris popularized the concept of “courting” as an alternative to mainstream dating. In so doing, he raised discussion regarding the appropriateness of his proposed solutions, as well as the foundations on which he based his reasoning.

According to Harris, people in dating relationships put up a façade in an attempt to appear to be what the other person wants, thus hampering the “getting to know you” part of dating. Harris said that it is more appropriate and healthier in the long run to participate in “group dates” in order to truly understand the way a particular person interacts with others; in a group setting, a person is less likely to be able to maintain a façade. Harris proposed a system of courtship that involved the parents of both parties to a greater degree than is usual in conventional dating. In an interview with Family Christian Stores, Harris indicated that “people have taken the message of I Kissed Dating Goodbye and made it something legalistic – a set of rules. That’s something that’s beyond my control, and it’s disappointing at times…”[3]

The book has been cited as an example of belief in ‘benevolent sexism’ and ‘women as property’[5] as well as promoting ‘rape supportive messaging’[6] and ‘sexual purity teachings’ that emphasize a ‘hierarchical father-daughter relationship’ and reduces the agency of adolescent girls.[7]

Christian psychologists Henry Cloud and John Townsend suggest that avoiding dating in order to avoid suffering, as Harris advises, causes those who do so to forgo opportunities to mature, especially through learning how to create healthy boundaries.[12]

In 2016, Harris appeared to be reconsidering the claims that he had made in the book and apologized to several who publicly communicated how the book had influenced them to stay single or had been used by adults to impose stringent rules on them.[13][14]

During a 2017 TED talk, Harris said his greatest regret about the book was him transferring his fears into the book. He said: “Fear is never a good motive. Fear of messing up, fear of getting your heart broken, fear of hurting somebody else, fear of sex… There are clear things in statements in Scripture about our sexuality being expressed within the covenant of marriage. But that doesn’t mean that dating is somehow wrong or a certain way of dating is the only way to do things. I think that’s where people get into danger. We have God’s word, but then it’s so easy to add all this other stuff to protect people, to control people, to make sure that you don’t get anywhere near that place where you could go off course. And I think that’s where the problems arise.”[15]

And also….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Harris_(author)

In 1997, Harris moved from Oregon to Gaithersburg, Maryland to be a pastoral intern.[10][11] There, “C. J. Mahaney, a charismatic Calvinist and founding pastor of megachurch Covenant Life Church, took Harris under his wing and groomed him to take over the church.”[12] Harris was lead pastor of Covenant Life Church from 2004 until 2015.[13][6] Harris assumed the role of senior pastor at Covenant Life Church at the age of 30.[10] In January 2015, he resigned from that role due to a desire to broaden his views and connect to other parts of Christianity. In an interview, Harris said the isolation of Covenant Life, and of a small cluster of churches of which it was a part, may have fed leadership mistakes, including the decision of pastors — himself among them — to handle a child sexual abuse case internally instead of going to police.[6]

In 2016, Harris stated that he was reconsidering the content of I Kissed Dating Goodbye[15] and apologized to people who said that they had been hurt by its teachings.[16][15] In 2018, Harris disavowed I Kissed Dating Goodbye and discontinued its publication.[17] His publishers agreed that I Kissed Dating Goodbye and two other follow-up books would not be reprinted once the current stock was depleted.[18][19] Harris appeared in a documentary film called I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye, where he spoke to people who were critical of the book.[20][21]

In July 2019, Harris announced that he and his wife were separating due to “significant changes [that] have taken place in both of us”.[22][23] Subsequently, Harris revealed that he no longer considered himself a Christian and his wife began pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter under the name Shannon Bonne.[24][25][26] In addition to his previously discontinued books, with Harris’s announcement of his loss of faith, the documentary film lost its distributor due to the negative reaction from the Christian market.[27]

My guess is that his extremist views on sexuality, often called “purity culture” were so tied up with his Christian views that when he realized purity culture was bullshit, it also caused his faith to be destroyed as well. That’s what often happens to people with extreme religious views of any kind that don’t measure up to reality at all.

To illustrate the stupidity of purity culture, which is by nature sexist and unrealistic in its expectations of young people, I made this:

And I am confident that it will stand up to reality far better than Harris’ stupid book……or even his former religion!