A Few Important Questions For Rev. Peter Morales

I just submitted the following important questions as a comment to the "Major donors" post on UUA Presidential candidate Rev. Peter Morales' 'Along The Campaign Trail' blog. My comment did not appear immediately so it would seem that Rev. Peter Morales' Presidential campaign blog is "moderated" aka censored. The little padlock symbol with the "pop-up" saying - "Manage Comments for this Entry" - right next to the "Add A Comment" link makes this quite clear. It will be interesting to see whether or not my comment is actually published on Rev. Morales' Presidential campaign blog and, if so, if Rev. Morales actually answers the questions that I have posed in it. Please note that I am adding some pertinent embedded links to this TEA blog post that are not in the comment that I submitted. Needless to say Rev. Peter Morales is more than welcome to post his answers to these questions as a comment, or comments, to this blog post. In fact I hereby extend my personal invitation to UUA Presidential candidate Rev. Peter Morales to do just that. R.S.V.P.* A.S.A.P Rev. Morales.

Here is what I submitted as a comment to the "Major Donors" post -

May I ask how your perceived responsibility towards these donors will be manifested Rev. Morales?

I would like to ask you a few more questions about your campaign for President of the UUA, including a few questions about some rather problematic public statements that you made in your "stump speech" announcing your candidacy for UUA President. I will draw up a modest list of questions and send them to you, or post them publicly as an "open letter" blog post, in the coming days or weeks.

I do however have a few important questions that just came to mind within the last few days that I will ask you now. I hope to receive adequate and detailed answers to these questions ASAP and I expect many U*Us would want to hear your response to these important questions. In your "stump speech" you quite justifiably describe Unitarian*Universalism as a "tiny, declining, fringe religion" but you then go on to say that you believe that U*Uism "can be the religion of our time." Indeed it would appear that your campaign slogan is,

"We can be the religion of our time."

Here are my questions that arise out of those public statements -

Do you genuinely believe that Unitarian*Universalism can actually become "the religion of our time" or is your campaign slogan just empty campaign rhetoric intended to help you to gain votes and win the UUA Presidential election?

What specific conditions do you believe would need to be attained and sustained for Unitarian*Universalism to credibly be able to claim the status of being "the religion of our time"?

How do you propose to transform Unitarian*Universalism from the "tiny, declining, fringe religion" that it currently is to "the religion of our time" within a reasonable time frame, let's say 25 years?

Please provide detailed and realistic answers to the latter two questions which are obviously posed on the assumption that you do genuinely believe that Unitarian*Universalism actually can become "the religion of our time." Needless to say you need not answer the latter two questions if your campaign slogan is simply over-the-top campaign rhetoric that you don't genuinely believe in.

I look forward to seeing your detailed answers to these three important questions in the coming days. Let's say a week or two at most. I expect that a good number of Unitarian*Universalists would be very interested in seeing your answers to these important questions as well.

Sincerely,

Robin Edgar

*R.S.V.P. = "Répondez s'il vous plaît", a French phrase meaning "Please respond" or, quite literally, "Answer, if it pleases you."