Ministerial Fellowship Committee Chair Rev. Wayne Arnason Gets An "Electronic Communication" From The "Less Than Silent" Knight Of The U*U World
On Woden's Day December 9th I sent an "electronic communication" aka email to Rev. Wayne Arnason who is currently the Chair of the UUA's very aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee calling upon the UUA and MFC to provide some real and tangible restorative justice for ALL victims of U*U clergy misconduct, be it clergy sexual misconduct or diverse non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct. It is now over two weeks since I sent this email to Rev. Wayne Arnason and, as is typical with most of my recent communications with UUA administrators, I have not even received an acknowledgement of receipt. I am hereby posting the follow-up email that I sent to Rev. Arnason minutes ago which includes the full text of my email of December 9th, 2009. U*Us may consider this blog post to be a kind of "Open Letter" to the UUA and MFC and to U*Us more generally -
Wayne,
It is now more than two weeks since I sent you this email and I have not received the slightest reply to it, not even a simple acknowledgement of receipt.
Please take the time and effort to properly respond to this "electronic communication" between Christmas and New Year's Day.
BTW The MFC might be very well advised to "Stand On The Side Of Love" for ALL victims of clergy misconduct, clergy sexual misconduct and otherwise, on February 14th 2010 since the UUA's 'Standing On The Side Of Love' campaign has decided to designate St. Valentine's Day as “National Standing on the Side of Love Day.” It would be a shame if that symbolically significant day passed and the Ministerial Fellowship Committee did absolutely nothing aka *love* to stand on the side of love for victims of clergy misconduct, especially those who it has neglected and failed in the past. . .
Need I remind you of these words of the UUA's official apology to victims of clergy sexual misconduct that was delivered nearly a decade ago now at the 2000 UUA GA in Nashville?
"These brave and bruised people have, more often than not I suspect, been left lonely, confused, afraid, angry and betrayed. Un-ministered to."
I and other victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct have been left lonely and/or confused and/or afraid and/or angry and definitely betrayed and capital 'U' *Un-ministered* to by the the UUA, its very aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee, and more recently the UUA's now defunct department of Congregational Services. I dare say that your negligent non-response to the attached email is just one of the numerous ways that the UUA and Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee etc. have left us "Un-ministered to" Rev. Arnason. What ever happened to that "pledge" that "this gap, this failure, will be remedied" Wayne? When will the UUA and MFC finally get around to actually bending toward justice for me and other victims of nonp-sexual forms of clergy miconduct?
I think that February 14th of 2010 is a quite reasonable symbolic date for the UUA and MFC to begin to take steps to publicly stand on the side of love for ALL victims of clergy misconduct perpetrated by "less than excellent" U*U ministers, and to responsibly initiate the long overdue process of actually providing some real and tangible restorative justice for ALL those people whose personal worth and dignity has been not only directly attacked and diminished by unethical and abusive U*U clergy, but indirectly disregarded and diminished by the indifferent, incompetent, negligent, and thus effectively complicit, (non)responses of the UUA and MFC to their legitimate clergy misconduct complaints.
Sincerely,
Robin Edgar
P.S. I have decided to make this "electronic communication" an "Open Letter" addressed to you and every other member of the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee, as well as every other UUA officvial and U*Us more generally, by posting it to the interconnected and interdependent web of the internet on The Emerson Avenger blog. Any continued negligent silence from you and the UUA and MFC will be considered to be complicit silence by me and I expect most other people people of intelligence and conscience.
Complicit silence is by no means golden and will not be tolerated by me.
--- On Wed, 12/9/09, Robin Edgar
From: Robin Edgar robinedgar59@yahoo.ca
Subject: How About Some Long Overdue Justice Equity And Compassion Wayne?
To: bergthor@aol.com
Received: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 2:41 PM
Dear Rev. Arnason,
I read with interest your recent guest blog posts in Rev. Christine Robinson's iminister blog. I responded to some of what you said with a comment but Rev. Robinson apparently found it to be a bit too hot to handle and did not post it.
You may read the questioning comment in question on The Emerson Avenger blog here -
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2009/12/rev-wayne-arnason-chair-of-ministerial.html
I will attach most of its content below this note so you don't have to follow the link but I would suggest that you browse through The Emerson Avenger blog anyway, since it is largely dedicated to the subject of U*U clergy misconduct and incompetence in ministry.
So just when is the MFC going to responsibly acknowledge its own negligent, incompetent, and effectively complicit responses to my own and other people's clergy misconduct complaints Wayne?
Does the MFC *really* believe that its well documented negligent and complicit responses to to my legitimate clergy misconduct complaints against Rev. Ray Drennan and Rev. Victoria Weinstein for intolerantly demonizing and marginalizing me, and speaking scornfully and in deeply insulting and defamatory derogation of me (and other people) in any way exemplify the MFC's purported "dedication to excellence in ministry"?
In case you have forgotten my complaints, or are as yet unaware of my "experimental" clergy misconduct complaint I brought against Rev. Victoria Weinstein in 2006, I will direct you to The Emerson Avenger blog posts which *demonstrate* how they were both negligently (mis)handled by the UUA's aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee -
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2006/01/emerson-avenger-once-again-puts-uus-on.html
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-rev-dr-tracey-robinson-harris.html
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2007/01/rev-beth-miller-executive-secretary-of.html
I hereby invite you and the rest of the Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee to start standing on the side of love for ALL those people who have been demonized and marginalized by U*U clergy, or otherwise unjustly and abusively mistreated by "less than excellent" U*U ministers. I expect the MFC to responsibly acknowledge that victims of non-sexual forms of clergy nisconduct have also "been left lonely, confused, afraid, angry and betrayed. Un-ministered to" by the MFC and UUA, just as many victims of clergy sexual misconduct have been. Yes, that does mean that I expect the UUA and MFC to officially apologize to ALL of us for the negligent and effectively complicit manners in which the UUA and MFC responded to our serious complaints about various kinds of non-sexual clergy misconduct including, but by no means limited to, being insulted and defamed and/or demonized and marginalized by intolerant and abusive aka "less than polite" Unitarian*Universalist clergy.
I expect what former UUA President Bill Sinkford once rightly described as my "obviously deep concerns" that I am once again sharing with the MFC and UUA to be reopened and fully investigated and reviewed by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee as a whole (i.e. not just the executive of the MFC or a few individual UUA bureaucrats as was done in the past) and responsibly dealt with at the MFC meeting in March of 2010. I expect the MFC's long overdue official apology to me and ALL other victims of non-sexual clergy misconduct to be publicly delivered at the 2010 UUA GA in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The UUA might want to consider apologizing to victims of clergy sexual misconduct once again, since it seems that the "promise" of its 2000 official apology has not been lived up to. Individualized personal apologies to ALL victims of U*U clergy misconduct are recommended as well.
Without further ado here is the comment that I submitted to Rev. Christine Robinson's iminister blog. I want you to answer the questions I posed in it, in your reply to this email.
Thank you,
Robin Edgar
The suppressed comment -
The Emerson Avenger has a few thoughts to share with MFC Chair Rev. Wayne Arnason on this second day of Chalica 2009 which, as U*Us must know, is dedicated to affirming and promoting the second U*U principles of justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
Speaking of "the quality and tone of most of this conversation" Wayne. . .
When is the MFC aka Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee finally going to get around to responsibly reviewing the possibilities for a competency in common civility aka politeness and internet etiquette for "less than polite" U*U ministers? As you almost certainly know Wayne, I have now filed two clergy misconduct complaints as a result of "less than excellent" (to be polite. . .) U*U ministers who have not only been extremely rude to me and other people, but who have both engaged in what UUA President Peter Morales and many other people might call demonization and marginalization of me and other people. The fact of the matter is that I could have brought a few more similar complaints against a handful of "less than polite" U*U ministers, aka verbally abusive U*U clergy, who have deeply insulted and indeed demonized and marginalized me and other people on their blogs or elsewhere on the internet, sometimes under the cowardly cover of internet anonymity, but I held off doing so because I had zero confidence in the MFC's readiness, willingness, or indeed ability to "stand on the side of love" for me and other people who have been insulted and defamed, verbally and psychologically abused, or otherwise demonized and marginalized by "less than perfect" U*U ministers.
How is it possible Wayne that in the UUMA Guidelines U*U ministers pledge -
"I will not speak scornfully or in derogation of any colleague in public. In any private conversation critical of a colleague, I will speak responsibly and temperately."
But, in my own very well-document experience and my ongoing observation of the "tiny, declining, fringe religion" known as The U*U Movement*, "less than polite" U*U ministers are happily allowed to speak very scornfully, or in deeply insulting and outright defamatory *derogation*, of pretty much *anyone* else they care to insult or otherwise verbally abuse in public and/or in private? It seems to me Wayne that *responsibly* holding "less than polite" U*U clergy accountable for speaking scornfully or in derogation of people (even if there may be some "just cause" for giving *some* of them a public or private "dressing down") would be something of a "critical success factor" for the UUA and The U*U Movement™ in general, and the UUMA and MFC in particular.
BTW I was just talking about this very subject aka issue earlier today, so thank you so much for presenting me with this wonderful opportunity aka *foil* to be very Green and recycle and reuse this UU A Way of Life blog comment in my ongoing efforts aka U*U Jihad to *reduce* the scornful and derogatory "insulting and defamatory language" and other verbal abuse that the UUA and the Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee it *owns* have apparently quite happily allowed "less than polite" U*U ministers to abusively dish out for well over a decade now. . .
When do I and other victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct perpetrated by abusive U*U clergy and perpetuated by the negligent and effectively complicit responses of the MFC to out clergy misconduct complaints get *our* official UUA apology for being left lonely aka left alone, and/or confused, and/or afraid, and/or angry, and unquestionably betrayed and capital 'U' Un-ministered to by the Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee? When will the UUA provide some bona fide restorative justice to me and ALL other victims of ALL forms of clergy misconduct Wayne?
* If you find the terms "tiny, declining, fringe religion" and/or The U*U Movement to be "less than polite" ways to describe Unitarian*Universalism in general and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in particular please take the matter up with the prominent U*U clergy or prominent U*U lay leaders who originally came up with those terms. Current UUA President Rev. Peter Morales is of course the original owner of the descriptive phrase "tiny, declining, fringe religion" but I dare say that The Emerson Avenger™ is the proud "owner" of The Tiny Declining Fringe Religion™, to say nothing of The Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee™. . . :-)
Wayne,
It is now more than two weeks since I sent you this email and I have not received the slightest reply to it, not even a simple acknowledgement of receipt.
Please take the time and effort to properly respond to this "electronic communication" between Christmas and New Year's Day.
BTW The MFC might be very well advised to "Stand On The Side Of Love" for ALL victims of clergy misconduct, clergy sexual misconduct and otherwise, on February 14th 2010 since the UUA's 'Standing On The Side Of Love' campaign has decided to designate St. Valentine's Day as “National Standing on the Side of Love Day.” It would be a shame if that symbolically significant day passed and the Ministerial Fellowship Committee did absolutely nothing aka *love* to stand on the side of love for victims of clergy misconduct, especially those who it has neglected and failed in the past. . .
Need I remind you of these words of the UUA's official apology to victims of clergy sexual misconduct that was delivered nearly a decade ago now at the 2000 UUA GA in Nashville?
"These brave and bruised people have, more often than not I suspect, been left lonely, confused, afraid, angry and betrayed. Un-ministered to."
I and other victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct have been left lonely and/or confused and/or afraid and/or angry and definitely betrayed and capital 'U' *Un-ministered* to by the the UUA, its very aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee, and more recently the UUA's now defunct department of Congregational Services. I dare say that your negligent non-response to the attached email is just one of the numerous ways that the UUA and Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee etc. have left us "Un-ministered to" Rev. Arnason. What ever happened to that "pledge" that "this gap, this failure, will be remedied" Wayne? When will the UUA and MFC finally get around to actually bending toward justice for me and other victims of nonp-sexual forms of clergy miconduct?
I think that February 14th of 2010 is a quite reasonable symbolic date for the UUA and MFC to begin to take steps to publicly stand on the side of love for ALL victims of clergy misconduct perpetrated by "less than excellent" U*U ministers, and to responsibly initiate the long overdue process of actually providing some real and tangible restorative justice for ALL those people whose personal worth and dignity has been not only directly attacked and diminished by unethical and abusive U*U clergy, but indirectly disregarded and diminished by the indifferent, incompetent, negligent, and thus effectively complicit, (non)responses of the UUA and MFC to their legitimate clergy misconduct complaints.
Sincerely,
Robin Edgar
P.S. I have decided to make this "electronic communication" an "Open Letter" addressed to you and every other member of the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee, as well as every other UUA officvial and U*Us more generally, by posting it to the interconnected and interdependent web of the internet on The Emerson Avenger blog. Any continued negligent silence from you and the UUA and MFC will be considered to be complicit silence by me and I expect most other people people of intelligence and conscience.
Complicit silence is by no means golden and will not be tolerated by me.
--- On Wed, 12/9/09, Robin Edgar
From: Robin Edgar robinedgar59@yahoo.ca
Subject: How About Some Long Overdue Justice Equity And Compassion Wayne?
To: bergthor@aol.com
Received: Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 2:41 PM
Dear Rev. Arnason,
I read with interest your recent guest blog posts in Rev. Christine Robinson's iminister blog. I responded to some of what you said with a comment but Rev. Robinson apparently found it to be a bit too hot to handle and did not post it.
You may read the questioning comment in question on The Emerson Avenger blog here -
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2009/12/rev-wayne-arnason-chair-of-ministerial.html
I will attach most of its content below this note so you don't have to follow the link but I would suggest that you browse through The Emerson Avenger blog anyway, since it is largely dedicated to the subject of U*U clergy misconduct and incompetence in ministry.
So just when is the MFC going to responsibly acknowledge its own negligent, incompetent, and effectively complicit responses to my own and other people's clergy misconduct complaints Wayne?
Does the MFC *really* believe that its well documented negligent and complicit responses to to my legitimate clergy misconduct complaints against Rev. Ray Drennan and Rev. Victoria Weinstein for intolerantly demonizing and marginalizing me, and speaking scornfully and in deeply insulting and defamatory derogation of me (and other people) in any way exemplify the MFC's purported "dedication to excellence in ministry"?
In case you have forgotten my complaints, or are as yet unaware of my "experimental" clergy misconduct complaint I brought against Rev. Victoria Weinstein in 2006, I will direct you to The Emerson Avenger blog posts which *demonstrate* how they were both negligently (mis)handled by the UUA's aptly named Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee -
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2006/01/emerson-avenger-once-again-puts-uus-on.html
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-rev-dr-tracey-robinson-harris.html
http://emersonavenger.blogspot.com/2007/01/rev-beth-miller-executive-secretary-of.html
I hereby invite you and the rest of the Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee to start standing on the side of love for ALL those people who have been demonized and marginalized by U*U clergy, or otherwise unjustly and abusively mistreated by "less than excellent" U*U ministers. I expect the MFC to responsibly acknowledge that victims of non-sexual forms of clergy nisconduct have also "been left lonely, confused, afraid, angry and betrayed. Un-ministered to" by the MFC and UUA, just as many victims of clergy sexual misconduct have been. Yes, that does mean that I expect the UUA and MFC to officially apologize to ALL of us for the negligent and effectively complicit manners in which the UUA and MFC responded to our serious complaints about various kinds of non-sexual clergy misconduct including, but by no means limited to, being insulted and defamed and/or demonized and marginalized by intolerant and abusive aka "less than polite" Unitarian*Universalist clergy.
I expect what former UUA President Bill Sinkford once rightly described as my "obviously deep concerns" that I am once again sharing with the MFC and UUA to be reopened and fully investigated and reviewed by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee as a whole (i.e. not just the executive of the MFC or a few individual UUA bureaucrats as was done in the past) and responsibly dealt with at the MFC meeting in March of 2010. I expect the MFC's long overdue official apology to me and ALL other victims of non-sexual clergy misconduct to be publicly delivered at the 2010 UUA GA in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The UUA might want to consider apologizing to victims of clergy sexual misconduct once again, since it seems that the "promise" of its 2000 official apology has not been lived up to. Individualized personal apologies to ALL victims of U*U clergy misconduct are recommended as well.
Without further ado here is the comment that I submitted to Rev. Christine Robinson's iminister blog. I want you to answer the questions I posed in it, in your reply to this email.
Thank you,
Robin Edgar
The suppressed comment -
The Emerson Avenger has a few thoughts to share with MFC Chair Rev. Wayne Arnason on this second day of Chalica 2009 which, as U*Us must know, is dedicated to affirming and promoting the second U*U principles of justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
Speaking of "the quality and tone of most of this conversation" Wayne. . .
When is the MFC aka Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee finally going to get around to responsibly reviewing the possibilities for a competency in common civility aka politeness and internet etiquette for "less than polite" U*U ministers? As you almost certainly know Wayne, I have now filed two clergy misconduct complaints as a result of "less than excellent" (to be polite. . .) U*U ministers who have not only been extremely rude to me and other people, but who have both engaged in what UUA President Peter Morales and many other people might call demonization and marginalization of me and other people. The fact of the matter is that I could have brought a few more similar complaints against a handful of "less than polite" U*U ministers, aka verbally abusive U*U clergy, who have deeply insulted and indeed demonized and marginalized me and other people on their blogs or elsewhere on the internet, sometimes under the cowardly cover of internet anonymity, but I held off doing so because I had zero confidence in the MFC's readiness, willingness, or indeed ability to "stand on the side of love" for me and other people who have been insulted and defamed, verbally and psychologically abused, or otherwise demonized and marginalized by "less than perfect" U*U ministers.
How is it possible Wayne that in the UUMA Guidelines U*U ministers pledge -
"I will not speak scornfully or in derogation of any colleague in public. In any private conversation critical of a colleague, I will speak responsibly and temperately."
But, in my own very well-document experience and my ongoing observation of the "tiny, declining, fringe religion" known as The U*U Movement*, "less than polite" U*U ministers are happily allowed to speak very scornfully, or in deeply insulting and outright defamatory *derogation*, of pretty much *anyone* else they care to insult or otherwise verbally abuse in public and/or in private? It seems to me Wayne that *responsibly* holding "less than polite" U*U clergy accountable for speaking scornfully or in derogation of people (even if there may be some "just cause" for giving *some* of them a public or private "dressing down") would be something of a "critical success factor" for the UUA and The U*U Movement™ in general, and the UUMA and MFC in particular.
BTW I was just talking about this very subject aka issue earlier today, so thank you so much for presenting me with this wonderful opportunity aka *foil* to be very Green and recycle and reuse this UU A Way of Life blog comment in my ongoing efforts aka U*U Jihad to *reduce* the scornful and derogatory "insulting and defamatory language" and other verbal abuse that the UUA and the Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee it *owns* have apparently quite happily allowed "less than polite" U*U ministers to abusively dish out for well over a decade now. . .
When do I and other victims of non-sexual forms of clergy misconduct perpetrated by abusive U*U clergy and perpetuated by the negligent and effectively complicit responses of the MFC to out clergy misconduct complaints get *our* official UUA apology for being left lonely aka left alone, and/or confused, and/or afraid, and/or angry, and unquestionably betrayed and capital 'U' Un-ministered to by the Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee? When will the UUA provide some bona fide restorative justice to me and ALL other victims of ALL forms of clergy misconduct Wayne?
* If you find the terms "tiny, declining, fringe religion" and/or The U*U Movement to be "less than polite" ways to describe Unitarian*Universalism in general and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in particular please take the matter up with the prominent U*U clergy or prominent U*U lay leaders who originally came up with those terms. Current UUA President Rev. Peter Morales is of course the original owner of the descriptive phrase "tiny, declining, fringe religion" but I dare say that The Emerson Avenger™ is the proud "owner" of The Tiny Declining Fringe Religion™, to say nothing of The Ministerial *Fellowship* Committee™. . . :-)
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