FUUSE - Founder of UU youth autonomy dies at age 88

Arnold F. Westwood - 1921-2009
Builder of Congregations and Communities

WINDSOR, Mass.- The Rev. Arnold Farrow Westwood, died Sunday, August 16, at age 88 as a result of injuries sustained in a fall the previous day.

Reverend Westwood was educated at University of California Berkley and Tufts University, where he received his Master of Sacred Theology in 1948.

Mr. Westwood spent 40 years in the Unitarian Universalist ministry, starting as a student minister with congregations in Yarmouthport and Brewster on Cape Cod. This was followed by pastorates at Urbana, Ill.; Westport, Conn.; Cleveland, Ohio; Manchester, Conn., and Amherst, Mass.

His ministry was hallmarked by the organizational development and membership growth of the congregations he served. Beloved by family and friends, he lived life with zest and enthusiasm and embraced death without fear or regrets.

( excerpts from http://www.uuwestport.org/RevArnoldWestwood.html )

As a young adult, Arnold Westwood served as the national president of the American Unitarian Youth (age range 15-25 years) in 1943-1945. He received his MST at Tufts University in 1948.

David Cole, served as the national president of the Universalist Youth Fellowship (age range 13-25) in 1945-1946. Cole lived across the hall from Westwood in their Tufts University dormitory, and was also working on a theology degree.

Through the efforts of these two young leaders, the continental youth and young adult organizations were eventually merged in 1953, eight years prior to the merger of the mainstream Unitarian and Universalist denominations. This allowed the UU continental youth and young adult organization to develop as an autonomous organization.

The college age components of these two groups were called the Channing Foundation (Unitarian) and the Murray Foundation (Universalist). The merged organization was called the Channing-Murray Foundation at the continental level.

Westwood was called to the Urbana, IL Unitarian Church, on the campus of the University of Illinois, for his first position as a settled minister in 1948 and served there until 1957. Westwood and the local Universalist minister, Earle McKinney, served as co-ministers of the locally merged UU church in Urbana for one year. Then, David Cole (Westwood's friend from Tufts) took over as minister of the locally merged Unitarian Universalist church in Urbana in 1959. The national denominations merged in 1961.

Arnold Westwood and the local Universalist minister, Earle McKinney, started the local Channing-Murray Foundation chapter at the Urbana Unitarian Church. It was an independent, self-governing organization. A board of directors was created with local lay leaders, the two local ministers, and the district directors from each denomination. Other Channing-Murray Foundation chapters were created on other campuses across the U.S., including the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

When the Unitarian and Universalist denominations merged in 1961, the college age component of youth and young adult organization was renamed Student Religious Liberals (SRL), although some local Channing-Murray chapters kept their name. The Channing-Murray Foundation in Urbana, IL still exists as an independent UU campus ministry on the University of Illinois campus. The current UU ministerial intern is Elizabeth Harding.

The merged high school aged group for Unitarians and Universalists was called Liberal Religious Youth (LRY).

At the continental and local levels, this degree of independence contributed to the impaired and sometimes tension-packed communication between these autonomous organizations and their parent churches. (This is the whole point of this article.)

Then, Rock and Roll came to America:
During the Vietnam War, anti-war protests developed hand in hand with the rise of the youth culture world wide. I am sure that Arnold Westwood could not foresee this when he worked for years to create a merged Unitarian Universalist youth and young adult organization.

The youth culture at large effected the youth culture within the merged Unitarian Universalist denomination AND vice versa. LRYers and Unitarian Universalists were deeply involved in the anti-war movement. LRYers spearheaded events within this counter culture. (See Tom Wolfe's book, the Electric KoolAid Acid Test for details.)

LRY had its own $100,000 endowment to support itself and received funds for operations from the UUA. LRY described itself as autonomous organization, and it was self-governing, but it was financially dependent, to a great extent, on the UUA.

In 1981, ten years after the height of the anti-war movement, UUA staff member Wayne Arnason put together Common Ground I, a convention meant to disestablish LRY and replace it with a new, more adult controlled version of a continental youth group that was renamed YRUU. LRYers were allowed to participate at Common Ground I, but only as a minority group. (“Y.R.U.U.” is basically “L.R.Y.” backwards).

The youth-led youth culture continued to be manifested to a great degree in YRUU at youth conferences in terms of close knit community building and a strong emphasis on spirituality at youth-led worship services. Youth-led democratic bodies were an important part of decision making. YRUU benefited from increased involvement by youth advisors in terms of developing responsible conference communities and also suffered from this in terms of leadership development. Many lay leaders and ministers report that their early development as religious leaders began in their leadership roles in LRY and YRUU.

Current Day: This youth culture increasingly conflicted with UUA staff desires to control youth programming over the last 10 years. A “revisioning” task force for youth ministry was formed that did include YRUU leaders, but only as a minority. This is the same way that Wayner Arnason “revisioned” youth programming in 1981. Wayne Arnason was now on the UUA board when these events began to occur, but is now off of it. The UU Youth Council failed to back UUA President Bill Sinkford's request for a youth programming revisioning effort, even though the president was present at the Youth Council session.

UUA President Bill Sinkford took away the Youth Steering Committee task of appointing staff members to the Youth Office in order to push the UUA staff agenda without the input of this representational body, which was in turmoil over staff appointment decisions. That action was clearly against our UU value of democracy.

Later, funding for the Youth Steering Committee was cut. More democracy down the drain. Eventually, all funding for continental UU youth and young adult conferences and democratic decision making bodies were cut, even though the youth and young adult organizations were still “Sponsored Organizations” of the UUA.

The programming that the UUA staff wants to promote is incendiary anti-racism programming. What is getting wiped off the face of the earth for the sake of this UUA staff effort is youth-led and young adult led community building and spirituality at UU youth and UU young adult conferences. These communities are where we many Unitarian Universalist youth and young adult leaders into adult leaders.

In response to this, a Youth Empowerment resolution was presented at GA 2008, by a UUA staff member and UU District President in support of youth empowerment, after being accepted by the UUA board as a resolution for GA. Youth did speak for the resolution. Unfortunately, a motion for the continued efforts of the youth ministry revisioning efforts also passed at GA 2008. So, the final version was clearly conflicted.

“What we’re aware of now, is we’re trying not to again create an autonomous youth national structure that is not based in congregations,” said Judith Frediani, UUA director of Lifespan Faith Development and the supervisor of the UUA’s Youth Ministries staff, in the Summer 2008 Issue of the UU World.

This is the silent crisis gripping the Unitarian Universalist world today. Today we see ourselves as an affiliation of independent churches. But can that last?

Through Rev. Westwood's lifelong efforts to build community in self-governed UU congregations and in self-governed UU continental organizations, a great challenge was presented to all Unitarian Universalists:

- To what extent can and should autonomy from UUA staff control exist in our UU organizations?
- Is democracy something that should be eliminated from our list of UU values?
- Can we as Unitarian Universalists continue to develop our religious organizations responsibly without hierarchical control by the UUA staff?
- Can democratically-led Unitarian Universalist organizations develop responsibly in local churches and in continental organizations or will they be wiped out in favor of UUA staff programming?

Can the UUA staff be trusted to support the vision of democratic bodies or must we write down in the UUA bylaws how the UUA staff is to be limited in their powers regarding UU youth and UU young adult organizations and UU congregations?

To what extent can we support autonomy for UU youth and UU young adults?

To what extent can we support autonomy for UU congregations?

Chalice Serenity,

Jim Sechrest
Unitarian Universalist

***************************************************

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die.
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.

Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.

The king is gone but he's not forgotten
Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?
It's better to burn out than to fade away.
The king is gone but he's not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.

-Neil Young

Founder of UU youth autonomy dies at age 88 | 15 Comments

Founder of UU youth autonomy dies at age 88

Authored by: Jimmy C On Thursday, October 15 2009 @ 09:36 PM PDT

Arnold Westwood remembers himself at the beginning of his ministry in Urbana, IL:

"I was pretty raw and untutored having spent much of my time in Tufts in denominational politics, being an officer of the old AUY. Of course, in those days I knew no fear in the pulpit. How you put up with me I'll never understand. But I'd get frequent invitations at the coffee hour to "come by my lab (or study) tomorrow. I'd love to talk with you more about what you said this morning." Then in tenderness on their own ground I'd be carefully and fully set straight. I was treated as a favorite graduate student by them all. And whatever true higher education I now possess I received mainly from U of I UU's."

- A History: The Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. 1982.

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The panther moves in the dark.
Seeing the truth of night.
The Sorcerer Tripper hunting for the believers of the temple of acid...
-Michèle Raper Ritt

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