Imagine you’re a survivor of UU clergy misconduct. You’ve finally made the very difficult decision to disclose. Chances are you’re afraid — afraid of what will happen when you do this, but also afraid the minister is going to do the same thing to someone else, so afraid of what will happen if you don’t. And chances are equally good that your congregation isn’t a resource. Even if it is, sooner or later you’re going to end up looking at uua.org.
On uua.org you will find two pages that look relevant. Let me walk you through these pages and share some of what I know.
Page 1: UUA Safe Congregations

Screenshot 1: Click for enlargement
The first is “UUA Safe Congregations” at www.uua.org/safe/.
The second sentence on this page says: “The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has been a leader in creating both resources and recommended processes to help make congregations safe and welcoming places to all.“ (#1 in the screenshot.)
It’s likely that this will sound reasonable to you. The UUA can be an inspiration in many areas, including feminism, GLBT issues and sexuality. Ergo they ought to be good at safety — in particular addressing clergy sexual misconduct. Unfortunately this simply isn’t true. As I’ve blogged about in the past, they have terrible track record. In other words, it’s misleading — a false reassurance to a person badly in need of real support. It also lacks humility — a quality UUs could probably use in general, but is particularly necessary when addressing misconduct.
Further down the page (#2 in the screenshot) you’ll find a link to “Complaints of Professional Misconduct.” That’s good and helpful. However, the second sentence describing the link says that, “The UUA’s system for responding to complaints of professional misconduct is grounded in principles of restorative justice and reconciliation.”
This goes back to the report of the Safe Congregations Panel and the Rev. Fred Muir in 2001. They recommended restorative justice instead of retributive justice. I should know. I’m the one who brought this approach (which at that time was mostly used in criminal cases) to the panel’s attention.
But the UUA has never really implemented these recommendations. They say they’ve made changes and I’m sure they have, but they must just be tokens. I can’t find any that reflect the spirit of the 2001 recommendations. That failure is what started me blogging in the first place.
I don’t know anything about Heather Bond (the person named on this page as author and resource) and it’s quite possible that she does what she can to help. But justice can’t depend on the kindness and good intent of one person. It has to be written in to the system. And from what I’ve seen in years since 2001, there’s no justice of any kind — restorative or retributive — for survivors. So it’s a second false reassurance.
Page 2: Process for Handling Complaints of Misconduct in your Congregation

Screenshot #2: Click for enlargement
Clicking on “Complaints of Professional Misconduct,” you come to the second page, which has a different title than the link. It’s “Process for Handling Complaints of Misconduct in your Congregation.” (www.uua.org/safe/misconduct/ – #3 in the second screenshot.) This may sound minor, but these are not just any Web pages. They represent a gateway to healing from very serious damage. Many potential complainants have left their congregation, if not UUism altogether. Does this mean you have to be part of the congregation where the misconduct happened? If so, all a misconducting minister needs to do is drive a person out of the congregation — something that’s usually quite easy for an unethical minister to do. And what if you are only a counselee who isn’t a member of the congregation? Is it okay for a minister to abuse you? Then there are ministers who don’t serve congregations, like an army chaplains. What about them? And so on.
Going on to the first paragraph, it says: “Unlike many other religious bodies, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is an association of member individual and independent congregations. The role of the UUA is to provide support to its member congregations. It does not govern them. In our tradition of congregational polity, each member congregation has the power to ordain, call/hire, supervise and dismiss ministers and other staff; and to do so independently of the UUA. It is the congregation, not the Association, that takes responsibility for regulation of its own policies and staff.”
It appears that what they’re really saying is, “Misconducting ministers are not our responsibility.” This is nonsense. It’s irresponsible and misleading to give such prominence to congregational polity, while omitting the fact that the UUA’s Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC) credentials ministers and that they have the power to “defellowship” (the UU equivalent of disrobe) and censure ministers.
Yes, congregational polity is a difficult aspect to deal with, but the UUA also has the ability to send staff to help work with congregations where the minister is found guilty of conduct unbecoming. They have significant power to influence.
They also have the power to say a congregation is no longer a part of the UUA. It’s a power that as far as I know has only been exercised once – in an Atlanta congregation when it was judged too racist. But I dare say if there was a congregation who insisted on keeping a defellowshipped pedophile in the pulpit, the UUA would find a way to say they no longer belonged to the association.
Scrolling further down the page, past things unlikely to be of any help to a survivor trying to understand his or her options, you come to “The Process.” (#4) This section starts inauspiciously with a confusing paragraph in parentheses — apparently a misplaced footnote.
The first real paragraph introduces “The UUA intake person.” It does not say who this person is, nor does it link to a page outlining their qualifications. This is not good.
Much more concerning, however, is that this person “has the discretion to refer matters not suitable for adjudication by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC), to other resources.” (#5) That’s not just discretion. This person has significant power over a victim or survivor of misconduct. When the allegation is ministerial sexual misconduct, why is it not automatically referred to the MFC?
The MFC is responsible for de-credentialing. Yes, the MFC is busy. And of course there are specious complaints. But those are not reasons sufficient to abrogate its power and responsibility to some unnamed staff person. The potential at this point for sweeping under the carpet — silencing victims — is significant.
The process explanation continues with: “The UUA Intake Person hears the complaint, provides information on the process and responds to questions from the complainant. Once the complainant decides to make an official complaint, the complaint is then referred to the UUA Consultant.” (#6) It’s interesting to note that in these two sentences, the word “complaint” and its derivative “complainant” are used five times. “Allegation” is a more appropriate term for matters such as sexual abuse or assault. The word “complaint” minimizes. It sounds a bit like whining. And typically the term “complainant” is paired with the term “religious professional.” In other words, the UUA’s process suggests these are cases of whiners vs. ministers.
Then there’s the UUA Consultant referred to in these sentences — another mystery person with significant power. (See #7a and #7b.) In the parenthetical directly under “The Process” header, he or she is defined as “an external consultant or the Director of Ministry and Faith Development.” So it could be anyone. In theory, the UUA could hire Cardinal Laws as their external consultant. Obviously that would never happen, but the point is that it should never even be a possibility. This person should be a well-credentialed UU who has the trust of both ministers and survivors of UU CSM — and this should be abundantly clear on this page.
The process then continues with yet a third mystery person: the “complainant ‘liaison’” (#8) It does not say who appoints them, what the qualifications are for this job, how they will function, or if the complainant has any say in their choice. In the original 2001 recommendations, an “advocate” for survivors was called for. This was to balance the “Good Offices Person” for an accused minister. I gather a “liaison” is the UUA’s watered-down version of an advocate.
The last few paragraphs actually have some overlap with the MFC policies. It’s surprising that at that this point there isn’t a link to the policies themselves. It’s unlikely that a survivor unfamiliar with the workings of the UUA and MFC would know to look for them.
I wonder why this omission? One possibility is they think them too confusing and so this page is in an attempt to clarify. If so I’d say they have failed utterly — making a grueling and byzantine process even more confusing. Another possibility is that the MFC is accustomed to complainants not having easy access to its policies and thus not questioning them, and so this is a sub-concious attempt to retain this old power over information.
Whatever the reason, the good news is this is the Policies 2.0 age. Not only can you find the MFC’s Policies (www.uua.org/documents/mfc/policies.pdf, Section 19 in particular), but you can find ways to comment on them. For my next post I plan to do just that.