tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post6300434362741265030..comments2024-02-15T03:32:25.686-05:00Comments on Preludium, Anglican and Episcopal futures: Re-revised UTO Bylaws again.Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-16938056502830805002014-02-23T16:39:25.743-05:002014-02-23T16:39:25.743-05:00Grace E. Henderson
UTO is alive and well. We a...Grace E. Henderson<br /><br /> UTO is alive and well. We are still what and who we are/were: a group of women AND men AND youth who are fairly quietly going about God's work and trying to spread His love. As Desmond Tutu said: "We are all missionaries or we are nothing"<br /> The by-laws recently agreed upon and signed by DFMS and UTO do not hurt in any way the esteemed ECW and the granting process for mission is still finalized and determined by the UTO Board.<br /> All is well. Come join us. We need you and welcome you.<br />Grace Henderson, Province VII UTO Co-ordinatorGrace Hendersonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-20678585934463490442014-02-05T11:47:04.361-05:002014-02-05T11:47:04.361-05:00Thanks for your - as usual - calm and reasoned rev...Thanks for your - as usual - calm and reasoned review of the UTO by-laws issue. Let me expand on one aspect. You write:<br /><br />"UTO is about prayer and response. If it is clear about that it cannot go wrong."<br /> <br />This statement is fine as far as it goes; but the UTO is also about decades of attempts to harness the energies of independent churchwomen in the service of the (still very male-dominated despite the current Presiding Officers) centralized bureaucracy of the Church. <br /><br />St Cecelia's book group in my parish scheduled a discussion of New Wine(1994) this spring, and I decided I'd better re-read it. No surprise: much has NOT changed in the 20 years since it was written. <br /><br />Efforts to wrest control of the money raised by the Woman's Auxiliary haven't ceased since the UTO began in 1889. For half a century, adroit maneuvering by the self-effacing Julia Chester Emery resisted takeover with the coded double-speak of submission. What she could not do was re-balance the gendered power differential built into the church's structures, to an even greater extent than in the surrounding culture.<br /><br />The current conflict over the UTO by-laws is the latest iteration of our struggle to understand the connections between gender and power, brought into acute focus by the pressure of the almighty dollar. <br /><br />In our lifetimes, the Episcopal Church has opened women's access to leadership positions and the ordained ministry, but such access is by no means uniform throughout the church. It may be at least another generation before we see the full effects of gender balance on church structures and financial decision-making. <br /><br />Until the mid-20th century, the Woman's Auxiliary was a sort of "shadow church," with parish and diocesan chapters linked by a national office which provided guidance and resources. This was not so different from the pattern of the rest of the church. But the informal links between the two were strained by the gradual centralization of the bureaucracy. <br /><br />By 1970, with women finally seated in the House of Deputies and women's ordination under serious consideration, the Woman's Auxiliary was abruptly transformed into a General Division of Women's Work within the National/Executive Council structure. Soon it became the Division of Lay Ministry (directed by an ordained man), before disappearing altogether. <br /><br />The Auxiliary tried to reconstitute itself as the Episcopal Church Women, with uneven results. It retained the UTO Committee which determined where the money went, but the UTO office was located within the Church Center. This very unstable arrangement could not last forever -- hence the current conflict.<br /><br />Pamela W DarlingPamela W Darlingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-45329986106948874792014-02-05T10:40:05.616-05:002014-02-05T10:40:05.616-05:00Mark, your words on the UTO/DFMS collision remind ...Mark, your words on the UTO/DFMS collision remind me of a true story. Some years ago, when the brutal civil war in El Salvador was at its height and Washington, D.C., was filled with Salvadoran refugees, most of them undocumented, a group of parishioners at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church (of which I am a long-time member), formed a group they called the Plumb Line. They began to minister among the local Salvadorans. The then-rector said that the situation in El Salvador was desperate and they should add ministering to that need to their mission. The group said they shared the rector's concern about El Salvador, but that was not their mission. The rector said he was in charge, and if the Plumb Line was to exist, it must add El Salvador to their work. The Plumb Line disbanded. End of story. My read is that the Spirit blows where she will.William R. MacKayehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12670282274116180897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-41200662407869289482014-02-05T09:14:45.918-05:002014-02-05T09:14:45.918-05:00You are, as always, poetic - the language of the p...You are, as always, poetic - the language of the prophets - but I fear I find your words about the UTO bylaws not so much prophetic as they are fatalistic. <br /><br />UTO has lost the battle for interdependence to 815. The proof is in the bylaws. It is now simply a marketing tool for whatever mission 815 determines. It's a huge loss, one that I grieve. <br /><br />I have no doubt that UTO will live on - at least in name - but it will not be the same and more's the pity. It will not be an Offering in which we are all United in Thanks. Rather, it will be akin to ERD - just another fundraising arm of the church. <br /><br />Perhaps, in time, the next generation which does not know and may not care about the history of UTO will not see the significance of this moment. <br /><br />Who would have thought that the prophetic action in 1974 would eventually lead to the death of the UTO as a women's interdependent organization which supported and funded - and, in many ways, determined - the mission of the church? Or, that the action would have happened on the watches of a woman PB and a woman POHOD. <br /><br />There's a painful irony. Elizabeth Kaetonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06787552280232329081noreply@blogger.com