clergy misconduct – Yet Another Unitarian Universalist

Another one

Well, sadly the Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) just sent out another notice of a minister removed from fellowship.

I keep on posting these notices here, just so there’s more of an online record of these events. By posting this, I’m not making any judgement about the minister in question, nor about the MFC’s decision. Since I’m not privy to the facts of the case, there’s no way I could make a judgement. My only purpose in posting this is to hopefully increase transparency just a teeny bit when ministers are removed from fellowship.

Here’s what the email from the MFC said: “The Ministerial Fellowship Committee voted recently to remove the Rev. Kelly Spahr from fellowship for violation of MFC Rule 26, which requires ministers to notify the MFC immediately of any complaint of abuse and/or neglect of a child or any other person brought against the minister, and/or any complaint of domestic violence, harassment or request for a restraining order brought against the minister.”

Of course, the UUA immediately took down Rev. Spahr’s information from the online directory. But the following summary came up when I did a web search, in the summary provided by the search engine: “Ms. Kelly Spahr. Current Positions. 2021 Chaplain Strong Memorial Hospital. 2019 Affiliated Community Minister The First Universalist Church of Rochester … First UU Society of Syracuse Syracuse, NY.” A little more searching showed that Spahr is a Board Certified Chaplain with the Spiritual Care Association, has served as a chaplain with the Rochester (N.Y.) Police Department; inpatient chaplain at Strong Memorial Hospital; outpatient chaplain at the URMC NeuroPalliative Clinic; and has worked in hospice.

Note that Rule 26 doesn’t appear to mean that a minister has engaged in, or been convicted of, abuse, domestic violence, etc.; the rule merely says that a minister must notify the MFC if such a complaint is lodged against them; i.e., even if there’s a false accusation, a minister still has to notify the MFC. This makes sense. But this also makes me realize that I haven’t read the MFC rules in a couple of decades, and if I ever knew about this rule I’ve long since forgotten it. Now I feel ignorant. And it looks like I had better review the MFC rules in the very near future.

Update, 10/23: Another email from the MFC came in at 7:56 yesterday evening: “The Ministerial Fellowship Committee voted recently to remove the Rev. David Kohlmeier from fellowship for egregious violation of the MFC’s rules and UUMA Guidelines, as well as our fundamental Unitarian Universalist values.” Kohlmeier had already been suspended from fellowship in 2022. Online, you can find plenty of news stories about Kohlmeier, but here’s a quick summary: In September, 2022, he was arrested in a sting operation and charged with using social media to solicit sex from minors. In March, 2024, he pleaded guilty to “felony attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child under 16.” To make an obvious point: in this case, the legal facts are clear. Kohlmeier worked at the Falmouth, Mass., UU congregation from 2017 to 2021, and at the Harrisburg, Penna., UU congregation from 2021 t0 September, 2022.

Minister out of fellowship

The Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) just sent an email to congregational leaders saying: “The Ministerial Fellowship Committee voted recently to remove the Rev. Dr. Marian Stewart from fellowship for violating the terms of her probation. These terms were set in 2023 by the Committee based upon a complaint against Rev. Dr. Stewart. Refusal to adhere to those terms violates Rule 21 of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, which requires ministers in fellowship to fully cooperate with the terms of their probation.”

Marian Stewart has already been removed from the online UUA database of professional staff. But her name is not listed on the UUA webpage “UUA Clergy Removed of Resigned from Fellowship with Completed or Pending Misconduct Investigations.” So maybe this is not misconduct? If so, then what’s this all about? Your guess is as good as mine as to why she was removed from fellowship.

Another website says that Stewart is retired from active ministry. So the violation of MFC probation could be anything from she just didn’t bother filling in MFC paperwork (because: retired), to — who knows what.

I understand the desire for transparency has to be balanced with the need for privacy and confidentiality. But somehow this email makes me feel that the balances have tipped well away from transparency in this case.

I also understand how hard it can be to come up with a process that covers all eventualities, so I’m willing to cut the MFC a fair amount of slack. But still, this email feels like it’s aimed at insiders, people who are already in the know — and those like me who are not insiders are left outside wondering what’s going on.

Part of my angst here is that I’ve spent a good part of my career in Unitarian Universalism cleaning up after clergy misconduct (and misconduct by other paid professionals). Clergy misconduct, in my view, thrives in secrecy and ambiguity. Thus when I see ambiguous statements like this one coming from the UUA, it bothers me.

Oh well. Listen to me whining. Heck, lots of things bother me. Just because something bothers me, don’t let it bother you.

How not to handle sexual abuse

This week, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) provided a demonstration of how not to handle sexual abuse claims.

The U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating sexual abuse in the SBC. Two days ago, on March 6, SBC officials told Religion News Service that the DOJ investigation is over:

“‘On February 29, 2024, counsel for the SBC Executive Committee was informed that the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has concluded its investigation into the EC with no further action to be taken,’ Jonathan Howe, Executive Committee interim president and CEO, told Religion News Service in a text….”

The next day, on March 7, abuse survivor Tiffany Thigpen told Religion News Service that the DOJ investigation had not been closed:

“‘The lead investigator from the DOJ concerning this investigation was as surprised as we were by these reports. She answered both Megan [lively, another abuse survivor] and I immediately when we called (separately) and said the investigation is very much open and active,’ Thigpen told Religion News Service in a text….”

The DOJ is unable to comment publicly about ongoing investigations, so they refused to comment to Religion News Service. The fact that they can’t comment is in itself revealing. And on March 7, Baptist Press reported that SBC legal counsel has confirmed that the investigation is ongoing.

Obviously, this is a bone-headed move on the part of SBC leadership. But the rest of us can learn from this. The main takeaway — learn from Yogi Berra that it isn’t over till it’s over. So don’t do any victory laps until it’s actually, really and truly, finally over.

How to report clergy misconduct

According to a Religion News Service article, the Episcopal Church has beefed up its procedures for reporting clergy misconduct:

“A blue ‘Report Misconduct’ button now appears in the top right corner of the Episcopal Church’s homepage. The button leads to an informational page on Title IV with a step-by-step breakdown of Title IV processes involving bishops and a link to report bishops.”

Good for the Episcopal Church for making it easier to report misconduct. Here’s a screenshot showing the blue misconduct button:

Mind you, it’s not perfect. When you view the website on your phone (and half of all web use is now from phones), the blue misconduct button disappears into a menu.

But it’s a heck of a lot better than the UUA website, where it’s quite difficult to figure out how to report misconduct.

Year in review, pt. 2

In part 1, I reviewed the year in U.S. religion. In this second part, I’ll review they year in Unitarian Universalism.

How non-UUs viewed us

Let’s start with how others perceived us this past year. Unitarian Universalists are a tiny, tiny group, but we made the news with four stories this year. I’ll start with the lesser stories, and save the big one for the end.

1. Religion News Service (RNS) covered the annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) back in June, and wrote about two main stories. One story, with the headline “Unitarian Universalism revisits identity, values at 2023 gathering,” talked about the proposed revision to ARticle II of the UUA bylaws. It was the kind of article where you felt the reporter was working pretty hard to make it sound newsworthy. Revising bylaws isn’t going to be of much interest to non-Unitarian Universalists.

2. RNS was much more interested in the fact that the “Unitarian Universalists elect first woman of color, openly queer president,” especially considering the fact that this new president was taking over from the first woman who served as president. They wrote (by my count) four separate articles on this basic story.

Year in review, pt. 1

It’s been an eventful year, both for U.S. organized religion generally, and for Unitarian Universalism in particular. In this post, I’ll start by reviewing some of the key developments in organized religion in the U.S. In a second post, I’ll review some of the explosive developments within Unitarian Universalism.

1. Culture wars and religion

Religion is right at the center of the ongoing escalation of the culture wars in the United States. And the role of religion in the culture wars has gotten more complex than ever. To try to make sense out of it all, I’ll consider some of the culture wars battlegrounds separately.

More alleged misconduct, and a glitch in the notification system

I received an email today signed by Sarah Lammert, the executive secretary of the Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The MFC was notifying congregational leaders that Rev. Stephen Furrer had resigned from fellowship with the UUA rather than face a “Full Fellowship Review…for sexual misconduct.”

Mostly when these emails are sent out, there is just the simple notification that the minister has either resigned from fellowship before charges could be brought, or was removed from fellowship. Unusually, this email added: “The Rev. Furrer served many congregations as a settled or interim minister over more than four decades as a minister. In reviewing his record, it became clear that the Rev. Furrer had a broader pattern of boundary violations which impacted at least four of these congregations in differing degrees.”

Presumably the UUA will contact those four congregations. And perhaps the UUA will contact all the congregations the Furrer served. But there are others of us who might have reasons for wanting to know if Furrer had served a particular congregation — for example, a minister or DRE thinking of accepting a job at a congregation may want to do a little research to see if a congregation has a history of past clergy misconduct (something congregations frequently neglect to tell job applicants). Or, for another example, congregational leaders wondering if Furrer once served a nearby congregation, with possible effects on their own congregation.

So, out of curiosity, I checked the online UUA Directory of professional leaders. Not surprisingly, Furrer’s entry in that directory had already been removed, which is entirely appropriate. However, this leaves us with no official record of his employment history. His own personal website still happens to provide a listing of his ministerial positions up to 2018. That list follows, with my annotations in square brackets []:

1981-1982 Asst. Minister, Berkeley, CA [~~not clear if this is the Berkeley fellowship or the Berkeley church~~ Confirmed this was the Berkeley church]
1983-1987 Settled Minister, West Redding, CT
1987-1988 Interim Minister, Saco, ME
1988-1991 Settled Minister, Vineyard Haven, MA
1991-1993 Interim Minister, Berlin, MA
1993-1999 Settled Minister, East Suburban Pittsburgh, PA [presumably part-time, combined with the following two contract positions:]
1994-1996 Contract Minister, Morgantown, WV
1996-1999 Contract Minister, Indiana, PA
1999-2000 Interim Minister, Binghamton, NY
2000-2009 Settled Minister, Santa Fe, NM
2009-2010 Interim Minister, Santa Monica, CA
2010-2011 Interim Minister, Long Beach, CA
2011-2013 Interim Minister, San Francisco, CA
2013-2014 Interim Minister, Redwood City, CA
2014-2016 Interim Minister, Fullerton, CA
2016-2017 Interim Minister, Rancho Palo Verdes, CA
2017-2018 Interim Minister, Livermore, CA
2018-???? Developmental Minister, Bellevue, WA [a quick glance at their website shows this was through at least 2021]

All this raises an interesting point. The UUA maintains an online list of ministers who have been removed from fellowship, or who have resigned from fellowship pending misconduct investigations. Once they’re out of fellowship, they disappear from the UUA Directory, which is appropriate. But the UUA Directory is the only place where you can find a public list stating which congregations a given minister has served. The unfortunate result is that histories of clergy misconduct may be obscured.

There’s a simple fix. The online list of ministers who have been removed from fellowship, or who have resigned from fellowship pending misconduct investigations, should include a list of where each minister had served, and when.

Oh, and here’s a caveat so I don’t get sued by someone — I have no personal knowledge of this case, and as far as I know this case has not been adjudicated in a court of law. Thus I cannot comment on the truth of the allegations. I’m simply using this case as an example to point out what I consider to be a flaw in the way the UUA reports cases of alleged clergy misconduct.

Update, 12/8: A sentence that got dropped during revision was restored (last sentence, third paragraph); two minor typographical errors fixed.

Why we should follow the URJ’s lead

The Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) is in the middle of a restorative justice effort around various forms of misconduct. They released a message for Yom Kippur this year talking about how they will “make amends for the harms endured by victims/survivors” who have experienced “bullying, harassment, discrimination, sexual misconduct, abuse, and more” in URJ congregations and related programs.

This follows the release and online publication — in full, with no redactions — of a third party investigation into misconduct in the URJ. That report was followed by a restorative justice effort which focused on survivors’ needs. This restorative justice effort began with a written report summarizing a long series of interviews with victims/survivors of misconduct. Additional efforts aimed at meeting the needs of survivors is ongoing through 2023.

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) should follow the URJ’s lead. Just like the URJ, we need a third party to compile as full a report as possible on the decades of misconduct, especially (but not limited to) sexual misconduct, much of it perpetrated by clergy or other persons in power. A UUA report, like the URJ report, needs to name names. And it needs to be published on the UUA website with no redactions.

Then the UUA should follow the URJ’s lead and carry out restorative justice aimed at meeting the needs of victims/survivors. In the past, the UUA’s efforts to address misconduct have, all too often, minimized the impact on the misconductors at the expense of victims/survivors. To give just one example: when Rev. Jason Shelton was disciplined by the Ministerial Fellowship Committee, he was granted the privilege of writing an explanatory email that was sent by the UUA to all UU ministers and congregations; but the alleged victim was not given that privilege.

The UUA took a baby step towards restorative justice when they finally published a chronological list of ministers removed from fellowship. But soon — in a classic example of how the UUA considers the needs and feelings of alleged misconductors more than the needs and feelings of victims/survivors — the UUA changed the list. Now there are two lists on one webpage, one list for ministers removed from fellowship, and one list for the ministers who resigned from fellowship rather than face charges. The message to misconductors is clear — if you get caught, just resign from fellowship, and you get put on the less damning list. And if you resign from fellowship, the Ministerial Fellowship Committee will drop your case and never adjudicate it. Worse yet, from what I’ve seen, male sexual misconductors in particular are carefully protected from having their misdeeds brought to light, while their victims/survivors are tossed to the curb.

I sincerely doubt that anyone in the hierarchy of the UUA (and it is a hierarchy) has the gumption to propose a process like that the URJ has undertaken. For example, can you imagine the UUA publishing a report that names Saint Forrest Church as an alleged sexual misconductor? Neither can I. Patriarchy is still alive and well in the UUA.

As I read the URJ report of their interviews with survivors/victims, this passage stood out for me: “Again and again [the authors of the URJ report say], we heard that the most harmful institutional betrayal is the disjuncture between the direct and indirect harms that occurred despite the stated values the URJ seeks to uphold. One said, ‘You don’t practice what we [in the URJ] preach’…”

I wish we in the UUA would follow the URJ’s lead. Would that we, too, would attempt to practice what we preach.

The UUA really needs to do this

Within the past couple of hours, Religion News Service has posted an article titled “Reform movement publishes extensive report on sexual misconduct in its youth programs.” The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) commissioned an outside law firm to investigate sexual misconduct in their movement’s youth programs and summer camps over the past half century. Then URJ published the report in its entirety, with no redactions whatsoever, on their website.

I’m impressed that URJ has both commissioned this investigation, and that they’re being completely open and transparent about the results. Really impressed. Really, really impressed. Mind you, this investigation didn’t extend to individual congregations; that would have been a much more difficult task. Nevertheless, by commissioning this investigation, the URJ has set the standard for individual congregations.

It’s time for the Unitarian Universalist Association to commission a similar investigation into our denominational youth ministries. I was very active in denominational youth activities in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and I heard enough stories back then to make me think that an investigation would turn up more sexual misconduct than anyone would feel comfortable with.

If the UUA were to commission a law firm to carry out this kind of investigation, what should we look for? We should look for exactly what the URJ looked for: sexual misconduct by adults (anyone over age 18) against minors (anyone under age 18); sexual misconduct between minors; and sexual misconduct between adults at youth activities. As I look back 50 years to 1972, at a minimum the following programs should be investigated: “ConCon,” the former continental youth conference; district youth conferences; and any other programs or summer camps run by Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) or its successor Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU).

The UUA doesn’t have a great track record of investigating and publicly admitting the sexual misconduct that’s happened in our denomination. This is a grand opportunity for us to do the right thing. I hope our denominational leaders will follow the shining lead of the Reform Jews.

Transparency, part three

The Ministerial Fellowship Committee (MFC) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is making a big step towards transparency. According to an email I just received, the MFC will publish a list of all ministers who have been removed from fellowship:

“In the past, the UUA relied on the UU World Magazine’s Milestones section as the most transparent way to list ministers removed from Fellowship. The UU World is only published twice a year at this time, and it is impractical to search the archives of the magazine for this information. Therefore, the UUA will soon publish a compiled list on its website.”

This email was signed by the two co-chairs of the MFC, Rev. Jackie Clement and Rev. Dr. Rebekah Savage. Given how understaffed the UUA is these days, no doubt it will take a little time for the list to actually make it up on the UUA website. Nevertheless, this decision is a big step towards transparency.

The email, by the way, goes on to give a primer in congregational polity: “only congregations have the right to ordain ministers, and thus the MFC does not have the power to remove ordination, or even to force a minister to resign from a position if a congregation does not vote removal or termination.” In other words, if someone’s congregation wants to keep a minister who has been removed from fellowship by the MFC, they have every right to do so — but now it’ll be harder to hide the fact that their minister has violated the ethical standards of the UUA.