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the Infamous Brad ([identity profile] bradhicks.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] kallistii 2007-06-07 11:44 pm (UTC)

Honestly, as someone who was more or less there when CUUPS began, I've never thought that it was a good fit. And the local Unitarian churches both threw out CUUPS years ago. Come on, I think we all know what the issues are here. One is that Pagans, having their own issues that preclude them from any kind of organizational structure secure enough to build real churches or temples of their own were, frankly, parasitic on the UUs. It got to be a real hot-button issue in the local UU congregations that the Pagans expected preferential access to the church property while not actually donating anything to the church or attending (in all but the smallest numbers) any of the church's non-Pagan events. Nor is that at all surprising; the level of "fit" between the historical theology of Neopagan Witchcraft and the historical theology of the UUA is pretty loose, at best.

Pagans can have temples any time they're willing to organize their own church-buying, church-sustaining organizations, commit the necessary financial resources, and buy their own churches. Your average new church gets started by fewer than 10 wage earners, 4 to 6 of them taking out second mortgages to raise the down payment and all 10 or so of them pledging 1% to 2% of their gross income to cover the payments. All that stops Pagans from doing so is lack of will and lack of trust in each other. Trying to short-circuit that progress by parasitising other bodies, up to and including attempts to take them over from within, are neither ethical nor helpful.

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