by L Citizen
It seems to me that it would be so useful to have a national conversation about problem-solving. What is problem-solving?
It has become abundantly clear over the past couple of years that lying as a way of managing problems is a relatively common American custom. Unfortunately, lying is the problem-solving strategy of Rev. Kukuk, Rev. Sohl and Ashland United Church of Christ. As of 2016, Ashland UCC lies as policy.
Maybe lying is not the best problem-solving strategy.
Lies lead and guide this once decent church. Now they are a church that cares nothing for the teachings of Christ, or their neighbors. They are a church of separation and enemy making, followed by make-believe. Like a group of children they gather and proclaim that they are a welcoming community, mounds of facts and evidence to the contrary.
Ashland UCC has created a new website, which states prominently across the home page the church mottos: “All Are Welcome! No matter who, no matter what, no matter where you are on life’s journey, you are invited and welcome”.
And yet their mottos go directly against their exclusionary behaviors and policies. They have obviously decided that keeping the long proclaimed messages would be the most profitable way to spin, aggressively amputating and banishing members from the community.
Look at the words; “no matter what” and yet Daniel and I are not welcome there. We have been declared trespassers for reasons still not explained to us. Rev. Kukuk can’t talk about her outrage to the people she is so afraid of. She can only slander us behind our backs. So the constantly repeated motto, “All are Welcome”, is a lie. “No matter who, no matter what”, are also lies.
I’m sure if you have spoken to Christina she has accused us of all sorts of beastly crimes. She says whatever she needs to say to get people to line up behind her. She clearly has no shame about her continuous deceit. Whatever she says about us, she is lying. Neither Daniel nor I have done anything worthy of banishment. We have committed no crimes. We were once loyal volunteers.
At this point, the only reason Christina Kukuk is still employed as a minister at a UCC is that she has received so much support for all her deceitful corruption of the church. Not only the congregation but “Rev. Molly”, acting as the Conference Minister, reportedly spoke to Christina and declared her righteous. Predictably, Rev. Molly’s completely one-sided inquiry into the conflict at Ashland UCC left her with a completely one-sided, erroneous, opinion. From what I have gathered from my limited experience of Rev. Molly, she is far too incompetent to wield ethical power over the Central Pacific Conference. I could be wrong about her and hope that I am.
However, Rev. Molly’s support of Rev. Kukuk’s lies is a key factor in why Christina remains employed as a minister at Ashland UCC. It would appear that Rev. Molly supports the Ashland UCC website entirely misrepresenting what Rev. Kukuk’s ministry in Ashland has accomplished since she arrived in January 2016.
During Rev. Kukuk’s short ministry, she has amputated at least two members from the Body of Christ, annihilating two baptismal covenants with the church. Defying Jesus’ teachings to love one another. Paula Sohl and Rev. Kukuk encouraged the council and congregation as a whole, to rely on them for all information and to stop communicating to Daniel and me, while simultaneously spreading lies and gossip about us. Old fashioned shunning in 2016, continuing to this day (4.10.18). Gossip and fear has been preached and encouraged from the pulpit and everywhere else on church property. At least 300 relationships have been severed. All dishonestly.
The front page of the UCC website states:
"Central to our faith is our belief that Christ calls us to participate in God’s reign of justice, peace, and compassion on earth. We seek to live out an inclusive vision in which all may participate…”.
I suppose we can only assume that their faith and their words hold no actual value whatsoever. As I have stated elsewhere on this site, the mutilation of language is Rev. Kukuk’s most utilized tool to manipulate her congregants. With her church website, she hopes to lure more people of faith into her hollow church, under entirely false pretenses.
Also, the official website would have you believe:
“Our Minister Christina Kukuk and Associate Minister Paula Sohl together create an atmosphere of nurturing kindness within which to explore the mysteries of God each Sunday morning”.
Nurturing kindness is the exact opposite of the atmosphere created by Christina Kukuk, from the moment she arrived in town. What both ministers now do, is lie in the name of Christ to enrich their own status and bank accounts. Both ministers actually embody what Jesus railed against, religious hypocrisy.
Most deeply disconcerting is that those who remain in the congregation know they are lying. Many in the congregation witnessed our ritualized scapegoating and dirty amputation from community. All people listed in the church directory have had the opportunity to see this site. The lies are laid bare, clearly stated, there are even recorded lies posted for review. Yet the official new website is strewn with false statements, as if the people of Ashland UCC have not participated in banishing members. Somehow the people I used to think of as my church family have accepted that viciously amputating members and banishing them from “community”, while still proclaiming “All are Welcome”, equals “justice, peace and compassion”. Or at least it is fine to pretend as much.
I am horrified by the people I used to consider community. Horrified that they worship such nonsense and in fact are paying top dollar to help their church devolve. Ashland UCC is a potent little example of the devolution that appears to have taken hold of the whole nation, lies are everywhere, powers are corrupt, “news” is all suspect, citizens just go along, pretending it’s all fine. Where is the justice? Where is the compassion?
I just finished reading Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown. Here is an excerpt that speaks directly to the sickness at Ashland UCC:
“When a group or community doesn’t tolerate dissent and disagreement, it forgoes any experience of inextricable connection. There is no true belonging, only an unspoken treaty to hate the same people. This fuels our spiritual crisis of disconnection.
So just as profoundly as collective experiences move us, it is clear that not all of these moments are created equal. When a collective comes together at the expense of others — for example, to bond over the devolution or debasing of another person or groups of people or to bond despite this — it does not heal the spiritual crisis of disconnection. In fact, it does quite the opposite by feeding it. It is not true collective joy if it’s at the expense of others, and it is not true collective pain if it causes others pain. When soccer fans yell racist taunts at players or when people gather to hate for any reason the practices of true belonging and inextricable connection are immediately voided and bankrupted.” (pg.137)
Ashland United Church of Christ is morally bankrupt and the new website has not improved the situation. Solving their problems of integrity with more lies in the form of advertising is not sound problem-solving. Truth matters, whether people at Ashland UCC are willing to admit it to themselves or not.
Here is a quote from Dr. Jordan Peterson’s deeply intelligent new book: 12 Rules for Life - An Antidote to Chaos:
“When the lies get big enough, the whole world spoils. But if you look close enough, the biggest of lies is composed of smaller lies, and those are composed of still smaller lies— and the smallest of lies is where the big lies start. It is not the mere misstatement of fact. It is instead an act that has the aspect of the most serious conspiracy ever to possess the race of man. Its seeming innocuousness, its trivial meanness, the feeble arrogance that gives rise to it, the apparently trivial circumventing of responsibility that it aims at—these all work effectively to camouflage its true nature, its genuine dangerousness, and its equivalence with the great act of evil that man perpetrates and often enjoys. Lies corrupt the world. Worse, that is their intent.” (pg. 229)
Ashland UCC chose corruption through lies, they are now spiritually and morally bankrupt. As a way of solving their problem, they have taken up advertising as their new technique in making believe. Making believe is not a good strategy for problem-solving. The behavior of Rev. Kukuk and Ashland UCC has gone directly against basic human decency and the teachings of Christ. Do they really believe that more far-reaching lies will solve their current problems? They might. It does seem to work sometimes.
It was so appropriate that Easter fell on April Fools Day this year. The church has chosen cheap, childish tricks in place of the real work of Easter, in it’s foolish attempt at passing for a progressive Christian church in 2018. It is profoundly sad, but the false front of Ashland UCC is what devolution of the sacred looks like.