My disappointment in Richard Schaeff...

A number of months back, I had an interaction with a man I did not know well from the church, Richard Schaeff. He had been a supporter of my music, for which I had a lot of gratitude. I had suspected he might be someone who could understand how poorly the situation at the church had been handled and possibly offer some kind of support. He has been connected with Ashland’s “Culture Of Peace” commission, which has a mission, I believe, of fostering healthy community interaction. I had reached out to him in the midst of the crisis and had gotten an alarmingly tone deaf response. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that if he took the time, he might understand our point of view about what had happened at the church better than others had.  

By the time the church had removed us and banned us from the property, there was plenty of tension between us and members of the church community in public interactions. Often, church members would want to act as if nothing at all had happened, that it had nothing to do with them. This was infuriating. It still is. Everyone who goes to that church is responsible for what happened. Along with the privilege of belonging to a church that claims “all are welcome” comes the responsibility of making sure that such a claim is at all times true, at least to the best of your abilities. You can't ever mouth the platitude, " We are all connected", without recognizing when we aren't, and that you have some role in it, and that you are going to take some responsibility for doing something about it. You can’t separate the right to claim you are kind and just from the responsibility to, in fact, be kind and just.  

After one tense exchange with Richard at a local coffee shop, I sent him an email to explain why I thought he might want to talk to me about what had happened at the church. The emails went back and forth a bit, but he eventually agreed to meet. He was one of the only people from the church who actually agreed to talk about what happened. 

And it was an amazingly good conversation. He asked good questions. He listened. He seemed to be tracking what went wrong. He was relieved, he said, because he thought my email was “aggressive”.  Why is speaking the truth, or at least attempting to do so, to the best of your ability, considered “aggressive”? 

I will leave that for another day. For now, I am expessing my disappointment in Richard, who I considered to be a friend, at least someone who was representing themselves as open to dialogue and supportive of the idea of people getting along. He signed John Love’s letter. Why he decided to do that remains a mystery to me. It is best, then, if I share my most recent communication with him.  

“Dear Rich,

Recently someone sent to us the letter composed by John Love which you signed in support.

The last interaction you and I had was a very respectful conversation in which you seemed to understand how poorly we had been treated by the church leadership from the very beginning of the conflict. You asked questions. You listened. And you admitted that you were afraid to have the conversation but that you were grateful that we were able to talk and get a better understanding of the way things came off the rails at the church. I admired your courage and appreciated you deeply for being willing to talk.

Since that last interaction is the last impression I had of you, it especially disappoints me that you took the action of supporting John’s lies in that letter. And if you have any doubt about the lying nature of the letter, I will start with this: I don’t understand, first of all, why you wouldn’t rely on a proven personal connection you have with me to at least attempt to find out the truth.

Here is a problem that you  need to consider:

The church leadership, with John Love being the latest example, seems to have decided, from the very beginning, that any attempt that we make to tell the truth about what has happened, should be interpreted as an existential attack. And the method that the Church has used to defend itself against what it interprets as an attack is to characterize us dishonestly - to attack our character in response.

This is turning out to be the stupidest possible way to approach this conflict. The truth should be your friend. Instead, because the church is choosing to stand truth on it’s head, everyone is getting turned upside down in the process.

I must tell you: this is not going to end well for the church. And please don’t engage in the same hysteria that your fellow church members are engaging in and consider what I have just said as a threat. It is in no way a threat. It is simply a function of natural consequences. The church can’t keep lying about us and expect a good outcome. It is as simple as that.

I will let L respond as she sees fit. But to put the problem of John’s letter in the most succinct possible form, I would ask you a simple question based on the following hypothetical scenario:

You publicly lie about someone behind their back. The effect is malicious; there are obvious consequences to those lies. It separates them from their community; it confuses everyone and turns them against the person you have singled out. Then you see this person on the street and act as if nothing happened. In what universe would you expect that person NOT to confront you, and ask you questions about what you did, to express themselves completely forthrightly about what they think of you?

In what world would you expect a person to be  maligned so publicly and dishonestly and NOT respond to the perpetrator of that action in a dramatic way when she encounters them?

The level of betrayal we are speaking about here is almost incalculable. The church had a responsibility to live up to it’s claims to be connected with The Word. It has been failing that responsibility for a solid two years now.

John’s message is rousing everyone to “stand against hate”. This is twisting the truth in the worst possible way. It is empty calories, brother. Everyone gets to feel righteous, but they accomplish nothing. All of you will continue to accomplish nothing until you decide to take responsibility for all the facts of the matter.  

The people at Ashland UCC seem to think that they live in some sort of infinitely protected space, beyond the bounds of the absolutely inevitable and natural consequences of their dishonest behavior. I invite you to join the real world, Richard. This is not how life works. You can’t engage in continuous public lying, which is what the church has done, and expect that things will go well for you.

This week we went beyond 400 unique visitors to our site ashlanducckarma.info. It appears that many more people than those who are regularly attending your church are interested in finding out what is actually going on there. Perhaps they are not interested, so much, in the incredibly convoluted, slimy innuendos that the church has to offer, but have greater interest in some kind of clear narrative, based on actual documents, that spell out the months of denial, suppression, intimidation and dishonesty that led us to where we are today.

That is a good thing, because the more people understand how badly the leadership of the Ashland UCC is swindling it’s congregation, the better off the whole world will be.

I took you for someone who could have an honest conversation. You have disappointed  me. I believe you are better than this behavior suggests, but this whole episode has taught me some truths about human behavior that are not encouraging. The force that is most redeeming though, is the force of truth, of Logos. We are not interested in equivocation, friend. We are not going to buy any false arguments, so you should disengage from trying to sell them.

We’ll stand by our story, and continue to tell it. If you want to talk, let me know. In the interest of transparency, I am posting all my communications about these issues to our blog and that will continue to be our practice.

Wishing you better than all this,

Daniel

John Love's Letter to....??

We have now seen a letter, written apparently by John Love, the Moderator of the Council, or at least signed by him, but also signed by a number of members of the church. I am putting a link to it here. 

As I see it, this communication doesn't really substantially change anything. The members of the church signing this letter don't really want to change anything. The narrative continues to be untrue, not reflective of the facts, and cold; unmindful of the supposedly warm connections that many of these people claimed to have had with us. Our names are not mentioned. We are not human to the whole list of people with names who put their signature to this strange document, just two absolutely horrible creatures that appear like apparitions in their minds eye, not worthy of naming. It is truly bizarre the lengths to which people will go in their minds to justify really crazy things when they feel something about their world is being threatened.

I understand the irrational reaction. We are just going to stay on the case of stating the truth as we know it. It is definitely the best course for us under the circumstances. If anyone wants this horrible situation to change, there are things that can be done, constructive things, but this particular response isn't at all one of them.

I'll address a few of the things John wrote. "Each time a member of our community yields to expressions of hatred, our community is weakened"....

I think the spirit of this is "Stand up to hatred!". This is a popular meme these days. If you are upset, you are hating on someone. This really blurs the truth of what is happening.

A great deal of what John has put in the letter is just an attempt to continue to attack us and to obscure the questions that arise out of what actually happened. He starts with the erroneous story about what happened, which, as the legend has grown, involves two batshit crazy people who just wouldn't stop verbally abusing people every chance they got. This is just an insane story. It hasn't anything to do with the actual facts. I know it helps justify the sense of victimization that all of these folks want to participate in. It is much harder to take responsibility for what you have done, and much easier to wallow in self pity and claims of harm. But the story is just incorrect. Not even close to true. 

John wants to specifically defend Rev. Christina Kukuk in his message. He is trying to somehow relieve her of any responsibility for scapegoating us. I'll be happy to allow that all of the Council and other members of the church scapegoated us. Separating Christina from that process is ridiculous. We know what she said. We know how she behaved. We have documented all the communications. The evidence is substantial. John can use words that sound like he is self-righteously fending off a merciless attacker, but the mess that the church is in is the mess that the church created for itself. And there is no doubt about how their fearless leaders - all of them - participated. John may feel personally appalled at the idea that we would provide evidence on the site of Christina's dishonesty, but this is what happens when you are deceiving yourself. You think, "Of all the things! How could they possibly say this?!"

It would be much more helpful for everyone concerned if each person could admit that you, me, and every one of the other humans we are walking around with are all capable of terrible behavior, terrible thoughts, deviating into tyrannical controlling behavior because they are trying to protect something. It happens all the time, and it happened at the church. It is not the crime of the century. It is just that we became the villains in this saga, when we really were never the villains. We are still two people who were their friends, who served in the best way we knew how, and could see that things were not right and kept trying to say something about it.

That is what we are still doing. It's not hate, guys. You should come down off your high horse where you feel like the biggest victims in the universe and recognize that it will take better action than this to reach something like equilibrium. 

Removing Christina as Pastor would be a very good thing, in our opinion. It is not the answer to the whole of the mess, but it would be a good start. It is hard to see how anything much will change without that, because everyone is so very heavily invested in defending her that no one can see straight. 

But I feel the weight of John's message. I see the names of the people who have decided to sign the letter. There are, as we all know, many times in life, where large groups of people are wrong. This is just mob hysteria. This large group of people is wrong. It is not the end of the world. Things can change. But some very simple basic things need to be admitted. Even if you don't like the fact that we have been disoriented, angry, stunned, shocked, hurt, confused and not always completely and totally eloquent, you could acknowledge that we are being tarred and feathered for no actual good reason. The claims that John makes in his letter just don't add up. I don't even need to mount a big defense. The spirit of evasion and victimhood that the leadership has decided to adopt remains. They aren't victims of anything they haven't brought on by their own actions. 

I'll leave it there for now. There will be more. Because it is all a lot to unpack. I understand that apparently no one has been able to come up with anything more responsible, or productive. I expect eventually that may change. The whole congregation is riding an aging, sad, faltering horse.

Sarah Esquerra responds....

As has been the case since the site was launched, some people have responded without much thought, or clear intent to communicate in a real way. One response we just got is from some one who apparently goes to the church, and had this to say:

"Work your program. Let go and let God. This isn't healthy."

To me, this is worthy of a response, so I will share what I am sending to Sarah. Our aim is to communicate, not pretend that we know things we do not, to spout platitudes or claim things without any sort of backing for our claims at all. 

" Dear Sarah,

We appreciate your intention to communicate. Giving you the very best possible benefit of the doubt, by making the assumption that you want the best for us, then I might further assume that you know that we are not "working our program". This is your first injunction, in the message you recently sent.

Let's back up. We don't know you and you don't know us. I don't think there is any way that you know whether we are "working our program", other than something you might have decided you think you know from reading the site. Your response is so brief and without reflection, it is hard to believe that you have actually read the site. 

Still, here is a little bit of my program, so you can feel more confident that I am "working my program". And I can say that L shares these ideas with me.

I take "Higher Power" to have something to do with truth, or to be more precise, with the gift we have been given to speak words that are as close to something we might be able to rely on as possible. 

This shouldn't be a great stretch for you, since the The Word, or Logos, is actually identified with the Second Person of the Trinity, that is, Jesus Christ. We are speaking of the principle of Divine Reason, or creative order. 

We are attempting to make order out of a very, very disordered and chaotic situation.

That is our program, and we are working it.

You suggest that we "Let go and let God". I think your implication is that if there is some wrong that has taken place, we should just let go of that. As you can see from what I have raised earlier in regard to the principle of Divine Order, this "letting go" would be contrary to the spirit of our program. 

On the contrary, by continuing to consider this situation deeply ( more deeply than you, I believe), we are continually, every day, "letting go and letting God", in truth. We let go of the need for perfection, and we relish in the power of words that come through us to attempt in our own way to bring greater order to this terrible and tragic situation. And we will engage with you in further conversation, if you are interested. 

So you finish your brief message with "This is not healthy". 

How so? We have nothing from you as to why you make this claim. You appear to speak from a position of great knowledge, superior knowledge. Please, rain your wisdom upon us. What is not healthy about the sharing of information that will shine a light on the hypocrisy at the Ashland UCC Church?

Feel free to engage. But please make sure to have something of consequence to bring to the conversation. None of what you wrote is either applicable, or makes much sense, as you have written it. 

I have posted your message and my response on our blog, as is our custom.

Thank you,

Daniel"

We'll continue to keep everyone up to date on any dialogue with folks who are interacting with the site.

We are over 300 unique visitors....

A  very cool feature of this Squarespace site is that it provides analytics to help us track the traffic to the site.

Our purpose is to publish valuable information. We want to provide information for folks associated with the church who for the most part have been served up steaming piles of things that aren't true about the leadership of the church and about us. We also want to provide information to others who are thinking about going to the church and need a reference point for what is actually true about the church. And we want to serve people who have had similar horrible experiences with double-talk and malfeasance in other "spiritual" communities.

So far, both L and I are very pleased with the readership. The page views are in the thousands. We know folks who have literally read the whole site, all the way through. That is really encouraging.

We are committed to updating our audience with new information as the overall situation develops. I will be writing two more posts today, one in response to a response we had before - as I have in the past - and another related to newer developments at the church that may be significant. I have no idea how significant they are, but I will share what we know and maybe others will have feedback.

For now, as we enter 2018, we are tremendously grateful for the opportunity to create this platform, and very grateful, as well, to everyone else who has registered support or has contributed in any way. My best wishes to all people of good heart who are visiting here, for an honest and courageous new year of 2018!

Our friend, Marie, has some thoughts...

In the "Documents" section of the site, you'll find a sermon that Marie gave at the church, the very last time we were there. It was on the topic of "The Herd Mentality", an amazing sermon. It left me with many new understandings about how we organize ourselves more for comfort than for growth. I highly recommend having a look at it. In the mean time, Marie sent us a note about her own journey with the Ashland UCC. I am sharing that here:

A letter from the Reverend Marie Bat’el:

What a perfect time to talk about Jesus and what he came to teach us. Ahhh. 

I want to echo something Daniel has said in his opening remarks for this website’s Community page: Why should you care what the Reverend Marie Bat’el has to say? Why should you believe anything she has to say when there are so many, NUMBERS of people, who have come to the defense of this church and their leadership. I hope you will read what I have to say and take it into your heart. Whenever we stand on the side of what is right no matter what the cost, Love is exponentially infused into the cosmos. No one of us can do this perfectly. This circumstance is looking for those who might make a decision for justice.

As a Christian minister, I follow the example of Jesus of Nazareth who many called the Christ to the best of my ability like every other well-meaning Christian. In later years as I look at the Christian story (which really started out as a Jewish story because the characters, including Jesus,  were devout Jews) I see different nuances. The one thing that sticks out is that the people in power (the religious leaders) wanted Jesus to BE QUIET AND GO AWAY. As current events are evidencing, many of us are kind of tired with the BE QUIET AND GO AWAY manner of being. Jesus was bringing to light ways in which the perception of a loving, benevolent God was skewed towards a punitive God who respected some over others. He was encouraging all to lay down their image in the COMMUNITY (which included the Roman government) and stand against systemic oppression. The only thing that is kinda cool about systemic oppression, is that in some ways we can’t hold one particular individual accountable. It is a system that has been created and maintained since the beginning of time. We are born into it and it is only in our evolution that we are able to grow out of it. Part of the growing out of it, is speaking up, no matter the cost, when we see an injustice. Even an injustice that we are guilty of; otherwise known as confession, making amends, promptly admitting when we were wrong.

Now, I wasn’t a fly on the wall when all the events that L and Daniel have so carefully laid out happened. This is true. However, I attended this church and was in fact, in care with this church throughout my time in seminary. There are those of us who can spot power differentials right away. I could see that folks who invested in bringing this dying church back to life are always on the church council, the moderators, the head of building and grounds, etc. And if you happen to get on the good side of them you’re in! You get what I mean. The thing is, that is not Christ-like. We LAY DOWN our lives (in modern times; our pride and ego) for our brothers and sisters. It is pride and ego that holds on to those positions of power. But nonetheless, I had some amazingly wonderful experiences in this community. Then something happened that pissed me off…

My advisor with our regional conference told me that if I wanted to be considered for the pastorate at Ashland UCC, I would have to get on the good side of the retired Reverend Dorothy Brooks. There it was. Do you see it? WHY would I have to get on the good side of anybody other than the God that we say we are gathering in the name of, the name that is contained in the title on the sign out front! I quickly, being from the east coast and this having gotten my Boston up, responded, “First of all, I don’t even know how I got on the bad side of Dorothy Brooks but I won’t be TRYING to get on the good side of anyone.” Oooh. It still rankles me to this day. In my own defense, one of the church council members, after a sermon I gave before going to seminary, said that maybe Pastor Pam would be retiring when I graduated from seminary and I could be their pastor. I was beloved by many in this community. Dorothy Brooks never gave me the time of day. Which was fine with me. We all find our tribe. 

I believe Jesus when he showed me the example of God being “no respecter of persons” (Rom. 2:11). Jesus hung out with the “other;” those that were considered unclean by the religious leaders. He drank out of the jar of the “unclean” Samaritan woman. Jesus kept speaking up to the religious leaders no matter how mad they got. And they tried to turn the people against him and gaslight him. Many of you reading this may not fully understand that a church MUST look differently than other institutions. We MUST NOT fall prey to the abuses of power that exist in all the other institutions. The Ashland UCC had such a beautiful opportunity to send the energy of love and righteousness out into the cosmos with this circumstance with L and Daniel. They failed, miserably. I watched how leaders and others in the church maligned L in front of others, newcomers who didn’t even know L and Daniel. I watched the pastor engender sympathy from the congregation, setting herself up as a victim and someone who needed to be defended and protected. I watched people, like Peter, the friend of Jesus, deny L and Daniel’s truth. I saw herd mentality right before my very eyes. 

Now, coming back to systemic oppressions. Jesus said that narrow was the Way to the Kingdom of Heaven. Many don’t see the things I am talking about, that L and Daniel are talking about. Others, have a vested interested in squashing out the truth to hold on to their power, pride and ego. Some, saw the egregious happenings, spoke out to no avail and left the church. They could not support this kind of behavior. I speak out not in anger. I speak out because we are called to speak truth to power.

The Ashland UCC is holding itself up as a champion of social justice. If you have no love, none of the works you do will matter at all (1 Cor. 13:2). There was a HUGE lack of love in this situation. Fear, pride, and ego won the day in this one battle. It is not easy for me to write publicly about this for there are some who may seek to use it against me. I am laying down my proverbial life for my sister and my brother. They were wronged and they have been slandered. L has been gaslighted because she has not hidden her anger, her pain, as a result of this event. She refuses to just ‘let it go.’ It is interesting that someone who attends the church and has embarked upon a mission of uncovering the truths about child sexual abuse, suggested to L that she ‘let it go.’ As if one injustice outweighs the other and deserves attention. God is no respecter of injustices. This was her community for six years. She baked the communion bread every month. She should just ‘let it go?’

Just as we see a lack of justice in the centuries of oppression in the black community coming out sideways in the form of anger and death, L showed us in our little community what injustice gone unresolved looks like. She didn’t hide the ugly truth and try to stuff it down. She wants justice. She is crying out for justice just like so many others on this planet. This is a micro example of what the abuse of power does to a human being. Don’t put a Black Lives Matter sign out in front of your house or attend your Racial Equity Coalition meetings or your Peace Commission meetings if you can’t stand up to the abuse of power right in your own community where YOU DO have power. There are only base incremental victories to be had in the macro issues that we are dealing with in our world, but let us not fall down when given an opportunity right in our own backyard.

A message from Dara....

This morning, we got the first official response to the site, through the contact form on the site. It was from a woman that L knows, who has gone to Ashland UCC, but was not around for the most part, when all of this was going on. L was stunned by the message and she called me over to read it to me, in tears. I know that very few people have any idea what L has gone through over all of this. Her passion for the idea of "beloved community" and her belief that this is what existed at the UCC was so thoroughly crushed by the many bizarre actions that people in the community took. Let's read what Dara had to say. It is a remarkable message...

"As a member of the UCC Church in Ashland who has become so incredibly busy in her professional life that she's not had enough time to attend the church in way too long, I was absolutely shocked to learn what had happened to you, L., and to Daniel! 

When I'd last attended the church, you were such a long-time, devoted member and so full of loving, beaming outreach to me and to everyone else I'd witnessed about you. You were a light and an inspiration for ACTIVE Christianity, and I admired that you walked the talk, serving on committees and contributing your time and energy to the congregation and community. I even remember being so amazed that "someone" in the church was actually baking the beautiful, tasty communion bread--and that it was you! Wow!

While we didn't yet have the opportunity to spend time together outside of the church, we both attended church activities, such as the Women's Retreat, and to me, you were a symbol of what was good and honest about this special place. You were someone with integrity all about you. You had just begun your relationship with Daniel before I got so busy I could no longer attend regularly, and I was thrilled for you both. I had enjoyed Daniel's music in the park so much, and it just made magical, mystical sense that you two had connected and become a team. Hurray! 

And then I received the group email that Daniel sent out about what had happened to you both at the church---and I was stunned! You, of all people, were being singled out for rejection?? No way! WTF?! I asked to be filled in, and I have to say that my jaw has not come up from the floor ever since. Each and every step of this just blows my mind, and I have to say that I am incredibly amazed at the strength and determination you both have shown in the face of what are clearly abuses, lies and deception thrust your way that were absolutely unnecessary! It makes no sense to me whatsoever, that this series of events could not have been handled reasonably and simply from the start, with the open communication and discussion of differences that our church touts, and with so many people within it who claim to be "experts" on such a process and role models for the community. It is clear to me that something "greater than that" in the minds of leadership has been driving this train; that there are agendas and motives to keep you silent, and to not address the issues that are apparently more important to leadership (both locally and nationally) than to live by the creed and principals that the church has espoused. Something is up. Something is being very carefully hidden behind closed doors, and you are knocking at that door and not backing away. I see that as your absolute love for this church---or what you thought it was for all of the years you so devoted.

All of this saddens and shocks me, but I am very glad to know that you are not taking this lying down, and that you are not only addressing this publically for our community to know what is really going on, but that you have seen your place in a greater story about the failings of church leadership--on a local level--but also as a representative of "church abuse and hypocrisy" on a grander scale. I'm sure this is not the role you would have chosen for yourself, but you have taken it up with honor and dignity while making the best of a brutal situation.

While I am processing all of this, I just want you both to know that I respect you and I hope that something great and wonderful will come of this vs. efforts to just brush it under the rug and to "act as if" this is all just about a couple of people causing trouble. It is hardly that.

With appreciation, Dara Crockett

Chris Sohl responds....

Chris Sohl has been the Youth Minister at Ashland UCC Church. I had always been impressed with him, when I was going to the church, because of what looked to me to be valiant, forthright efforts to do good work in the community, especially with young people. He is the nephew of the Associate Pastor, Paula Sohl, who was one of the first people in a position of authority to begin the effort to cover up Brad's bad behavior. This is not a post about Paula. We have covered her role pretty thoroughly on the site. But I consider it quite significant that Chris even responded to the notice that L sent out about the site, because for the most part, no one has wanted to engage in any way about what has happened.

Not that Chris's response was curious, or an attempt at a dialogue. In his emails, he claimed that L "had not been wronged in any way", and that she should "get over it!". He also claimed that we were engaged in slander. This is a notion that I think many people may carry, so I am glad he brought it up. It gives us a chance to address that issue. I responded to him in an email, which I include, below. This is how we will continue to handle substantive questions, comments or objections that people have, to the material on the site. Our aim is to foster honest inquiry into how we all behave with each other. What do the patterns of behavior that we have witnessed from folks at the church reveal about the agendas that hide behind words as we navigate our relationships with each other?

So here it is...

Chris,

I want to address your responses to the publishing of our website: ashlanducckarma.info

Your second email refers to the definition of “slander”. Here is a good article on that topic for you. It would be a lot smarter for you to read up on this subject before you accuse someone of something you don’t understand.

The crux of the issue is about whether or not the statements we are making are true. We can back up everything we have said.

So here is the situation: the church could bring a lawsuit against us for defamation. And, in fact, so could any number of people who are mentioned on the site who don’t like what we have written about them. However, there is quite a high bar that would have to be met in order to win such a suit. The truth is, the church, and all of the leaders of the church, have only the flimsiest of arguments for why they did what they did. None of these arguments would hold up well under any kind of reasonable public scrutiny.

And that brings us to the next point. At the very first moment that there is even a hint about taking such action, we will bring this story to the local paper immediately. We are not looking for a fight. We never sought to damage the church. The damage is self-inflicted, and you should begin to wrap your mind around that. 

But if you, or any of the leaders of the church wants a battle over truth we will gladly engage that battle. And we will win. It will be the Park cellist and the devoted volunteer of the church against the bullying leaders of the church. And people don’t like dishonest, bullying leaders, as you well know. The entire tragic saga of what happened at the church is nothing more than a pile of aggressive nonsense that would never have withstood the light of the day if it wasn’t subject to the most vicious manipulation and dishonesty imaginable by people who are hypocritical to their core.

Here is the story line, which, for all I know, could go national:

An elder white male who enjoys an iconic reputation with the congregation of “progressive white Christians” propositions a volunteer, who immediately rejects his suggestion that she “get to know him better - ask him questions about his body!”.  She writes about it in her journal, but dismisses it as the usual male boorish behavior. As time goes on, he passive-aggressively manifests his resentment about the rejection with various kinds of non-cooperation until he escalates that behavior and begins to engage in genuine, certifiable workplace bullying, stopping her work, triangulating against her with the church leadership ( Becky Martin) and intimidating her by saying that her work is not worth much and suggesting that she is angry at him for all this because she is on her period. 

This will play very well, I am sure, with the current interest in sexual harassment, disrespect toward women, and workplace behavior. It is a story of interest, to be sure.

If the church had a “zero tolerance “ policy towards sexual harassment, it would be Brad that would be removed from the church. If the church were an actual business, workplace bullying would not be tolerated and the perpetrator would be fired. Certainly we would have grounds for a suit against the church in that case. But the church is a church. Everyone knows that all kinds of devious behavior goes on in churches, without any form of accountability.

But wait! It gets worse. Your aunt, Paula Sohl, was the first to jump into the breech to cover this up and squelch all criticism, even any discussion of what had happened. This was the pattern of every church leader, including Christina, including the whole Council, including you: to either pretend that nothing happened, or actively work to confuse what had happened, mainly through character assassination. This included, literally, presenting us with an order to gag us from any further discussion about the conflict, with the threat of removal if we did not follow the rules. 

In what "social justice" universe that you travel in, Chris, is working actively to bury discussion, to censor words, like "bully" - which is what Christina did - to forbid others from talking to you, which is what your aunt did - in what "social justice" universe that you travel in is that OK? Doesn't that look, smell and feel much more like the kind of authoritarian rubbish that is oppressing our whole country right now?

Later, after your aunt and Christina had already begun implementing the strategy of silencing and shunning of us, along with the much needed gossip and lies to make it all work, Brad stated to a whole group of people that the “reason why L had to go” was that she "would not go along” with his decision to make building changes that were illegal at the time, because the City of Ashland had not approved them. He said he just wants to go ahead, and he is entitled to, and no one is going to stop him. We have an eyewitness to that statement, as well. 

So, the answer to your assertion about slander is: everything I just said here is actually true. This is what actually happened. There is no case about defamation that is going to do anything but waste people's money on lawyers. And I am pretty sure that the last thing the leaders of the church need to do is to continue to suck the congregation dry of funds that have already been employed to cover up wrongdoing they could have just admitted to at the beginning. Christina's assertion that she spent 25% of her time on  "conflict resolution" is just a bald-faced admission that she was milking the congregation for sympathy about a problem that she herself was instrumental in causing. No one should be fooled by this.

And yet, all of you have been. 

How do you think all this is going to play in the court of public opinion?

Here’s my point. I don’t need to go on. We aren’t slandering the church. Just the opposite has taken place. What we are doing is engaging the public in a discussion about truth, about the excessively harsh and severe - yes, ridiculously authoritarian ( if you can't see it, you're blind)  - handling of a stupid offense that could have been easily met with honesty, courage and common sense. 

Instead, Rev. Kukuk, in particular, decided to make this an existential crisis for the church. Therefore, that is exactly what she has on her hands. She has created a kind of hysteria, of which you are now a part.

The church is obviously not what it was, because it has failed a series of tests. The test is: if you want people to believe that "all are welcome", and you even call that "the radical welcome", how much of an exponent of that are you, actually? How radical is your welcome? When someone disagrees with you, do you say they are being "harmful" and shame them? Or do you listen and try to find out what the trouble actually is? This was a question for everyone, and most people failed. Rev. Kukuk chose to lead everyone down a very dark path, and the church as a whole will continue to suffer the consequences of it’s own moral failure. 

And here we come to your role, Chris. You have chosen to become a very naive cheerleader for the church. I have seen you step up and step out to, obviously, try to carry good into the world. I don’t know you personally, but I have admired your efforts to mentor younger people and to function in some way as a messenger for faith in a broken world. In that, I have seen you actively try to be a better person, which is all anyone can ask of anyone else. 

But that path is a long path, Chris. It never ends. You have not arrived, nor are you a font of wisdom about what to do in this situation. This is a crossroads moment for you. You can continue being naive and act as it if it is not even possible that anyone at the church could have acted with bad intent, or you could own the fact that people do lie, people do have the capacity for aggression against others, and that includes everyone; all of us, no exceptions. 

That would be an act of great humility and also, great courage. 

If you could start there, you might have some ground to stand on. Then, perhaps, you could begin to engage some questions about what is true and what is not true. What is true is that none of our brains are big enough to know everything. We need each other and we need to actually talk to each other to find out what the best ways of moving forward for everyone concerned are. 

If there is one thing that is true about what has happened at the church, it is that no one, not your aunt, not Christina, not the Council, and not even you, wanted to talk about this situation honestly. In fact, everyone’s response to the situation was to aggressively escalate attempts to keep the truth from coming out. That is the only consistent thread in the whole saga. The “attempts at mediation” are not true and are just a cover for the overwhelming and manifestly evident motivation of everyone concerned to bury the conflict and not be held accountable in any way whatsoever. 

I think I covered your assertion about slander. You made two other points and I want to address both of them. 

First you implored L to “get over it”...

Dude. You really have to be kidding. First of all, there is nothing to “get over”. The Ashland UCC church has taken a public stand that we are banned from their property. That is a fact. We are not going to get over that. It is not in our hands. You could maybe help them to “get over it”. That might be good work on your part. 

All of you have made us out to be some sort of “enemies of the church”.

Brother! We took vows, in your church! To “fight evil and oppression”. I am sorry if it hurts your feelings that those characteristics actually live right next to you in your church. But that is what is going on. You could get on our side. Take up the fight. See if you can get them to “get over it”. We aren’t going to bite you or anyone else. When did “progressive Christians” turn into such cowards?

Then you said, “you have not been wronged in any way”. Come on, man. You are not stupid. Take a look at the facts. Have a real conversation. Be a real man. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and it does not become you to be so self-righteous and smug. 

This reply will go on our blog, on the site. It is our intention to have a platform for public discourse about the important issues of honesty, integrity, self responsibility and accountability. We are happy to continue the conversation with you, transparently. But I would suggest that you prepare better arguments, if you really want to defend the church. They really don’t have a leg to stand on. It is a bit of a sinking ship over there. You might want to consider getting on some dry land and making some sober decisions about what to do next.

Daniel

Rev. Molly Scolds Us And Tells Us About The Gossip...

We sent out some notices to people about the website this afternoon. We got a response from a "Rev. Molly". I will let her introduce herself:

"I received your email and the link to your website.  As Conference Minister for the Central Pacific Conference of the United Church of Christ, I appreciate and acknowledge all concerns that are brought to me about our member churches.

I am closely aware and supportive of Rev. Kukuk's ministry.  She and I have met at length.  I have also spoken with many other members of the Ashland UCC family.

I regret that you have felt unsupported, however, it is inappropriate to forward your complaints to such a wide audience.  Your behavior, as it has been reported to me, continues to be abusive and constitutes harrassment.  As Christians that live in covenant with one another, there are expectations of kindness, compassion and grace.  I see no indication that Ashland UCC or Rev. Kukuk have acted in any way outside of this covenant.  I have, however, received many reports of damaging and hurtful behavior from yourself and your partner.  I ask that you please stop."

I sent her this response:

Dear Rev. Molly,

There are so many, many things you got quite wrong in your response to L, and this reinforces the thesis of our website, that folks in the UCC church lack respect for finding the truth, preferring to cloak themselves in piety and shame people who are presenting different ideas than their own. 

L’s email to you was not a complaint. We are not complaining.  We put the whole story of what happened to us at the church on a public website so that sensible, clear-minded people can make a determination for themselves about it, and we want it to have as wide an audience as possible. We thought it a favor to you to know about the website. 

We have already seen that higher ups in the United Church are cloaked in hypocrisy, always ready with the recommendations about how to be “Christian”, while not observing even the most basic principles of fairness, just as in your response!  We would not have expected you to somehow “help us” with our “complaint”. We had no expectation of that. It is in no way “inappropriate” to seek the widest possible audience for the site. It is what, fortunately, we are privileged to do in 2017 in the United States - to offer our ideas out into the public commons of ideas and seek to tell the truth.

The rest of your message is just ridiculous, Rev. Molly. You are basically saying that you know who we are and you know all about us on the basis of gossip. You don’t know us. You don’t have “dominion” over us.  There isn’t anything uniquely holy  about you or your church. So we don’t need your lecture about what being a good Christian is all about. Your position right now is much closer to that of the scribes and pharisees in the Bible, if you want to think about it. Probably you don’t. It is a hysterical assertion, though. Our lodging of a petition to the Conference about ethics specifically addressed the dishonesty of Rev. Kukuk. And your investigation of that amounts to nothing. It is laughable. 

One more thing. I have no idea where you got this idea about the “covenant” of kindness. Kindness, compassion and grace are all good qualities. So are honesty, accountability and self-responsibility. And morality is not about being harmless. That is a phony morality. Morality is about doing the right thing. 

No one at the church did the right thing. That is not a mortal sin. All anyone had to do was to acknowledge the mistakes that were being made and take responsibility for fixing them. Rev. Kukuk managed to take a very ordinary and stupid incident of bullying on the part of an elder in the church against a volunteer and create an existential crisis for the congregation. Dozens of people have left. That is horrible pastoring, and if you were doing your job, you’d actually try to make an honest assessment of it, instead of taking counsel from the perpetrator.  

I am posting your response and my response to you on our blog. Feel free to continue the conversation if you like, but try to see if you can make an argument based on actual facts, rather than hearsay. And spare us the pontificating. It doesn’t serve your cause very well. If you want to actually be kind, you could start by assuming you know much less than you do. 

Daniel Sperry

We Are Live

We launched the website last night.  Now it is time to start publicizing…

Daniel and I just finished saying prayers.  I’m so happy and relieved to finally be done constructing the site.  It was like sifting through poison, daily, for months.  It is an extremely painful story, all of it.  For weeks now I have been seated here in this same spot working with all of these toxic materials.  All the emails, all the messages from dishonest people claiming power to destroy my life and my love of church.  People who also refuse to speak to me. 

I never could have imagined what happened at Ashland UCC.  I never could have imagined being treated with such cruelty.  I could not have imagined a minister being so entirely dishonest, so vicious and accepted as the new minister at the “peace church”.  None of it makes any sense.  If you go through the chronologically arranged documents on this site you will feel confused, too.   The leadership never responded to our questions, they used words to distract and confuse, they added more and more conflicts.   Banishing us from our faith family was aided by their continuous ritual of talking trash about us, in our absence. 

During these two years of trying to reimagine what my life looks like, I’ve studied a lot.  I’ve studied human pathology and pathology of institutions.   A quote that has never been far from my mind is from a pod cast I listened to with Ezra Klein interviewing Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Coates says:

“It’s terrible to contemplate.  It really is.  

I was deeply angry for a very long time and I wanted to express myself.”

I am deeply angry over what happened and what continues to be the reality at Ashland UCC.  There is nothing ok about it.  Both Daniel and I have always been clear, we aren’t interested in carrying such a brutal and ugly reality all by ourselves.  What happened is a public disgrace.  The response needs to be public, too.  It belongs in the public domain.  Now we can share the burden, you and I.  And by sharing all of this information far and wide, my load becomes more manageable.   If someone asks me, what happened, I can direct them here, because I can’t explain it to anyone in a way that is satisfying.  Rev. Kukuk’s way of contorting reality and language itself made the entire nightmare seem impossible to comprehend and therefore, unsolvable.   It is so therapeutic for me to get to share with everyone how devious a character Rev. Kukuk is.  She is frightening.  She appears to be quite devoted to serving herself at everyone else’s expense and doesn’t seem to have any regard for basic right and wrong.  

It is a tremendous relief to me, to have this site, on which I have shared all I know about what happened at Ashland UCC.  

I realize it is a horrible knowing.  

I thank you for being here and reading my words.  One thing that has become so clear to me over the last two years is that anyone willing to actually listen to me, gives me a little piece of my healing.  

Joanna Macy suggested that looking at the whole world is way too overwhelming, that the best thing we can do is focus on our own puzzle.  The corruption and brutal loss of my church has unfortunately been my puzzle.  And when I put it online last night, the whole ugly story, I had a palpable feeling of relief.   Now I can show people what happened, I can communicate thoroughly.  I have transformed the ugly cloud of slander and lies with data, analysis and illumination.  Illumination is Jesus’ third way.  

This site is my avenue to heal. I have been noticing for weeks that as I added all of these awful pieces to this puzzle of truth, I felt that I have been making order out of the chaos of cruelty.  It felt like in facing and placing each piece of data, each explanation of what actually happened,  I’ve been knitting my dignity back together.  

I wish I didn’t have such awful things to say about so many people in this town.  I used to pride myself on not having ill will toward anyone. But that was two years ago.  Now I know how deeply mean and cold hearted the people I used to call church family actually are.   Quite frankly, I’m still stunned.  

But Ashland UCC Karma is a big step in my healing.  I’ve made my church of trap doors experience into compost and now we have built ourselves a solid platform on which to communicate; thereby making the trap doors, shunning, gagging, silencing end of this story, obsolete.  

Thank you for reading.  Thank you for listening.  Thank you for caring. 

~ L

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This blog page is the space for news and commentary after initial publication of this website 12.16.17.   Also if the United Church of Christ or the Ashland UCC respond, their response/s will be made public here.  

What transformation is possible when truth is illuminated?  

L Citizen and Daniel Sperry

Photo by Christopher Briscoe