Canadian Unitarian Council

Not to be confused with United Church of Canada.
Canadian Unitarian Council

The official logo of the CUC, based upon the flaming chalice motif and featuring a maple leaf.
Abbreviation CUC
Formation May 14, 1961
Type religious organization
Purpose To serve Unitarian Universalist congregations in Canada
Headquarters 100-344 Dupont Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Location
  • Canada
Membership
 5,150[1]
Executive Director
 Vyda Ng[2]
Affiliations International Council of Unitarians and Universalists
Website www.cuc.ca

The Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC) is the national body for Unitarian Universalist congregations in Canada.

The CUC is a member of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.

Principles and sources

Source information is "The Principles and Sources of Our Religious Faith" from the Canadian Unitarian Council [3]

Principles

Member congregations of the Canadian Unitarian Council, commit to support and promote:

Sources

They view their tradition as living in the sense that, like language, it naturally adapts over time. They identify, but do not limit themselves to, the following foundations and resources which are both a part of their historical tradition and resources as they grow:

Individuals are not expected to, themselves, ascribe to all these traditions. Instead, as a congregation, they support every individual's search for truth and faith. At the same time each individual is expected to, more than tolerate, but to accept and celebrate the diversity of beliefs within their community. The same is true between congregations within the CUC which support the diverse nature and growth of other congregations.

(Bulleted points are directly reproduced here with permission)

The current Principles and Sources are based on the UUA's Principles and Purposes. The CUC had a task force whose mandate was to consider revising them.

Organization

A map of all four CUC regions

The CUC is made up of 46 member congregations and emerging groups[4] which are divided into four regions: "BC" (British Columbia), "Western" (Alberta to Thunder Bay), "Central" (between Thunder Bay and Kingston), and "Eastern" (Kingston, Ottawa and everything east of that).[5] However, for youth ministry in Canada, the "Central" and "Eastern" regions are combined to form a youth region known as "QuOM" (Quebec, Ontario and the Maritimes), giving the youth only three regions for their activities.[6]

Member congregations and emerging groups are served by volunteer Service Consultants, Congregational Networkers, and a series of other committees. There are two directors of regional services, one for the Western two regions, and one for the Eastern two regions. The Director of Lifespan Learning oversees development of religious exploration programming.

Policies and business of the CUC are determined at the Annual Conference and Meeting (ACM), consisting of the Annual Conference, in which workshops are held, and the Annual General Meeting, in which business matters and plenary meetings are performed. The ACM features two addresses, a Keynote and a Confluence Lecture. The Confluence Lecture is comparable to the UUA's Ware Lecture in prestige. In early days this event simply consisted of the Annual General Meeting component as the Annual Conference component was not added to much later. Past ACMs have been held in the following locations:

DateLocationThemeKeynoteConfluence Lecturer
1985 London, ON
1986
1987
1988 Saskatoon, SK
1989 Hamilton, ON
1990 Vancouver, BC
1991 Winnipeg, MB
1992 Montreal, QC
1993 Ottawa, ON
1994 Edmonton, AB
1995 Toronto, ON
1996 Halifax, NS
1997 Thunder Bay, ON
1998 Victoria, BC
1999 Mississauga, ON
2000 Calgary, AB
May 18–21, 2001 Montreal, QC Growing Together In Diversity and Strength
May 17–20, 2002 Kelowna, BC Renewing Our Strength David Crawley
May 16–19, 2003 Winnipeg, MB Getting to the Heart of It Rabbi Neal Rose & Carol Rose Rev. Dr. John W. Baros-Johnson
May 21–24, 2004 Edmonton, AB We Are the New Pioneers Honourable Lois Hole Rev. Ray Drennan
May 20–23, 2005 Hamilton, ON Getting To Know UU Susan Walsh Rev. Susan Van Dreser
May 19–22, 2006 Saint John, NB Riding the UU Tide Dr. Allan Sharp Rev. Peter Boulatta
May 18–21, 2007 Vancouver, BC Diversity in Community Rev. Bill Phipps Rev. Christine E. Hillman
May 16–19, 2008 Ottawa, ON The Web of Life – In our Hands Will Brewer & Allison Brewer Rev. Meg Roberts & Rev. Brian Kiely
May 15–18, 2009 Thunder Bay, ON Answering the Call Rev. Chris Buice Rev. Dr. Stephen
May 21–24, 2010 Victoria, BC How Shall We Live? Dr. Paul Bramadat Rev. Jane Bramadat & Rev. Wayne Walder
May 20–23, 2011 Toronto, ON Trust the Dawning Future David K. Foot Rev. Diane Rollert
May 18–20, 2012^ Ottawa, ON Spiritual Leadership Symposium Rev. Erik Walker Wikstrom
May 17–19, 2013 Calgary, AB Diversity: Creating a Shared Understanding Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed Rev. Shawn Newton
May 16–18, 2014 Montreal, QC Building Beloved CommUUnities: Sacred Spaces Beyond Walls Rev. Meg Riley Rev. Carly Gaylor & Rev. Jeffrey Brown
May 15–17, 2015 Ottawa, ON* Seeking Justice in a Changing Land

^Not an ACM, but an "Annual General Meeting" and "Symposium", and unlike ACMs it was organized by the CUC and the Unitarian Universalist Ministers of Canada instead of a local congregation.
#Not a keynote presenter or lecturer, rather a symposium "Provocateur".
*Upcoming locations [7]

Founding

This section quoted from The CUC: From Colony To Nation, 1961–2002 by Rev. Dr. Charles W. Eddis:

The formation of the CUC was a long-held dream. Proposals to form a Canadian organization were made by G.C. Holland, minister of the Ottawa church, in 1898, Samuel A. Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Association in 1908, Charles Huntingdon Pennoyer, minister of the Halifax Universalist Church in 1909, and Horace Westwood, a Unitarian minister in Winnipeg in 1913. In 1946 The Commission on the Work of the Churches of the British Unitarians recommended that “the Assembly should interest itself in the formation of a Canadian Unitarian Association which many Unitarians there believe to be necessary.”

The first native seeds were planted with the publication of The Canadian Unitarian in Ottawa from 1940 to 1946, a small newsletter distributed with the newsletters of Canadian churches. After the Second World War, the growth of the Unitarians in Canada began to show the strength which would make some Canadian organization feasible, if not imperative. Unitarians, most notably Toronto ministers, generated considerable media attention from the centre of Canada’s English-language media. The Unitarian Service Committee of Canada, founded in 1945, was receiving considerable attention both in city newspapers and on television, so much so that the word “Unitarian” became a household world, though its meaning was not that widely known. In 1946 there were six Icelandic Unitarian churches with 272 members, and five English-speaking churches with 1,049 members. The Universalists had five churches with 459 members. In 1961 there were three Universalist churches with 68 members, and three Icelandic and eleven English-speaking Unitarian churches with 3,476 members, and in addition 22 Unitarian fellowships with 773 members. The Universalists almost disappeared in Canada, outside of a small rural church in southwest Ontario, and were probably saved in the other two surviving locations by influx of Canadian Unitarians. By contrast, Unitarian membership more than tripled in the same fifteen years. In 1953 there were six Unitarian ministers serving congregations in Canada. Ten years later there were five ministers in the Toronto area alone.

In early April, 1961, a meeting with delegates from ten congregations was held in Montreal. The plan was approved 8 to 1, with the understanding that “The Council will function within the framework of the continental Unitarian Universalist Association.”

(Reproduced with permission)

Relationship to the Unitarian Universalist Association

Up until July 2002, almost all member congregations of the CUC were also members of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). In the past, most services to CUC member congregations were provided by the UUA. However, with an agreement in 2001 between the UUA and CUC, from July 2002 onwards most services have been provided by the CUC to its own member congregations.

The Canadian Unitarian Universalist youth of the day disapproved of this change in relationship. It is quite evident in the words of this statement, which was adopted by the attendees of the 2001 youth conference held at the Unitarian Church of Montreal:

"We the youth of Canada are deeply concerned about the direction the CUC seems to be taking. As stewards of our faith, adults have a responsibility to take into consideration the concerns of youth. We are opposed to making this massive jump in our evolutionary progress."[8]

The UUA continues to provide services relating to ministerial settlement as well as a very small amount of the youth (14–20) and young adult (18–35) programming and services.

Unitarians and Universalists

While the name of the organization is the Canadian Unitarian Council, the CUC includes congregations with Unitarian, Universalist, Unitarian Universalist and Universalist Unitarian in their names. Changing the name of the CUC has occasionally been debated, but there have been no successful motions. To recognize the diversity, the abbreviation is often written as U*U (and playfully read as "You star, you").[9] Note, not all CUC members like this playful reading and so when these people write the abbreviation they leave out the star(*), just writing UU instead.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Infotopics : An Ad Hoc Column from Phil@cuc.ca" (PDF). Cuc.ca. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  2. ↑ "CUC Staff". Cuc.ca. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
  3. ↑ Principles and Sources
  4. ↑ "Congregations". cuc.ca. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  5. ↑ Regions of the CUC
  6. ↑ Regions and Congregations
  7. ↑ "Annual Conference & Meeting". cuc.ca. Retrieved Oct 9, 2013.
  8. ↑ Debating the autonomy resolution — Youth are worried
  9. ↑ Unitarian*Universalist--You Star, You!
  10. ↑ Letters to the Editor — NO ASTERISKS PLEASE

External links