Although the Executive Team labeled the new rules euphemistically as “guidelines,” the actual text said, “The following are not allowed,” followed by a list of protest-adjacent activities. That is a ban.

Rev. Alison is referring to Sunday 7/28. Here’s the video of the incident in question.

However, we know that Rev. Tom drafted the protest guidelines during the week of 7/22, sent them to the Board for approval on 7/25, and then got delayed by strong objections from several Board members. Otherwise, the guidelines would have been issued before 7/28. It seems disingenuous to justify the guidelines as a response to the protest/counter-protest situation on 7/28.

To the best of our knowledge, no one from our group was offended by the fact that people were expressing a different point of view, nor did we ask for any intervention to prevent people from expressing other points of view. We have been grateful for weekly opportunities to chat with people who hold different points (provided that no one shouts at us, threatens us, calls us “disgusting” or “nasty,” or lays hands on us).

We did collectively feel momentary fear, as we looked at the enraged faces coming toward us and wondered for a moment whether we were about to be attacked. (We are grateful that this wasn’t their intention.) We were struck by the rudeness and invasiveness of their strategy; though we have been accused of “putting signs in people’s faces,” we actually do not get within anyone’s “personal bubble.” We did find it ironic that the counter-protesters seemed to be the epitome of “reactive” (the topic of the sermon and workshop). We were struck by the status of many of the counter-protesters—lots of ushers as well as former (and perhaps a current?) Board members.

Rev. Alison may have heard someone express some or all of these observations, as reflections on many aspects of the current conflict (e.g., our conduct versus the conduct of those who oppose us; the contrast in average age and status of the protesters vs. counter-protesters). We are disappointed that these nuances were lost on Rev. Alison.

We can appreciate how an escalating protest/counter-protest situation would be highly disruptive and perhaps even dangerous. Although the word “dangerous” isn’t used here, it was part of Rev. Alison’s justification in the 8/1 Board meeting as well as an 8/2 meeting with congregants Alyssa and Devon. (Board members said they feared “dueling” protests, a “melee”...) It seems worth addressing here.

If the concern is safety, then a more just approach would be to prohibit specific unsafe or escalating behaviors rather than peaceful protest activities. Examples of safety-oriented guidelines: “when protesting, remain at least 6 feet away from anyone who is not protesting with you”; “no violent or otherwise non-consensual physical contact”; “no hate speech, threats, profanity, or degradation of someone’s character”; “speak at a conversational volume.”

Also, as mentioned previously, the protest guidelines were drafted prior to the 7/28 service, and they do not pertain solely to the sanctuary or the worship service. So, it is difficult to believe that the concern was limited to the disruption of the worship service. (At the 8/1 Zoom Board meeting, Alyssa pointed out via the chat function that most of the guidelines aren’t specific to the Sanctuary. The chat function was promptly disabled.)

We find it interesting that Rev. Alison is highly protective of the congregants who feel safe enough, emotionally and physically, to continue showing up to the service… but she shows minimal concern for those whose “freedom to worship” was shattered by the behavior of church leadership and congregants who aggressively defend church leadership. We know dozens of congregants who no longer attend for this reason.

We know how awful it is to feel that the Sanctuary is not a sacred space, that the church is no longer the right place to celebrate one’s life, and much more. If you, reader, are in a similar place because of how we’ve expressed our dissent, then we are sorry for hurting you.

We do not protest with the goal of hurting the attendees of worship services, as some kind of twisted retribution for the hurt felt by other congregants who no longer attend. That would be inexcusable. We protest, as a tactic of last resort, when we believe that we have no other effective option for making our voices heard.

We believe that effective ministers would be able to embrace us (such that we would no longer be protesting) while continuing to offer worship for other congregants. As we explain in the next section, we have been desperately hoping that our ministers will extend pastoral care to those who are grieving or afraid. If they had, we would no longer be protesting. We might even be ready to return as “normal” church participants.

The ministers have had a whole summer to figure out how to mend relationships with the congregants who felt devastated about DeReau or other staff, concerned about the loss of staff generally, or even fearful because of the actions of Mark Slegers and various enraged congregants. They haven’t done it.

We wish Rev. Alison would show as much care for the “freedom to worship” of those who remain at home, hurt and disillusioned, as she shows for those who still feel that they belong in the sanctuary.

We are aware of the Safe Church Policy, and we agree that we have been disruptive! We perceived that we had no other options for bringing the congregation’s attention to (what we believed to be) unjust decision-making and poor treatment of staff. In other words, we made a choice to violate a church policy in pursuit of the values the church claims to uphold (e.g., transparency, dismantling oppressive systems).

The Safe Church Policy includes a lengthy procedure for attempting to understand why a congregant is being disruptive and to address it productively if possible. We do not believe the church has fulfilled this responsibility.

In June and early July, we were not invited into conversation with church leadership. (We will address the accusation of “refusing” to meet with the Board later on. Still, the Board’s invitation did not arrive until 7/15.) We were among many congregants who wrote heartfelt, devastated emails. We were among many congregants who voiced grief, criticism, and fear. We articulated our concerns and told our leaders how they might help us move forward.

We read Front Steps and listened to the services for any indication that church leadership understood our concerns (much less planned to address them). Instead, we saw DeReau’s myriad contributions distilled to his “talent.” We were told that staff turnover is “normal” after John Boelling resigned and spoke out about his loss of trust in our ministers. We heard our leaders deflect responsibility, citing “historical institutional weaknesses” and “patterns of distrust and division” rather than offering any personal accountability for their roles. And, our nascent congregant action team was labeled “unaccountable” and “anonymous,” with the implication that we were a dangerous shadow organization formed to spread “misinformation.”

As we write this in late August, we have met with several individual Board members, Rev. Alison, and the UUA representatives. In each case, we have attempted to voice our concerns respectfully and clearly. Since 7/28, we have not disrupted anything in the Sanctuary. We didn’t have a presence at the church at all on 8/11, 8/18, 8/25, and 9/1 (except as a couple well-behaved singers or congregants). We waited and listened for evidence that we finally had been heard.

Instead, we got a narrow apology on 8/18, sandwiched between excuses and complaints, and not sent to the community that was in need of the apology. And, we got the 8/25 remarks that you are reading right now. We don’t want to still be protesting (also… we haven’t for a month…), but we will continue to use it as a tactic of last resort if we find no other way to be heard.

(An illuminating tangent: At an 8/2 meeting, congregant Devon offered Rev. Alison a simple message: You need to invite us in, not push us out. Congregant Alyssa pointed out that Rev. Alison did not extend an invitation to have a conversation after the June 9 protest or at any point since. Rev. Alison responded, “Well, you could have asked for a conversation.” Beyond deflecting responsibility, Rev. Alison’s response suggests that she lacks awareness of the vast power differential and legitimate fear that we felt. As early as 6/16, Rev. Alison demonized and misrepresented our efforts from the pulpit. We were afraid of her. There were many things Rev. Alison could have done to rebuild trust with us—by email, by apologizing for her initial treatment of dissenters, by inviting a conversation. But she didn’t. After the UUA’s visit, when we perceived that everyone was in a headspace of calm and best intentions, we finally felt courageous enough to request a meeting with her. And look how well that worked out for us! On 8/25, we got to hear our efforts demonized and our words twisted, from the pulpit by the most powerful person in this church, during a worship service. We will not be meeting with Rev. Alison again unless we are allowed to record the encounter.)

We wish to note that Rev. Alison has never contacted us to identify a specific falsehood, for which we would be glad to make corrections. From Board members, we received only one correction, mentioned off-hand during a meeting. She seemed surprised when we said we were sorry and would be glad to fix it.

When congregants Devon and Alyssa met with Rev. Alison on 8/2 and pressed her to give an example of our “misinformation,” she cited the “staff statements.” Alyssa said, “Okay, whose statement, and what, specifically, was inaccurate?” Rev. Alison said “all of it,” and then clarified that she views the statements as “half-truths.” Alyssa acknowledged that yes, of course any one person’s story contains their individual bias, but that doesn’t make it untrue; the church’s official narrative also contains bias. That’s why it’s useful to have multiple perspectives.

Rev. Alison did not seem to understand. She insisted that she has been saying “the facts,” and documents like the Board FAQ contain “only facts,” so it is the “whole truth” and unbiased. Alyssa argued that an assembly of facts is still biased. The author conveys their bias through the facts they choose to report and the language they use to present them. We did not reach an agreement on this issue.

We stand by our approach: We are platforming perspectives other than the official narrative so that congregants can develop a more nuanced interpretation of the truth. We aren’t claiming that any one person’s story is the “whole truth.” As far as we can tell, the real problem is the existence of perspectives that are not complimentary to church leadership. That’s not the same as “falsehoods” or “misinformation,” and we are tired of it being labeled as such.

We continue to welcome corrections from staff, Board members, and congregants alike. We aren’t sure what else we can say or do to convince our leaders that we wish to provide materials that are factually accurate.

We thought we explained this adequately in our 8/2 meeting with Rev. Alison and two Board members (also members of the “delegation”). Frankly, we are frustrated that Rev. Alison escalated her complaint to the congregation rather than discussing it further with us, if she truly believed that more discussion was needed.

For transparency, you can read the relevant email exchange with the Board delegation here.

On 7/15, we received a non-specific invitation to meet with a delegation of 4 Board members. On 7/16, we responded. It’s true that we conditioned our participation on two “demands”: 1) that they schedule another congregant forum, as we had been promised after June 9, and 2) that they send us a detailed proposed agenda, because we were anxious about meeting with them. (Expecting an agenda seems standard, so we conceptualized it as only one real demand, but you may disagree.)

How could we be so rude as to make “demands”? Well, we couldn’t discern the Board’s intentions—to discipline us, to negotiate with us, simply to hear our concerns… we weren’t sure. But, we decided to proceed as if we had earned some power for ourselves. This was an experiment of sorts. It seemed possible that they were highly motivated to bring us to the table, so we tried to use our participation as “leverage.” In other words, we attempted to “play politics” in a situation where we were at a steep disadvantage. We realize this approach might seem unreasonable or insulting to some, particularly those who believe that deference to authority is a high virtue. That’s fine, judge us as you wish.

On 7/19, the Board responded: “Our invitation to you all is simply a response to your communications with us. Others will receive the same invitation” (full message here). Our interpretation: No, we don’t seem to have any leverage, but we also don’t seem to be in trouble. The Board doesn’t seem to be approaching us any differently from any other assortment of concerned congregants.

We debated among ourselves how to respond. We include a summary of our thoughts at the end of the same document. Our primary motivations not to meet included fear that our words would be twisted and used against us, and fear of further emotional harm by being minimized, dismissed, or even belittled and degraded. We think it’s worth quoting from our original response to the Board, as it captures our anxiety well:

Recently, several of us have had uncomfortable experiences while communicating with ET or Board members. At times, communication has seemed undermining, manipulative, and insincere. We believe you have good intentions, yet, because of the power dynamics and our recent experiences, we are anxious. We hope you understand.

We also weren’t convinced that the meeting would be worth the risks. After all, we wanted information-sharing to happen with the whole congregation (not just us), and the Board thus far did not seem willing to respond to concerns/complaints about the Executive Team (our primary concern.)

Ultimately, we couldn’t come to an agreement. We decided to sit on the invitation for a bit and pursue other conversations that felt safer, seemed more likely to be productive, or both. We hoped that the way forward with the Board delegation might become clearer with time.

(Of course, it turned out that the delegation and Rev. Alison interpreted our silence as intentional defiance of an effort to bring us into right relations. But the meeting was never presented as such. Furthermore, the Board never followed up to clarify that, actually, the meeting wasn’t optional. That we were “out of right relations,” and we needed to talk with them or else be at risk of discipline. That if we didn’t respond, they would treat our silence as a refusal to meet.)

In late July and early August, we pursued other meetings. At least four of us had individual conversations with at least four Board members (though only one was a member of the delegation) and found it productive to talk within the context of established, trusting relationships. On 7/27, congregants Alyssa and Devon met with the UUA representatives for two hours; many members of the congregant action team also participated in the UUA workshop. Afterward, in the spirit of dialogue and best intentions, Alyssa, Devon, and Hannah felt calm and courageous enough to schedule a meeting with Rev. Alison for the coming week. Rev. Alison insisted on bringing Board members and rescheduled the meeting for 8/2; we agreed. We were anxiously, cautiously optimistic.

On 8/1, the eve of our meeting with Rev. Alison, the church released the “protest guidelines.” We were alarmed at what seemed like clear escalation from the Executive Team during a week when we had bought into the importance of de-escalation by all parties, as urged by the UUA. At the Zoom Board meeting that evening, Rev. Alison justified the protest guidelines on the grounds that we (the protesters) had “refused to meet with the Board.” We were shocked. We didn’t think we’d “refused” to meet with anyone; we just hadn’t followed up yet. Perhaps more importantly, Rev. Alison’s claim suggested that we were unwilling to come to the table and could not be reasoned with. This insinuation seemed in awfully poor faith given that we were scheduled to meet with Rev. Alison the very next morning, at our initiative.

At our 8/2 meeting, Alyssa asked why Rev. Alison had claimed that we refused to meet with the Board. Rev. Alison shifted the blame to the Board members, who’d told her that we had “refused.” (This didn’t address the fundamental issue that Rev. Alison portrayed us as unwilling to meet when she knew very well that we were about to meet with her, but we allowed her to redirect the conversation.)

We offered the same explanation that we just shared with you. But, apparently Rev. Alison has a different memory of the interaction…

Thank you, Rev. Alison, for validating our paranoia that our words might be twisted and used against us! From the pulpit and during a sermon, no less! Truly an honor.

As far as we can remember: We explained why it was reasonable that our focus in mid-July was to secure another congregant forum. We also explained that we were undecided on how to move forward with the Board, and we didn’t respond promptly because, in late July, other meetings became our “focus” or our “priority.” We did not suggest that the Board is unimportant or “at the bottom.” Alyssa said something like, “We’re sorry if that hurts your feelings,” because the Board members looked peeved, and Alyssa gets snarky like that. We remember one Board member responding, with similar snark, that he was sorry it hurt our feelings to be accused of refusing to meet.

We also offered an ironic observation: if a lack of response constitutes a “refusal,” then the Board sure has “refused” to address a lot of very serious issues this summer! (Among them: Alyssa’s plea for help after what she perceived to be a demeaning response from Rev. Alison to the Mark Slegers incident.) The Board members said, that’s different! A response from any one of them represents the whole Board; they have to be in agreement among the 12 of them. We pointed out that we also were a group of 12, and we also needed to reach consensus before responding. Apparently they weren’t convinced by the analogy.

The meeting was not recorded, and Rev. Alison did not even permit us to take notes on paper, so nothing can be resolved definitively here. Thanks for reading our perspective. You are free to evaluate our decisions and conduct as you wish.

Finally, we wish to note that the entire meeting was supposed to be confidential at the insistence of Rev. Alison and the Board members. For almost a month, we honored this commitment by not sharing specifics with anyone and not even mentioning the meeting to our larger audience. We are breaking that commitment now only because it has been a week since Rev. Alison broke our confidence, and we have not received a response to the email Devon sent shortly after the service ended. Truly, we are speechless.

We’re not totally sure about the point of this section (remember that Rev. Alison was speaking off-the-cuff, so the remarks are less streamlined than a typical sermon)... but we think we’ve addressed everything elsewhere.

We already addressed the repeated accusations about “misinformation” and the open invitation to send us corrections.

To the best of our knowledge, we’ve never claimed that one person’s testimony is “the whole truth.” If we did, we’re sincerely sorry, and we retract it.

Again: We understand that every story is biased, and we also believe that every collection of facts conveys a story with the bias of the author. Critical thinkers develop a nuanced understanding of “truth” by engaging with a variety of perspectives. Church leadership is sharing only one perspective. We’re platforming other perspectives. We hope you engage with all of it, and we support your right to draw your own conclusions—in the spirit of the 4th Principle, “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”

We also thought the accusation of “asking people to lower their pledge” was adequately addressed in the 8/2 meeting with Rev. Alison and two Board members. But, okay.

The original accusation, made at the 8/1 Board meeting, was that we were using our table in Fuller Hall to “tell people to leave the church.” In fact, we have been doing the opposite. We encourage people to stick around, at least peripherally and for a few months, in case we can make something positive come of this conflict. And, we have been successful!

For some congregants, it feels more bearable to stick around if they pause or reduce their monthly pledge payment. Why would anyone want to give money to an institution that has betrayed them to such an extent that they don’t feel they can enter the building? It’s true that the church has lost money because of paused or decreased pledges, and it’s true that a handful of people made that choice after talking with us. In every case we’re aware of, if we had not intervened, the congregant was going to stop their pledge, withdraw their membership, and walk away forever. Isn’t a temporarily decreased pledge better than an irrevocable loss?

We also find it insulting that Rev. Alison seems to think that people are not aware of the consequences of cutting their pledges. Every pledge reflects a complex evaluation and commitment. What does the church mean to me, and how much can I afford to give? How much would another $100 help the church, and how much would I miss it? To what extent does the church’s ideals, on paper and in praxis, match my values? To what extent is the church using my money to fund things that matter to me? And so on, every pledge drive of every year.

We trust the ability of every congregant to think through such a decision for themselves. We simply provide a reason to hope that things might get better if they stick around. And, we inform people that temporarily reducing one’s financial burden is a reasonable option of last resort for those on the edge of walking away.

We appreciated Rev. Alison’s apology (transcript and video link here). In fact, we started drafting an email to thank her for taking a first step toward repair. Unfortunately, she delivered the rant you’re reading now before we could finish it, and we lost our motivation. We hope there will be more opportunities to thank her in the future.

We hope that Rev. Alison can offer the next apology without sandwiching it between accusations about DeReau and complaints about protesters. And, we hope she can get the apology into the hands of the people who need to hear it. (Very few of “the choir members who were upset” still attend or watch the service. Rev. Alison knows how to get messages to the choir—she did it when announcing DeReau’s removal—and she has been encouraged to do so.)

Do we have too high of expectations for a scripted apology offered by the leader of a church that has been in turmoil for almost three months? Maybe.

We wish to point out that the UUA Investigation found “significant concerns” with Rev. Alison’s conduct, requiring a performance improvement plan. (The “significant concerns” did not rise to the threshold of “serious misconduct,” for which there can be more severe consequences.)

Meanwhile, Rev. Alison and the Board suggest that it was justified to remove DeReau on the grounds that he “violated church policies.” DeReau never was informed which policy violations justified his removal. Furthermore, he was never once written up for any violation under Rev. Bill or Rev. Alison. In other words, DeReau was not formally informed nor given opportunities for milder corrective actions for any of the issues that apparently were worthy of termination.

For more, please see our Response to the Board FAQ.