On the Unitarian-Universalist article, a subject came up that would be of interest (I believe) to anyone working on any religion articles. I recently added an internal criticism of a religious movement" Rev. Earl K. Holt III, minister of King's Chapel in Boston, the nation's first Unitarian church has recently been at the lead of offering internal criticism of the direction of the UU Church. In a recent interview with the Boston Globe he stated "I'm ready to defend now the hypothesis that Unitarian Universalism as it presently exists is not in any meaningful way...a continuity of either of the traditions" [Christian and monotheistic from which it originated from]. He notes that the UU Church now officially has no theological beliefs that adherents must have, and it is tolerant of nearly any belief system. He concludes that "at some point, pandering would not become too strong a word" his church has lost unity. Source: ''Revisiting Unitarian Universalism'' Rich Barlow, The Boston Globe, July 17, 2004 In response, UtherSRg removed this addition of mine, and he noted: "While I agree that Rev Holt's criticism has merit, I wonder why this was placed in the article as a direct quote. I don't believe other religions have such direct criticisms on their articles. I could understand a brief summary of various criticisms." [[User:UtherSRG|UtherSRG]] 06:27, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC) I gave the following response, and would like the viewpoint of others here. This may be about a general policy question that warrents Wiki-En, or even the main Wiki list, attention. My reply: Your comment and question is fair enough! It turns out that other Wikipedia articles ''do'' have substantial sections on internal criticisms. Within the [[Judaism]] and related articles, there is plenty of dicusion of internal criticism; the same is true for many of our articles on Islam (see especially the sections on Shiite versus Sunni forms of Islam.) I think that all of our religions and social movement articles should include sections on internal criticism, especially when such internal criticism is openly discussed among many adherents of that movement. Some examples that I think should be discussed include: :Why some members of the UU movement have criticised it, as it has broadened to the point where it includes nearly any faith, or none at all. :Why many members of Conservative Judaism have criticised their own movement for not cultivating an observant layity. :Why many members of Reform Judaism have criticised their own movement for creating a new definition of who is a Jew, thus creating a schism that may create two separate Jewish peoples. :Why many members of Orthodox Judaism have criticised their own movement for not taking seriously the role of women as equals, the way that Orthodoxy understands homosexuality, or the increasing uses of churmras (legal stringincies). :Why many members of Catholic Christianity have criticised their own movement for not allowing priests to marry, and for not policing their own priesthood enough vis-a-vis the child abuse scandal. Including external criticisms are another issue entirely, and I think we should avoid this whenever feasible. I am sure that one could write a long section full of polemics on why Christians think that Jews and Muslims are wrong, and why pagans are worse than wrong; similar, one could write a long section full of polemics on why Muslims think that Christians and Muslims are wrong, and why pagans are worse than wrong! Generally, any well-known religion has been the subject of a vast critical and polemical attack from many people outside that religion. We need to extremely careful about this. But the subject of internal constructive criticism is a different issue altogether. As long as we make sure that all info is written in an NPOV fashion, what do you think? Robert (RK) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign! http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/yahoo/votelifeengine/