I have seen the topic of CUUPS, Covenant of Unitarian Universalist PagsnS, come up in other threads and thought maybe it deserved its own discussion.
The Unitarian Univeralist Church I attend does not have a CUUPS chapter. The subject of starting one comes up now and again. I am always torn.
Theoretically, it sounds like a great idea, but after checking into it, I am not so sure.
When the idea first came up about two years ago we were told by our Church and a member of another CUUPS chapter that we would first need to write up bylaws for our chapter before we could even begin.
We hoped to borrow the bylaws of the other chapter to use as a starting point, however, that chapter was very Wicca centered and we didn't think their bylaws would do for what we wanted. We preferred a chapter that would be interfaith. Since no one at the time, had the time to devote to writing bylaws from scratch, nothing more came of it.
About a year later a woman in the congregation again brought up the idea, but immediately appointed herself "High Priestess." Needless to say, again, the whole thing fell apart.
It was also my understanding that CUUPS members would not have to join the UU Church but dues would still have to be paid by the Church (about $75 per year) to "UU Central" (so to speak) for any CUUPS members who were not already members of the Church, the same amount UU Churches are required to pay for members of the regular congregation. So, I envisioned our CUUPS chapter having to promote tithing, keep attendance records of actual CUUPS members and visitors, be involved with church bookkeeping procedures, be actively involved with fundraising, etc. etc. etc....
This all started becoming way too much like organized religion (albeit pagan) within organized religion! Then I wondered about having differing pagan groups within the CUUPS Chapter.
Talk about complicated!
So my questions are:
IF and this is a big IF, we were to start up a chapter, how should the whole "bylaws" issue be handled to reflect an interfaith group?
Would having a pagan religious community within an already established religious community really be a good idea? What might be the pros and cons of this?
Might there be a way to have Pagan Gatherings at the Church without actually forming a CUUPS chapter?
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