The long awaited report, Engaging Our Theological Diversity,¹ has arrived. I for one wish we could have waited longer! Engage theology we must! Alas, our theological diversity, such as it is, was not engaged by the Commission. There is a good deal of data pushing (Edwin Friedman warned us about this in 1989 as “a form of substance abuse”),² miscellaneous quotes, feedback, along with an outline and bullet points, but no engaging.

Page one in the introduction, “Framing the Question: What Holds Us Together?” gets us started with a promising quote from two adult GA workshop participants:

I have a vision of the UU movement as interreligious dialogue. As we respectfully share those things of ultimate importance to us we are mutually transformed. This is a model for the rest of the world …

This quote presents a vision—a direction for us to take into our future with a sense of our mission for the world as we do so. Unfortunately, the Commission Report 171 pages later had moved no further along with either a vision or a mission.