Talk:Liberal Religious Youth

"Youth"

Refresh my memory, fellow Lesbian Refugees from Yugoslavia, what age range did "youth" officially cover? --Kathryn NicDhàna 20:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

What I hear from advisors in my district who were once LRYers, the age range varied by district, but was generally considered "high-school" aged. Number seem to have ranged from 14-20, though this was shortened or lengthened at times. HellaNorCal 00:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC

Yes, that's basically what it was like during my time, as well. (Back when hippie dinosaurs roamed the Boston Common...) --Kathryn NicDhàna 01:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

External Links and Discussion of LRY and YRUU structure

I'm thinking we should include the LRY online reunion http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lry/ , even though it's only a YahooGroup, as that's where most old LRYers meet and talk. Technically, I guess we should also include my LRY site, http://bandia.net/LRY though I admit it is in desperate need of updating. Guess that's another thing to add to the project list. --Kathryn NicDhàna 20:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Kathryn, your link doesn't work. Something I've been wondering, is how LRY was structured. Perhaps you could add some info on that to the article? I'm active in YRUU, and we have definite differences between Continental YRUU, and District-level YRUU. Thought the Youth Office is run by adults, our District-level YRUU (PCD here), along with continental Youth council, as far as I can tell, is run entirely by youth, with adults serving only advisory roles. I'm changing that section of the article to reflect this.HellaNorCal 01:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixed the link. The LRY part of the link is in uppercase (a sign I set up the page years ago). I should change that, actually, or mirror it in lowercase.

CV and areas of relative expertise or ignorance: I was in LRY in '79 through the end, first in the CMF (Midwest) and then on the East Coast. I served at the Continental office at 25 Beacon street in '80/'81, first as an intern and then as Director of Publications on the Exec Comm. I'm in touch with many old LRYers, including other Tacos (Exec Comm vets) and Board members, and one of my housemates is also a former Exec Comm member from the late '70s. I'm only vaguely up on what is happening with YRUU these days; I have some old friends and online acquaintances who are current advisors and/or ministers, and I have occasionally corresponded with current YRUUers. I also know folks who served as some of the first YRUU interns in the Youth Office, but I haven't been by 25 Beacon since the early '90s. Wayne Arnason was our "advisor" when I was on the Continental Exec Comm.

IIRC, for much of LRY's run the Federation/District representatives (Board Members) were democratically elected by the local groups, either at LRY meetings or as part of the regional UU meetings. We had twice-yearly meetings of the Continental Board, where Exec Comm members would be elected and we would deal with business like the budget, the endowment, and political and programming decisions. The Board also included some At-Large members, which were people like the Executive Committee members, and members of other committees like Judiciary and the Con-Con Committee.

There were also Fed/District YACs (Youth Adult Councils), but I don't recall them having any power except perhaps on a district level. It varied from Fed to Fed and local to local how interwoven LRY was with the UU structure. Some locals were kicked out of their churches, but continued to function with meetings in other locations and through attending local meetings at other churches. Near the end there were many LRYers who attended conferences but had no local. However, in other districts there was adult support up through the very end, and the transition to YRUU was smoother.

My understanding is that there have been some issues about how much power the current YRUU Youth Council actually has - especially when it comes to funding. Where is the current office? Last I heard they had been moved out of 25 Beacon and down the street. Are the Youth Interns still hired by the adult director to six-month terms? Or has any relative democracy and actual power been successfully reintroduced at a Continental level? --Kathryn NicDhàna 20:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm on my district YAC (which we just call Youth Council), so that's what I'm much more familiar with. But, according to YRUU#Youth Office, "The Youth Office consists of five full-time staff. YRUU Programs Specialists (YPSs) and Youth Ministry Associates (YMAs) serve on UUA staff for one year as full-time staff in the Youth Office at the UUA. They are generally youth who are bridging into young adulthood (16-22). The Youth Programs Director oversees the long-term work of the office. They are all supported by the Youth Office Assistant. The Youth Office also offers a summer internship as well as various volunteer opportunities."

That YPD is a paid, adult position from what I remember. C*YRUU (Continental Youth Council) definitely has limited Youth authority, but I believe that's an effect of their having to deal with the UUA right on top of them. My district Youth Council is going through a bunch of bullshit with our District board about a bunch of power issues (we used to be financially independent, and now they're trying to reign us in), and that seems to be what my friends on C*YC seem to complain about the most.

The only real bit of democracy I know of, is that each District's YCR (C*YC rep) is supposedly elected by their district's youth, although from personal experience it's a very limited election, most of the time. The Steering committee, who actually makes decisions for C*YC and C*YRUU, is just chosen by C*YC; they're seperated from the vast majority of YRUUers.

As for Continental Officers: They are elected at General Assembly, by Youth Caucus. The Youth Office doesn't make constitutional changes to C*YRUU; they only do boring things, for the most part. As far as I know, they're still at 25 Beacon St. It's nice to hear about LRY from someone who's not afraid to talk about it. HellaNorCal 00:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I was in LRY ('62-'65) and local group president ('64-'65) at the Evanston Unitarian (L.Y.O.N.S. "Liberal Youth On the North Shore"). I added some info about regional committees and included a link to a Harvard Univ. archive that I hope to get at someday. -- roricka 05:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Early YRUU vs Contemporary YRUU

YRUU structure has changed significantly since the beginning in '82. I think for the purposes of this article, we need to focus on LRY and keep the YRUU comparisons minimal. Rather than try to cover changes in YRUU, especially as the current structure is somewhat better for youth empowerment than what it was initially, I'm going to tweak the additions somewhat to focus on just the transition period, then refer readers to the YRUU pages for further YRUU details. --Kathryn NicDhàna 18:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds just fine to me. HellaNorCal 00:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

When I was a child, there was lry; but, these pages do not make much sense to me:

Young_People's_Religious_Union;

Young_People's_Christian_Union.

Thank You.

[[ hopiakuta | [[ [[%c2%a1]] [[%c2%bf]] [[ %7e%7e%7e%7e ]] -]] 00:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

YPRU and YPCU were the seperate Universalist and Unitarian Youth Organizations (respectively) which existed before merging into LRY. HellaNorCal 07:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

What happened to it?

This article seems to leave out any of the why surrounding the dissolution of LRY. I realize this is a highly controversial issue, that left many people feeling disenfranchised, and I also know of the tendency for winners to write history. That said, I'd like to see more of that, because what I've heard, as a YA who grew up in the YRUU era is somewhat disjointed and includes rumors, which I have never seen any verification of or reasonable refutation of that by the time the UUA stepped in, Every LRY member had an FBI file, because the organization was the largest distributor of Acid on the eastern seaboard, and that sometime near the end a minister walked in to his chapel to find a pile of naked youth, and a schedual taped to the wall with the last line reading "Drug induced orgy."

Maybe it's true? Someone help? Cite documents and memos that were passed around the UUA leadership in 1982.

LRY was different everywhere. The drug traditions of the east coast are still present in east coast YRUU groups. LRY in the PNWD was much different, from what my youth advisors tell me. LRY in the PNWD (and apparently a few other places as well) actually attained the goal of being a youth empowering organization and creating safe environments for youth to find themselves. I wouldn't doubt that story about the orgy; a lot of fucked up things happened in LRY in many districts, and a lot of fucked up things still happen in YRUU communities (especially on the east coast). I don't really have the time to devote to this article, but I could checck in and offer my observations every once in awhile if you so desired. HellaNorCal 07:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Most of the rumours are quite exaggerated. Sure, there was some drug use, but less than in my high school. In the sixties, seventies and eighties, there were drugs in the entire youth culture, not just the liberal churches. True, the relative lack of adult supervision meant things could easily get more wild than at a Christian youth group, but all the churches and camps had policies that open use of drugs or open sexual activity would lead to people being kicked out (and yes, people did get kicked out.). If there was a schedule posted that said, "Drug induced orgy," it was probably a joke. Probably. I can recall only one time when that actually happened among the youth; it happened more among the adults (in the suites at GA, especially). There was certainly sex and making out among the youth in (mostly-) private situations. But, again, in my experience in the Midwest, East Coast and Southeast LRY in '79 up through the end in the early '80s, it was no more than you'd find at your average high school party.

The church got more conservative, and youth were blamed for the "sins" of people who had aged out by the time the adults got around to doing anything about it. My generation was punished for the actions of people ten years our senior, and it led to whole generations of UU's becoming alienated from the church. The thing about FBI surveillance is partially true. We were never as effective or dangerous as we wished, or as was feared. We did a FOIA search and found that some early LRYers were investigated for their Civil Rights political activities, some LRYers in the seventies were investigated for protesting a presidential visit, and an executive committee near the end of LRY was under surveillance for protesting US military actions in Central America. Again, radical (or even only liberal) politicos were sometimes hassled by the government when conservatives were in power. But also again, that was happening everywhere, not just in LRY. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

And as an afterthought: One thing that was sometimes misinterpreted by outsiders was the hippie tendency towards clothing-optional lifestyles. Just because people were, say, swimming or sleeping naked, or even hanging out naked in hot weather in the summer, didn't mean everyone was having sex. I'd say, as a subculture, we were more open and comfortable with our bodies than many other segments of society at the time, but a lot of the more prurient things that were blamed on us were largely projection. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:45, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. What can I say about LRY that can be put into print? I must be cautious.

I was not there for the final demise of LRY, but I had been a part of it for some five years when I attended my last conference at a Princeton local in 1978. It took me a long time to "age out," too, because I was repeatedly asked to attend local conferences (even at a VERY long-haired upper age) and because being there was just so darned much fun. Continental Conference in 1976 in Olympia Washington had many young men my age, and some older, into the late 20’s.

I can tell you this: while drug use did happen (it was the ill-advised 1970's, after all) it was definitely frowned upon at any conference. Sex was prevalent, but kept mostly discrete, with no piles of naked bodies at any conference I attended. Had there been such a pile, I would remember, and chances are good that it would have been told to me by one of the participants. Many a young woman found her first sexual experience at an LRY conference, and those who had already found their first experience would come to conferences ready for more fun, since this was the era before aids. We were liberal and horny, and with no scriptural guidance of any kind to suggest a moral imperative that was not of our own making, we indulged ourselves in our own image. With today’s public school curricula and the internet, that entire dynamic has changed, and the experiences once found at an LRY conference among 9th to 12th graders (and beyond) are now commonplace (I am told) among the average 6th grade student population. This is probably an offshoot of the anarchy and self-worship we cherished in the 1970’s, and it is a good example of how our own immorality made us reluctant to propose moral standards for succeeding generations when we started our own families.

I never experienced the "punk rock" aspect, but I do fondly recall the folk music and Grateful Dead influences, from tie dying to macramé to vegetarianism. From my perspective, LRY was the natural progression of the "do your own thing" hippie philosophy, made even less responsible by the lack of life experience of its adherents. We were, quite literally, kids in a candy store, a microcosm of poor decisions and a distinct lack of guidance, feeling our way and assuming that every desire we had should be explored and made into a virtue, when in fact so much of what we imagined was good was actually destructive to the sustainable structure required as a foundation for a healthy society. If anything, the end of LRY proves that Man is incapable of constructing his own Utopia, particularly when he is left to his own devices and apprenticeship. Arthur from Philadelphia, April 28, 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.81.16.76 (talk) 01:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I "grew up" in the UU churches, being active at the local and state-wide federation level in LRY during the heydays of the counterculture about 1961-1965 in upstate New York. In my limited experience, LRY, like the UUA in general, was distinctly local and different in every locale. Mostly it was about liberal kids growing up, experimenting, rebelling, making their own mistakes, recognizing them and moving on. The UUA got more conservative over time, not more liberal, and in some ways abandoned (I hope temporarily) some of its more liberal ideals. One thing was always true of LRY meetings and conferences: If somebody posted rules in black typeface with one or more in red typeface or underlined about drinking or drugs or sex, THAT rule was the most frequently broken at that meeting. Still, that was before there was much drug use and the difficulties mostly surrounded alcohol use, most of which was relatively harmless (if embarrassing to those with excessive control needs) and gave kids opportunities to find their own identities at an age when they were spending most of their time looking for themselves. Dr. Spock would have loved it. To get a good impression what it was like in spirit, read Summerhill (if you can find it). Mervyn Emrys (talk) 20:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I was in Evanston and Oak Park IL LRY in the late 1970's. Jidanni (talk) 03:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

There was one year when the checkbook disappeared. I left Boston. LRY was great, but doomed.```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mosesmommee (talk • contribs) 23:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

This could be a good article

There seem to be plenty of sources about this group. Anybody interested in helping me write it? ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 16:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I may be able to help. Unfortunately, the more interesting stuff I could add is ruled out for WP:NOR or WP:NCR reasons. But, to the extent I can be neutral about the topic, I'm always willing to help out. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I did some sourcing. We need more in the opening bits. If I can't find it in any of the books, I suppose I could source it from issues of Soup ;-) - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 23:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge with YRUU article

It has been suggested over on the talk page of the Unitarian Universalism article that merging the YRUU article with this one into a new article titled something along the lines of Unitarian Universalist youth programs may be a good idea. Have thoughts on this then head over there and chime in. --Devin Murphy (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Older teens are not "children"

Duplicating here what I added to Rathfelder (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)'s talk page:

Please read the articles before you add a "children" category. It is inappropriate for the Liberal Religious Youth article. If you're determined to revert-war on this one, which was for older teens and college-aged youth, I'm concerned about others you might be insisting on adding it to. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 16:59, 14 January 2018 (UTC)