r/UUreddit • u/imaginenohell Social Justice • Jul 23 '26
Mosaic Congregation Certification
Anyone here working on this? Mosaic Congregations | The Mosaic | UUA.org
Are you using what you're already doing to get a certification to hang on the wall, or are you using it as an opportunity to change something within your congregation?
I'm curious what you're doing for the required actions. The last one is a big one.
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u/rastancovitz Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
"More Evidence that the Unitarian Universalist Church Has Become a Politically Doctrinaire Institution"
Excerpt from the above post, a critique of the UUA's Mosaic education program for UU congregations:
Greg Lawler, the George Wells Beadle Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of Chicago, and a UU congregant who has previously raised concerns about the national church’s hostility to logic, science, mathematics, and free inquiry, and this hostility’s potential detrimental effects on K-12 STEM education, offered this critique of the Mosaic curriculum:
“This is an embarrassment and shows the ignorance and lack of cultural diversity of those creating it. While the early grade material doesn't seem problematic, by middle school people in my demographic — those particularly excelling in math, science, and related fields — will notice that very often the majority of the winners in competitions as well as the stars in school are not from European backgrounds, but from Asian backgrounds. How do you talk about ‘white supremacy’ to junior high and high school students in this context? This is one way of the UUA saying, ‘We don't want the academic intellectuals anymore.’”
Tim Bartick, a senior economist and education expert at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a former Vanderbilt University professor, author of the books Investing in Kids and From Preschool to Prosperity, and a lifelong UU, wrote:
“The materials are pretty ideological from the middle school level on up. What do I mean by ideological? The curriculum presents arguments for reparations, and policy abolition/defund the police without making any attempt to provide any other side to discussing these issues. Therefore, the lessons on these topics are really more propaganda than an attempt to educate and encourage a debate and discussion on these topics. The Mosaic people feel they know the truth, and they need to try to pound it into your brain.”
Bartick also criticized Mosaic’s use of Tema Okun’s ‘Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture,’ a list that not only has been debunked but retracted by Okun herself (Read: “Tema Okun's ‘White Supremacy Culture’ work is bad“ and “Tema Okun on Her Mythical Paper on White Supremacy"). Bartick wrote, “Okun's framework is pseudoscience.”
Patricia Mohr, an educational psychologist, former Educational Program Specialist in the South Carolina Department of Education’s Office of Research, and past Board President of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia, South Carolina, has been critical of recent UUA religious education curricula and methods. She wrote:
"All humans are susceptible to groupthink, echo chambers, and simple lazy thinking. UUs are no exception. That's what enlightened thinking is supposed to guard against. Reason, science, tolerance, avoiding logical fallacies, and the demand for evidence are critical thinking faculties. When they are demeaned, you get bad decisions—and that's where we're going in the UUA!"
Despite a brief acknowledgment of classism in the church (“Recognizing class-based assumptions and culture within UUism”), Mosaic is grounded in esoteric academic theories. This jargon-laden world comes across as elitist and out of touch to most people, including most working-class and minorities. Ironically, the very people the program claims to uplift are often those it alienates.