There was once a church that was governed by inter-related councils.  Some councils had smaller areas of responsibility and some had greater but even the one with the greatest responsibility of all was obliged to seek the concurrence of the other councils in matters of vital importance to the life of the church.  In this way even the smallest councils had a responsibility for the whole church.

The winds of change blew over the church bringing new beliefs and many of the smaller councils felt so battered that they erected strong walls of self-protection and forgot about their responsibility for the whole church. 

The Greatest Council of All saw that the church was divided by many beliefs and concluded that no one belief could claim validity over another but that all must be offered hospitality within the church and be treated in a democratic way.  This idea came from one of the new beliefs.  The idea was that there was no access to an external source of validation which would say which belief was right.  Nevertheless, hospitality and democracy were regarded as values.  These values were set free from any external source of validation. 

But the church had a document called the Basis which described the external source of validation.  It was the Basis that had given the church its structure of inter-related councils.  The Basis prevented the church from offering the kind of hospitality and democracy that some in the church thought it should.

The Greatest Council of All had elected a committee to act for it when the Council was not sitting.  This Committee seemed strongly influenced by the idea of a set of values without external source of validation.  The only source for such a set of values was personal control.  The Committee decided to change things so that it would have the power to interpret the way the Basis could operate in the church.

Through a formal agreement with another group, the Committee claimed control over the way the church operated (including control over the Greatest Council of All).  The Committee refashioned the provision of the Basis so that it was no longer obligatory for the Greatest Council of All to seek the concurrence of other councils in matters of vital importance to the life of the church.

So the new belief that seemed to offer democracy destroyed the democracy of inter-related councils.  The new belief that seemed to offer hospitality to many beliefs allowed the Committee to impose its own belief on the many.  And the smaller councils that had erected walls of self-protection found that their walls came crashing down.

(By Katherine Abetz - posted by Walter)

The proposed preamble to the Constitution of the UCA is a Trojan Horse to undermine both the status of the Basis of Union and the nature of authority in the UCA.  If the Preamble and the Constitutional change to Section 2 are permitted, then ASC has absolute power on my reading, it can overrule a full Assembly.  Nothing has to be referred back for concurrence.  A matter may be referred back for ‘consultation’, and if the ASC does not change its mind, then that is the end of it!! 

Once you democratically vote for a dictatorship, there is no democratic way back to democracy!
If the ASC is serious about acknowledging the First People, then it should carefully uphold the matter of interrelated councils, and adherence to the Basis of Union in the Preamble.