Even though fewer UU boomers than older UUs seem to get upset at theistic propositions in the abstract, they can still throw quite a conniption when traditional but masculine-tinged God language like “Lord” or “King” or “Father” gets trotted out. Feminist theology seems to be an especially precious dogma in some corners of the UU baby boom cohort, even among UUs who otherwise don’t care that much about theism.

I mean, if I haven’t myself ever been treated like a land-bonded underclass serf by a cruel feudal overlord, and if worshipers who like to use those words don’t understand them to mean that, do I really need to agree with Mary Daly when she says the implicit meaning of such language is unacceptably sexist and oppressive?

It’s as if our parents were saying, “We don’t want any phony, invented God-images around here,” while we boomers were saying, “Invented God-images, especially novel feminine and neo-pagan ones, are permissible because we’ll agree to understand them metaphorically, but we won’t tolerate ‘patriarchal’ ones, no matter how time-honored they are and how much they may still mean to other people.”

We boomers shouldn’t consider that a display of our superior open-mindedness and non-dogmatism. It isn’t. It’s still hubris born of an overly-exalted sense of self; it’s just a different way of expressing it. (Incidentally, this is the issue at beliefnet on which I’ve been arguing the opposite side, and defending the anti-oppression position.)

But, maybe I’m unusual? I have some pretty clear ideas about The Mystery, which a lot of people don’t.

Please send the check directly to Meadville Lombard, 5701 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago, IL 60637. Mark it “tuition: Gatheringwater”

I’m looking forward to hearing more from you. Your blog has been fun to read.

Re sermon talk-back. Again: contingent on the maturity and health of the congregation. My early years as a UU, watching “talk-backers” furiously scribble notes like lawyers at trial, and then use the “talk back” time as a “slap-back,” ruined the phrase “Talk-back” for me. This isn’t to say that we don’t do sermon conversations at my own church — we do sometimes (mostly in the parlor after church), but I still have PTSD about “talk back” from the old years.

Hey professor, hallelujah!!

CC

I think I had a breakthrough with this fundamentalist student in my last class, and it was with the simplest thing of all.

I asked her, if she were a minister and had to go into a hospital room to comfort a family member, knowing that the deceased had never accepted Jesus as their Lord and personal savior, what would she say to comfort the bereaved?

Would she tell a grieving person that their loved one is now roasting in hell? Or would she share a message of love and hope?

She chose love and hope!

Somehow this rock solid fundamentalist Christian suddenly realized that compassion was more important than dogma.

I’m not sure her epiphany relates to UU ministry? But I thought I’d pass it along anyway.

Well, to use the light metaphor…

Do we take the Buddha’s advice and be lamps unto ourselves? Or is the minister’s lamp supposed to be an especially bright light? Are the spiritual discoveries of the members of the congregation part of communal campfire we all sit around, which reflects its light back onto all who have gathered in community? If so, does a minister have not only the freedom of the pulpit, but some kind of responsibility to the pew, a responsibility to take seriously the concerns and objections of those with whom they may not agree?

I’m having a kind of “Yes…but” response to your post. Yes, I have experienced a shrill demand for theological conformity that stifles honest religious expression. I am certainly not an advocate for theological police squads roaming our churches. But I have also witnessed a widespread tendency on the part of UU leaders to dismiss as worthless, needlessly obstructive, or spiritually immature, the needs of people with a different theological perspective than their own. In the seminary, there is a lot of emphasis placed upon the reform of congregations, as if the default position is that there is something wrong with lay people that ministers are going to fix. I’ve never heard anyone advocate a minister approaching a congregation with the expectation that they might be the *recipient* of wisdom. That bugs me. I’ve attended large church meetings where ministers rail against having to cater to the remaining old humanists in the pews. That bugs me, too. I choked on my cupcake to hear a district exec decry the “fellowship mentality” which, when I asked, was the heresy of congregations thinking they are in charge of everything. (I’d always thought that had something to do with congregational polity.) I’m not saying that your point is wrong, but it just doesn’t seem to account for the whole story. There are some other ways of looking at this issue, too.

I identified with Unitarianism because Duncan Howlett convinced me of the exciting prospect of being part of a religious community with a loyalty to truth, a “critical way in religion” that is in constant self-examination and reformation. When you promote “being present to” over “critical listening”, I’m not sure we’re still talking about the same religion and frankly, that scares me a bit. I thought critical listening was part of the method of liberal religion. Will there be room for me in this new faith we are creating? My anxiety only increases when I consider how, from the Unitarian Controversy forward, our religious community doesn’t have a great track record of accommodation. Again and again, we have redefined ourselves not through persuasion, but through pushing the minority out of our midst.

I’m a UU because I really agreed with Sophia Lyon Fahs’ poem that starts, “It matters what we believe…” Like many UUs, I’ve made a painful journey out of another religious tradition into UUism precisely because matters of belief are important to me and I didn’t want to accept the consequences of living a religious life under false pretences. It would be hard, therefore, to be told that beliefs were important enough to get me here, but that I’m somehow spiritually immature if beliefs still matter enough to me that I’m uncomfortable with religious language I cannot, in good faith, affirm.

“Eventually, the worshiper learns enough, opens their heart enough, and feels secure and clear enough in their own theological orientation to truly cherish and appreciate this variety of expression.” Certainly, this is the attitude I cultivate when I am a guest in the worship service of another faith tradition or in an inter-faith service, but I’m not sure it is a reasonable expectation for one’s own religious home. Is UU worship essentially an inter-faith experience, or are we participants in a shared faith?

Besides, this attitude would seem to imply that Unitarian Universalism has no distinctive theological content of its own and that, rather than working together to create new and authentic religious language, we should passively accept the rich panoply presented to us. If that is true, why bother to be a UU at all? Why not just sample the rich panoply from its various sources? Furthermore, it minimizes the real differences between religious perspectives. “Lord” and “Goddess” and “Ground of Being” are not equivalent metaphors to describe a single ultimate reality. They are different realities. If I wanted to accept Jesus as my Lord, I’d have remained an evangelical Christian. I believe that Jesus is one of a number of great religious teachers whose moral truths are not dependant upon miraculous claims. That’s one of the reasons I identified with Unitarianism. Hearing Jesus referred to as Lord or King or Savior does not, as you seem to suggest, make me feel loved and loving. It makes me feel like I am being asked to accept a theological perspective I have already rejected. Worse, I’m being asked to do so in the place I though was a refuge for theological freedom. That isn’t a good feeling.

I don’t think UUs should nurture a primary expectation that worship services ought to “reflect” what they believe (I’m not sure what you really mean by “reflect.” Concur with? Affirm and promote?).
That’s problematic because it encourages a kind of critical listening, where the worshiper is listening FOR rather than being present TO.

In other words, if I come to church and expect to hear my own theological beliefs mirrored back to me, I am therefore much more ticked off or disappointed(even when ostensibly respecting the context of theological pluralism)when I hear things that don’t resonate with me. There is very little maturity in that stance, and certainly no religious unity beneath the pluralism. This foundational expectation is the chief contributor to what I think of as Especially UU Narcissism.

It works far better when UUs attend worship hoping to hear a message that supports, challenges, ministers to, heals, etc. — in a variety of ways, and with a rich panoply of images, myths, sacred stories and linguistic references — and finds him or herself able to be moved, thrilled, healed, inspired, etc. by — if not all — at least much, of it.

Eventually, the worshiper learns enough, opens their heart enough, and feels secure and clear enough in their own theological orientation to truly cherish and appreciate this variety of expression. When they hear “Lord” or “Goddess” or “Ground of Being” or entirely non-theistic expressions of ultimate meaning, they still feel deeply loved and loving, deeply responsible for the creation of a just and compassionate society, and deeply religious. They learn not to listen for what offends, but rather to be ministered to by what is offered. In the spirit of true hospitality, they trust that the service that didn’t so much sing for *them* might have touched the very soul of someone else. And in this way they actually grow in spirit and in love.

(I said “panoply!”)