PeaceBang

43 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

1. This is great. Really great. I’m sure it wasn’t great to feel this way, but I’m very glad you wrote it.

   I haven’t been able to go to UU church in just about a decade. And although I agree with the UU principles, I just don’t feel nourished in church. In fact, I’d much rather hang out in the RE programs with the kids.

   So in response to your question, “What do we offer to those who hunger for God?” I’ll say that I think UU’s offer to correct their diction.

   Comment by Ms. Theologian — July 3, 2007 #

2. Yikes.

   Well, I am not one to take a complex problem and say “A book explains that”, but I must confess, some of what you describe does remind me of the difficulty addressed by something I recently read. {Note: I am not here to advertise books, so I am not going to post the details unless PB herself decides it should go up; otherwise, if anyone *wants* to know the title/author and asks, I will give you the info.}

   Anyway, the topic of the book is, in my own paraphrasing: “Does seeking the answers to life’s important questions require us to choose between those offered by literalist religious fundamentalism or those offered by literalist irreligious modernism (which includes those who consider themselves ‘too rational’ for all that ‘God’ and ‘religion’ nonsense)?” Or to give a specific example, what can religious liberals do when confronted with such fundamentalist claims on religious language and God-talk? Do we reject such language as irrelevant (the extreme secular approach) or do we retreat to a toothless relativism (well, maybe that’s true for you)?

   The book goes on to discuss the history of certain key words, and how they have changed along with our ideas about what constitutes “truth” and in turn how we approach religious texts, rituals, etc. The bottom line isn’t original, but I think it’s relevant to the greater issue at hand as well as how that issue is playing out in the UU fellowship. The idea is that the poetic and metaphorical nature of religious language is not amenable to literalism, but rather it points to important ahistorical truths and insights which cannot be expressed any other way. But because such truths are devalued, and because of failed attempts to translate such language into literal stories (i.e. 6 day creation, etc), many folks are willing to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

   I am what you could call an unofficial UU, and I wish you all the best in dealing with these issues .

   God bless you
   ;^)

   Comment by tinythinker — July 4, 2007 #

3. Well…

   We could just eject the large majority that’s not Christian and…

   No, that’s not what you meant.

   We could gang up on the Humanists and Atheists and their fellow travelers and eject them…

   No, that’s not what you meant, either.

   You need a long rest. A mojito. Some exercise. It took me a week to recover from G.A., and I’m not sure that I was really fully recovered then.

   Some of what went on was very moving and profound, at least for me. It’s rare that I have tears well up, much less flow down my face. It happened repeatedly. I don’t discount it….

   At the same time, the Service of the Living Tradition was… well, wretched. It was clear from the reactions around me at the time, and it’s clear if you peruse the web; the sermon was panned. It’s not fair to excoriate the movement for a bad sermon that wasn’t embraced.

   Yes, it’s hard. Yes, we’re not sure what we’re doing at the moment, but we are — I think — making some progress. For some reason, I keep thinking of the phase of labor labeled “transition.” I’ll never bear a child, but I’ve been present for four births… and the lament you’re singing, PB, makes me think of it. This is too hard, this is stupid, this is pointless, I can’t do this….

   It’s hard. And there’s no real other choice, I think. Maybe for individuals there is. But not for most of us. Not for the movement. We’re past the point where we could climb back to the womb; we couldn’t return to being a Christian denomination now.

   Yes, there are cranky people who lash out. Yes, there are people who are rude and embarrassing (they too are human). Flip side, I watched some of the local youth ragging on one of our transgender members who was walking to the convention center. If “Jeeesus Saaaaaaves” makes you cringe (and it makes me cringe; I don’t believe it, but the belittling is just wrong), well, the things being called out that were hostile and homophobic were worse. We’re human, and sometimes that’s far from satisfactory.

   If you’re not seeing the sacred, then I submit, you’re not looking, not seeing. It’s not hard to find; it’s there. It just has to be seen, and to be seen, it has to be looked for. Which is hard, sometimes, when you’re tired, lonely, worn, and even depressed.

   I sympathize. I feel most of those myself; less lonely than you, perhaps, but also suffering other things (try raising teens to feel sucked dry and dragged to a place in which negativity is sucked out of you and bellowed on a regular basis).

   What do we offer those hungry for God? Damned if I know. I’m not sure what we offer those not hungry for God. Community…. But that’s not really fair either. I looked back and noticed that in my little fellowship which is shot through and through with its founding Humanists and Atheists and Agnostics and plenty of newer folk who have similar views (and plenty who don’t), I’ve preached on Belief (and the need for it) and on Sin, and on Salvation — in the last year — along with a kick-in-the-ass sermon about them-and-us-and-me not rocking the boat enough. And each of them was well received, including and even in particular by the Atheists and Humanists who I thought were most likely to be torqued off.

   There’s stuff happening.

   I think.

   But transition’s hard, and it sucks. I’ve seen it.

   Get some rest. We need it.

   Comment by ogre — July 4, 2007 #

4. Watching it online, I had similar thoughts. I couldn’t decide if it was worse than other years, or if I was just in a different place.

   But I think it was worse in being so free of theology. There was a lot of talk about inclusion - and I kept thinking: what are we including people in? We’re including people to make sure that they can be part of conversations about including people. Surely inclusion is a means not an ends to what we’re doing. We’re dismantling prejudices etc so that all people can be part of something - faith, the divine. But if all we’re talking about is inclusion then what’s the point? What’s at the centre?

   Comment by Stephen — July 4, 2007 #

5. Yes.

   Preach it till the rafters shake. Shout it from the rooftops.

   We need urgently to remind ourselves that, as our own F. H. Hedge whose memory you invoked so succinctly put it, “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.”

   “UUism” as an institution is sorely in need of dying to the flesh and being born again from above in the Spirit (as St. John originally intended those notions to be understood before right wing Protestants co-opted and poisoned them). Or at least making it possible for individuals to do so without feeling they have to leave.

   Comment by fausto — July 4, 2007 #

6. Clearly we attended different stuff. The message Rob Eller-Isaacs gave at the Thursday morning service seemed pretty radically theological to me. He said very plainly: “The purpose of the church is to engender an experience of the Holy.”

   Later that day Paul Rasor talked about the importance of “particularity” and said that by trying to make UUism into a vague abstraction of religion “we may avoid offending anyone, but we also avoid truly knowing anyone.” He added: “We may be post-Christian, but it matters very much that it is Christianity we are post.”

   In my own talk on spiritual writing, I was surprised by the positive response I got from the room when I talked about our “impoverished religious language” which makes it harder for writers to communicate.

   Personally, I think worship and engendering the experience of the Holy can be squared even with a radical Humanism: There are ideas and points of view that are too big to safely take into a personal ego; they are best experienced as outward projections. (This is described in Jungian terms as ego inflation by identification with an archetype.)

   To me, it seems that the anti-spiritual attitude you describe is in retreat in UUism, not advancing.

   Comment by Doug Muder — July 4, 2007 #

7. Looking at my first comment, I notice that I have not answered your question: Is there grace in the world without our help?

   Back in the 90s when my wife was getting high-dose chemotherapy for breast cancer, we were often aware of something we called “the rain of grace”. (We took the phrase from a comic book because none of the standard religious terminology we knew really covered it.) It had nothing to do with the actions of people. Rather, it was an awareness of the constant possibility of just accepting the world the way it is — with pain, with death, with everything. It could all just be OK. The question “Can I bear this?” wasn’t even relevant, because there was nothing to bear.

   [She lived, by the way.]

   Comment by Doug Muder — July 4, 2007 #

8. You said at one point, “we have neither a doctrine of sin or of grace”.

   I disagree. Unitarians and Universalists have always had those doctrines. In the last generation or two we’ve discounted them, but there’s nothing except weakness of will to prevent this generation from restoring and reaffirming them.

   Comment by fausto — July 4, 2007 #

9. PB, I agree that we are worshipping ourselves as UUs. Think of how many sermons have been said about the centrality of “community” (i.e ourselves) over any theological category you can think of. This is it and cannot be changed in the short run. My point is that within ourselves we may look for that spark of divinity (buried under tones of ego-centeredness, to be sure, but not dead yet), and this inward path is as valid as the outward one to connect with the divine. See the Upanishads, or even Jesus’s words if read carefully, if scriptural support is needed.

   Comment by Jaume — July 4, 2007 #

10. PeaceBang I understand your frustration. I am guessing that your blog is a little haven of UU ecumenicalism.

    Comment by Tandaina — July 4, 2007 #

11. When I first got a strong religious itch a year or so ago, it made sense to me as a religious progressive that, to get my feet wet in liberal religion, the first church service I attended was a UU service in San Francisco. After that one visit I’ve never been back. The word “God” was never used once in the entire service that I attended. I guess I’m not surprised, but still–for progressive Christians who actually like to hear the word “God” used occasionally, what can the UU denomination offer them?

    Your examples of religious progressives within mainline denominations is completely valid. There are religious liberals within the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, UCC, and other churches. You don’t have to be a UU to believe in religious pluralism, to reject biblical literalism, to be inclusive and progressive. And at least in mainline chuches you don’t have so many people who are actively hostile to Christianity in particular or religious faith in general as you find in the UU denomination.

    That isn’t to say that I don’t have frustrations with mainline churches. I have lots of them. Lots and lots of them. But I can handle my frustrations with mainline churches more than I can handle my frustrations with the UU denomination. I’d rather at least be in a place where God is the focus of the worship community, then one where ignoring God (or even sneering at God) is par for the course.

    Comment by Mysical Seeker — July 4, 2007 #

12. Loss and confusion seemed to hang over the General Assembly from what I saw on the UUA’s website. The theme of the Service of the Living Tradition could not be found and it meandered through changes to the program and joyless self-reflection. The theological schools were cut off from support from the very institution that they have been preparing people to serve for centuries. The affiliate groups pursuing spiritual paths and providing some depth to our movement for decades have been put into limbo. Our growth in numbers is down as, obviously, are our finances. Something is wrong in the relationships in the Unitarian Universalist Association.

    Perhaps this is due to the lack of grace that can come from some source other than ourselves. When someone does not concede that she is worshipping something greater than herself, however that is defined, then the only conceivable result is narcissism. It was found in the liturgy you mentioned at GA. Kenneth Patten also followed that self-glorifying theme when he penned “We Are the Earth Upright and Proud,” #303 in the hymnal (a pathetic alteration of Luther’s great hymn.) In Patten’s version the hymn praises only the persons actually singing the hymn. They and they alone are the source of grace. Our self-obsession might derive from our Puritan roots for even though they lived in sacred community, those folk who called themselves “saints” were in community because of a personal, private mystical experience not because of the agency of the congregation.

    As Unitarian Universalists though we have tried to turn our outward focus at times to promoting justice. It is right that we do so. The world needs to change if we are all to prosper. The problem is that the pursuit of justice seems to be all that unites us. In our movement injustice in all its forms is likened to sin and like sin in other traditions, despite all the efforts that we make to root it out, sin persists. We have little time to enjoy the moment, to breath in and sing robustly praises to God who gives us strength for the journey. Our focus is immediately taken with the next injustice to conquer. Sometime it seems that we cannot find the time to appreciate the world around us. Injustice anywhere takes the joy away from us. Our congregations can be very somber places.

    Contrasted with the Episcopal Church, our clergy can seem dour. A few years ago I trained for interim ministry in an ecumenical setting with a group of mostly Episcopal clergy. What struck me from that experience was how much happier they seemed than Unitarian Universalist clergy groups. Yes, I could sense the tensions between the liberals and conservatives among the Episcopalians but I could also sense their happiness. Happiness is not something that I associate with Unitarian Universalist clergy on the whole. It seems that when we gather we are somber and purposeful, with strained humor. As Martin Marty once said to a group of Meadville/Lombard folks, “Scratch a Unitarian and you will always find a Puritan underneath.” How can anyone be happy for just a moment when one’s neighbor is always willing to point out the presence of injustice in the world? “How can you waste your time smiling or listening to music when greenhouse gases are depleting the ozone?” It seems that all the weight of the world is upon us and we cannot give our brokenness to God to heal. Everything has to come from within and that assumes that everything within is perfect enough to accept the challenge.

    Ironically though, I feel that grace resides among us when we confess our imperfections, either to God or to the larger community. I wish that we retained in our liturgies that confession of the Anglican tradition that states, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” (Yes, you have heard this from me before.) We are not perfect and we look to something beyond ourselves to find redemption. Though we would wish to bring about the perfect world some part of that will always be beyond us because of human nature (which Channing said was “infinitely perfectible.”) Grace comes for me when I can confess my imperfections and also believe that God knows them and forgives me. It is grace when I acknowledge my brokenness and still feel that the universe loves me. I cannot resolve all the problems of the world and it is acceptable that I put my energy and spirit into the things that I can do with what I have, with who I am. In so doing, a forgotten spirit of Universalism is reclaimed by allowing that all our brokenness is eventually forgiven by God. All of it! We are not perfect and God knows it—and still we are loved.

    May our movement find the grace and the faith that moves the mountains that it clearly wishes to move. It is there for us. All we need do is seek it in the prayers and liturgies of those who lived in this faith before us and make them our own for our own time.

    Please forgive this rumination, Peacebang. I hope that the summer blues lift. I have them every year too, for some of the same reasons you mentioned in your postings.

    Comment by Larry — July 4, 2007 #

13. To go to the last question, I think that if people hunger for God, we ought to give them God. Unitarian-Universalism has inherited several different models of God, models that I, a hardly unbiased observer, think are among the best that humanity has ever come up with. Every UU ought to be educated about what these models are, and, whether they personally choose to worship in relation to such models, be prepared to offer them as gifts to others who come looking for such things among us.

    This is a little glib and quite over-simplified, but it seems that up until a certain point, our history was mainly about believing in God and believing in ourselves. Then, most of our forebearers basically stopped believing in God. But, still confident in themselves, they decided half of the equation was still enough to run a church on, something they wished to keep on doing. This experiment has had mixed results.

    Personally, I do not believe in supernatural grace as something that helps us during life–at least, if you discount the awareness of universal postmortem salvation. But I do believe in natural grace, as well as the ability of persons–HARDLY restricted to those within UUism–to bestow grace on one another. These things are sacred to me.

    There are religions that operate well without a strong central theology or codified dogma, focusing on praxis instead. But they do practice in relation to deeply-felt sacred stories that are shared by the entire community, so there is a core communal world of imagination that helps to knit everyone together and provide resources for spiritual understanding.

    I hear in this post echoes of that same loneliness you blogged about recently. I’m sorry that you feel this way, especially because I think you’re being depressed by actual problems that are serious and long-term, perhaps without full solutions. God embraces you in your sorrow and frustration and will not abandon you, no matter what. But I wonder if God is really enough when so much else feels unright. The love of a distant parent is hard to balance against the lack of a human companion and the feeling of an inadequate community.

    All I can say is that there are lots of other UUs who recognize these issues and feel similarly about them, and hope for a better way. There is solidarity with your concerns and perhaps the possibility of concrete action in the right direction. In the meantime, as I’m sure you’re already aware, the best that can be done is to make your own microcosm, your independent congregation, as close to the aspired-for model as you can. That will tend to attract the sort of people you want, and maybe educate others about the value of your vision.

    Peace be with you.

    Comment by Jeff W. — July 4, 2007 #

14. PB–

    Do you think the problem is that UUs are simply and angry lot?

    I’d be interested to get your reaction to something I wrote: http://craponsundays.blogspot.com/2007/04/is-it-angry-left.html

    Keep up the good writing–

    Will

    Comment by Will — July 4, 2007 #

15. Sounds to me like you think that the influence of Humanism has grown too large, and you wish that UU would, collectively, be like those liberal Christian congregations you attend, or at least adopt adopt theological concepts from the abrahamic religions. The best way to face problems that activists in general face is to adopt those theological concepts. If UU does not do this, you fear that it risks alienating Christians like yourself. Does that about sum it up?

    Comment by Citizen — July 4, 2007 #

16. Personally, I think worship and engendering the experience of the Holy can be squared even with a radical Humanism: There are ideas and points of view that are too big to safely take into a personal ego; they are best experienced as outward projections. (This is described in Jungian terms as ego inflation by identification with an archetype.)

    Doug, I’m interested in hearing more about this, if you would care to expand, or at least point me to sources that expand. Thank you!

    Comment by Citizen — July 4, 2007 #

17. @Doug Muder — I agree with you on two counts: first, I believe in and hope for a Humanist theological tradition to keep emerging within UUism that can take us to a more mature, faithful place beyond where we are now. Also, it does make a big difference what events one attends at GA. I attended few inspiring programs but more than that, I kept getting stopped in the halls by blog readers who wanted to share their pain about some negative UU experience. So that colored my experience, certainly.
    @Larry — Exactly, brother. If justice is all that unites us, what keeps us faithful, loving and reverent when justice doesn’t come as fast as our wills and our limited vision and numbers would have it?
    @Stephen: Thank you for your thoughts on inclusion. Yes, what is it we’re training people to be included in? What is the goal beyond that goal? Where’s the centre, as you put it?
    @TinyThinker: honey, we pimp books here all the time. Go right ahead and tell us what you’re referring to.
    @MaryAnn: my congregation has lay-led summer services in July and August. I take vacation and study leave during most of those weeks (or try to!).
    @Ogre: I appreciate your hopefulness and optimism, but I am still not clear — or even nearly clear as to what we are transitioning TO!
    @Citizen: I’m afraid you’re far off base here. Unitarian Universalism, having explicitly Christian roots, has no need to “adopt theological concepts from the Abrahamic religions.” Both Unitarianism and Universalism are Bible-based, monotheistic Christian traditions that have only very recently merged and created the new, strange hybrid “UUism” that fancies itself entirely other than Christian. I’m not a Christian woman who thinks UUism is “too Humanist,” I’m a life-long Unitarian Universalist who thinks UUism is currently theological empty and becoming completely idolatrous because of it.
    @Fausto: I should have said that we have “no *working* doctrine of sin or grace.”

    Comment by PeaceBang — July 4, 2007 #

18. What is a “Humanist theology?”

    Comment by Citizen — July 4, 2007 #

19. Before I became an Episcopalian I attended two UU churches. What was missing? God, any acknowledgment of a reality outside of human reason, any answer to life’s problems outside of psychotherapy, any consolation in the face of death.

    Comment by Maggie — July 4, 2007 #

20. Citizen,
    Wish I had more places to point you. I just know that I seem to be drifting into a place that both defensible as Humanism and yet not God-negative or worship-negative. There are verbal land-mines on both sides, but I think that the number of them is finite, and that once you get them mapped it’s possible to talk to a common center.

    I gave a sermon in the UU church in the town where I grew up (Quincy, Illinois) called . It must have been OK, because they invited me back.

    Comment by Doug Muder — July 4, 2007 #

21. I think I just screwed up the HTML. The sermon I wanted to mention was “Meeting at Infinity: What Theists and Atheists Can Learn from Each Other”. And it’s at http://freeandresponsible.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

    Comment by Doug Muder — July 4, 2007 #

22. Please find another interesting quote in my blog today to support my previous comment…

    Comment by Jaume — July 4, 2007 #

23. PB, I’m not immune to the tension or the downbeat feelings. I’m just not as universally downbeat as some seem to be. For cause, I think.

    Transitioning to… what? I don’t know. That’s like asking who the person being born is, before they’re actually born. Mom (in particular) may be able to tell you something of the underlying personality or energy level (I’ve heard one baby referred to as “Dances on Cervix”). But you can’t begin to know until after. Not before, and not during.

    I’m looking at my own fellowship. It’s the window I have onto UUs and UUism… other than the peeks I can take through the windows at GA and in visiting other congregations locally (which I’m doing), and talking to their members.

    Five years ago, there was a set of words that Could Not Be Spoken. Not. They still — well, some of them — trigger reactions, and there’s a group that is disgruntled still that they are used. But we’re no longer held hostage by the “I’ll hold my breath and turn blue” behavior, or the fact that a few people can’t and won’t accept that there’s a broader range of meaning than the narrow interpretation that they’ve imposed (or had imposed) on that term.

    This is a fellowship. Atheist/Humanist/Agnostic/Skeptic-founded. Only four years ago, we were seeing ministers approach us as interims who thought they know who we were… and we were, by that point, looking at their materials and remarks and saying, um… no. Doesn’t meet the needs of a larger range of us. We’re no longer snarkily threatening to write an ABC Song of Words We Can’t Say Here. I once threatened to write the words, for performance at the pledge dinner….

    You won’t hear the word God all the time, but you’ll hear it. Jesus, too. Paul quoted from the pulpit, as well as the Buddha and Gandhi.

    One of our recent lay sermons was talking about a conception of what God is/is not. And I believe that one’s going to be preached at two other congregations in the area, this summer.

    I don’t know what’s coming. But I can feel that there’s change coming. I’ve seen some of it happening, hears some of it, preached some of it and gotten positive responses.

    Comment by ogre — July 4, 2007 #

24. What a great post. I struggle with this practically every week in our UU church.

    My wife and I have moved a lot recently and in our two previous stops we found homes in radical liberal mainline Protest denominations (once Methodist, once UCC). In fact in the last stop it was funny - we eventually made friends with a bunch of people that we started recognizing because they kept visiting both the UU church and the UCC church in town just like we were doing! (and we all end up ultimately at the UCC because of the greater degree of spirituality and just plain energy).

    In our new town (now in Canada) we have found far fewer choices (fewer people go to church here than the US) and haven’t yet found a liberal Christian congregation despite being in one of the largest cities in Canada and so have gone with the UUs. I guess this ability to shop around is an advantage of not being a member of the clergy.

    I have to say there are pros and cons either way. At our last stop, my wife and I felt very comfortable. Questions and variety in theology was welcome although everybody started from the assumption that they were somehow Christian (which as you note is a giant step forward in where you can go, say, think). However, as our kids grew out of the nursery we started to feel uncomfortable with what was being learned. My son came home one day and pronounced that “Jesus was the most important person in the world”. This was not exactly what I wanted my son learning - at least not without a lot more nuance and qualifications than a 5 year old can master (e.g. he can be most important to you but Buddha or Gandhi might be most important to somebody else, he’s important only in the sense that he impacts the present day world, God is in all of us - not just one person, etc). Here in the UU church now its the reverse. I am very happy and comfortable with what my kids are getting, but I not infrequently feel unfufilled when I leave a service. I also remember that at our last stop where we were at a Christian church we had good friends who were an interfaith couple - the Christian language felt oppressive to the Jewish member.

    So for now, partly by choice related to our kids and partly by not having a choice we are walking on the UU side of things.

    As I walk the UU side, I’ve tried to be very specific about what bothers me. I’ve decided the core issue is not humanist vs. theist. I find it easy to worship alongside an atheist humanist who is ever aware that they are one tiny piece of this vast creation teaming with life and makes life decisions from this place. I find it hard to worship along somebody with Christian beliefs who holds an absolute certainty that divides people up into groups.

    Similarly I find it easy to worship alongside somebody who is actively struggling with building a theology and understanding their place in the world while I find it painful to worship alongside somebody who puts more energy into criticizing other peoples attempts and does not find a need to build their own sense of meaning in this world.

    The more I’ve thought about it, the key is not theology but more of what you put your finger on about worshipping ourselves. I find humility sorely missing in much of the UU dialogue. We’re so sure we’re right about theology and scoff at others. Gratitude is not important - we deserve all the good things that happen. We’re so darn special we don’t actually depend on or need help from anybody or anything else. Many people first come to religion at a time when they’re feeling broken and lost - a universal human experience - and I don’t think UUism offers much to people in this place (since we never even admit we go there - which we do).

    If it is true that the problem is more about attitudes than theology - this is really rather hopeful.

    And I do sense change in the air. Everywhere I go there is energy and passion about changing (yes amidst lots of other stuff). And here’s the kicker - its mostly the younger people who want this to change. For the same reason homosexuality will be a non-issue in a couple of decades (something like 90% of 18-30 year olds are comfortable with it), the yearning for spirituality in UU congregations will be a non-issue in the long run.

    For me I’ve come to a very transformational realization - if I think a core value is building and searching rather than tearing down, then I better get busy doing it!

    Comment by Brian — July 4, 2007 #

25. There are obviously a lot of things wrong with UUism.
    - of course some of the things you think are a problem, I think are just fine….Rather than argue those (and I think I already have with soe of those on these pages)…
    let me throw out two things; one while you were in GA, I attended an UU Church that had the Lord’s Prayer in the service - and apparently they regularly do so. UUs as a group may not do as much God and Jesus stuff as some of us would like, but nobody at HQ is stopping us. We want more of it, We need to add it.
    Im particularly disturbed by the UU (delegate?) who mocked Jesus in the Seattle community… I think this is something that needs to be put higher up on the list of wrongs (yes, I wrote sins first), that the UU community doesnt need to tolerate. While I dont think we need to form a committee to investigate it (for those who arent sure - that part is a joke); someone needs to at least write a letter to the UU World pointing out that we certainly wouldnt tolerate this kind of behavior aimed at other religions, or other cultures, other classes (Im sure someone with better writing skills than me, can show why this sort of action is actually part of class oppression). Some UUs certainly need to get rid of their Cross-phobia.
    While UUs have our problems - I think the above persons’ action is his action, and we need to address it as his action; and the next time somebody does something similar, we need to do the same. Obviously Im a more optimistic person than some of the folks here, I find UUs as a group to be much more inclusive, understanding, friendlier and nicer and frankly more concerned about others than other denominations. I admit that it could just be that I meet all the good UUs and all the bad brandX guys….

    Comment by Steven R — July 4, 2007 #

26. oops,I forgot: yes there is lots and lots of grace without my help (and even lots of grace sometimes despite my hindrance)

    Comment by Steven R — July 4, 2007 #

27. I am quite curious to know, PB, whether the UUCF subset of events at this year’s GA provided you with consolation, energy, and/or encouragement (assuming it’s possible for you to lift that subset out of the whole experience and just look at it). I had intended to attend UUCF events but got sidetracked with other issues and events. In hindsight I’m sorry that I allowed that to happen because I was dismayed by a number of aspects of this year’s GA — as opposed to the inspiration and affirmation of calling and identity that I’ve experienced at previous GAs. Do you find UUCF to be a source of hope for the future? And what was the turnout for UUCF events in terms of numbers? More than expected? or fewer? or…? Just wondering.

    Comment by Yvonne — July 4, 2007 #

28. “@TinyThinker: honey, we pimp books here all the time. Go right ahead and tell us what you’re referring to.”

    Okee dokee…

    ——————————————-
    ——————————————-
    Dangerous Words: Talking About
    God in the Age of Fundamentalism
    (Hardcover) by Gary Eberle

    ISBN: 1590304322
    ——————————————-
    ——————————————-

    Comment by tinythinker — July 4, 2007 #

29. Doug: Not bad. I especially liked the part where you said that religious stuff was AT LEAST human stuff. Don’t know what kind of response you got to that, but if the theists weren’t offended, I as a Humanist surely wasn’t. I think you succeeded in getting beyond empty banalities without offending anyone.

    Comment by Citizen — July 4, 2007 #

30. I was raised in the Episcopal Church and abandoned it for UU for 7 years (1981-89). I liked that I didn’t have to talk about or listen to talk about Jesus or God. But ultimately I returned to the Episcopal Church (and was ordained here, after a 21-year absence) because I was hungry for God and the UUs of the late 1980s did not offer that to me. I’m not blaming or bitter, only offering another viewpoint from a former UU.

    Comment by Ann — July 4, 2007 #

31. PB, did you see Rev Rob Eller-Isaacs preach?

    http://uua.org/events/generalassembly/2007/presentations/30773.shtml

    Comment by ogre — July 5, 2007 #

32. My thoughts about Citizen’s questions are getting involved enough that I should probably write about them on my own blog. In a nutshell, I think an atheist Humanist can worship the same way that s/he can appreciate a movie: via suspension of disbelief.

    Think about it. We all know that the people on the screen are actors, and that they aren’t really Harry Potter or James Bond. And we even know that there aren’t people on the screen at all — it’s all just a trick of light. We don’t deny that knowledge when we go to the movies, we just allow ourselves not to focus on it for a while.

    So, suppose for the sake of argument that I can be pigeon-holed as an atheist Humanist. Nonetheless, I have feelings of awe and wonder in the face of the Universe, and I have a generalized sense of gratitude about being alive. Now, suppose a worship leader wants to celebrate those feelings by having us all imagine an object to focus them on — a being who engenders that awe and wonder, someone to be grateful to for all the stuff that we can’t attribute to anybody in particular.

    I can do that. Do I believe in such a being, to the extent that I’m going to take that being into account in my everyday decision-making? No. But I can at a minimum believe in that being the way that I believe in James Bond while I’m watching his movie. I can fall into the worship service in the same way that I fall into a movie — and be happy that I did.

    And I absolutely don’t need to say to my fellow movie-goers: “You idiots! Don’t you know it’s just a light show?”

    Comment by Doug Muder — July 5, 2007 #

33. This bit from Brian’s post above grabbed me:

    “I find it easy to worship alongside an atheist humanist who is ever aware that they are one tiny piece of this vast creation teaming with life and makes life decisions from this place. I find it hard to worship along somebody with Christian beliefs who holds an absolute certainty that divides people up into groups.”

    I agree wholeheartedly. I thoroughly enjoyed discussing classical Stoicism and its influence on 19th- and early 20th-century Unitarian humanists and proto-hummanists with Doug, Peacebang, Philocrites and others at a recent bloggers’ picnic. And there are few things that I find as scary and offensive as a zealous Christian exclusivist.

    The problem that we UUs need to wrestle with, though isn’t quite that one. I don’t know any zealous UU Christian exclusivists. The problem that we need more urgently to address is that there are also few things as scary and offensive as a zealous atheist exclusivist.

    Comment by fausto — July 5, 2007 #

34. Doug,

    That’s pretty good, except that, as you say, we all know that the people on the screen are actors, and so you are right, there is no need to point that out to fellow movie-goers.

    Everyone does not know that when it comes to religion. That little fact seriously hurts the analogy. The sight of Humanists “worshipping” (if an activity akin to watching a movie can be called worship), might reinforce the beliefs of the people who think that the movie is real, and is that an outcome that Humanists should be happy about, if it occurs?

    Comment by Citizen — July 5, 2007 #

35. The problem that we UUs need to wrestle with, though isn’t quite that one. I don’t know any zealous UU Christian exclusivists. The problem that we need more urgently to address is that there are also few things as scary and offensive as a zealous atheist exclusivist.

    What’s a “zealous atheist exclusivist?”

    Comment by Citizen — July 5, 2007 #

36. I was pondering some of these same issues pertaining to UUism and interreligious understanding last fall, in particular the Principles of UUism, and how they match other attempts at interfaith interaction. In particular I was struck by the potential usefulness and clarity of another set of principles I had seen elsewhere…

    The Snowmass Conference’s Guidelines for Interreligious Understanding:

    1. The world religions bear witness to the experience of the Ultimate Reality to which they give various names: Brahman, the Absolute, God, Allah, (the) Great Spirit, the Transcendent.

    2. The Ultimate Reality surpasses any name or concept that can be given to It.

    3. The Ultimate Reality is the source (ground of being) of all existence.

    4. Faith is opening, surrendering, and responding to the Ultimate Reality. This relationship precedes every belief system.

    5. The potential for human wholeness — or in other frames of reference, liberation, self-transcendence, enlightenment, salvation, transforming union, moksha, nirvana, fana — is present in every human person.

    6. The Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships and service to others.

    7. The differences among belief systems should be presented as facts that distinguish them, not as points of superiority.

    8. In the light of the globalization of life and culture now in process, the personal and social ethical principles proposed by the world religions in the past need to be re-thought and re-expressed.

    -from Speaking of Silence: Christian and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way by Thomas Keating

    Comment by tinythinker — July 5, 2007 #

37. Some good news here, some of us do sponsor mission trips to New Orleans, working side by side with Baptists! Old, middles, young and youth went. It was transcendental!

    http://horizonhammers.blogspot.com/

    Comment by Frank Vaughan — July 5, 2007 #

38. Citizen,

    “Zealous atheist exclusivist?” refers to those (I’m guessing) who exude disdain, hostility and disbelief when some UU lets slip that they hold to some idea that the ZAE in question sneers at. An example, from a woman I knew who was VP of her congregation’s board. She found that a substantial and key group of long-time members had that attitude. She was what she called (her term) a “recovering Catholic,” theistic, in some (to me) undefined, somewhat deist manner. Her husband was an Atheist (not hostile, however). On hearing that she believed in god, the response she got boiled down to “Why would anyone who believed in god be a UU?”

    Staggering, to me, at least. I grew up UU. I’ve never been any form of Christian–but I’m on record, publicly (while president of our board) that I’d be delighted if the UU Christians in our congregation chose to hold a Bible study and to hold communion, too–just as we have a Buddhist study group. Just as I’d be happy if each and every one of our theological subcommunities did.

    It’s the exclusivism that’s really bad form and very non-UU. The zeal is merely gauche.

    Comment by ogre — July 6, 2007 #

39. Yvonne, to your question about the UUCF events at the Portland GA: Yes we had higher than expected attendance at our events, all of them, especially the communion service and the Kathleen Norris lecture and the off-GA program grid dinner and hymn sing and meeting. Each of these events had more people in attendance than we have had before at similiar GA events. And it wasn’t just because the number of folks was up overall at Portland. We had more at these events than we did at our events at the 2003 Boston GA which had a few thousand more folks than the Portland GA. Kathleen Norris said, I believe, that her lecture to UUs was the largest audience or certainly close to it that she has ever had. We are looking at having our largest Revival ever this year in Cleveland, especially as we our co-sponsoring it with the Cleveland Ecumenical Institute and bringing in John Dominic Crossan to give three lectures on Paul as one of the key features to Revival. More at http://www.uuchristian.org/revival/

    blessings, Ron Robinson, Executive Director, UUCF

    Comment by Ron Robinson — July 6, 2007 #

40. What’s a “zealous atheist exclusivist?”

    Same as a zealous Christian exclusivist, except instead of believing that everyone who isn’t a born-again Christians is hopelessly lost, and probably deserves to be, because they are at best worthless but more likely also affirmatively evil, a zealous atheist exclusivist believes that about everyone who isn’t an atheist.

    Comment by fausto — July 6, 2007 #

41. Citizen,

    The question of what the other worshippers think gets down to trust, which is where I start to have problems with many of my fellow Humanists. I believe that this part of my congregation’s covenant “to seek the truth in love and to help one another” obliges me to give my fellow UUs a certain benefit of the doubt. Whatever they’re doing, I trust that their path helps them be part of the healing of the world, just like mine does. Maybe for some of them that’s not true, but I think it’s true for enough of them that my trust is well placed.

    If I were going to balk at something, the first thing to balk at would be the covenant. And then I’d have to wonder if I really wanted to be part of this church.

    Being that my fellow parishioners are UUs, though, they’re probably doing something a lot more subtle than may appear, just like me. And if watching me sing praises to God raises questions in anybody’s mind, they can ask me about it at coffee hour and we’ll have an interesting conversation.

    Comment by Doug Muder — July 6, 2007 #

42. ((((zealous atheist exclusivist)))

    If it helps, these folks haven’t gotten much respect in any UU church I’ve ever spent time in. They are treated pretty much the way a fundamentalist would have been treated in the liberal presby church I grew up in.

    CC
    who believes that grace exists, but that it primarily manifests itself through human action. She’s not sure if that means she agrees with PB or no.

    Comment by Chalicechick — July 6, 2007 #

43. I am sad - I have searched the UU community where I live and found I cannot stay in the UU church without spiritually starving to death. Perhaps there are UU churches elsewhere that are quite different, but that is not the case here. I have begun to explore the Episcopal churches and have been welcome with open arms, spiritually fed while not spiritually oppressed, find that the church is involved in social activism and supportive of their diverse congregations (ethnicity, sexual orientation etc). I thought about staying with the UUs and working toward and hoping for change, but I did not have the physical, mental, emotional or spiritual stamina to do so. My sadness stems from the rejection I experienced in the UU community when I tried to express my concerns. Sad that I could not find a home with them, sad that they have painted themselves into the corner of “my way or no way.” They are a glum lot entrenched in their social activism to the point of the ridiculous - and much of what they label social activism is simply “recreational debate” which is just a wheel spinning going nowhere. I also feel betrayed, the websites I visited from these UU churches assured me how welcoming and inclusive they were.I hope UU’s as a whole find a direction that brings balance and hope for their movement.
    I want to thank you, PB, for acknowledging these shortcomings.
    KC

    Comment by KC — July 6, 2007 #

Leave a comment