PeaceBang

The Religion About Jesus Or the Religion OF Jesus?

Scott Wells asks a provocative question over at Boy In the Bands and has sparked an interesting conversation.

Funny, but when I first heard that oft-quoted classical Unitarian claim that we practice the religion OF Jesus rather than the religion ABOUT Jesus, I never questioned it. It sounded good, solid, and it resonated with me. I was starting to define myself as a “Jesus Person,” it was the early 1990’s, and I wanted to believe it.

Do I believe it now? Yes and no. It is certainly my experience is that Unitarian Universalists try just as hard as any other religious community to minister to each other and to the wider world in some of the ways Jesus taught and modeled. It seems fair to say that without being officially Christian, contemporary UUs have continued to care about many of the same issues as did their Christian Unitarian and Universalist forebears, and maybe not even for entirely different theological or moral reasons.

But it is also fair to say that we practice the religion ABOUT Jesus, in that we are perpetually obsessed with defining ourselves as Other Than Christian while maintaining unmistakably Protestant forms of worship, polity and culture in our congregational life. The vast majority of seekers to our congregations are either formerly Christian church-goers or unavoidably soaked in Christian culture (perhaps it would be more accurate to say “Christendom”) by virtue of living in the United States.
We are therefore always in the business of re-interpreting Christianity within our churches, helping angry ex-Christians heal their spiritual wounds, and answering the inevitable questions of what are we really, if not Something That Isn’t Exactly Christian But Obviously Closely Related To It.

No really developed thoughts here, folks, just glad Scott brought it up.

“When In Doubt, Pray. When In Prayer, Have an Existential Crisis.”

Oh for heaven’s sake, what new nonsense is this?

Yet again the Unitarian Universalists are choosing to market themselves as the “faith” for those who are totally ambivalent about whether or not intelligent people should have any faith, and playing the old “we’re not led by creed or doctrine” bit, which is getting SO TIRED. How many 21st century religious individuals mindlessly obey their religious tradition’s doctrines in the first place? Hello, post-modernist angst about the validity of religious institutions and broad eclecticism in personal spiritual practice: not just for unchurched seekers anymore! WHEN will the UUA stop marketing trumpeting unique aspects of our tradition that are incredibly un-unique?

It’s the old definition-by-negation business again, and it assumes that we have no doctrinal, dogmatic attitudes or creedal practices or individuals among us, which of COURSE we do. Just look at how we treat the precious Seven Principles, which have been lifted to quasi-creedal status by many serious UUs (and maybe that’s not such a bad thing). Ech. More terminal uniqueness. Quippy, cutesy crap. Clever wordplay instead of a warm and loving invitation to find us and worship with us.

It would be so much less offensive if Unitarian Universalists weren’t notoriously uncomfortable with the mere notion of prayer and famous for using a long, comma-separated series of euphemisms to introduce That Portion of the Sunday Service During Which We Come Into the Place of Honesty, Or Join Our Spirits In Openness and Compassion, Or Meditate, Or Muse Or Think Good Thoughts Or Even Perhaps Join In (The Spirit Of) Prayer (Because You Musn’t Say ‘Let Us Pray’ For Fear Of Being Run Out Of Town After Coffee Hour, That Is, If You Make It Alive To Coffee Hour).

I’m sorry I used the word “crap” to describe this ad; that’s strong condemnation. But I’m not editing it out. I’m sick and bloody tired of insulting Baptists, Methodists, Muslims, Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Orthodox Jews and others whose religious traditions are creedal and doctrinal and who often manage, nevertheless, to have wonderful ministries, whose communities are welcoming and even rebelliously so (how many of you know of renegade Catholic, Episcopal, Presby or Lutheran individuals or parishes that openly welcome and advocate for the g/b/l/t community, for example? I thought so…), and whose life together is a thing of beauty that draws more seekers to find, and stay with them, every year. Those doctrinal, creedal congregations are not necessarily any more dysfunctional or even close-minded than our own non-creedal, non-doctrinal ones. We must stop advertising these aspects of our tradition as if they confer upon us some magical ability to love, to minister, and to support an individual or a family’s search for truth and meaning. They do not.

“When in doubt, pray??” How about,

“All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.”*
Join a Unitarian Universalist congregation near you for Sunday worship. We are waiting to welcome you, and to include you in our circle of caring.

“The Unitarian Universalists welcome you to worship with us, and to join in the great work of loving the world.”

“Unitarian Universalism: The search for truth in the spirit of freedom. Don’t walk the path alone: come for Sunday morning worship and stay for community.”

I mean, these aren’t genius or anything, but they took me fifteen seconds to think up and I’m not getting paid for them, if you know what I’m saying.

The best advertising for our tradition, or any tradition, is for our congregations to be healthy communities full of individuals who have a strong sense of ministry and are guided by an ethic of love and covenantal relationship. They should make the news for doing good works in the community, and when people walk through their doors (as they will if they are guided there by spiritual need, not prompted by an ad in Time magazine), they should encounter powerful worship services, quality religious education, well-organized, inclusive pastoral and prophetic ministries, and people with authentic welcome on their lips and in their hearts.

And when they are invited to pray, it should be in the spirit of hope and faith, because why the HELL would anyone who understands the first thing about the Unitarian or the Universalist traditions suggest that prayer and doubt are a wise pairing in the search for truth and meaning?

All right. Rant over. I have a sermon to finish. I’ll leave the rest of the rant or the BangBack to you, my friends.

* quote by George Odell

Fat and Domestic Abuse

SweetieBang and I have developed a little Saturday morning tradition. I wake up early, walk the dog for a few minutes, then come inside and read for class or church while Greg sleeps in. Then he wakes up, walks the dog for a second time (Max prefers to do his serious business with Doggie Daddy, which is fine with me!), then we go to Weight Watchers where I get weighed in, then we noodle around the mall or somewhere else, and have lunch together. I drive Greg to work and then I go home and work on church stuff or whatever else I need to do.

Lately I’ve been very happy with my Weight Watchers weigh-in, so I tend to do a little “Rocky” arm pumping victory jump when I share my news with him across the room from the scales. He, being a shy guy, gives me a little grin and saves all the “Heeeey, Skinny” comments for when we’re alone (really corny stuff like, “Where’d ya go? Oh, you turned sideways, I didn’t see you!”). He’s very supportive, but it means a lot to me that when we met I was as heavy as I’ve ever been and he was still attracted to me. Hetero men who manage not to have their libidos totally colonized by Madison Avenue and the fashion industry have a special place in my heart. This isn’t to say that all men are necessarily naturally attracted to heavy women, but plenty who are wouldn’t dare act on that attraction for fear of being thought less a man by their peers. As I’ve complained many times in the past, a simple cruise through the personal ads of any American newspaper or on-line dating site will inform even the most casual observer that American men are intensely fat phobic, equating extra pounds with sloth and fair game for ridicule and even demonization. It’s ugly out there for big girls. And no, it seems to matter not one bit if the fat-hating gent in question is himself in possession of a beer gut, flabby or distinctly unhandsome physique, ear hair, foul breath, rampant dandruff or is a self-absorbed, ignorant, unemployed marijuana addict who lives at home at the age of 47. “No fatties need apply!” There is no greater moral crime in America today than to be obese.

With this in mind, it suddenly and with some real horror occurred to Greg and me last weekend that some people probably think he goes with me to Weight Watchers to make sure I’m losing weight, like some abusive control freak boyfriend would do. And Lord forgive us — we laughed our heads off about it. As soon as we leave the Weight Watchers storefront now, we do this whole skit where I say, “Honey, I lost two pounds this week” and he makes a *slap* sound effect and growls, “I thought we said FIVE.” Or he’ll put his arm around my waist, softly grab a handful of flesh and sneer in my ear, “Two pounds? What about this?” And I pretend to cry and say, “I only got to the gym seven times this week! I’m sorry! I’ll do better!” And we laugh like hyenas and get iced coffees.

And yet there are couples who live this way. And I’m sure we all know some of them without knowing that this is going on behind closed doors.

Today we were in breathless hysterics because I lost over 3 lbs. this week (don’t congratulate me for my discipline, I’ve had some sort of flu since Tuesday night) and we decided that, in our skit, before the woman even got the word “three” out of her mouth to announce her great success for the week (”Sweetie, guess what? I lost thr…”), the guy would interrupt by saying, “STILL. FAT.” and totally shut her off.

Of course this is all the funnier to us because Greg is considerably overweight himself and first feared that if he entered the WW building with me, he’d be dragged into a meeting and would be counting points from that moment on. (”C’mon, big guy,” he imagined them saying. “Get on the scale!”).

It really isn’t funny. I know it and so does he. I remember being in my early twenties and starting to get seriously overweight (”seriously” back then being 20 lbs. or so, but in my own eyes I was an enormous blob and desperately insecure about it, although on my good days I felt sexy and curvy and angry that the rest of the world –including women — tended to be so stupid and hateful about women’s bodies). I read Fat Is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach and it really opened my eyes to the ways that the diet industry conspires with society’s misogynist impulses to keep women focused on shrinking down to an acceptable size so that they won’t get their teeny tiny brains on other things, like, say, running for president.

When I see slim, fit women at the gym doing their thing, I cheer them on. “Go, sister!” However, when I see them striding into a Weight Watchers meeting and they’re in their early 20’s or maybe not even that old, and they’re thin and beautiful and they’ve joined WW for $9 a week because they’re miserable about the six pounds they’re frantic to lose, I can’t cheer. I want to pull them over and say, “Lovely young woman, take a 45 minute walk three times a week, cut out the sugary beverages, eat three healthy meals a day and nothing in between and you’ll drop that six pounds in no time. Meanwhile, there are so many better things you could be doing with your time than weighing and measuring your food and attending Weight Watchers meetings on a Saturday morning. Whoever told you you should be here, or whatever put it into your head that you need to be a size 2 or 4, let’s do an exorcism for that and you can get out of here and go live large in mind and spirit, ’cause your body is nowhere near it.”

As Auntie Mame said, “Life is a banquet, and most sons-of-bitches are starving to death.” With starvation a reality for so many of the world’s men, women and children, it seems especially important to remind women that there is more important work for us to be doing than achieving conventionally sexy, impossible model proportions that occur naturally in something like 2% of the female population. Health is one thing. My heart and joints are thanking me today for having released 10% of my body fat. Anxiously capitulating to a fat-phobic society that has, at best, a very ambivalent relationship to women’s largeness of being on all levels, is another phenomenon entirely, and not a good one.

If I haven’t made this perfectly clear, let me say to the women reading this that if you are involved in a relationship with a man who viciously shames you about your weight, ridicules your body if you gain a few pounds, objectifies body parts with cruel nicknames, threatens to leave or cheat on you if you don’t lose weight or habitually tears you down, telling you that you’re lucky to have him and that you’re so fat no one else would want you, you are in an abusive relationship. You don’t need to go to Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig or LA Weight Loss Centers or Overeaters Anonymous. You need to call a domestic abuse resource center where you live, your best friend or family member, your minister or priest or other supportive and loving advocate for your health and safety, and make a plan to get out of the relationship. Okay? If you decide to lose weight at some point, that’s up to you.

And I promise that my chubby baboo and I will stop laughing about this issue from now on. We were only laughing because it’s such an atrocious scenario and all too common. Lord have mercy.

(Highly Recommended Natural Weight Loss Method: Beagle Puppy = four or five ten minutes walk per day = hundreds of extra calories expended per month and you won’t even notice it!)

The Living Tradition Fund

I remember when I graduated from Harvard Divinity School with $60K in debt and my first job in ministry. I was offered a package of around $42K by my first congregation and I thought I was rich, rich, rich!! That was until I realized that rents in the area were astronomical, that my debt was a stone around my neck, and that I’d be paying a huge amount of taxes paid quarterly with fear, trembling and a churning stomach full of worry. I lived very close to the bone during those years.

During those first years I received a few debt reduction grants from the UUA, made possible by the Living Tradition Fund. Receiving them was a true life line, and I got teary when I opened the first envelope with a check in it. Every year at General Assembly at the Service of the Living Tradition, the Rev. Ralph Mero would make an impassioned plea for all those gathered (usually between three and six thousand folks) to consider the amount they had planned to contribute, and then to double it. The first time I wrote a $100 check back to the LTA during General Assembly was the moment I most truly understood the joy of giving. “The Lord loves a cheerful giver” indeed.

Although my student debt is still in the high twenty-thousands of dollars, I expect it to be gone in 7-10 years, and well worth it. Meanwhile, my retirement account is healthy with Fidelity Investments and I have decided to change my beneficiaries. I am leaving 25% of my assets to the Living Tradition Fund, which, if I die before retirement age, will make a very nice gift. I have decided that should I live long enough to need my retirement assets (and there’s no reason to assume that I won’t — but no reason to assume that long life is a certainty, either), I vow to make a significant bequest to the Living Tradition Fund no matter how long I live.

Ministers have so many other stomach-churning realities to contend with. Finances should not so regularly be among them. Fair and generous compensation is something none of us should take for granted, as so many of our sisters and brothers of the cloth in all traditions are not fairly or generously compensated. Making gifts to the Living Tradition Fund while I am alive and after my death is my way of reaching out to clergy in my tradition in fellowship and collegial solidarity. I encourage other UU ministers and those who want to support our ministers to consider doing the same, if you haven’t done so already.

UUA Living Tradition Fund
PO Box 843154
Boston, MA 02284-3154

Max and SweetieBang and PB, The First Warm April Day

Just Checking In

Hi dears,
Thank you all for your fantastic recommendations for my Passover sermon. Not only did 25 of you weigh in on-line, several of you sent wonderful resources privately and I just want to say that you’re funderfulf.

Life is just a bit too full these days and I’m having many thoughts on subjects I’d love to discuss with you but no time to write.

So for now, just thanks.

Welcome, Beauty Tips Readers, and Sorry!

Dear BTFM powder pigeons,

Many of you have written in a panic to inform me that the BTFM site keeps kicking you over here. Not to worry, my master internets guru will have the kinks worked out in no time! Meanwhile, browse the PeaceBang blog and see you soon back at Beauty Tips…

xoxo PB

Slavery In the 21st Century: Sermon Helps

Friends,

I want to say something about slavery in the 21st century in my April 20 sermon on Passover, but I am overwhelmed by the subject. Does anyone have a resource you would particularly recommend (especially on-line) that might help me craft a few paragraphs or pages to integrate into the story of Exodus?

Any books you found especially helpful?

Thanks in advance,
PB

Training Pastoral Caregivers

When I set out to train a group of lay pastoral caregivers this fall, I wanted to create my own model since I had never seen one that I could entirely go for, even though I had attended numerous workshops on the subject.

Although I read dozens of books on pastoral care. I found these two books to be most helpful in framing my sessions:

A Pastor in Every Pew: Equipping Laity for Pastoral Care by Leroy Howe
and
The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning To Listen Can Improve Relationships by Michael P. Nichols, PhD

I just thought I’d let you know.

Max, Post-Op

“Excuse me, but wasn’t it bad enough that you had to tinker with my manhood? Now I got to wear this big plastic bonnet, too?”