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Terminal Uniqueness

I’ve been screaming and yelling and doing everything but laying down on chancels throwing temper tantrums for years against liberal religious “terminal uniqueness:” that bizarre insistence lefty Christians and Unitarian Universalists have that we’re the really unique game in town.  We’re the thinkers. We’re the skeptics. We’re the ones who stand on the side of love. We’re the ones who don’t want to be told what to believe.

Yes. Just like every other mainline Protestant I’ve ever met, and I meet thousands.

I sometimes think that I will be in my bed at the Home For Extremely Aged Clergy Who Are Still Able To Sit Up And Take Nourishment and someone will start waxing nostalgic about how the Unitarians or the UCC held the torch for rational religion aloft in the 21st century, how we were such a great experiment in eclectic spirituality, and so all alone in our progressive presence… and I will sit up, whip the oxygen tube out of my nose, and go smother them with a pillow. A long trial will ensue. Was I in the throes of dementia or was it actual homicide? My defense will argue that it was justifiable homicide. I will get in some of the papers and make my case, and then I will die. My tombstone will simply say, “Victoria Weinstein: ecumaniac.”

Oh look at my photo! Here’s a CATHOLIC CHURCH in London that welcomes questions! And I’ve even personally met many Catholics who are not dogmatic! Open minds here? Ya don’t say! And you know what? I believe them!

Below that, another CATHOLIC community center that offers tai chi and yoga as part of their spiritual programming! Wait! When did Catholics start doing this sort of thing?

I have spent the past five years in constant conversation with clergy of all denominations from all over the Western world and can I tell you something? The progressive spirit is EV-REE-WHERE. Just the other night I was hanging out with a Salvation Army chaplain, a few Anglican priests and a Methodist minister. This sounds like the beginning of a joke but it’s not. It’s just women sitting around talking about ministry, all smart and educated, all irreverent and clever, all thoroughly modern and open to new truths, all ministering to incredibly similar communities of human beings.

We think it’s our differences that keep us apart or that make us more appealing to newcomers?

Naw. I believe that it’s our insistence that we’re unique that keeps us all looking very silly and out of touch to seekers who have done some comparison shopping and can tell us for a fact that our differences are almost entirely cosmetic. Most Anglicans I know are just like every UU I know, except they love high liturgy. Methodists and Congregationalists get ornery over the same petty church politics. There are more goddess-worshiping tree huggers in the Catholic church than most pagans could possibly imagine.

The Unitarian Universalist who cannot think metaphorically and who refuses to respect how deeply metaphor ministers to many people’s soul in his congregation is just as doctrinaire and fundamentalist as the Bible-thumper who insists that every word of the Bible is God’s truth.

Same. I’m telling you. I think the future of the Church depends on our ability to move beyond terminal uniqueness.

 

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Social Media: A New Country

Ellen submits a very interesting comment. She says,

Dear Peacebang, maven of all internet social media, there IS something about this “hot mess” I would love to hear your advice about, and now that you’ve broached the subject, perhaps you’ll indulge me!

So, I have been watching this “hot mess” and thinking about nasty church politics–you know, when there’s some hot conflict between some church leaders and some of them say things outside those meetings they should have saved for face-to-face private sessions and soon everybody has an opinion and there’s about 15 different stories about what happened (despite a membership of under 60), people are divided into camps, no one knows who to trust, and there’s rampant triangulation?

I’m sure you’ve been there or somewhere near it. I know the standard advice and have had some minor success in helping church leaders understand–go directly to the leader with your concerns, if you don’t find satisfaction follow the outlined appropriate process, but please do not triangulate and gossip.
So, my question is, how do we as dedicated and committed church folks use social media appropriately when our larger body starts dissolving into politics that feel very much like the above nasty church politics? Your post trying to bring some sanity has made room for discussion that is both useful (clarifying bylaw issues) and not so much. (e.g. I always question the word always 🙂 )
…
not doing or saying things, of course, does nothing to interfere with the easy way the internet serves as a fertility drug for wild gossip mongering, innuendo, and conspiracy theories. I would love to hear your advice on this conundrum!

Dear Ellen,

What a great question. And I have a response that isn’t at all wise but is certainly experienced and honest.

Social media is a brand new thing. Even the internet is a relatively Brand New Thing, and we have no idea yet how to use it as perfectly as we might, or as we ought. But I am hopeful.  Riffing on the great Theodore Parker quote, “the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice,” I would say that the moral arc of the internet will be long but I hope it will bend toward goodness. At least as it is used by religious communities. It will always be a space for the brutal expression of nasty, ignorant opinions on celebrity sites and such. But we are people who are trying to be in right relationship, and we ought to be asking the questions you’ve asked and working to use this technology well.

I remember when I first came into ministry 15 years ago we were all new at e-mail. And we freaked out about it almost daily. No one knew how to “read” each other without the inflection of a voice or the benefit of face-to-face interaction. Terse, get-‘er-done type e-mails were interpreted as rude. Some people over-shared and expected recipients to slog through pages of reflections on last night’s meeting; an abuse of others’ time and patience (I’m pointing at myself and going, “guilty as charged!” And I still do it!). We all had nightmare experiences of pressing “send all” when we meant to respond to only one person. We all made the mistake of trying to have important conversations via e-mail that had no business being attempted through such an impersonal medium. Another bad practice I remember was the expectation of instantaneous response to e-mail: parishioners in one of my former congregations would call the church office and say, “Where is Vicki? I sent her an e-mail 15 minutes ago and she hasn’t responded yet.”

It was nuts.

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Quite Literally a Hot Mess: Contretemps Over the Phoenix GA 2012

I have just heard that two members of our Unitarian Universalist General Assembly Planning Committee have resigned. The article is here.

I’m going to comment on this issue from the perspective of a clergyperson who cares about the work of our General Assembly but who neither knows, nor intends to intensively research, the extreme specifics of our planned 2012 “Justice General Assembly.” My semi-ignorance is intentional: it is because I deeply believe that insider politics are the scourge of the institutional Church. I believe that very few people care about insider politics, or have the privilege of enough spare time to stay current with the e n d l e s s conversation it generates. My observation is that the vast majority of participants in any faith tradition desire the church (in this case, the Unitarian Universalist Association of independent congregations) to be community of love and service, prayer and study, and the nurturing of all souls.

Hence, I will keep my observations brief and, I hope, fairly simple.

The individuals and congregations devoted to immigrant justice issues in Arizona are admirable, and I fully support their good works.

However, given that the purpose of our General Assembly is to do the work of the Association, and that the “work of the Association” can only interpreted by the most creative institutional contortions as “spending the week partnering with local Arizona organizations in the work of immigrant justice,” this gathering should stop calling itself a General Assembly. The commitment to having 2012 be a “Justice GA” (a new animal for our tradition) was voted on last year by the GA delegates, which makes it legitimate by congregational polity. What has subsequently happened, however, is that the other congregational-polity aspects of this General Assembly (most specifically, the role of the General Assembly Planning Committee, a group elected by the delegates) have been eroded by what is being perceived as a take-over by the UUA Board.

So this is a polity mess that is unfortunately being played out as a personality and identity issue, with accusations of power abuse flying from one side and accusations of bad faith (eg, people who don’t support this “Justice GA” aren’t good, faithful Unitarian Universalists because they are obviously not committed enough to justice work and witness) flying back from the other side. That’s really a shame.

Continue reading “Quite Literally a Hot Mess: Contretemps Over the Phoenix GA 2012”