One must wonder about the efficacy of the UUA decision to invite more mainstream religion into the Unitarian church. At a time when non-believers are just beginning to carry the fight back to the religious right machine, the UUA is instead pandering to that same machine in order to become bigger, stronger, and more powerful.
If that is not bad enough, as Ray Bradley points out, the UUA has been consistently losing membership, as compared to the US population, since they began their project calling for the jesusification of the UUA, as this chart clearly shows. The UUA plan to make their association rich and powerful is failing miserably.
At the same time, the number of Americans that define themselves as churchless has been growing by leaps and bounds. Even if you use the conservative numbers from the ongoing Pew Research religion poll, the number of unbelievers has leaped up to nearly 20% of the US population while the UUA plan to bring more big-time religion into the church has completely fizzled.
It is conceivable that the UUA has lost more Humanist members than it has gained in Christian membership during this period. This is a clear situation in which the patient was perfectly well, yet the UUA decided to operate anyway. It would appear as if that operation has gone badly wrong, and the patient may well be dying, or at least getting significantly sicker.
If David Niose, in his new book Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, is correct, the American Humanist, secular movement in the USA is on the verge of becoming a much larger voice of reason in American society and politics. His case is a good one, and worth looking at, as I am at the time of this writing. A review of the Niose book will appear in this space soon.
Meanwhile, all unbelievers need to take a close look at what we DO believe, and how much longer we need to put up with the Creationist, anti-Darwin, anti-Choice, anti-Science idiocy that characterizes the religious right, and which has taken over the Republican party during the last 30 years. The UUA apparently felt that the way to more power was believing the rhetoric of these enemies of the intellect and critical thought.
We need to show them, powerfully, that they are wrong.
Hi Michael,
I’m curious about the “decision of the UUA to invite more mainstream religion” into UUism. Is this an articulated UUA policy, or is it merely an observed (and documented?) trend. My local Texas congregation is almost entirely composed of pagans and various stripes of unbelievers.
I agree that making closer alignment with Christianity an organizational policy would be wrong-headed in the extreme — Christians already have lots of denominations to choose from. On the other hand, I think intentionally alienating Christians would also be a mistake. In my opinion, giving Christians a “safe place” from which to explore the boundaries of their faith, experiment with breaking those boundaries, and associate with people from outside those boundaries, is a very important role that UUism can play in the religious landscape. (I’m speaking from a USA-centric viewpoint, incidentally — conservative Christianity is unquestionably the largest threat to collective sanity the US faces.)
- Joe
This type of closed-mindedness is exactly the type of thing that, in my mind, particularly hinders UU attempts to grow the beloved community. Your opinion here seems to be in opposition to most of the principles that we as a people “covenant to affirm and promote.” I also find it laughably preposterous to suggest that the UUA is engaged in a “jesusification” to grow the denomination.
The UUA assiduously work to avoid appearing to endorse any particular theological position, and severed the existing working relationships with the theological affiliate organizations several years back, including the UU Buddhist and Christians. I’m trying hard, but it is difficult to see anything more than what might be considered stereotypical “cranky atheist humanism” in your post. You apparently do not see inherent worth and dignity in others, it is difficult to discern how you are being compassionate in belittling them, the only free and responsible search you seem to accept is humanist, and you only seem to have room for people to search the path that you prescribe. All of the denominations are experiencing significant reductions in their membership numbers as our society has changed and as, apparently, Christianity has started undergoing a needed and useful reformation. As a Universalist Christian, I have no problem with you being an atheist humanist; you are no threat to me, but when you decide that you have the “one-prescription-to-rule-them-all” for UUism and feel like you can shrink the tent to close people out of it, I have to cry shenanigans. For the group that keeps telling all the rest of us that you are so smart and reasonable, I am always surprised by your reductionist argument that all of Christendom are mouth-breathing, anti-scientific, Creationist, knuckledraggers. I suppose it helps to build up the straw man that the new Atheism likes to trot out and smack around for sport.
Our inability to articulate (or agree upon) a positive and reasonable self-definition and vision has more to do with our small numbers than some fantasy that the UUA has gone all “Jesusy.” There are a lot more ways to be religious than being atheist humanist or fundamenalist theist. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio…
Gil,
For the record, the “anti-scientific, Creationist, knuckledraggers” are more than a strawman argument used by atheists. They are real. And they are a real threat to our way of life. Here is my evidence. Strawmen didn’t introduce the below anti-evolution legislation – real people did.
Tennessee
- House Bill 368
- Senate Bill 893
Florida
- Senate Bill 1854
Texas
- House Bill 2454
Missouri
- House Bill 195
Kentucky
- House Bill 169
Oklahoma
- Senate Bill 554
- House Bill 1551
New Mexico
- House Bill 302
By the way, these are just the anti-evolution bills introduced in 2011. And I didn’t include the anti-climate change bills such as recently past in North Carolina. Nor does this list include legislation that deny the human right of marriage to gay couples. This is no reductionist argument. Christianity is at the root of all of these attempts to lawfully enforce the denial of scientific understanding. I am happy that your tent of tolerance embraces such societal criminals. Out of fear for the future of my family, if not the entirety of humanity, mine does not.
Joseph-
It always seemed to be an odd decision to me, as well. There were always Christians, of course, in the UUA congregations that I attended. However, they were almost always in the middle of questioning their beliefs, in one way or another. We were always sympathetic to these Christians, because we had faced the same questions at some point in our philosophical growth. Some reconciled their doubts and went back to whence they had come. Some learned about other denominations and left to become a member of a different church altogether. And others continued to question, or answered their questions in a Humanistic way, and stayed with the UUA.
The trend to attract Christians is both observable and documented. Has the leadership come right out and said it? Yes, I think they have. Perhaps Timothy Travis will step in here with some specific experiences.
One of the reasons that I so enjoyed the Unitarian church was the wide variety of views available. That said, born-again Christians, evolution deniers, people who believe the bible is literal history, and soul-savers never felt comfortable, those few that appeared in church to “save” us, and did not stay at all.
And yes, you have hit the nail on the head. The UUA was always different from the more popular flavors of church: questioning was not only allowed, it was suggested. There are, indeed, a large number of flavors of religion available to Christians. I don’t know why they want to take mine.
Gil-
Clearly, we see this differently. In fact, they would seem to be diametrically opposed. That is unfortunate; I don’t know that either of us will ever change the position of the other. If you will stop taking positions against what I have not said, and read my words, you should see that you you are misunderstanding me, or at least my tolerance.
I would suggest to you that you read the book Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, by David Niose. I have already repeatedly read the bible.
I’m not trying to change your position, Michael. I’m trying to be in dialog about what you seem to be saying and how you are saying it. I’m sorry if you think I didn’t give you a fair reading. I am committed to the search for truth and for encouragement to spiritual growth. Sure, let’s read your words again:
“One must wonder about the efficacy of the UUA decision to invite more mainstream religion into the Unitarian church. At a time when non-believers are just beginning to carry the fight back to the religious right machine, the UUA is instead pandering to that same machine in order to become bigger, stronger, and more powerful.”
You state that the UUA is attempting to invite more mainstream religion into our churches, it is ineffective, and you make the statement that this is pandering to the Religious Right, at a time when you believe that non-believers are finally “carrying the fight” to the religious right. What did I not understand? We can’t get the UUA to pander to UUs, how exactly are they now pandering to the religious right? Additionally, if we take as table stakes our interdependence, how does inviting those people into our lives and dialog hurt us?
Must we carry the fight? Might we consider dialog on things that we can agree on?
“If that is not bad enough, as Ray Bradley points out, the UUA has been consistently losing membership, as compared to the US population, since they began their project calling for the jesusification of the UUA, as this chart clearly shows. ”
The retreat from essentially ALL Christian denominations in North America is well documented throughout the literature. There are many theories being offered for this. The chart documents a known decrease in UU numbers, but I don’t see any reference or data as to how this has been caused by “jesusification.” One can definitely ascribe a multitude of other sociocultural reasons for the decrease shown, not the least being what some UU theologians have suggested as the failure of the denomination to grow past its insular fellowship roots. I would tend to put the issue where I previously stated it: theological incoherence with a side of “intellectual lectures on Sunday may feed the head but not the heart” gravy. You are entitled to your opinion; as you say, we disagree. I also don’t see where you can hang this on poor ol’ Jesus.
“The UUA plan to make their association rich and powerful is failing miserably.”
I have to say that this would likely make the 25 Beacon crowd laugh. I think they would be happy to move out of the “mostly harmless”/insignificant category
“At the same time, the number of Americans that define themselves as churchless has been growing by leaps and bounds the UUA plan to bring more big-time religion into the church has completely fizzled.”
I missed all the glorious big-time religion stuff. The UUA has no way of forcing or enforcing anything on its congregations. As near as I can tell, they try to sew as big a tent as possible and try not to insult any of the more thin-skinned anti-authoritarians in our denomination. Are you still upset that Bill Sinkford said we might consider using the G– word once in awhile and reclaim “religious” language?
“It is conceivable that the UUA has lost more Humanist membersThis is a clear situation in which the patient was perfectly well, yet the UUA decided to operate anyway. It would appear as if that operation has gone badly wrong, and the patient may well be dying, or at least getting significantly sicker.”
It is conceivable, I suppose, as much as not. To use your own chart, the experiment that commenced in 1961 has “been ill” for a long time without this “j-ification” that you refer to. Okay, those were the words, let’s look at the subtext: you are proposing that your proposed additional loss of humanists is the problem: we were perfectly fine until “those people” arrived and drove off all the cool (humanist) people.
“If David Niose, in his new book Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans, is correct, the American Humanist, secular movement in the USA is on the verge of becoming a much larger voice of reason in American society and politics. ”
Okay, I haven’t read it. Went and read the first chapter at Amazon. Looks fine. A lot of American’s are getting out of organized religion. Ok, super. That’s the words, let’s look at the sub-text: things will be better when I paint my masterpiece and the secular humanist movement becomes a bright shining voice for reason over the religious powers of ignorance and darkness. Except that secular humanists don’t have a monopoly on reason. Because someone chooses a religious path, that dooms them to be creationist, anti-evolution, anti-science, and unreasonable?
The religious path sucks. It is crappy hard work. It means I have to be around all of the pesky, messy, stinky, disagreeable people who don’t march in lock step with me. It means that I am entering a spiritual discipline to teach myself to find humanity in the other person, to stick in conversation with them when I think they are full of crap, to allow them to share there nonsense with me, even when I KNOW they are full of it. It calls me to also share my truth AND to be in loving relationship with them. It’s not hard being religious when everyone agrees with you! Tolerance is a weak and poor word for us to use religiously; you can “tolerate” someone who you can’t stand as long as you can avoid spending much time around them. Our values call us to see inherent worth and dignity, and to understand our interconnection, not to “tolerate” them and hope they will just go away.
You don’t state it, but I have to guess that your unified solution is that if UUism would grow some real humanist devotional cred that we would be perfectly poised to capitalize on the Niose’s documented growth of secularists, pledge bases would shoot up and our coffee time conversations would be set for generations. Well, maybe. But there is already a church set up for freethinkers who don’t want any religious claptrap, the Church of Freethought? What would y’all want with a broken down hulk of two old moldy Christian remnants?
“Meanwhile, all unbelievers need to take a close look at what we DO believe, and how much longer we need to put up with the Creationist, anti-Darwin, anti-Choice, anti-Science idiocy that characterizes the religious right, and which has taken over the Republican party during the last 30 years. ”
Okay, it’s fun to bash on the Religious Right. I do it some times, too. However, it is difficult not to see the same triumphalist hubris that “reason” based humanists like to blame on fundamentalist religionists: how long are WE gonna put up with THEM? THEY are the enemy. THEY are what’s wrong with things. THEY have to go. It seems like BOTH of you would be better served by trying to see the humanity in the other, and try to find some commonality of human experience rather than demonizing each other. (As to the Republican Party, they reap what they sowed. They got in bed with religious fundamentalists because they wanted to create a political hegemony to last the ages. Now the crackpots have come home to roost. Too bad.)
“The UUA apparently felt that the way to more power was believing the rhetoric of these enemies of the intellect and critical thought. We need to show them, powerfully, that they are wrong.”
Well, this is certainly dramatic language and a big closer, I just can’t find any basis in the UUA to support this. Huh? The UUA believes the rhetoric of religious fundamentalists how? It’s a terrific allegation, but I can’t see what you are seeing.
I’m a God person. Probably, if we compared notes, we would find that we dis-believe in the same God. I know one place we very much differ: there’s room in my tent for you and I’m called to make room for you as part of my spiritual life. Unfortunately, from this posting, I don’t think your team wants to make room for me in yours.
Blessings of peace be with you, brother.
Ah, Gil…
You’re right, we don’t. And you’ll never understand why.
Not even your god likes a troll.
If anyone is wondering about Gil, he has been blocked from accessing the site, as all trolls will be blocked from UUHS. By the way, a definition of troll:
Wikipedia- A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
I believe, by the way, that Gil is now trying to get back in disguised as a woman.
He / she is some seeker of the truth.
While UU’s intent is to promote diversity of religious thought, my experience has been that welcoming non-tolerant theists into our midst has produced congregations that are decidedly anti non-theist. I have seen this change occur in two UU Fellowships that I have been a member of.
What is very upsetting is the RE programs that have been infiltrated by theists. They promote the assumption that god exists to our children. They also tend to follow “conventional wisdom” in other aspects of economic and political life. To assume that god exists is antithetical to free thought and reason.
When a UU minister asks children in a forum: “what does god expect of you?” That crosses an important boundary that leaves non-theist children out of the conversation. Only an unusually strong child would speak up against an authority figure in the presence of his/her peers.
I was originally attracted to the UU’s because of their reasoned discussions about all aspects of human life.. including religion. It has become very difficult to find these “reasoned discussions” any longer in most of the UU congregations that I have visited.
The UUA has now interfered with the selection process of ministers to preclude any significant diversity. In a number of the congregations that I have been associated with, I am astounded how they line up like sheep when they defer much of the ministry selection to the dictates of the UUA. It reminds me of the RCC.
Thank you for remaining calm in the storm. As one of those “Christians who are questioning” who attended UU in 2002-2004 – I had to stop attending due to physical handicap and this year am well enough to attend again. I was very surprised to find that my community had dissolved into a more Christian oriented church – yes every once in while I hear how all are welcome, but the sermons and greaters and classes now are all centered around Jesus and Christianity. No longer are the fabulous courses built on finding my inner faith and creating my own belief system that I loved taking found in the course offerings. No longer are the discussions broad and inclusive. Instead I found exclusive discussions and even so to the point of cliquishness where a newcomer had to insert themselves into conversations instead of being included.
It was quite disappointing to find. So i went to the second UU church in my area and found to my dismay the same courses and issues and unwelcome feeling I found at the first. I actually felt like I was at my old church – the one I left in 2002 because of the issues I saw within its members and I had hoped to avoid at UU. Since I’m a quiet voice instead of a loud one, I just left – it was easier than trying to fit into a place that was slowly excluding my own beliefs that I had, ironically, found during classes taken at the UU church.
In regards to how one person posted above – I found his words not to be opening dialogue but to be proving your point – that there are those who believe one way are slowly but systematically pushing those without other beliefs out of the UU. Friends I made who used to share similar beliefs with me are now starting to quote and sound just like the church I left and when discussed – it was because they are open to Jesus and his teachings while I remain closed. Yet I am a student of the bible – I have attend college courses and written graduate papers on the bible, but I have no idea of its meanings because I no longer find the bible to be the end all be all of a persons spirituality.
Then I was crucified for considering myself spirtual rather than belong to one organized religion – I was therefore a non-believer because I was not open to the bible. When I never said I didn’t read or study it, I just no longer felt that it was the only religion. But I digress.
So yes, I find myself leaving the UU behind as it no longer is welcoming to those who are not believers in the New Testament and students of the bible (but only if my studies agree with theirs).
I do hope that a true universal church can rise up – one that accepts both Christians and Pagans and Buddists and fill in the denomination here who do not “fit” in other religions. And one that will welcome all, open its arms and include in its teachings and sermons all who congregate and not just a portion.