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The Ware lecture at General Assembly a month ago was by Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a UU political scientist (who's now in seminary). It's available on streaming video at
UUA: Video
It's only about 45 minutes long, and if you're short on time I'd start about 10 minutes into it.
This is another take on the ongoing debate about how faith and rationality ought to work together in Unitarian-Universalism. As a UU from birth, as a Christian UU, as a black woman, as a scientist, she frames the issue in a unique way: that we need the "language of reverence" (in Sinkford's term) to be effective politically, and that a belief that the world can be a more just, equal, and fair place is just as unsupportable by rational evidence as the theological constructs that are classically called "faith".
She talks about her hopelessness that New Orleans would be rebuilt after Katrina, in the face of institutional racism; and how that cataclysm wound up leading to the election of President Obama.
Some quotes (possibly with errors in my transcription):
Right in the tension between soaring expectations, the static faithful assurance of something larger, and the biting, stinging, difficult realities that ground our lives and work. Faith and reason, this is the juncture that marks our religious community as UUs, and as citizens in a deeply imperfect democratic republic. We need both faith and reason to work toward a more just world, but sometimes UUs are too willing to relinquish the power of faith in pursuit of cool rationality.
"...We need both. We need our arms flung wide open to the sky embracing the whole earth with reverence and hope, we also need enough sense to remember that there are crabs in the sand underneath our feet."
"The truth is, by all evidence, a fair and equal world is not possible.
Thats why I believe we cant rely on our rationality alone. We must believe something greater than this thing is possible, that we are not alone, we can still be a part of great movements that can redeem us all."
"So we come together as UUs with the most audacious faith claim of all. Not a particular story about a particular deity. Not a claim about a special people and a particular covenant with God. Not a claim about a single, special book, or about a perfect set of laws and rules and codes. We have come here together today to make the most ridiculous, unlikely, and powerful faith claim of all: that we can join together to make a world that recognizes the inherent worth and dignity of every single human being, and that we can make that world using the power of love."
UUA: Video
It's only about 45 minutes long, and if you're short on time I'd start about 10 minutes into it.
This is another take on the ongoing debate about how faith and rationality ought to work together in Unitarian-Universalism. As a UU from birth, as a Christian UU, as a black woman, as a scientist, she frames the issue in a unique way: that we need the "language of reverence" (in Sinkford's term) to be effective politically, and that a belief that the world can be a more just, equal, and fair place is just as unsupportable by rational evidence as the theological constructs that are classically called "faith".
She talks about her hopelessness that New Orleans would be rebuilt after Katrina, in the face of institutional racism; and how that cataclysm wound up leading to the election of President Obama.
Some quotes (possibly with errors in my transcription):
Right in the tension between soaring expectations, the static faithful assurance of something larger, and the biting, stinging, difficult realities that ground our lives and work. Faith and reason, this is the juncture that marks our religious community as UUs, and as citizens in a deeply imperfect democratic republic. We need both faith and reason to work toward a more just world, but sometimes UUs are too willing to relinquish the power of faith in pursuit of cool rationality.
"...We need both. We need our arms flung wide open to the sky embracing the whole earth with reverence and hope, we also need enough sense to remember that there are crabs in the sand underneath our feet."
"The truth is, by all evidence, a fair and equal world is not possible.
Thats why I believe we cant rely on our rationality alone. We must believe something greater than this thing is possible, that we are not alone, we can still be a part of great movements that can redeem us all."
"So we come together as UUs with the most audacious faith claim of all. Not a particular story about a particular deity. Not a claim about a special people and a particular covenant with God. Not a claim about a single, special book, or about a perfect set of laws and rules and codes. We have come here together today to make the most ridiculous, unlikely, and powerful faith claim of all: that we can join together to make a world that recognizes the inherent worth and dignity of every single human being, and that we can make that world using the power of love."
