Why not a UU

[Kungfuzed]

Since Unitarian Universalism is creedless, how is it a religion? It sounds more like a school or political organization (I can hear Beyonce singing to the left to the left ) than a church. I've never been to one but that's the impression I've got so far from browsing uua.org and reading some of the threads here. There's alot of studying of different religions but no doctrine of your own unless it could be the worship of human rights and tolerance. A school can have classes in different religions and still not be a religion itself. Perhaps that's why someone in another thread told me that not all UU congregations are called churches. I don't mean to sound negative. I like just about everything I've read so far. But is Unitarian Universalism really a religion?

 

[Stairs In My House]

Perhaps we should adopt this creed: "We believe that Unitarian Universalism is a religion." Then it would be a matter of faith and we can stop having to explain it.

In answer to the question, "We believe that personal experience, conscience and reason should be the final authorities in religion, and that in the end religious authority lies not in a book or person or institution, but in ourselves. We are a "non-creedal" religion: we do not ask anyone to subscribe to a creed." (from the UUA website)

That sounds like a belief to me.

 

[lilithu]

Since Unitarian Universalism is creedless, how is it a religion? It sounds more like a school or political organization (I can hear Beyonce singing to the left to the left ) than a church. I've never been to one but that's the impression I've got so far from browsing uua.org and reading some of the threads here. There's alot of studying of different religions but no doctrine of your own unless it could be the worship of human rights and tolerance. A school can have classes in different religions and still not be a religion itself. Perhaps that's why someone in another thread told me that not all UU congregations are called churches. I don't mean to sound negative. I like just about everything I've read so far. But is Unitarian Universalism really a religion?

Kungfuzed, I know that you've displayed a friendly curiosity about UU, and from your perspective, you're just asking a question. But to be honest, I am tired of non-UUs coming in and suggesting that we are not really a religion. It's was ok the first time I heard it, and the second, and maybe the third and fourth .... but now I'm just tired of having to defend myself. I hope you can understand that's nothing personal against you; it's the situation. Why can't people follow the example of the Supreme Court and trust that if people say they are a religion, then they are a religion? To say that they're not is to impose one's own preconceptions of what a religion should be on to others.

We are like no other religion, yes. We defy many of the preconceptions of religion, yes. But we are a religion. We have a long tradition, dating back hundreds of years. We have our own rituals and symbolism. We have our theologians. We have shared beliefs and values. So why is it that just because we don't have a creed that makes us not a religion?

Our generally liberal leanings are a result of our faith, they are not the faith itself. I do not worship human rights or tolerance. I work to promote human rights and tolerance because of what I believe.

 

[Kungfuzed]

Kungfuzed, I know that you've displayed a friendly curiosity about UU, and from your perspective, you're just asking a question. But to be honest, I am tired of non-UUs coming in and suggesting that we are not really a religion. It's was ok the first time I heard it, and the second, and maybe the third and fourth .... but now I'm just tired of having to defend myself. I hope you can understand that's nothing personal against you; it's the situation. Why can't people follow the example of the Supreme Court and trust that if people say they are a religion, then they are a religion? To say that they're not is to impose one's own preconceptions of what a religion should be on to others.

We are like no other religion, yes. We defy many of the preconceptions of religion, yes. But we are a religion. We have a long tradition, dating back hundreds of years. We have our own rituals and symbolism. We have our theologians. We have shared beliefs and values. So why is it that just because we don't have a creed that makes us not a religion?

Our generally liberal leanings are a result of our faith, they are not the faith itself. I do not worship human rights or tolerance. I work to promote human rights and tolerance because of what I believe.

I understand what it's like to have to explain the same thing over and over. I do have pre-concieved notions on what a religion should be. I appreciate you answering my question despite your frustration. I never even heard of Unitarian Universalism before I came to this forum.

 

[lilithu]

I understand what it's like to have to explain the same thing over and over. I do have pre-concieved notions on what a religion should be. I appreciate you answering my question despite your frustration.

Dude, I so appreciate this response.

A lot of people would have gotten defensive about themselves and then mad at me, and then restated their own conceptions more strongly, as if that would make a difference.

To be honest, when I first saw your question about whether UU is a religion, my first impulse was to respond snidely, because I really am sick of the question. But then I had to remind myself that from your point of view, you are asking this question for the first time, and with honest curiosity. And that it would be patently unfair of me to generalize you to all of the other people who have asked that question. If I did that, I would not be relating you as a person but rather responding to a generalization. Does that make sense? So... because of my faith, I had to rethink how I was going to respond to you.

UU is a way of life, not just a set of concepts. For me, my belief in the value of each person directly affects how I interact with people. (When another driver cuts me off in traffic, I try to repeat the mantra "inherent worth and dignity" intead of flipping the person off. ) It's not just abstract ideas about cosmology and metaphysics. We seek to live out our principles, which is why social justice has always been such a big part of UU.

I hope that makes our "religiousness" a little clearer. I know it's confusing. I was confused too when I first joined.

 

[Scuba Pete]

You know,

As a FORMER UU, I completely related to the sermon in the first post. Perhaps that's why I left? A lack of clear purpose and direction were some of the Hallmarks of the UU church I attended here in Orlando. I went back a month or so ago, and left with a void. I still hold ultra fond memories of growing up UU, and I still refer to it as the "Thinking Person's Religion".

However, I have also left the path that pulled me away from being a UU because of it's rigidity and demand that we all agree even in areas where I could not possibly agree (Haliburton's War).

 

[lilithu]

You know,

As a FORMER UU, I completely related to the sermon in the first post. Perhaps that's why I left? A lack of clear purpose and direction were some of the Hallmarks of the UU church I attended here in Orlando. I went back a month or so ago, and left with a void.

Well Pete, I understand. We are still working on filling that void, working on the balance between throwing out closed-mindedness and rigidity but keeping shared values and purpose. And I sincerely believe that we are making progress. You would like my church, I think. But since you are not in DC, *shrug*, check back with us in a few years?

 

[Stairs In My House]

I think it goes back to what applewuud was saying, we need to be better about developing a more articulate message of what we stand for. Not a creed. But the unifying thing that makes us UU.

What would this look like? Are you talking about a sentence, a paragraph, an essay, a book? What misunderstandings or misconceptions would it prevent or correct? How would it be different than whatever it is we do now?

 

[Stairs In My House]

clear purpose and direction

Could you provide some examples of these? They don't have to be UU-specific, just general examples of what a church's purpose or direction could look like. I am not arguing about your experience, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding what you and lilithu seem to be talking about. Examples help me better than explanations.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Well Pete, I understand. We are still working on filling that void, working on the balance between throwing out closed-mindedness and rigidity but keeping shared values and purpose. And I sincerely believe that we are making progress. You would like my church, I think. But since you are not in DC, *shrug*, check back with us in a few years?

Lillithu,

I crave community. I doubt it will be a few years before I "check back".

 

[lilithu]

What would this look like? Are you talking about a sentence, a paragraph, an essay, a book? What misunderstandings or misconceptions would it prevent or correct? How would it be different than whatever it is we do now?

No, I am talking about something much deeper. I am talking about a cultural revolution within the UUA, and yet I still say that it would just take a small adjustment.

Rev. Sinkford caused an uproar a few years back when he suggested that we all practice speaking with a "lanugage of reverence." Many took him to be trying to move UU back towards Christianity. Perhaps I thought that as well at the time. But now I see that what he was addressing is our need to see ourselves as religious people. We do great social justice work. Do we know why we do it? We teach sex ed in our churches because the schools don't. Do we know why that's important? We support a woman's right to choose? Why?

When I marched in the March for Women's Lives, I marched as a UU, not just as a person who is pro-choice who just happens to attend a UU congregation. When I go to protests against the war, I show up as a UU, not just as a peacenik who happens to attend a UU congregation. We can't just identify with our religion on Sunday mornings. It has to be in every aspect of our lives. For as long as we keep our faith seperate from our social justice work, others will see us just secular.

Our values are already in place. There is a reason why we do all these things and more. But we don't know quite how to articulate it. For as long as we fail to articulate it, then we will be seen by outsiders (and some of our own as well) as nothing more than a group of people who like to get together to discuss religon and do social justice work.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Could you provide some examples of these? They don't have to be UU-specific, just general examples of what a church's purpose or direction could look like. I am not arguing about your experience, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding what you and lilithu seem to be talking about. Examples help me better than explanations.

The stance AGAINST Haliburton's war struck me as way too conciliatory. It is my burning hot button at the moment, and the church that is ready to storm the White House over this atrocity will probably garner my admiration. I felt that many felt constrained in their ability to express strongly emotional views out of a desire to not offend.

I was raised in a UU household that was part and parcel a part of the Equal RIghts movement of the 60s and 70s. We belonged to the ACLU, the NAACP and the Women's movement. I was adamantly against the Vietnam War and the Miles, our minister was instrumental in helping me to establish my CO status. We were community that was driven for social justice, but even then, the evangelical church I went too EXCEEDED our efforts in many ways and had a burning purpose to seek and save the lost.

Personally, I need purpose and direction. Without it I am merely a vapor driven by any prevailing wind.

 

[Scuba Pete]

When I marched in the March for Women's Lives, I marched as a UU, not just as a person who is pro-choice who just happens to attend a UU congregation. When I go to protests against the war, I show up as a UU, not just as a peacenik who happens to attend a UU congregation.

Rabid UUism! I love it, but I didn't see that here in Orlando.

 

[lilithu]

Could you provide some examples of these? They don't have to be UU-specific, just general examples of what a church's purpose or direction could look like. I am not arguing about your experience, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding what you and lilithu seem to be talking about. Examples help me better than explanations.

Stairs, for all I know, you already do these things. I just know that within the UUAC as a whole, we are still lacking.

Here would be an example of practicing giving voice to our purpose and direction:

"Because I believe in X, I do Y." where X is a religious value and Y is an action that we do in the world.

Religious value does not have to refer to God. Buddhists have religious values even tho they are non-theistic. But it has to be a statement of faith, of value. For example, "Because I believe the scientific evidence that greenhouse emissions are rising..." is not a statement of faith. Whereas, a Christian environmentalist can easily say "Because I believe that God created the earth as good, and God made us stewards of the earth...." and that is a statement of faith. There is explicitly stated value in there. The earth is good. It's our sacred duty to protect it. What would a UU statement of faith be?

 

[Stairs In My House]

Wow, those are good answers, thank you both. I will have to think about this.

 

[lilithu]

Rabid UUism! I love it, but I didn't see that here in Orlando.

lol, I consider myself evangelical, not rabid.

We are in Washington, DC afterall. That makes a difference.

How big is the Orlando congregation? One thing that I learned as a UU and that has changed me is that if I see a problem or a lack, I can do something to change it. It's not just hierarchical, accept things the way they are or leave it. I have influenced my own church and I bet you could influence the Orlando congregation. It would probably be slower and more frustrating than you want, but that is the price of community.

It might also interest you Pete that at the last General Assembly, the UUA chose "Peacemaking" to be its next CSAI (congregational study action issue), so for the next 3+ years, UU congregations are supposed to be thinking about war and peace, which may make it easier for you to get them to address the subject if you're meeting resistance/apathy.

No guarantees. I'm just putting the information out there.

 

[Scuba Pete]

As a visitor, I don't feel that interference in the church's business is appropriate. I USED to be UU, but I left it in 1975. That's more than 30 years ago.

When you join a community, you don't do it to change them: you do it to join them in what they are doing or to change yourself. Having a specific direction to go in helps to give me a goal to work towards. Maybe I will go back this Sunday and tell them that Lilithu thinks they need to change.

 

[lilithu]

As a visitor, I don't feel that interference in the church's business is appropriate. I USED to be UU, but I left it in 1975. That's more than 30 years ago.

When you join a community, you don't do it to change them: you do it to join them in what they are doing or to change yourself. Having a specific direction to go in helps to give me a goal to work towards. Maybe I will go back this Sunday and tell them that Lilithu thinks they need to change.

Hey, we all could use a little change.

If I thought that you were going in to radically change the nature of UU, or to change things only for your own benefit, I would never suggest such a thing. But like I said, I think we're already moving in that direction. Some congregations just need a kick in the patooty. But I totally respect your respect for the community.

 

[applewuud]

The essence of this thread, it seems to me, is to be open to criticism of Unitarian Universalism itself, and then go out into the world and transform our Faith for the future.

A few posts back I mentioned a lecture I heard at GA that's similar to the sermon that started the thread. However, instead of coming from the humanist side, it's coming from the Universalist Christian side, with a similar criticism, but much more knowledge because it's written by the former President of Starr King School for the Ministry. Here's the link to a PDF version: http://www.sksm.edu/info/journal_images/mckeeman1.pdf
and if you don't have Acrobat reader: http://64.233.167.104/u/sksm?q=cache:IqSaO_bhEv8J:www.sksm.edu/info/journal_images/mckeeman1.pdf+president&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=25&gl=us&ie=UTF-8

It's a real challenge to us to "go back and get what we left behind". It's the text for an hour-long lecture, so set aside some time and print it out. Too bad there's not a recording of it, because to hear him deliver it "live" was electrifying for me. Lilithu, this may be something you're looking for.

 

[uufreespirit]

Just a bit on the "purpose and direction" part: (I may have said this earlier...if so, sorry...memory sometimes begins to go around 60.) Over the years, I've come to see UU as more of a shared methodology (or attitude) than a set of fixed beliefs. We are not the sum-total of seven "principles," but ideally those principles reflect something deeper. Whether it's "a religion" or not is really not the point (except in legal matters of course). At its best, I think, nothing could be more "religious", however. It's a "way of thinking" about what's ultimately most truthful and most important in life...about what really should be religion's highest priorities, and how to try to incorporate some of those priorities into our lives.

Over five centuries, this "stubbornly protestant" attitude or temperament in religion has led us in the direction of a faith in personal "soul freedom", in the importance of private judgment and of utmost honesty between what we say we believe and what we actually believe (...and hopefully in how we "live out" those beliefs), plus a corresponding humility about the honest limits to "what we actually know" (or can know) as imperfect human beings.

But the main point, I think, is that it's a deliberately evolutionary faith...a work in progress, where both imperfection and a desire to improve and grow are equally "hardwired" into our "method." It's been going on for centuries now--that effort to "reform" the religious quest for truth and meaning, to separate the best parts of religion from the more trivial and petty. Jefferson called it the distinguishing the "diamonds in a dunghill." A little later Rev. Theodore Parker was a little more diplomatic in describing it as the "transient and the permanent" in religion. Whatever we call it today, that "sifting process" is still going on, still trying to be as honest as possible about it, still imperfect, still a "work in progress"... and always will be. (Hopefully, after all this time, we're at least getting a little better at it.)

Ron