One of the most interesting differences between Unitarian Universalist Association member congregations and other denominations or religions (besides some of us feeling we have to use the term "denominations or religions") is that as a non-creedial group, we often end up offending those of us who want a creed. Well, we might not want a real creed, just official recognition that our views are the right ones. After all, we don't want riff-raff in the pews next to us you know....who knows what they might believe. And if they don't believe like us, well we ain't got no home in this world anymore.
I know that between that opening and my previous post, I have probably angered anybody that might be still be reading this. Because yes, this is snarky, and snark is only good when it's used against the badguys and not against ourselves. We UUs have a tendency to try to be nice, to not offend, to try to heal - yes, even to try to heal those who refuse healing. We remove objects and words that might offend, without realizing that everything can sometimes offend. But posting and writing on the internet is so easy to offend - sometimes without even knowing it.
I do understand the pain of the feeling that one's home is gone. The religious denomination i grew up in took a strong turn to the right in the mid-1960s, and is still heading rightward today - my old religious home is gone, in my visits since, it has never been the same. The house I grew up in was sold decades ago, while the fields, woods, and swamp, and the outward appearance of the house still look the same; i can drive past and see the blocks that my father laid as he made the wall -- it isn't my home anymore. My best friend in high school has been dead for over 20 years now; I have large gaps of my life that i no longer know anyone who can reminisce with me about.
Some years ago, someone once told to me that Unitarian Universalism was an easy religion - I replied back that they had obviously never written a sermon for an UU service. The UUA is indeed non-creedial, people can sit in the pews next to you who dont believe any of the theology that you do. Or - as it keeps coming up - they may believe things that you despise. At which point one feels that ones home - which is supposed to be safe and secure - has been invaded. It's not my home anymore.
For decades UU Christians (and therefore UU theists of all stripes) have been told to just get out and join a Christian church. Obviously many UU Christian would have to hide their beliefs to attend most Christian Churches. It's not their real home. In the last ten-fifteen years, theists and deists have began to grow in the UUA - particularly if you include Pagans in the theist column as anti-theists often do. The non-theists are growing in the ranks of Buddhists (most of the UU Buddhists are non-theists), but their views are not the traditional non-theist language. So the non-theist, still slightly the majority view in the UUA, wonders if they will continue to have a home.
Living with people who arent the same as you, with different cultures, different classes, different races, different musical tastes, different theological orientation is not an easy task. One has to look at core values - one has also to want to live with the diversity. That's hard to do - it is possible. Many families now contain much diversity, from musical tastes onward. If a blood family can survive, so can a congregational family. It does take work; and to some, it might not be worth the work.
Is there strength in our diversity? Do we have to always be right in everything to be loved? Can we put up with the folks in the next pew over? Time will tell.....
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2 comments:
First off, I hope that this isn't in reaction to what I've had on the CB recently as I haven't meant to suggest that either atheists don't have a home or that we should give them ours.
I do continually feel bad for the amount of crap atheists get societally and I do advocate cutting them some breaks when they are snotty in return, though I have also counseled atheists that being snotty is a really bad way of getting what you want.
But I don't see them as homeless any more than I see me as homeless.
At the same time, I view a congregation having an approximate 50/50 balance between theists and non-theist/atheists* as the optimal way to minimize the feeling that one side is steamrolling over the other. Democracy's a bitch when your side is in the minority.
And I really don't know what to do when one side has the clear majority in a congregation and starts imposing the will of the people.
Other than wait, because these things seem to realign themselves in the end.
I like the challenge of writing to a UU audience and think that challenge keeps us honest. After all, how good is a message if it only speaks to those who were inclined to believe it before they even sat in the pews?
As for time telling, I tend to think Joel Monka's thesis that we are a small religion by our nature and will probably always be a niche thing fits the facts best. We haven't grown all that much, but we haven't seen the catastrophic drops that some protestant churches have.
But yeah, time will tell on that one, too, I suppose.
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*Pagans can be a third category if you like.
Well actually these were in reaction to the various posts by non-theists saying that they no longer had a church home in the UUA.
Nobody has a home in the UUA (or so everybody says)
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