Martin Gatheringwater raised the question in his essay "Tipping Points" about what kind of changes in the UUA would cause a person to leave. The discussion has gone on and on at the Coffee House group blog, and has developed as people continue to write about their own concept of what the core ideas of Unitarian Universalism might be. What I write below is my thoughts in the context of the debate, but it does raise some the questions I have been pondering relative to this debate. Do we have a problem with humanism, or do we have a problem with the American Humanist Associations attempt to define what humanism means?
As I see it we have been religious humanists since before Francis David discovered that he was a Unitarian and didn't know it. And there is nothing incompatible with a humanist saying "God is one."
Paul Wilczynski writes:"I'm starting to get tired of "searching". For a number of years religious educators and clergy have kicked around a concept of new UUs, and middle UUs and deep UUs, sort of stages of religious development theory for Unitarian Universalists. Using this model we have come to understand that have developed a very good orientation to seekers, but we are not good a nurturing UU faith development past the first New UU and Middle UU stages of faith development. At a certain point people become tired of searching, and want to go deeper.
I think some of turnover, and loss of our youth can be attributed to our lack of nurturance of "going deeper."
Lioness talks about our tradition which includes but is not limited to the liberalizing Puritans. I believe that is beginning of "the deep" and that is tradition what William Sinkford is pointing to when he raised the "language of reverence."
I believe that the crisis of Unitarian Universalism, beginning and deepening over the past several decades has been the loss of our sense of identity. That identity is rooted in the liberal religious tradition. The Humanist Manifesto movement contained within its rhetoric a "brave new world" orientation, "let us start again, free from the rubber bands of the past."
Martin Gatheringwater uses Mason Olds definition of religious humanism. (see his link above) I think that definition is too narrow. I think we are a religious movement rooted in a humanism that does not reject the religions of the world, that sees the religions as wisdom traditions, and as expressions of human beings struggle to understand the cosmos and their place in it. Thus the religious humanism that I believe is our common heritage includes John Wise, and Erasmus, includes the Buddha and Jesus too! If we allow an outside organization, the American Humanist Association to define humanism for us we will have a very difficult conflict in the coming years.
We have an extraordinary heritage and it can unite new UUs, and middle UUs and deeper and deeper UUs. We have a heritage and it can unite those who find meaning in Christianity, and those who find meaning in Buddhism, and those who find meaning in earth centered traditions, and those who cherish the historic humanism of the centuries.
Those who advance the party line of an outside organization may not like it, but we have a core tradition.
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