Since the publication of the Commission of Appraisal's Engaging Our Theological Diversity we have experienced a renewed conversation about what is the core of Unitarian Universalism. The conversation has been energized by the Commissions provocative question; with so much theological diversity are we danger of imploding, exploding, splitting, or otherwise suffering adversely from our decades long celebration of theological diversity?
Jeff Wilson over at The Transient and The Permanent has answered no, he "predict[s] that UUism will not implode, that it will not fracture into a bunch of Balkanized groups, that it will keep marching on toward a future of squabbling and coffee hours and social justice work and revelation of beauty. Because what holds us together isn't really coffee or politics or any specific religious language, it's a belief in love and freedom." Matthew Gatheringwater began an extended discussion at Coffee House with the provocative question whether a changing Unitarian Universalism will drive some people to leave. He asked what is your Tipping Point? Many of the participants argued that for them, they prize Unitarian Universalist "diversity" and if it was threatened they would leave. Since the Unitarian Universalist community consists of multiple spirituality's, and multiple theological orientations, it seems unlikely that we will become less "diverse" in the near future.
Richard Grigg has made the distinction between exclusive pluralism, and inclusive pluralism. The United States is religiousily plural, but Grigg would point out that that is exclusive pluralism. Each religious community is in competition with all the others, and members of a particular religious community identify with their own religious community exclusively. While liberals Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Unitarian Universalists may function in alliances relative to the Religious Right, we recognize boundaries between say ourselves and the United Church of Christ. But at our best Unitarian Universalists practice inclusive pluralism; we are not like an interfaith coalition, we support each others spiritual development and members see such support as good for their congregations as a whole. I know of many non-Christian UUs who helped to develop fellowship groups for UU Christians, and non Pagan UUs that have helped develop activities for pagans. It is essential to our way of doing ministry that theists ministers find ways to minister to non-theists, and vice versa.
It is my contention that Unitarian Universalism is a religious movement that arose out of interaction of the humanist tradition as it [re]emerged during the Renaissance and by (heterodox) Protestants during the Reformation. Those North Americans whom we associate with the early emergence of Unitarianism and Universalism in this country were simultaneously humanists and dissenters from orthodox Protestantism.
Peacebang put it thus way: "I think Unitarian Universalism is a Humanist religious tradition that uses readings and teachings from various world religions, and which respects and remains enthusiastic about the diversity of wisdom sources available to us. We're not inter-faith, IMHO, unless we actually are congregations of Muslims, Jews, Christians, pagans, etc." I agree, and applaud her placing the question so starkly. We share a religious humanist orientation, and that we manifest in a plurality of spiritual preferences. And, while many will find this controversial, I observe that we are continue to function as a Protestant denomination. Most of us can identify with Unitarians, Universalists and other religious liberals going back to Renaissance and Reformation, because we share in a common tradition.
We share a common framework and that framework is both humanist and Protestant. We have allowed the word humanist to defined in a way that excludes many, if not most Unitarian Universalists. We have allowed the conflict to be defined as "Humanist" versus UU Christian, versus UUs who use the word God, and versus those who just love the universe and want to use poetry to describe their exuburance. We have accepted a definition of humanism that is militantly secular and which scorns all religious language. The result has been that in the reaction to this arrogant secularism, humanism has acquired a bad name within our movement. Thus we have become divided over words, rather than over differences of substance.
I believe we must renew our understanding of the humanist tradition, so that god loving humanists, humanists who don't do god, Christian Humanists, Cosmic Story humanists, and "naturalistic" humanists can learn to talk to one another once again. Because we share a core religious humanism and because most U.U.s continue to draw inspiration from our formative Protestant tradition we have been enabled to explore the wisdom of the world's religions.
We have not become an interfaith organization in the process. While there is a small number of individual members of in many of our congregations who do not share in this core orientation, that orientation has both a history and a momentum that has prevented us from flying apart, or any of the other dire predictions that some perceive to be the consequences of our diversity.
There are social, religious, and political forces in this world that oppose the values and world view of humanism, liberalism, and Progressive Christianity, and while we are fighting with each other we may lose this world.
Inclusive pluralism and the question of common ground
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Elegantly said, Clyde. Thank you.
I see two "humanisms" in competition with one another within the UUA today: an affirmative one that values human experience, aspirations, and ideals, and a negative one that calls for the disavowal of all non-literal, non-material, non-linear religious understanding and expression. Both are declared in the Humanist Manifesto I and its progeny, but only one is compatible with alternative or plural modes of religious expression. I root for the first, which I see as inclusive, and against the second, which I see as condemnatory, divisive, and supersessionist.
If mine were the only hand holding the pen, I would revise the "humanist" plank in the sources section of our 7 P's to omit "warnings against idolatry" and affirm instead something like "the authority of human experience".
Fausto,
The "two" humanisms problem has plagued us for generations, and for non-reductionists becoming the "hand holding the pen" may eventually contribute toward our understanding of this division and resolving it.
The modernist infatation with a materialist world view has had a strong influence on organized versions of twentieth century humanism. Some continue to argue that the materialist world view is necessary for a non dualist naturalism, as if reduction to non organic chemistry was the way of nature.
Hi, I'm new to this blog. I started reading the theological diversity book last night. I don't see anything in these comments that reflects a shared theology. And if there's no shared theology, how can we as UUs be anything but interfaith? I'd be interested in hearing more on why you call the framework Protestant.
The shared faith of Unitarian Universalism is based a legacy of humanism and dessenting Protestantism rather than a single theology. As I see it, and will elaborate further when I have an opportunity, Catholics have a many different theologians, who work from different premises and make different arguments for a common faith.. Same for most Protestant denominations. These communities are theologically diverse, but have a common faith. While it may seem that we have radicallly different faiths, in fact we have more common ground than meets the eye. Our practice and our rational for our practice which the skeleton system of our faith community come out Protestant history, they aren't just left overs that we eat because we haven't cooked something new, they are part of our identity - we talk of pastoral care, prophesy, and we come to church to sing hymns and hear a sermon, which clarifies the implications of our heritage for life. That is not something we invented, and it isn't something we picked up in the interfaith coalition.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll be back.
One of the main themes of Protestantism, ever since Luther first nailed his 95 theses to the door, is that the apprehension of religious truth is ultimately a matter of personal discernment, not something that can be determined for and dictated to all by an authoritarian, institutional Church. The availablity of a direct personal apprehension of and relationship with God, as opposed to an apprehension and relationship mediated by a Church hierarchy, is what is meant by the Protestant principle of "the priesthood of all believers". Variation in such discernment is largely why there are so many different Protestant sects divided primarily according to fine points of doctrinal interpretation.
We UUs may no longer focus our personal discernment solely on interpreting the Bible as other Protestants still do, but we nevertheless fall squarely within the Protestant tradition, both philosophically (in our affirmation of the primary authority of personal conscience) and historically (in our gradual emergence from a branch of Reformed Calvinism).
I think I have to disagree. Unitarian Universalism no longer is in the Protestant tradition because it is not recognizably Christian. Yes, Protestant sects multiply unendingly, but they all proclaim Jesus Christ and service to God. There's a difference between historical kinship and a currently operating framework. Christianity is the offspring of Judaism. There's a historical relationship, but Christianity separted and developed its own theology. Unitarian Universalism has separated from Christianity, but it's not clear that it has a theology.
Protestant is both a social movement, with a distinctive stance and style, and a theological variant of Christianity. While Unitarian Universalism does have a different thelogy from most Protestants, we are very much apart of the social movement called Protestantism.
The Protestant principle is constant reformation of the church, and question everything of human construction. The Protestant theologically argue the Bible is "of God." But UUs say the
Bible is of human construction. Thus we are the Protestants who carry the Protestant principle to its ultimate conclusion.
Clyde, I mostly agree with your views on this one. I have been telling people with scarce success that there is more distance between an institutional conservative, pro-Vatican Catholic theologian and, let's say a Liberation Catholic theologian or a Religious Pluralism Catholic theologian, than between a Humanist UU and a Christian UU. Sometimes belief issues are not the big questions, but rather the social, ethical and yes, also political views. And UUs tend to agree more on ethics and politics (and sometimes even in theology) than Catholics do.
I agree much more with Clyde than with Tim in their comments above, although I don't think we are the only Protestants who read the Bible more as a human witness than as divine truth.
My view tends to harmonize pretty closely with Clyde's on UUism as Prostestanism. There are even Protestant Buddhisms nowadays. While we must be careful to unpack how we are using these terms, I think one can validly use Protestant as a religious/social impulse without the necessity of it retaining a specifically Christian content.
Can we talk some more about this issue of theology in Unitarian Universalism? I've started working my way through "Engaging Our Theological Diversity." At the end of the "history" chapter, the authors comment that we UUs don't have the sort of theology that enlivens the story we tell of Unitarian Universalist history. The story they tell of the 1961 merger is of a group that had no theological unity. The sense I get from this account is of a marriage of convenience rather than one of passion.
Here's where I'm coming from. I was born in 1959 and raised a Lutheran until 1972 when my family left to start an independent charismatic church. I went to an evangelical college with a desire to serve God but concluded by the time I graduated that God wasn't talking to me.
When I joined the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Garden City, New York in 1991, my wife asked the minister, "Is Unitarian Universalism a Christian religion?" His answer was that it is "more than Christian." I still can't say-14 years later-that I have a theology, but the wisdom of those words has supported my search.