I recall when I first identified with Unitarianism. (It was a few years before the merger.) A Jewish child, assuming I was Christian in an orthodox sense, expressed his objections to the divinity of Jesus. I answered that I was Unitarian and said that we thought Jesus was a prophet who taught love and human community. (I probably used other words, like brotherhood of mankind, it was the 1950s.) I guess I was 12, give or take a year.
Where did I get the "religious education" to be able to articulate a low christology in a playground conversation? And more importantly how did I form an identity to claim a Unitarianism as "me" separate and apart from Christian orthodoxy, and even my friends Jewish presumption that all gentiles are alike?
My formation was the gift of my parents in the fist place, and secondarily from my congregations religious education offerings. I can not credit the American Unitarian Association directly with my religious formation, but what the Association did, and did not do, influenced my parents, and my local congregation.
When I was child, Sophia Lyons Fahs was the major influence on both Unitarian and Universalist religious education. The two denominations' joint religious education program consisted of teaching an approach, and writing children's books. Books that could be read by parents to children, and when the child was ready, books that the child could read. The Sunday school teachers read these books as well. The Sunday school teachers taught Sunday school as a lay ministry, they were not volunteers who filled in on "the 2nd and 4th Sundays a month for 10 weeks." They developed their own plan, they did not receive a lesson plan that broke down the teaching goals for each session.
Our present religious education materials assume that our RE teachers are too busy to read books, they are too busy to be reflectively engaged in a lay ministry, that they are busy volunteers that need to be provided with a lesson plan so that they can deliver a curriculum.
Jess writes of concerns about our religious education program.
"Just got the UUWorld in the mail today, and it just goes to prove my point regarding the great disservice Unitarian Universalism offers our kids. We mean well, we really do, but we're collectively falling on our faces.
The so-called UU & Me! page, I'm sorry, it's awful. Direct quote from the section on "Ideas & Me!":
Q: Do we believe in Jesus?
A: We think Jesus was amazing.
Come on. What a non-answer, which is exactly the problem!!!"
I won't engage in critique of this web site's offerings, nor will I engage in defending it. The UU and Me! page is a religious education project of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, a congregation based on correspondence, which has recently moved into the internet age. Its intention is to minister to isolated UUs. Its religious education materials go way beyond UU and Me!, and they provide great resources for parents that want to "home school" their children's religious education.
The question Jess raises for me, however, is the role of the parent and the teacher. I am convinced that magazines, canned curriculums for busy volunteers, and web sites can ever be substitute for parents as educators, and dedicated "Sunday School" teachers. Congregations need to support parents as educators, and support the religious avocation, the lay ministry of teacher. The parish minister is called to be "teacher" to the congregation, and I can't see how this role can be fulfilled if ministers come to rely on packaged UUA material.
I think the UUA has a role to play as resource developer. But the religious formation of children is a responsibility of the covenant community, the congregation that seeks to be a center of transformation and renewal of right relationship. The UUA staff as a service providers can never be a substitute for religious community.
Overcoming colonialism through faith and action.
Thanks for the post, Clyde. I had been thinking about this subject recently because I'd been thinking about possibly becoming a Sunday school teacher at my church. Regretfully, I determined this was not a good time - I couldn't commit to being there every Sunday for several hours for a year. I was mentioning this to another UU young adult who has been teaching Sunday School, and she waved her hand absently, "Oh no, it's not every week." I was surprised to learn that the volunteers only teach once every month (or more!).
On the one hand, it meant I might actually have an opportunity to participate in this, but it was also disappointing: how could I build a relationship with the kids?
When I was much younger than I am now, I taught weekend classes for Muslim children for at least two years. My primary focus for the kids was Islamic history. This was back when I had few friends and fewer obligations, but it was a very enriching time. There was no curriculum (nowadays there are lots of books with curriculum for teaching islamic studies to kids), so I designed the course as I went along, including quizzes and tests.
I would really like to work with children again, especially since now I am seeing more and more and more children of color in my congregation. At the last service I almost fell over. The number seems to grow every time I go - it hardly seems possible to conceive and give birth to children this quickly! I'd like to have more of a relationship with some of these kids.
Great post. I'm in absolute agreement with you - while resources are needed, so are loving, working hands and hearts.
What gets my goat is that the national face of Unitarian Universalism seems to me to be aiming at the lowest common denominator, and not only in religious education. And the local churches, for the most part, are following that lead. How do we break out of this cycle, while acknowledging that "packaged UUA material" can be helpful but surely isn't all there is to it?
Because the fact of the matter is that volunteering for RE isn't something that a lot of people jump up and do - there's an expectation that volunteers have to be coaxed and coerced before they agree to give up a few hours a week. I'd love to see some ideas on concrete steps to develop the religious avocation in our congregations, from both sides of the "ministerial fence."