Religious Liberalism and Theology: February 2006 Archives

I am in the midst of writing about human wholeness, and in order to engage my audience I took up the idea advanced by Dean Hamer of that religion is part of our genetic makeup. I don't usually get into topical pop science, Hamer's thesis is very reductionist and thus smacks of the worse kind of scientism. But I am finding the idea of very engaging.

Engaging this kind of fashionable popular science is very good for preachers even if we find the ideas to be nonsense, explaining our critique is a good discipline.

"The God Gene : How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes" (Dean H. Hamer)

Do moral individuals interact with an immoral institutions and society?  Some theologians have argued that point, but beginning with Walter Wink we have the suggestions that communities of people have a personality and will to power of their own, that regarding them as things rather as willful powers misses something important about their behavior.  Under U.S. law, the corporation is a legal person.  What are the theological and ethical implications of that decision?  One legal scholar has ventured to ask the ethical questions about corporate conduct, and the morality that corporate society compels human beings to adopt.

Joel Bakan writes, "No one would seriously suggest that individuals should regulate themselves, that laws against murder, assault, and theft are unnecessary because people are socially responsible. Yet oddly, we are asked to believe that corporate persons--institutional psychopaths who lack any sense of moral conviction and who have the power and motivation to cause harm and devastation in the world--should be left free to govern themselves."

The modern corporation, according to law professor Bakan, is "singularly self-interested and unable to feel genuine concern for others in any context."  Bakan dares to make the diagnosis,  the corporation is a "pathological" entity.

"The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power" (Joel Bakan)

The ice is melting in North. In time the water will rise and our present seacoast will be under water.

I think of the Gulf Coast where I live. No use rebuilding New Orleans. We should abandon Miami and most of Tampa too. Rising oceans alone would impact the hometowns of about one third of the population of the United States directly. But another third lives in river valleys that drain into the oceans, and along the Lakes that depend on access to the Atlantic.

But isn't that a long time from now? Not at the rate the ice is melting, it means no Cape Cod (or Key West or Catalina) in life time of many of my readers.

But there are other more immediate problems. The big kill of the polar animals is happening now. Despite triumphalist interpretation of Genesis I we were not given this earth to abuse. Inuits are losing their homeland. Another genocidal attack by an arrogant and self absorbed people.

And the ice is fresh water. Melting that much ice means the saline mix of the ocean will change and that will change the circulation of the oceans. The Gulf Steam is that is moving by me right now is on its way to Western Europe. Look at a map, Europe is kind of far North. Without the Gulf Stream it will be cold like Thunder Bay, Ontario in Paris. I love Paris in the spring time will be no more.

Apparently some don't want to hear it. I receive a protest from a blogger that would prefer his Unitarian Universalism to be pablum. He writes "For a long time i quit watching nature shows because I got sick of the constant complaining about deforestation.

Constantly reminding people how bad they are and how they are ruining the world is not, in my opinion, a good way to grow our churches either."

Religion isn't about making us comfortable. Check out any serious tradition you want. Religion makes demands on our lives and on our conduct. Any religion that makes us self absorbed and comfortable is no religion at all.

And the world will go on very nicely without so many of us. No we won't ruin the world.

The struggle against deforestation reversed what could have been a disaster, and the people who made a difference did a lot more than watch nature shows. Can we reverse global warming? Yes. The earth is a living, breathing organism and she has recovered in the past and she will again if we respect what she is telling us, and begin to make the changes that are called for.

People don't need to be reminded of how bad they are, people aren't bad. We do need that gift that Universalist John Murray urged his preachers to preach, we need to give our people hope and courage.

Hope requires conviction and determination to realize those convictions. Hope without conviction is wishing.

We must reclaim the conviction that we are a nation "of the people, for the people and by the people." To realize that conviction means having the courage to rid our nation of the corrupt political culture that masquerades as democracy. Previous generations of religious liberals rose up against the powers that be, and created new political alinements. We must as well. To become effective in our rising we must become citizens once more rather than consumers and spectators of what passes for election campaigns. We must have as a goal to check the corporate vultures who have turned this land into America, Inc.

We must do this because of a religious imperative namely: we belong to the earth, the earth does not belong to us. Treating this earth as a thing is killing to our souls, and if history teaches us anything it is this, soulless people have no future.

What's this got to do with Unitarian Universalism?  Isn't Unitarian Universalism about reciting our principles and purposes and congratulating ourselves on our liberalism?  Do we have to make a difference?

This last January was the warmest year in several millennia, and the last decade was the warmest in a thousand years.  The polar ice is melting, and the snow isn't falling in North America or Europe.  Say goodbye to Maple Syrup.

We will run out of easily attainable petroleum in a decade or two, and the costs of gasoline will sky rocket.  It has already started to go up and up and up. 

The automobile has distorted our urban areas, over half of the land surface of most of our cities is dedicated to parking, highways, and sprawling single family housing.

Our children are driven to school, because the streets are too dangerous for them to walk or bike to school.  After school they are driven to after school activities.  Mothers who never heard of Betty Friedan do this driving, and experience a nagging anxiety that this is not what life is supposed to be like.

Network news organizations run documentary series on television about obesity and treat this epidemic as if it were a personal life style issue.  We experience a rise in chronic illnesses and treat those illnesses with pharmaceuticals.

Most people in the United States in two decades will be people of color.  Most of Unitarian Universalist churches fled to the suburbs in the 40s and 50s as part of the white flight, and most of our new starts have been located away from the city centers.  And we wonder why it is so hard for our congregations to achieve "diversity."  And we wonder why our prophetic voice is diminished.

We spend money on slick advertising and folks come to church. Some join.  We are not changed.

Growth for religious liberalism does not consist of counting voting members in self absorbed suburban congregations, nor does it have any thing to do with the self promotion of the UUA HQ staff.    Real growth means being deeply relational to our country and its people and that kind of growth will commence when we find our voice and our courage.  Then we will begin to speak to our country once again.

The UUA asks congregations to register their voting membership every year for purposes of determining their fair share allotment to the annual program fund. This registration is not, and never has been a measure of the growth of Unitarian Universalism. Each congregations determines their voting membership based on entirely different criteria.
While I don't fault those who use this enumeration as a basis of comparison between congregations, it seldom gives much useful information.

I could point to one problem of enumeration, there are reporting differences based on the size of congregations. Large congregations pay fair share based on the percentage of their budget, rather than the number of voting members. Smaller congregations must pay dollars for every member they report. Small congregations under report, folks who are active in the congregation but don't contribute enough money to pay their portion of the annual program fund are often left of the role. Large congregations over report, we have congregations that claim folks that haven't sat in a pew in years. Because they pay a percentage of their budget to the UUA and District rather than a per capita, reporting those lost members isn't as painful as it would be for a small congregation. Shaving twenty less than active members of the roles for a small congregation can make a balanced budget and a deficit budget.

But my real concern is counting voting members seduces us into thinking that we understand growth by looking a quantitative measurements alone. A congregation grows by becoming a qualitatively deeper and more loving community, by extending its ministries and becoming more welcoming and accessible to new constituencies. To grow in these ways may result in greater numbers in the long run, but skipping this kind of transformative work only leads to the revolving door.

We have congregations that are growing in numbers and we have congregations that are declining in numbers because of changing demographics, economic dislocations, and internal conflicts. But without careful attention to the internal dynamic we know nothing about growth within those congregations based on how many voting members they report that year.

Real growth, transformative growth, goes on day by day in the congregations. The UUA HQ can serve that growth, celebrate that growth, and occasionally it can even provide resources that will enable that growth. But the congregations grow the UUA, the UUA does not grow the congregations.

This week has been so full that I haven't had the time or energy to blog.

The UUMA's Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism completed its three day retreat yesterday. The five of us who were able to attend really worked and the creativity was enormous. We looked at situations involving our ministers and seminarians, and we initiated interventions and policy recommendations. Some of the recommendations will be discussed soon with the UUA's Ministry and Professional Leadership Staff group. They have always given us a good ear and we find ways to implement our best thought out proposals. Some of our ideas are not ready for prime time, and we find that out as we discuss them with our colleagues and propose them to the UUA. Our relationship is critical and engaged, not antagonistic.

In the last twelve years we have increased the number of ministers from other than the dominant culture from a handful to sixty ministers in fellowship. Based on theological school enrollments we will double that number in less than seven years. I am assuming that we will continue to have a significant number of theological students who do not continue their studies, either because they discover another religious approach is more attractive, or they discover that ministry is not a match for their talents. If all who ever enrolled in a theological school with the intention of being a Unitarian Universalist minister continued with their studies and was successfully doing Unitarian Universalist ministry we would have well over a hundred ministers of other than the dominant culture in our ranks. And we would have over two thousand ministers in fellowship!

The growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry in the last years scares many people, they argue that there are not enough pulpits for so many ministers. Of course, the growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry also means the growth of non traditional, community based ministries. Over half the students in theological schools today intend ministries outside of traditional parish settlements.

What will change and what will stay the same? I believe that when more of our ministers are community ministers than parish ministers we will begin to change the nature of congregations and our relation to the world as well. History tells us, what exists now has not always been, and what exists now will change. A true traditionalist expects transformation, because radical change and renewal is the only constant in history.

I have observed that those who are on the road to ministry who engage with others in building community are most likely to succeed in ministry. I am active in the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association because that association enables me to engage with my colleagues in our common work of building the community of ministers. It would never occur to be to look at my professional association and ask "what does it give me." An minister who values collegiality knows the answer, it gives us the community that we in turn engage in renewing.

Consumerism is destructive tendency eroding the democracy of our nation, and consumerism is now challenging many of our congregations. If it erodes our ministry then with what will the earth be salted?

This week has been so full that I haven't had the time or energy to blog.

The UUMA's Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism completed its three day retreat yesterday. The five of us who were able to attend really worked and the creativity was enormous. We looked at situations involving our ministers and seminarians, and we initiated interventions and policy recommendations. Some of the recommendations will be discussed soon with the UUA's Ministry and Professional Leadership Staff group. They have always given us a good ear and we find ways to implement our best thought out proposals. Some of our ideas are not ready for prime time, and we find that out as we discuss them with our colleagues and propose them to the UUA. Our relationship is critical and engaged, not antagonistic.

In the last twelve years we have increased the number of ministers from other than the dominant culture from a handful to sixty ministers in fellowship. Based on theological school enrollments we will double that number in less than seven years. I am assuming that we will continue to have a significant number of theological students who do not continue their studies, either because they discover another religious approach is more attractive, or they discover that ministry is not a match for their talents. If all who ever enrolled in a theological school with the intention of being a Unitarian Universalist minister continued with their studies and was successfully doing Unitarian Universalist ministry we would have well over a hundred ministers of other than the dominant culture in our ranks. And we would have over two thousand ministers in fellowship!

The growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry in the last years scares many people, they argue that there are not enough pulpits for so many ministers. Of course, the growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry also means the growth of non traditional, community based ministries. Over half the students in theological schools today intend ministries outside of traditional parish settlements.

What will change and what will stay the same? I believe that when more of our ministers are community ministers than parish ministers we will begin to change the nature of congregations and our relation to the world as well. History tells us, what exists now has not always been, and what exists now will change. A true traditionalist expects transformation, because radical change and renewal is the only constant in history.

I have observed that those who are on the road to ministry who engage with others in building community are most likely to succeed in ministry. I am active in the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association because of that association enables me to engage with my colleagues in our common work of building the community of ministers. It would never occur to be to look at my professional association and ask "what does it give me." An minister who values collegiality knows the answer, it gives us the community that we in turn engage in renewing.

Consumerism is destructive tendency eroding the democracy of our nation, and consumerism is now challenging many of our congregations. If it erodes our ministry then with what will the earth be salted.