Spirituality and Religion

Religion is not just spirituality.  These days, it is customary to contrast spirituality with religion.  Spirituality is personal -- the soul's relations.  Religion is communal.  We call it "organized religion" (even UU's) and most people think "organized religion" is icky.  It's institutions.  It's traditions.  It's a particular point of view passed down from generation to generation, from teacher to learner, from parents to children.  It's teachings.

So when people are saying that they are spiritual but not religious, they are saying that they do not connect what they feel and think about their soul's relations from the point of view of institutions and history.  And most people who take this approach do so because they are unaware of organized religious institutions that they can agree with or trust.

But while so many have disconnected spirituality from history and institutions, the society as a whole has taken to mass incarceration, war, torture, the grinding of the poor under the heels of the wealthy, usurious debt and atavistic patriarchy.  People calling themselves Christians have followed wealth and power, while those calling themselves "spiritual but not religious" have followed their bliss.

I am a religious liberal -- I am part of an organized religion -- a religious tradition whose teachings are all about freedom and liberty and the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.  It's a religion that believes that freedom and liberty and justice are historical factors.  Human history is a two-way street and one way leads to human solidarity and justice the other away.  Our religion makes us disciples of human freedom.

Liberal religion is our religion -- it teaches and learns;  it is institutional.

But there is no difference in content between our religion and our spirituality.  Our understanding of the human soul, and it's relations with the cosmos, with God, with other creatures and other people is the basis of the social, political and historical roles that we intend to enact and embody.

As we pray, we believe.  As we believe, we act.  It is one package.  It is a way of living.  It can be apprehended intuitively -- who has not grasped the oneness and benevolence of the Great All In All, and known that to bring that knowledge within oneself would change one's life forever?  But it is also taught and shared and celebrated in worship in community.  It has a history that can be learned and thought to be analyze, and experience to learn from.  It is organized and a part of history.

Beyond Congregations

As far as I can tell, and I am not as close to it as others, the "Beyond Congregations" conversation is a mess.

Like many of our conversations are messes.

A brainstorming free association session is not a conversation.

If everyone enters into the conversational space to grind their own traditional axes, then a messy conversation will result.

If I understand it correctly, the subject of the beyond congregation conversation was whether there were other forms of organization that would allow us to meaningfully engage people who, for one reason or another, would not be likely to join one of our existing congregations, nor would they be interested in starting a new one.

Somehow this got crossed with the observation that there were many people who identified as UU's, but don't belong to congregations.  Which, in my book, is fine and is not a problem.  They are, for the most part, happy with their present relationship to UUism.

Some of them do reveal the kinds of people and the kinds of life situations where our congregational structures don't reach, which is useful.  The lack of a way for college students to have a spiritual home in UUism is a problem already well known.  The same with non-college and post-college young adults.  There is a problem there and people are working on trying to sort it out.

But the number of people who like to go to UU summer camps and conferences but not attend a UU congregation?  That's not a problem.  That's like saying that people who come to Christmas Eve services and not to anything else represent a problem.  That's just where they are at. Let it go.

But now the conversation seems to have taken the turn that since we are talking about "beyond" congregations -- then every grievance against congregations is on the table.  Some are not friendly.  Some are very insular and don't seem to care about the great UUA and its many programs and services and the APF.  Some are weird.

And every congregation includes certain kinds of people and repels other kinds.  Which is why we are having this conversation, which is a mess right now.

To me, the key questions are these:

1.  What are the forms of UU ministry that could reach people who are not likely to join our congregations?  Just some examples:  campus ministries, study groups, SSL groups, UU Occupy groups, social justice action groups, support groups for people in particular life circumstances, missions in particular locales. theologically underserved religious liberals.

2.  How do we deploy ministers and lay people to form ministries in those situations?  Do our present congregations deploy them?  If our present congregations were interested in and capable of such missional work, we wouldn't be having this conversation.  If not the congregations, then who?  District Staff?  the UUA itself?  Groupings of ministers and/or congregations?  Or do we just create a climate that encourages anyone, let a hundred flowers bloom and sort them out later?

3.  Is this a strategy to grow UUism or is it a strategy to grow grassroots liberal religious ministry?  Is "beyond congregations" leading us to a place of "beyond denominationalism"?

I myself would like to see all of our ministers and laypeople be turned loose to create "no-logo liberal religious ministries"  wherever they can.  Let our congregations keep doing what they are trying to do.    Out of all that ferment, something new will emerge.

Out of the Wilderness

I believe that 1968-2008 was a 40 year wilderness period for Unitarian Universalism, a long period in which cultural, religious and political conservatism were aggressive and dominant.

What happened in UUism in the wilderness?

The sense that we were outposts of an embattled cultural liberalism took over our thinking.  We were enclaves, protected territory where "like-minded' people could gather safely.  We were accused of not being a real religion, having no dogmatic beliefs, nor a defined path to salvation.  Liberal politics and culture were described as excessively permissive, self-indulgent, faddish and repressive ("politically correct").  Whether we called ourselves Christian no longer mattered; "Real" Christians were insistent that we were definitely not.  Our children told us that they felt unsafe and insecure on the playgrounds.  Conservatives were building megachurches which seemed to exercise political power, while our congregations struggled to survive.  A very small minority of very conservative UU's (often Libertarian or Objectivists) in congregations insisted on a very bright line between politics and religion, insisting that liberal religion had no necessary political implications.

Unitarian Universalism shaped itself in response.  The political activists among us doubled down on their politics, becoming more radical.  Political movements in retreat face the temptation to become more pure in their political expressions.  But the vast majority of UU's are not political activists, and certainly not the majority of parish ministers.  The overall result was a political paralysis in general, with  pockets of extreme frustation.

Unitarian Universalism became very sectarian in the wilderness.  While in the wilderness, the chalice became our universal symbol.  Growing a UU identity became a goal of faith development.  The seven principles became creedal and scriptural.  Unitarian Universalism began to understand itself as a new world religion, a theme that had been first suggested pre-merger, but became dominant in the wilderness.  All of this in a collection of congregations and individuals who thought themselves extremely diverse in theology.

"Religious community" or "the congregation" became the highest value in the wilderness period.  The most important thing about us is that we are committed to each other. Joys and Concerns, understood as a liturgical expression of our concern for each other, was included in most congregations Sunday morning service.  Against the criticism from outside that we had no real doctrine, we put forward our covenants.  We had no creeds; we had covenants.

But congregations, especially congregations that can support full time ministry, are very difficult institutions to sustain, and almost impossible to start.  They are the large mammals of the religious ecology. We never found a viable and sustainable growth strategy during the wilderness period.

So during the wilderness period, Unitarian Universalism became inwardly-focused, very anxious, politically isolated and neutralized and very sectarian. Our good news to the world was that we existed, and if people could find their way to us and learn our ways, they could be a part of our religious community, which would change their lives forever.

We survived the wilderness.  We didn't tank like much of the mainline Protestants.  Our forthright stand on LGBTQ concerns (which was facilitated by our inward-focused-self-perfectionism) brought a huge amount of new energy and talent into Unitarian Universalism, manna from heaven.

Now, we stand on the banks of the River Jordan.

I say the country entered into a new period in 2008.  And I think that the Obama campaign embodies the change.  Yes, he was seen as a more explicit form of political liberalism than previous Democrats, but the difference was the tremendous numbers of volunteers and donors that Obama 2008 mobilized. There is now a sense that the country as a whole is moving in our direction.  We see hope in the younger generations (71% of college freshmen favor gay marriage) and in the changing demographics of the nation.  While we live in a period of intense political struggle, with a back and forth movement of energy and initiative (Tea Party in 2009-2010, Wisconsin and Occupy in 2011), the ground is shifting.

And Unitarian Universalists are getting energized and in motion.  People are going to Arizona; we are thinking about those beyond our congregations; missional communities are forming.  This could be an exciting time for us.

A shocking solution to the student loan crisis

After a recent posting on the student loan crisis, someone sent me the following note.  S/he requested anonymity since s/he felt that the special interests that control this country would do everything in their power to suppress this kind of common sense solution to our nation's problems.  S/he hopes that if this idea comes from a blog of a respected religious leader, patriotic legislators will be able to reach across the aisle and come together for the good of our country, defying the extremes of both parties.

Well, I am not sure that I am that "respected religious leader" but I am willing to do what I can to bring our country back from the brink of madness and partisan bickering.

His/Her proposal:

We should forgive all student loans past and future in exchange for each student serving two years of mandatory national service in the armed services, inner-city teaching, conservation work or working in the newly nationalized American porn industry.

The adult entertainment industry is rapidly growing and extremely profitable. Nationalizing this industry will bring a stream of dollars to the government that will go far to offset our chronic budget deficit. Like gambling, or potentially drugs, bringing these income streams into the government is a well-established precedent.

American young adults, who represent the diversity of the world's population, are already considered to be the world's standard for youthful sexiness. It is time to use our greatest national resource -- our human capital -- to serve our nation's purpose.  Why let Abercrombie and Fitch reap all the benefits.

It is a well-established fact that older and less attractive members of our society are more than willing to pay for high-quality adult entertainment products. (They will even pay top dollar for low-quality product.) Think of the increase in sales when they know that they are helping grow our national economy. When we understand that the middle-aged male consumer of adult entertainment is a "job creator", what had been a source of shame and embarrassment will be seen as the pleasant exercise of one's patriotic duty.

Surely, after the extended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we cannot say that, as a nation, we are above asking our young people to place their bodies in our hands for the greater national cause.

It's actually less of a sacrifice than military service. Many of these young adults are having sex now, but is selfish and meaningless sex, undertaken for the pleasure of a few individuals. They should be having sex for America.

A final note: the most important commodity in the adult entertainment industry are young, white, blond, females. The United States is a premier provider of this highly profitable raw material. Our only potential competitors in supplying this essential ingredient are the Scandanavian countries. Fortunately, they have chosen not to enter this competition, as they provide low-cost and even free college education to their young adults. Their loss is our gain.

There you have it.  I think that it is a shocking proposal, far outside the mainstream.  I am referring to its bold and explicit advocacy of an industrial policy, in which government bureaucrats pick the winners and losers in the free market.  Government should never do what private enterprise can do on its own.  

 

 

 

 

 

Student Loan Crisis in 5 steps

1.  Manufacturing jobs disappear in the United States, leaving only very low-wage service jobs or more technical and skilled careers.  But instead of investing in manufacturing in the US, the country makes a tacit decision that everyone should go to college and get one of these higher-skill, higher-paying jobs. It's the free market solution.

2.  Everybody, as a result of Free Market decision #1,  needs a college education.  But instead of making college education more plentiful and more affordable (investing more in community colleges, lowering fees and tuition, or even making it free, like Norway), the country adopts another  'Free Market" solution.   We decide to finance higher education by student debt.  

3. As an unintended consequence, college costs soar, for-profit colleges multiply and prestigious universities acquire endowments the size of small countries.  Banks make fortunes handling student debt.  Why shouldn't they?  It's a free market solution.  

4. However, the underlying problem remains: the economy still does not produce the jobs needed to pay off the student debts that have been incurred.  Young adults face the beginning of their careers with debts that are crushing them.  This is will affect their ability to take on mortgages, make consumer purchases and save for retirement.  Student debt becomes a drag on the whole economy.  

5.  If these young adults were airlines, chain stores, or automakers, our system would allow them to shed their unpayable debts through some sort of bankruptcy proceeding.  However, since they are young adults of the middle or working classes who have aspired beyond their station, they need to be taught the hard lesson of proper debt management.  No relief is possible.  After all, it's a free market.

One solution proposed has been to allow student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy proceedings.

Beyond Congregations -- What's a Religious Movement?

When some people hear that President Morales wants us to think of ourselves as "a religious movement," they get anxious.  It sounds like the UUA will become even more boundary-less and intentionally less organized.

As I understand it, the UUA will never be a "religious movement".  After all, it is a legally incorporated non-profit organization with all the appropriate IRS status designations.  It has a Board and everything.  These are not the signs of a "movement".  Was the "Great Awakening" ever incorporated?

Liberal Religion is a movement among the people.  It is a spontaneous mass -movement of resignation from most forms of "organized religion" as people adopt as their religious views these propositions:

religious traditions are cultural responses to the basic human condition,
religious truth claims are unverifiable,
the goal of the religious life is ethical behavior
an ethical approach to life includes religious pluralism.

The Liberal Religious movement is very diverse, very unorganized, and holds a wide variety of opinions about all spiritual and religious questions.  It seems to be at least one third of the population of the United States.

Unitarian Universalism is an institution that operates within the Liberal Religious movement, one of many such institutions.  When we go "beyond congregations" we are seeking to find additional ways to engage those people who are already on the move, religiously and spiritually.

Instead of being less focused and less organized, Unitarian Universalism will have to become more clear, more focused and more intentional about how to engage people who are religiously liberal, but religiously inactive.  We will also have to be more supple, more invention and more improvisational as we work with specific people in specific situations.

Beyond Congregations and modern UU History

I divide the history of Unitarian Universalism (since merger) into 3 periods.  See my paper in response to Kim Beach at the James Luther Adams Foundation in 2011. 

Most of our assumptions about Unitarian Universalism come from the longest period -- 1968-2008 -- the period in which conservatism in all forms was aggressive and hegemonic while liberalism in all forms was defensive.   It was a wilderness period.

In our wilderness period, two responses arose:  One was to move to the Left politically.  The other was to stand on "religious community" as our core meaning and purpose.  UU's did not feel able to aggressively challenge conservative theology in the public square.  Instead they turned to the long strand of congregationalism as being their essential meaning.  "Congregations" and "covenant" defined us. These terms were applied to all sorts of congregations -- from those that sat in pews to those that sat in circles. But in all circumstances, our gospel tended to be reduced to "everyone needs to be in a religious community" and "our religious community welcomes everybody."

Now, in a third period of UU history, when we see again that our religious views would be welcomed by a sizable minority of people, we see that our focus on "religious community" is too narrow.  We will end up waiting for people to come to us, rather than meeting them where they are.

President Peter Morales is right in saying that we need to develop ways of connecting to people who are not going to join our present congregations.  And I think that most UU leaders accept that proposition, although the mechanisms are still undefined.

But it is foreign to us, given our assumptions of our wilderness period, to think about touching people's lives in ways other than joining an organization of some type, or becoming part of a community.

We will, instead, be touching people's lives first through a message now.  We will be bringing them a point of view, a consistent way of looking at themselves, others and the world that we live in.

So the question for us now is not "what new forms of organizations should UU's seek to build?" but "what do we want to say to people?"  How do we want people to think of us?   What should they think about how we want them to live?

Our Message and Beyond Congregations

If Unitarian Universalism is called to engage people in settings other than congregational life, then our message becomes all the more important.

I have posted a big chunk of my sermon from yesterday because I am trying to define our top level message as it would be heard by people who are not familiar with us.  What is it that every person should know about what Unitarian Universalism wants them to do with their lives?

Our Good News

The heart of my sermon on January 29th.

Religious traditions are, first of all, messages to the people of the world.  Is the message that we are sending into the world good news to the people who hear it?  Is it helpful to them?  Does it speak to their condition?

We are on an errand into a world unknown to us, and all we can carry is our message.

Our message comes down to three affirmations and challenges:  

The first is "self-possession.  You are an inherently worthy person, you have a right to be here, you are welcome in the Universe -- that’s the affirmation -- what’s  the challenge?  You have to think for yourself, be responsible for how you use this good gift of life.  

How many people need, desperately need, to hear this message?  

Almost everyone... 

all those who suffer discrimination, stereotyping and racism, the poor and the "uncultured", the LGTQ people, the immigrants, all those of diminished social status.. 

And beyond all social diminishments are the personal shames and humiliations of your personal experience your family life, your social life at a young age, even high school.  There are people out there, no, there are people in here, who have had all the outward advantages in life and still feel worthless and unlovable.   

Liberal Religion’s message is an unflinching affirmation of each person’s worth and dignity. 

It is not the Calvinist message that you are, by definition, an unworthy sinner, offensive to God.  

It is also not the hyper-individualist message that you alone are the only one responsible for the conditions of your life -- that all your suffering must be your own fault.  

You are a worthy person; you have a right to take control of your life and to be a moral agent.  

And the second affirmation is that not only are you a worthy being, so are all the other people around you.  God loves all of them, too.  

And so the challenge is for you to learn to take an empathetic, compassionate, loving attitude toward them.  To become open-minded and open-hearted.  You will run into people all the time who are outside of your necessarily limited understanding of the way the world works.  You are going to be stretched all the time to try to understand another point of view.  Every one of us can point to examples in our own lives when our minds were opened.  What seemed completely unacceptable became acceptable.  Remember when you first met a transgender person?

The third affirmation and challenge that Liberal Religion makes is that “no, you are not crazy; human society is unfair.”  

I think that this is new:  in the old days of classical liberalism, the belief was that human society started out as fair and just, but unfortunately, some bad things happened since then.  That’s the thinking behind the whole social contract -- One day, a group of men who were equals to each other got together and decided to have a society.  Everybody had their rights, and their responsibilities and some people were given power for the good of everybody else.  

Since then, there’s been some bad behavior and if we just correct those problems, human society will return to be a well-run, socially stable, friendly and fair place to live.  Kind of like the hobbits at the beginning of the Lord of Rings.  Or the small towns portrayed in modern country music.  I think most people have some version of this fantasy, and it is a fantasy.  A previous time when human society worked and was just. I hear it about the church.  It is hard to hear it when someone challenges our particular version of Eden.  That the good old days were only good for some.  

Of course, the illusion of the good old days is actually oppressive to us as well.  It channels our sense of power into negative and judgmental ways, asking who is at fault?  Who ruined paradise?   Instead of seeing ourselves as powerful and powerfully moving toward justice; it only validates our prejudices and narrowness.  

So, there is an affirmation and a challenge in this third part of the message -- yes, human society is unjust AND you can do something about it, through your own power and the power of your solidarity - empathy - compassion for others.   We are potentially moving toward a better world. 

These are the core messages of the liberal church, of the liberal religious movement, of Unitarian Universalism.  They are messages which seem almost second nature to us -- they sound familiar.  Some of the time, we actually believe them and live them out, but often we don’t.  

Who needs our message?  We do.  And just about everyone else. 

So our message is needed by people of every age, and every class and every ethnicity and every sexuality and every gender expression and every nationality and every profession.  Not every wants to hear it, that’s OK.  We may not be able to communicate across all the differences to everyone, but that’s OK, too.  

Let me quote Walt Whitman now: 

This is the meal equally set, this the meal for natural hunger, 

It is for the wicked as well as the righteous, I make appointments with all.

I will not have a single person slighted or left away.

This is our message, our good news, our gospel: 

You are a worthy soul; stand cool and composed against every condition.

Around you are other worthy souls, as worthy as you, extend to them your open heart.  Before you lies a world that needs to be made more just.  You can do it. 

These are simple statements, but they are not shallow statements.  

There is a long tradition that has led us to these beliefs.  

At heart, our beliefs are a very particular distillation of the Christian tradition, a kind of simplified and syncretic Christian humanism slash transcendentalism.  It has a history of heroes and heretics, preachers and teachers, prophets and poets. A person could study it for a lifetime, just to fully understand it.

But no one has to understand the software that makes an iPod work.  All that matters to most people is that it is simple and clean, beautiful, easy to use and easy to learn.  It makes their lives better. It brings them joy and beauty.  

(Turn on iPhone and hold it to the mic.  Music playing)

 The same should be true of liberal religion -- is our message simple, clean and beautiful, easy to use and easy to learn? because it will make people’s lives better.

Musings on Morales 3 Beyond Congregations

Maybe if we stop trying to make our congregations all things to all people, they can get better at being some thing to some people.

Let a hundred flowers bloom.

Beyond Congregations 2

The link to the Morales article under discussion:  Beyond Congregations

President Peter is right, of course.  Lots more people identify themselves as UU than are members of our congregations.  Only a third of Baby Boomers are active in a church, about half of the same measure among the generation before them.  Participation falls off a cliff in the generations younger than the Boomers.  New forms of organization are going to be required; our present congregations will have to be our base camps for explorations into the wider world.

This would be a dire situation if Liberal Religion did not have a meaning and a message that can help lots of people grow into the people that they want to be. But we do.

In a world where most people are defined by others, either through discrimination and stereotyping, or through aggressive acculturation, Unitarian Universalism and Liberal Religion calls people to self-definition and self-determination.  We also call people to open-mindedness, which I think is a spiritual aspiration for a large number of people.

We have the message; there are numerous methods for developing these attributes.  The modality we offer -- religious community in a congregation -- no longer works.

Beyond Congregations Thoughts -- #1

The first question that everyone should ask when the President of the UUA writes something for us all to consider is: for whom and to whom is he speaking?

Some people like to talk about 'The UUA' as if it were a single, monolithic body.  Not true anymore.  Remember that the Moderator of UUA endorsed a different candidate for the Presidency of the UUA than our current President.  Moderator Courter endorsed Laurel Hallman.  Laurel Hallman was more favorable to "policy governance" than Peter Morales.

I am told that the staff and the board are not always on the same page right now.

The Board of the UUA (and Gini Courter) has been quite clear that they are trying to make themselves more accountable to the congregations.  That was the impetus behind The Great Disaffiliation Campaign of a few years ago, when the Independent Affiliate Organization were weaned from official status.

Now, we have President Morales calling for an increased focus on non-congregational forms of Unitarian Universalism.  That's what the independent affiliates were.

Does the UUA Board share the analysis that the growth of Unitarian Universalism will include lots of non-congregational organizations?  I don't know.  Does anyone?

I'm Back

Been away -- some computer problems, some pressing assignments.
But there are lots of things to talk about --
I promise more posts and shorter posts.