If you’re an anti-Christian Unitarian Universalist, hold on for a bit, because this post applies to you, too. In an essay in the most recent Christian Century magazine, the Christian theologian Douglas John Hall writes:
“I remember a conversation early in the 1970s in which a small group of clergy in the city where I lived were discussing the question, “On the pattern of Revelation chapters 2 and 3, what do you think ought to be the ‘message of the Spirit’ to the churches of this city?” I found myself answering this question almost without knowing what I said: ‘The Spirit writes to the churches of North America: Disestablish yourselves!’
“I’m afraid my words fell on the ears of my hearers as though I had been speaking in tongues. But I continued to pursue that theme in many lectures and a whole series of books on the future I envisaged, with the help of many others, for a Christian movement that had seriously tried to disentangle itself from the ethos and assumptions of the imperial peoples of the West, with their explicit or implicit racism, ethnocentrisms, militarism, and ideologies of power….”
So says Donald Hall. And the same thing applies to the Unitarian Universalist movement: we need to disentangle ourselves from the ethos and assumptions of the ruling powers of the United States, to disestablish ourselves (actually, in our case, part of the task is finally to understand how little political influence we actually have, and to re-conceptualize ourselves on that basis).
Discuss.
The bit in parenthesis is grand. I started a couple of sentences to explore it, but for now, I’ll just leave it at that.
I listen to Moody Bible Radio. I’ve belonged to a Catholic Church. Both had a better sense of being independent of Secular US Gov and culture; and both believe there parts of traditions that pre-date the United States, and that will outlive the United States. Much tougher for UUs to get that kind of distance because our history, and American Protestant History, so much apart of US History. We are a very very USAmerican Church and could only arise in my opinion on American soil. That’s a very tough thing for many UUs to sort out, or even recognize.
…they’re parts of traditions… I meant… spell check snaufu.
I should add it’s not just a “feel” of belonging to traditions bigger than the US, but it’s quite literal too. The Priests at St Pats coming from Nigeria, Poland, and Ireland (and all three being tough to understand) or just spending time in Wheaton the Evangelical’s Vatican and feeling inside the UN. There’s a bigger international feel to these Churches that’s missing I suspect from any large UU conclave.
Came across this, and remembered the question of UU power:
http://io9.com/5632195/the-great-atomic-bomb-cake-controversy-of-1946
Wow – are there UU’s who consider themselves “ANTI-Christian?” I think that’s an interesting topic all by itself.
And yeah – our religious history (particularly for the Unitarians) is so tied up in American political history that segregating the two is tough. To do that, it is best to think of ourselves as a religion only since 1961, established in a mature nation.
But we should endeavor to do so. I often feel like we are hijacked by Democratic and Green activists, which is not in keeping with our goals of diversity, welcoming, and inclusion.
Note post 1961 UUism gave America three Secretaries of Defense: Elliot Richardsen, William Cohen, and William Perry. Obama named Perry as one of his advisors on Nat Defence during the campaign. Perry had also written a column a year or two earlier calling for a strike on North Korean missle sites.