Seven statements about democracy

It’s amazing to me how many people these days believe that “democracy” means “I get what I want, and screw you.” — I threw this line out in a comment to an earlier post, and then it occurred to me that many congregations hold annual meetings at this time of year, and so democracy is . Here are six additional brief statements about democracy that elaborate on this bare statement:

I/ Democracy is a form of self-abnegation. Yes, each individual in a democracy should receive some personal benefit. But each person in a democracy also has to contribute time, energy, money, etc., to that democracy. As a rule of thumb, each of us should expect to feel as though we are contributing far more than we receive as individuals; because we humans are more likely to be aware of what we do for others, than we are aware of what others do for us.

II/ A corollary to statement I: Just because you feel you give more time, money, energy, whatever, to the democracy does not mean you should have more influence than the next person. The basic principle of a democracy is that one person gets one vote; and each vote (yes, even your vote) is worth the same as everyone else’s vote (yes, your vote is worth the same as the person you despise and whom you think does not give enough time and money to the congregation). And of course you probably give less to the democracy than you think you do (see statement I).

III/ Participation in a democracy means you have to do more than show up once a year for an annual meeting, or fill out a ballot once a year. Each individual in a democracy is morally required Continue reading →

UUism declines for 2nd straight year; RE for 7th straight year

uuworld.org, the official news Web site of the Untiarian Universalist Association, reported on Monday that Unitarian Universalism (UUism) has declined in the United States for a second straight year. The actual decline is small: down 267 adult members in 2009, a decline of 0.16 percent. Given that membership numbers are somewhat fictional to begin with, and given that many congregations are determinedly purging their membership rolls in order to reduce their annual Fair Share financial contribution to the denomination, we can console ourselves that perhaps we’re not really declining.

The really depressing news is that religious education enrollment for children and youth has been declining since 2002. And in 2009 it declined a lot: “Religious education enrollment dropped 1,262, for a total of 55,846 children and youth this year. A year ago it dropped 809. In 2002 it was 60,895.”

This is a clear downward trend that cannot be explained away. Considering that we are in the midst of a population surge for children, with birthrates that highest they’ve been since the tail end of the Baby Boom of the early 1960s, this is especially depressing news.

I believe several things are contributing to the decline of our religious education program. Continue reading →

Coast Live Oak community

I just got back from a ministers’ retreat in St. Francis Retreat, San Juan Bautista, California. A Coast Live Oak woodland ecological community predominates on the hillside behind the retreat center, and at this time of year everything is still damp. I saw a salamander on the trail, mushrooms sprouting up around the trunks of the oaks, and tiny wildflowers everywhere there was some sun.

Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia), draped with Fishnet Lichen (Ramalina menziesii), and with unidentified bryophytes on trunk.

Now uploaded on Flickr: 8 photos of this Coast Live Oak woodlands.

Altered Barbie, Episcopal style

Out here in the Bay area, we are used to people who alter Barbie in various ways. After all, San Francisco is the home of the Altered Barbie art show and artist community. But now even the Washington Post has picked up on the altered Barbie trend.

Astute reader E sent along a link to a Post article about Episcopal priest Barbie. The article links to Rev. Ms. Barbie’s Facebook page, which is priceless not just for the beautiful fashion photos showing Ms. Barbie with surplice, cassock, thurible, etc., but also for the many comments, some of which are admiring and some of which are entirely disapproving. The Post also links to an earlier Religion News Online article, which had the headline “Barbie gets ordained and has the smells-and-bells wardrobe to match.” Excuse me, bub, that’s Rev. Ms. Barbie to you. And there’s a link to Unitarian Universalist blogger Peacebang’s “Beauty Tips for Ministers,” who has already posted on Episcopal Priest Barbie.

I note that Rev. Ms. Julie Blake Fisher, the maker of Episcopal Priest Barbie, lives in the midwest, proving yet again that the midwest, not the coasts, is the home of the most subversive craftspeople in the U.S. There are rumors that a midwestern craftsperson is even now working on a similar project for Unitarian Universalist ministers: Rev. Mr. Sock Monkey.

Update: Blogging at Blag Hag, Jen McCreight, a “a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist feminist trapped in Indiana,” has created Atheist Barbie, who wears a Flying Spaghetti Monster necklace. Apparently BoingBoing even picked up on McCreight’s post, which means she probably exceeded her bandwidth limitations this month. I just want to say that from my point of view, a Flying Spaghetti Monster necklace does much more for an outfit than a thurible; accessories really do make the outfit. Did I mention McCreight was from the midwest?

Unsystematic liberal theology: God

Fourth in an occasional series of essays in unsystematic liberal theology, in which I assume theology is a literary genre more than a science, a conversation more than a monologue, descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Religious liberals perceive themselves as being profoundly ambivalent about God. There are the death-of-God people, there are the humanists, there are the moral atheists, there are the traditionalist theists, there are those who tell the local clergyperson, “I’ll believe whatever I want to believe.”

While most religious liberals believe that they can never agree on questions concerning God, in fact we religious liberals all share several basic beliefs about God:

— We all share a belief in heterodoxy, that is, that our opinions about God will differ. Some of the more theologically sophisticated among us are aware of the wide variety of definitions of god/divinity among those who are more orthodox within their faith traditions; proving or disproving one conception of god/divinity does not prove or disprove other concepts of god/divinity (e.g., disproving Karl Barth’s God does not disprove the Bhagavad Gita’s Krishna); thus a firm belief in heterodoxy seems the only sane response to the bewildering variety of of proofs and disproofs and beliefs and disbeliefs in gods, goddesses, and other divinities.

— We all share a belief that regardless of whether or not god/divinity exists, we are ultimately responsible for our lives. We do not believe it is acceptable to say, “It is God’s will that your baby died”; we know it’s the drunk driver’s fault, or the fault of the drug-resistant staph infection that we are unable to cure, or the fault of a random accident. A theological term for this is the “functional ultimacy of humankind”; that is to say, whether or not you happen to believe/disbelieve in god/divinity, from a functional perspective we all believe that humankind is ultimately responsible, allowing of course for the possibility of random chance.

— Generally speaking, we are less interested in ontology, and more interested in practical ethics. While we do have energetic ontological arguments, e.g., about the existence or non-existence of God, we are more inclined to work to make the world a better place. Those who are more interested in ontology than practical ethics are not likely to remain religious liberals for long. Thus over time the fundamentalist humanists who insist on an orthodoxy of non-belief in God get frustrated with religious liberalism and drift away to form their own orthodox humanist groups; pagans who insist in absolute belief in goddess/es over time find that they are more comfortable in orthodox pagan groups; etc.

Because we are so committed to heterodoxy, it may seem hard to understand why we religious liberals spend so much time arguing about God, when arguments about God are really appropriate only for the orthodox (who actually want to make other people think and believe just like themselves). However, we have to remember that the surrounding culture is dominated by orthodoxy as a mindset; it is a culture in which it is difficult for heterodoxy to survive at all, let alone thrive. It’s a miracle that we manage to hold on to our heterodoxy at all.

New podcast on faith development

There’s a new podcast up on the Palo Alto Religious Education blog, in which Joe Chee and I discuss faith development and chronological age. We address questions like: –what happens when someone who grew up with no religious upbringing decides to join a Unitarian Universalist congregation? –how can we help childen new to church feel welcome?

And Joe has also put up an online index listing all the religious education podcasts we’ve produced thus far.

“If” (yet another parody version)

The senior high youth group led the worship service at church today, and they used Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” as one of the readings. I remembered that my dad had a parody version of “If” written for engineers, and I thought: Why isn’t there a parody version of this old chestnut for Unitarian Universalist ministers and lay leaders? So I wrote one:

If

If you can keep your cool, and coexist,
When others want to argue, fight, and shout;
If you can handle humanist and theist,
Balancing your own belief and doubt;
If you can listen both to blame and praise,
And treat those two impostors both the same;
And read church bylaws with a steady gaze;
And work for common good and not just fame;
If you don’t break, but like the Tao you bend,
You’ll be a UU [minister] [lay leader], my friend!

Yes, I know “lay leader” doesn’t quite scan right. But I didn’t have time to write two completely different final couplets. Instead of complaining, why don’t you write a parody version of this poem?