{"id":991,"date":"2007-08-21T15:33:46","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T20:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=991"},"modified":"2007-11-17T21:59:43","modified_gmt":"2007-11-18T02:59:43","slug":"delightedly-annoyed-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=991","title":{"rendered":"Delightedly annoyed (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mail dropped through the slot in the door. Mr. Crankypants picked up the newest issue of UU World<\/em>, the denominational magazine and mouthpiece, and opened it expecting to be delighted. UU World<\/em> almost always has at least one article that annoys Mr. Crankypants, who delights in getting annoyed. And he was delightedly annoyed once again.<\/p>\n

The first annoying article that caught his eye was titled “Not My Father’s Religion: Unitarian Universalism and the Working Class” by Doug Muder. (There may be other annoying articles in this issue, but Mr. C. is taking so much delight in being annoyed at this one that he hasn’t read any further.) Muder started off with one of Mr. Crankypants’s favorite critiques of Unitarian Universalism:– that we don’t welcome working class people. How true! But, annoyingly (delightfully annoyingly), Doug Muder places the blame on theology. Theology is a nice thing to write about, but to do so ignores a whole host of other, more than sufficient, reasons why working class people avoid Unitarian Universalist congregations like the plague.<\/p>\n

What’s that you say? What are those other reasons?<\/p>\n

You could start with social snobbery. Take, for an example, something Mr. Crankypants saw with his own eyes. The new Unitarian Universalist was talking with some long-time members at social hour one Sunday. The long-time members were talking about what their fathers did for work — lawyer, doctor, university professor, other professional high-status jobs. Wanting to include the newcomer, one of the long-time members turned to him and asked, “What does your<\/em> father do for a living?” The newcomer replied, “He’s a janitor.” The conversation died abruptly and everyone drifted away from the newcomer. That newcomer lasted less than a year as a Unitarian Universalist.<\/p>\n

You could add geography, demographics, and congregational lust for money. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, many Unitarian Universalist congregations decided to move their church buildings out of the downtown and into the suburbs. Mr. Crankypants has heard an apocryphal story that in January, 1953, the Board of Trustees of one Unitarian congregation was discussing selling its downtown building in order to move out to the suburbs. The minutes of that meeting supposedly record that the Board chair asked, “Why not go where the money is?” To which the minister (whose salary was dependent on contributions) replied, “Yes, why not?”<\/p>\n

You could add the Unitarian Universalist obsession with college education, coupled with little support for helping people get a college education. In our snobbier congregations, one is simply assumed to have a college degree (preferably from a “good” college). But don’t bother to ask your typical Unitarian Universalist congregation for a scholarship, for tutoring, for moral support, or for any other help while you’re in college. They only want to see you when you get out of college, are married and in your thirties with children and a job. (Oh, and be warned:– if you want to be a non-traditional student, and finally go to college when you are middle-aged, expect even less support.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You could also add denominational publications with articles aimed solely at the leisured middle class and upper middle class. Like articles that ask, “Why aren’t there any working class people in our congregations?” thus effectively ignoring the working class people who are already in Unitarian Universalist congregations. Yes, Virginia, there are plenty of working class and service class members of Unitarian Universalist congregations (remember that with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs, the service class is becoming the new working class in America) — Mr. Crankypants knows a Unitarian Universalist who is a retired meat cutter for a supermarket, a couple of Unitarian Universalists who drive trucks (one a semi, one a straight truck), a laborer in the building trades, and a clerk in a grocery store. Not surprisingly, working class, service class, and poor Unitarian Universalists are often ignored by their congregations. There is an apocryphal story that the January, 2007, minutes of the Board of Trustees of one suburban Unitarian Universalist congregation records that the Board chair stated, “Maybe if we ignore them, they will go away.”<\/p>\n

Any of these reasons would be a sufficient reason for working class people to stay away from Unitarian Universalism in droves, without even bothering to look at theology. If you want to look at theology, you need look no further than the recent history of Unitarian Universalist theology. Since the 1980’s, Unitarian Universalist theology has been dominated by second-wave feminism. Thank Goddess for second-wave feminism, which forced Unitarian Universalism to confront its rampant sexism. Since then, third-wave feminism pointed out that second-wave feminism was designed by educated middle-class white folk, for educated middle-class white folk, but — oops! — Unitarian Universalists somehow missed the third wave of feminism. The Unitarian Universalist surfboard wasn’t waxed in time, or something.<\/p>\n

So Mr. Crankypants is annoyed at Doug Muder, and delighted at having yet another thing about which to be annoyed. Thank you, Doug . And keep writing about classism in Unitarian Universalism. But let yourself be vicious, impolite, and less theological next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mail dropped through the slot in the door. Mr. Crankypants picked up the newest issue of UU World, the denominational magazine and mouthpiece, and opened it expecting to be delighted. UU World almost always has at least one article that annoys Mr. Crankypants, who delights in getting annoyed. And he was delightedly annoyed once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing-church","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}