As you doubtlessly recall, the “I’m Goin’ to Praiseland” episode of The Simpsons opens with an ice cream festival at the church.
Lisa, listing the ice creams at Rev. Lovejoy’s table: “Wow, look at all these flavors! Blessed Virgin Berry, Commandmint, Bible Gum…”
Rev. Lovejoy, handing her a bowl: “Or, if you prefer, we also have Unitarian ice cream!”
Lisa, peering into the bowl: “There’s nothing here.”
Rev. Lovejoy, crossing his arms smugly: “Exactly.”
The Unitarian jokes on “The Simpsons” (there are a disproportionate amount; Matt Groening is rumored to be Unitarian Universalist) were always a high point for my family, because it meant that someone noticed us. UUs are everywhere—some of us literally founded the country!—but we tend to hide in plain sight.
Before I regale you with stories of our stealth abilities (Priuses: very quiet), let’s address that age-old question I constantly fielded growing up: are Unitarian Universalists Christians? Short answer: no. Longer answer: well, depends on which one you’re talking to.
In the late fourth century, the Nicene Creed pretty much locked Christianity into the whole Holy Trinity thing. But that didn’t automatically stamp out dissenters; for example, “Unitarians” believed in the oneness of God, not in the Trinity. “Universalists” believed in universal salvation, that a just God would not condemn anyone to Hell. Needless to say, both groups, despite their otherwise generally typical Christian affiliations, were persecuted, with just about everyone else (dark times).
Many centuries passed before these belief systems would regain a toehold. But thanks in part to a long history of dissident sects in Eastern Europe (see Jan Hus and the Hussites) and the influence of the Protestant Reformation, a Unitarian king of eastern Hungary/Transylvania, John Sigismund, issued one of the European world’s first edict of religious tolerance in 1568, and Unitarian congregations sprang up to focus on following the teachings of Jesus as a man, rather than worshipping him as a deity. The ideas spread across the Danube to other areas of Europe, but the rest of the world wasn’t as welcoming. Michael Servetus, the Spanish author of “On the Errors of the Trinity,” was burned at the stake as a heretic. Later, Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen and inventor of soda water (and, thusly, the patron saint of my SodaStream) was run out of England in 1791 after a mob burned down his house and lab, in part for his dissenting Unitarian views .
Around the same time, in the American colonies, the inevitable Calvinist backlash led many people to shed the notion that they were trapped in the hands of an angry God and opted instead for belief in free will and a benevolent God. Unitarianism began to take hold in the Northeast and was a big part of many of the founding fathers’ belief systems. (Thomas Jefferson, late in life, declared, “I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.”) The Universalists got a toehold as well, finding biblical support for a 100% loving, everyone-gets-an-A+ God, and were particularly evangelical with their beliefs.
So the Universalist message was spreading through the United States rapidly, while the Unitarian message had headquartered itself in Boston. (Canada, by the way, also has a thriving UU presence that dates back to the late nineteenth century; they additionally have the delightful honor of preserving the tradition of Icelandic Unitarian churches, though I’m not sure why that isn’t Iceland’s job.) Both the Unitarians and the Universalists were particularly garrulous when it came to social justice and activism, counting among their ranks abolitionists, prison and mental hospital reformers, and, among many others, Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross. Notably, the Universalists were among the first in the U.S. to ordain women, beginning in 1863 (they were beat by the Congregationalists, sometime-bedfellows of the Unitarians, by a decade). One preacher who worked in both churches, Thomas Starr King, made this handy note for us in distinguishing between the two “U” groups: “Universalists believe that God is too good to damn people, and the Unitarians believe that people are too good to be damned by God.” Warm fuzzies all around.
As the years went on, both Unitarians and Universalists looked outward to other world religions for further spiritual guidance (was there some well-intentioned but ill-executed cultural appropriation? Almost certainly), and supported the growth of other movements. The transcendentalists spun out of the Boston Unitarian scene, yearning for a “more intense spiritual experience,” unsatisfied with the typical Unitarian “sobriety, mildness, and calm rationalism“; I shudder to think of the tone of Unitarian services at the time, if building cabins in each other’s backyards and keeping annotated budgets on the materials was deemed a headier experience.
Fast forward to the early 20th century, when a swelling humanist movement in both the Unitarian and Universalist traditions helped set up what would eventually become perhaps the friendliest merger in the history of organized religion; in 1961, seeing the potential for increased impact, the Unitarians and Universalists of the United States officially joined forces. The now-combined Unitarian Universalist church (sometimes shortened to just “the Unitarian church,” sorry, Universalists) immediately turned its sights on the civil rights movement; 20 percent of UU ministers joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Selma-to-Montgomery marches. Ever since, the UU church has been ahead of the cultural curve on other social and political issues, as well.
In 1961, the UUs began their (still-continuing) call for a moratorium on execution as capital punishment. In 1963, they passed resolutions in support of access to birth control and abortion. In the 1970s, they rewrote their hymnal to erase the masculine bias (“man” to “person,” etc.; in 2009 they published a Spanish language hymnal companion); in 1996, they affirmed marriage equality. The 2012 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, convened in Phoenix, focused on immigration reform.
The steadfastly liberal approach to policy isn’t just church-wide memos; it extends to the congregational level, too. The church I attended growing up used a thorough and matter-of-fact sex education program that included in its curriculum very dated (at the time, I’ve been assured they’ve been updated) slides of interracial and gay couples illustrating pleasant and respectful foreplay (lesbians, never tell me that you don’t always brush one another’s hair before sex, I never want to be disabused of that belief), as well as a visit to a condom store. And UUs’ cutting-edge-ness extends to social practices; if my childhood experiences in the early 1990s were any indication, American UUs got to yoga and veganism before most of the rest of the country. We’d be fantastic hipsters if we weren’t so fastidiously uncool and earnest about everything.
Speaking of! The UU church tends to skew whiter than the rest of the country (which, as of 2012, is at 63 percent non-Hispanic or Latino white and dropping). However, the church’s whiteness ratio does seem to be following the downward trend of the rest of the country; the number of white UUs went down 2.5 percent, 91.5 to 89, from 1997 to 2008). The church also has a higher percentage of those who identify as multiracial than the general population (4 percent to 2.4 percent, respectively).
As I mentioned earlier, UUs are pretty stealthy; we show up all over historical movements and modern culture, but don’t typically make a big fuss about religion specifically. A brief and incomplete list of Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, e.e. cummings, William Carlos Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Darwin, Maria Mitchell, Arthur Schlesinger, Paul Newman, Christopher Reeve, Mary Wollstonecraft, Lucy Stone, Gary Gygax, Buckminster Fuller, Barack Obama’s mother and grandparents, Pete Seeger—the halls of Unitarian Universalism are littered with brilliant, concerned, mostly white people.
When I was a kid and people would ask me what Unitarian Universalists believed, I just took to saying that, to me, it felt more like a club than a religion. You can be UU and also identify as Buddhist, Wiccan, Christian, whatever. Play on, player. The church isn’t creed-based and doesn’t dictate what you can believe about God, the afterlife, whether pigs are unclean, etc., as long as you are actively working to not be a dick and you generally adhere to seven basic principles:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
While Unitarian Universalism has strong roots in Christianity, unless you are part of one of the old-school northeast congregations with 150-year-old buildings that date to the Unitarian era, you probably won’t see any overt Christian imagery in a UU service. The icon of the UU church is not a cross but a flaming chalice, adapted from the symbol used by Eastern European Unitarians and other religious liberals and minorities trying to escape from Nazism with the help of a Boston-based Unitarian group in the days before World War II. (If you’re into the intersection of art or graphic design and wartime subterfuge, you’ll want to read this story.
Even though I haven’t attended church in more than a decade, I can still recite the weekly chalice lighting like your kid brother speed-saying grace:
We light this chalice to remind ourselves to treat all people kindly, because they are our brothers and sisters; to take good care of the earth, because it is our home; and to try to live lives filled with goodness and love, because that is how we will become the best people we can be.
Presumably Reverend Lovejoy could get behind those ideas.
Works Consulted:
“Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith,” Mark W. Harris
“Faith of Our Founding Fathers,” Rev. Craig Scott
“The Emergence of Transcendentalism,” author unknown
“Racial and ethnic diversity of Unitarian Universalists,” Christopher L. Walton
Quick facts, United States Census
“The Flaming Chalice,” Dan Hotchkiss
Tags: denominations, religion, religious history, unitarian universalists
My reaction to this headline is EXACTLY the same as my reaction to that Simpsons joke: “Yes! We exist!”
Favorite Unitarian joke:
Q: Why are Unitarians such bad singers?
A: Because they’re always reading ahead in the hymn to make sure they agree with it.
(In retrospect this is not that funny, but the first time I heard it I laughed for about three hours, because I literally do that every time I have to sing a hymn.)
“not that funny” what are you talking about this is amazing (as someone who is not UU but who does read ahead in every religious service I go to)
MY PEOPLE! I would refuse to sing the ones that got too overtly-Christian (being raised in one of the old-school New England churches).
I do this, as a convert to Catholicism, when visiting my mother’s Protestant churches. Nothing overtly Luther-an for me, thank you!
We went to the UU church in my town when I was a little kid (eventually moved to the slightly churchier Congregational church across the street), and while I wholeheartedly support it, I think it backfired on my mom, as I’m now a super-rational agnostic who doesn’t go to church at all. But I’m committed to recycling and not being a juicebox, so I think it worked out OK. If I were to go back to church, it’d definitely be UU.
Q: How can you tell when the Unitarians are mad at you?
A: The burning question mark on your front lawn.
:: ducks, runs away ::
Unitarian Bible study this Wednesday – Please bring a Bible and a pair of scissors.
Q: Why did the Unitarian-Universalist cross the road?
A: To support the chicken in its search of its own path
From the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto:
Q: How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We choose not to make a statement either in favour of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey, you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is wonderful. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship with your light bulb. Present it next month at our annual Light Bulb Sunday Service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, 3-way, long-life, and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.
I just wish they’d said, “paths to enlightenment,” but otherwise, that is some solid lightbulb joke-making.
THIS JOKE. Oh, that’s so great. I am a sucker for lightbulb jokes, and a sucker for the Unitarians.
Q. What do you get when you cross a UU and a Jehovahs Witness?
A. Someone who knocks on your front door and can’t tell you why.
That one is not my favorite but the lightbulb one was taken.
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that this part of the comments just turned into jokes about UUs. I will now direct you all to these Canadian UUs who are doing the same thing, but in an especially Canadian/UU way.
The coffee rewrite of Holy, Holy, Holy hits so many points mentioned in these comments, it is delightful.
Though all else we scoff we
Come to church for coffee;
If we’re late to congregate, we come in time for thee.
Coffee our one ritual,
Drinking it habitual,
Brewed black by perk or drip instantly.
A bunch of kids in my hippie “gifted” high school were in a UU youth group together. It always sounded like a good time but I never figured out how to get myself invited along. Their favorite UU joke:
Q: “How many UUs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
A: “UUs don’t screw in lightbulbs; they screw in sleeping bags.”
I’ve been thinking about trying UUs, and this article really affirms that they’re right up my alley! Thanks for the history!
(was there some well-intentioned but ill-executed cultural appropriation? Almost certainly)
You can remove the “almost” there. My UU dad and I argued frequently over his church men’s group’s a la carte adoption of Native American religious practices.
I grew up UU in Virginia, and found Jesus as a young adult, joining the Christian equivalent of UU’s, the Episcopal church. I have fairly good memories of my experience in the UU church, especially the sex ed program and my amazing high school youth group. But there were a lot of reasons I moved away from UU, not just the whole Jesus-taking-up-residence-in-my-heart thing.
The problem I had with the congregation I attended was that the discussion (and/or modern dancing, and this church had a lot of modern dancing) never got past the exploratory level.
Like, the first few Sundays, I was all “Awwww yeah! So many cultures believe so many different things, and they’re similar in these key ways but also different in equally important ways!”
And then, a year later, I was all “Awwwwwwwwww, another white person’s expressive dance interpretation of Japanese maiden/mother/crone stories? I think I am ready to graduate from this congregation.”
I strongly suspect (or hope) that there are UU churches that explore a little further than mine did.
Yes, the constant search and never really getting anywhere was one thing that got old for me too, after a while. I also wanted more structure/framework to hang my beliefs on, and “respect the innate dignity in every person” just wasn’t enough. There may be some churches that do more than that, but I haven’t been to more than a few.
The adoption of Native American drumming/smudging rituals and dance interpretation of Japanese crone stories were other turn-offs. I could never get my dad to recognize that his selective embrace of Native American religious practices was not only not celebratory, but actively disrespectful.
My parents’ church in VA is also going through a difficult time right now, with a terrible a-hole of an interim minister who’s gone on a serious power trip and gotten rid of a lot of programs. I had to deal with his staff while planning my father’s memorial service last fall, and the crap we had to put up with was unbelievable. This is another thing about UU churches – they really get defined by their senior ministers. (I guess that’s true of most places of worship…)
Jesus was Middle Eastern, and a Jew. White Christians are Appropriating Culture every Sunday. True story.
One of the great things about Unitarian Universalism is that every Congregation is free to set their own tone and worship practices, to suit their community. This, not surprisingly, is also one of the most difficult things. If you only have one congregation near you, which is one more than most Americans, the only other choice is the Church of the Larger Fellowship, which is a virtual church that is older than the World Wide Web. If there is more than one congregation in your area, please visit more than one before making up your mind. The message should be rooted in the same Principles, but they may be VERY different in practice.
This is really similar to my own experience. I grew up UU and have grown increasingly frustrated with the incoherent and superficial syncretism, the (not just possibly) offensive cultural misappropriation, the anti-Christian sentiments (everyone’s beliefs are welcome! Unless you believe Jesus Christ was the son of God …), and the self-righteous proclamations of inclusivity and diversity in a congregation that was 98% white, upper-middle-class, and politically liberal.
That said, I will be forever grateful for growing up in a progressive community that was absolutely sincere in its acceptance of GLBTQ individuals, pro-science, and didn’t cause lasting psychological trauma.
I’ve also started regularly attending the Episcopal church in my town 🙂
I recently attended a drag show that a local UU congregation put on to raise money for a mission trip, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a more delightful group of people.
THANK YOU FOR THIS. YOU CAN SEE ME! 🙂
Fun fact: My dad, a committed atheist and armchair anthropologist, was in charge of the religious education curriculum of my UU Sunday school for years. Ask me to compare Loki, Spider and Coyote and I’m all over that, but I cannot name all 12 apostles.
My raised-Catholic-but-pretty-much-agnostic dad taught occasional Sunday school classes at the Episcopal church we attended for a few years while I was little. 100% of his lessons involved craft projects. (Story: Noah’s Ark, or possibly the Garden of Eden. Activity: Make small creatures out of Sculpey. Story: Something about sandals? Activity: Make sandals out of paper and decorate them. You get the idea.) DADS.
Can we dedicate a sub-section of Dad Magazine to “emergency crafts/games for all situations involving children”? My dad’s best Sunday School craft-game: blow cotton balls around a table with straws to simulate “herding sheep.”
YES PLEASE. My dad was super crafty. Any excuse to make things with small children, he was all over that. Coming to my class and reading a book about people who live in houses? LET’S MAKE SOME HOUSES
The staff of Dad Magazine is ON IT
<3
My dad was less crafty, but he did rope a Kenyan grad student he was mentoring into teaching us how to make peanut stew and spicy plantains. So there’s that.
These are solid life skills.
OKAY, SO Matthew 10:2-4 is an easy reference point: “These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.”
ANNNND you can sing this song to the tune of ‘Jesus Loves Me’:
Jesus called them one by one,
Peter, Andrew, James and John
Next came Phillip, Thomas too
Matthew and Bartholomew
Yes, Jesus called them,
Yes, Jesus called them,
Yes, Jesus called them,
He called them one by one.
James, the one they called the less,
Simon, also Thaddaeus
Twelfth apostle Judas made,
Jesus was by him betrayed.
(ends on kind of a downer note but eh)
Aaaaaand now it’s in my head.
I don’t know the tune of “Jesus Loves Me” 🙁
AH liberal fathers teaching Sunday school! I can deliver an in depth comparative analysis of the various moods of god across the new and old testament (mainly intended to freak out anyone who tried to prosthelytize) and the historical figure of Jesus but really don’t ask me about anything resembling actual belief.
I also came out of UU Sunday school charmingly ignorant of the New Testament! In my case it was because the curriculum got reorganized while I was in grade school, and somehow in the confusion my grade ended up doing the Old Testament twice instead. I wish my church would do some Adult RE classes for those of us who somehow missed learning Christianity, instead of their current All Buddhism All The Time programming.
I went to 8 years of UU Sunday school and 4 years of youth group, but also graduated from high school knowing very little about the New Testament. I found my current (Episcopal) church by taking an Alpha class there, which is essentially Christianity 101 for those who either never learned it or felt in need of a refresher.
lesbians, never tell me that you don’t always brush one another’s hair before sex
Are you kidding? That IS sex.
I actually did ask for a head/back scratch the other day instead of sex from my partner. Rubbing my head and playing with my hair is like hitting my body’s snooze button; it’s SO WONDERFUL.
I wasn’t familiar with Unitarian Universalists in my community until they started peacefully protesting a very vocal, very gross Neo-Nazi group who was using public spaces to show Holocaust-denial films. The UUs were there, they were powerful, and their church got vandalized for it. But they remained, peacefully, at each film showing, and it made my stone-heart warm and flutter.
Also, this was great! I’ll admit almost total ignorance of the UU movement, which is a shame because it sounds lovely. Any group that counts Vonnegut as one of its members is a-okay with me.
Former UU religious education teacher here! My people are on the toast! My people are on the toast!
When I was a kid, going to a small-town Methodist church every Sunday, I definitely had “explore UU” on my bucket list. (My best friend went to the Unitarian church in the next town over, and I was totes jelly.)
So, when I grew up, I did. I even ended up being a youth leader. I drifted away when I went back to grad school, because grad school is overwhelming (edit: AND admittedly because of some issues which I describe above), but I have fond memories of my UU church, and a few LOLwut memories of services that involved rhythmic gymnastics. 😉
This is pleasing to me because I just discovered my local UU church is two blocks from my house and went last Sunday after years away. Part of the service included a duet from “Wicked”. (Also free bagels and cake.) Good times.
My guess is that every Sunday there is at least one UU church in the U.S. that features “For Good” as part of the service. Either that or “Morning Has Broken” with all the God parts removed.
UUs love them some coffee and pastries. EVERYTHING ends with a coffee hour.
UU sounds like a wonderful club for the atheist joiner in all of us! 🙂
Does anyone know how or if the UU church relates to secular humantism? I self-identify as an SH purely on a “the things they say they believe are the things I believe” level, but I haven’t attended any meetings. …And it seems that the UU beliefs listed above are essentially the same ones with maybe slightly more room for accepting a higher power. Y/N?
Many UU congregations have humanist groups for further discussion/reflection on UU-specific and more general issues from a SH perspective! Some even have humanist pastors. As the article emphasizes, UUs are mostly non-dogmatic w/r/t belief systems, though you may find that some skew more or less Christian in the content of their services – this really varies by pastor/congregation.
PS, I am totally stealing “a wonderful club for the atheist joiner in all of us”!
IME, UU churches often explicitly acknowledge secular humanism as an influence. There are definitely a lot of UU atheists and agnostics.
Depends what congregation you approach. Some are very humanist, others lean toward Christianity. All tend to have pretty good potlucks, depending on how you feel about lentils.
I love this! We definitely have weird food! You made me laugh out loud.
Ah yes, the lentil-laden potlucks. 🙂
I can thank my UU childhood for learning how to load a plate at a potluck!
Unitarian Universalists commit to support each other in the search for meaning and truth. At some level this sometimes difficult work is the heart of it all. And as my former minister said,”if you think it doesn’t take faith to believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being”, you haven’t thought about it very hard.
I got a college scholarship from my UU church for writing an essay on secular humanism.
Many UU’s are atheists, and some UU fellowships have a Humanist chapter. Basically UU’s don’t tell you what to believe, they leave that up to you as long as you support the seven principles. So yes, they are accepting of the idea of a higher power, but that’s up to the individual if that’s true or even what that looks like. We have many atheists and agnostics. Here in VA where I am, the UUs are very active in our local Humanist group, with a lot of co-mingling happening.
Yes, it relates to secular humanism. As a matter of fact, our fellowship just began a group for those who identify this way. It’s wonderfully inclusive.
LOVE THIS
-avowed Atheist who occasionally attends UU services
Unitarian Jihad: http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/carroll/artic…
“We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already.” Oh, man. Yup.
This was amazing, with the possible exception of Sister Hand Grenade of Love and the mandatory hugging regime.
God’s favorite nerds
Socks optional with your Tevas, but recommended when it’s cold outside.
My church used hymnals scrubbed of almost all religious references. The result was a bunch of very secular songs about nothing in particular (except general hippie-ish peace and good vibes). Was anybody else surprised when they grew up and found out that all of those songs were actually about Jesus?
YES! I also had a shock when I came to the UK, got to know some actual catholics, and learned that there is a whole set of canonical hymns I didn’t know existed because they actually mention god.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the [REDACTED];
__ is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
__ hath loosed the fateful lightning of [A] terrible[too negative?] swift sword:
[A] truth is marching on.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
_____ is marching on.
I have seen ____ in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded ___ an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read ____ righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
____ is marching on.
I have read a fiery ____ writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my condemners, so with you _____ shall deal;
Let the [REDACTED], born of _____, crush the HMM-HMM with _____,
Tra la la la la laaaaaa
That song was written by a Unitarian! Julia Ward Howe. She also invented mother’s day.
It was only when I started attending the Episcopal church that I realized the original Doxology (Hymn 100) didn’t start with “From all that dwell below the skiiiiies….”
At the Unitarian church where I grew up, we used “All people that on Earth do dwell.” And there’s the awkward over-use of the word “God” so as to avoid any gendered pronoun at any point. As a Unitarian / Episcopalian / general liberal moderate, I totally get it, but I feel like when you overly modify the old hymns to try to shoehorn them into new thinking what you end up with often vacillates between silly and awkward. Well-intentioned, but awkward.
I learned a lot of Beatles songs early in life because of the UU church. Totally ok with me.
I have a friend (we’re both UUs) who grew up 7th Day Adventist. He recognized a lot of our hymns but said some of them had had the lyrics changed to the point of being almost entirely different.
I live in UU Central (north of Boston) and the UU churches around here are still some of the best (and cheapest) places to go to hear folk and world music. Also, the UU churches still provide important services for the entire community that used to be available in a lot of churches but for some reason have become harder to find over the years.
A couple of years ago, one of the local UU churches started doing a yearly Beatles benefit at which local musicians play their favorite Fab Four tunes. As you might imagine the quality varied greatly from gig to gig but some of the covers were excellent and it was nice to see the young’uns coming out and waving their smartphones around to the tune of “Drive My Car.”
Long story short, I’m glad I live here despite the frigging snow – the latest avalanche should be starting up shortly.
The founders of the country were founding this country based on religion and god!
Really? Please to be looking up UU and John Adams, and get back to me, mmkay?
John & Abigail Adams belonged to a Unitarian church long before the UUs merged, and at a time when Unitarians were still more or less a Christian denomination (edit: and a mainstream cultural powerhouse, to an extent, in Boston and surrounds, particularly among educated folks).
Adams definitely seems to be at least somewhat universalist, or at least multiple-paths-to-God-ist, but he also wrote things like the almost Whitman-esque “My Adoration of the Author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere. The Love of God and his Creation; delight, Joy, Tryumph, Exultation in my own existence, ‘tho but an Atom, a Molecule Organique in the Universe; are my religion.” [this is followed immediately by some snark at Calvinists.]
Later, he says that Jesus condemns Patriotism, though, so you still come out ahead. 🙂
Damn, I’ve been out of the office so I’m so late to the UU party. But I have to share: When I was a teenager, my mom briefly dragged us to the local UU church in an effort to be part of a community or whatever. The one youth group activity I attended centered around watching Cheech and Chong’s “Up in Smoke.”
Needless to say, I learned way more about Unitarian Universalist beliefs from this piece than from actually attending the church for several months.
EEE!! Born and raised UU here, in the very same church that Obama’s mom and grandparents attended (disparagingly referred to as “The Little Red Church on the Hill” for its hosting of communist meetings in the 50s). My church had a gay minister when I was in elementary school, multiple women as ministers throughout my childhood and teen years, and the best sex ed program I’ve ever heard of. (The updated version is very similar to what our local Planned Parenthood offers.) I’ve scaled back my attendance to “every few Christmas Eves”, but there’s something very comforting about the sanctuary that I’ve attended for 30+ years when I do get there.
It made a big difference in my life, as an awkward baby feminist at my rural Mormon/Christian high school, to be able to go to youth group on Sunday nights and hang out with other like-minded teenagers and discuss things that actually interested me and related to my personal system of beliefs. It was the first place I met people who were out and comfortable with it in a supportive environment, and my fellow youth groupers were the first people to get me stoned and/or drunk (On wine stolen from a church dinner theater we waited tables at, no less!)
Now that I’ve got a kid(s), I am very seriously considering attending a church again to provide them with that community and experience that I had, because I feel like it was probably the most formative part of my life outside of my family.
I grew up attending the Woodinville church! Did we…probably…go to some joint youth-group events together in the late nineties? Betcha we did.
I’m almost positive we did– various conferences, Seabeck, the ever-permissive co-ed dorms. I did AYS in Kirkland in 1993, and (this is way creepier than it should be) I KNOW I tutored with you at 826 (But I haven’t tutored in three years, because babies, man).
HaHA, true. Very creepily put, but I approve, and I welcome it.
(Also SEABECK!)
Should there ever be a Seattle Toasties meet-up, perhaps I can unmask you there and discover your true identity.
There was one a couple weeks ago at the Ballard Bauhaus! I didn’t make it, but Prawnsofthetiger and Sarcasticfringehead did.
Alack! I had no idea. Next time!
The lack of dogma for the UU church has always made me wonder how its polity works. There must be some sort of leadership group or committee in Boston with some decision-making powers, right? How do denomination-wide decision get made? I’m assuming the UU has a congregational governance system because I’ve never heard of a UU bishop, but I’m curious about the deets. (Admittedly, I could go look all this up on my own, but where’s the fun in that?)
It’s a pretty decentralized congregational setup. My impression is that the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association [of congregations]) i.e. the head office, essentially provides guidance to member congregations, but not direct authority, or money. Some more deets here: http://www.uua.org/uuarelations/index.shtml
You’re pretty much right. The powers to govern themselves, ordain ministers, write their own bylaws, etc., rest with each congregation (congregational polity).
The UUA is headquartered in Boston and there are regional districts to provide services and resources to congregations on a more local scale (and here’s where I thank my mom, who works for the Pacific Northwest District of the UUA, for providing me with info for this article!). Aside from helping to set policies and steer the national conversation, the UUA has no real “power” over individual churches. I guess if it were a political structure, it’d be anti-federalist, which is funny, considering the huge liberal presence/influence in UU beliefs.
The UUA itself does run the “Church of the Larger Fellowship,” which is essentially a giant listserv/newsletter/forum so people can get UU-y on their own time if they don’t want to/can’t make it to a brick-and-mortar church. So I guess in that way they directly minister, but to a remote congregation.
Great info, thanks! I was on staff for a few years for my own denomination, so I’m kind of wonky about church polity stuff. To me, it’s fascinating!
Every June there is a General Assembly of the UUA. Congregations select delegates (in a manner determined by each congregation), the number is determined by the size of the congregation, and the delegates conduct the business of the association. Electing the Board, President, Moderator, etc., discussing and voting on issues, revising our bylaws, all that fun stuff. I was a delegate this past year.
UUs are democratically run, so each is a little different and of course the minister will add their own color. But there is a national association that sets policy recommendations and plans an annual convention.
I went to a UU youth group in high school, because I wanted to meet boys. I didn’t get lucky in religious liberal love, but I made a lot of good friends. I tried a little bit to remain a part of things after youth group, but it turned out that church was not nearly as much fun as youth group. I still kind of toy with the idea of going to one of the UU churches in town, but I worry that my reasons are kind of disingenuous. Also, I tend to hate most people’s discussions of their spirituality, and I am ambivalent about world music. I kind of figure that you can’t go home again, but I still remain very fond of the UUs.
I think many people go to church for the community, not the actual religious beliefs. I know I started attending the church I go to now because they had an amazing choir, which I then joined. I stuck around because I liked the people I was with, and now I’m slowly starting to learn stuff about the faith that I’m participating in. And that’s OK with me, since in general I think hanging out with a bunch of nice people who spend all their spare time volunteering at homeless shelters and community gardens and running food pantries is a good thing, regardless of who they pray to.
Youth group is NEVER the place to meet boys; boys will avoid churchgoing at all costs.
haha, not accurate in my case, at least. Almost all of my high school boyfriends came from YRUU! (the UU youth group).
Ohhh, the boys in my youth group were QUITE the toothsome bunch (and they’d get me high, too!).
Nitpick, but Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross. The regular Red Cross was founded in Geneva by Henri Dunant.
Oh man, you are completely right. Thank you for pointing that out! Maybe Mallory or Nicole can make that change.
I’ve decided I like Unitarian Universalist jokes.
Tim Berners-Lee is UU. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/UU.html
I was raised in a reform Jewish tradition, and I feel like my problems with it are tantamount to my problems with UU. I’m now happily an agnostic.
My issue with UU is what’s the point? I mean, you can be a liberal democrat (or LibDem or NDP voter) and not have any religious beliefs, so why be part of a religion that has no religious beliefs except for being a lib dem / LibDem / NDP? Are all of us liberal agnostics secretly just members of a UU congregation that doesn’t meet at regular hours?
It strikes me that if you reduce the core nuclear content of a religious belief to a political program plus random new age / ethnic borrowings of various appropriateness, you just add occasionally random (and possibly offensive) nonsense to a reasonable political program, which political program doesn’t rely on a religious justification. So you’re left with an occasionally offensive club, which I guess is cool, everyone should belong to a club, but man, this is not a club for me.
Maybe I’m spoiled living in NYC, and if I were somewhere more homogenous and with less atheists doing performance art, or groups of socialists doing activism, etc., etc., I would long for agnostics doing performance art in the guise of Church every Sunday? I don’t know – everyone’s mileage may vary, and all that, and maybe this is just my deep loathing of the not-really-believing in anything version of reform Judaism I grew up with, but if you’re not going to bother believing in some version of the Omnipotent, why go through the motions of a religion?
At least for me, that’s all of the bad parts (the religion! Sunday School! vague meta-physical claims! folk singing!) without even the “good” parts (Pascal’s wager, not going to hell if there is a non-Universalist deity lady). Idk, maybe this is just me writing about having a cat allergy, and going, why do people own cats?
Apologies if I’ve offended anyone.
For the community, to satisfy a human yearning for transcendence, for weekly support in being a better person? Seems pretty straight forward to me.
I think I have difficulty understanding why people would pursue community and support within a religious framework that itself disavowed religious belief, rather than say, other avenues of fellowship structured around political or aesthetic pursuits. But again, I may just have a strong allergy to religiosity that is personal/unjustified.
It… hasn’t disavowed religious belief? I don’t know much about UU, but based on the article and my experience with Quakers, not dogmatic doesn’t mean not religious. In that vein, I’m a little confused at the way you’re using the word “political”. You seem to be lumping everything that contributes to a person’s worldview under “politics”.
Anyway, the real reason Quaker meetings are terrible is because sitting in silence is boring and Quakers are bad at potlucks.
We agree so much re your last point!
Re “disavowing belief” I’m making the claim that if you accept all mutually contradictory truth-claims, you are in fact disavowing belief, even if you claim not to be. This is sort of similar to Bittersweet and Nicole’s critiques of the UU that they experienced above. And, to be fair, mine w/ reform Judaism as a child / adolescent.
Re political, I think that’s how I was using it.
Meh. Not buying on the mutually contradictory truth-claims point. First off, UUs don’t accept *all* truth-claims (please see seven basic principles above). That may sound a little semantic, but it’s not, exactly, because any truth-claim that violates these principles, of which there are lots in this sad world, aren’t valid/accepted in the framework. So, there are rules. There’s just not dogma in the same way as other faith traditions (as urwelt noted above).
Also, there are other cultures and belief systems where truth-claims that give rise to cognitive dissonance (which is my read on “mutually contradictory,” although I get that they’re not identical*) are totally good to go. In fact, trinitarian Christianity could be considered one of these: God is three, but also (s/)he is one? And Jesus is divine but also human? In at least those two examples, the cognitive dissonance gives rise to the work of faith and belief and is a very important part of the process, rather than strike against the “realness” of the belief. And also, for many, it provides an opportunity for an experience of grace.
The big difference here, at least between UUs and Christians, which are the two I know the most about, being a little bit in both camps, is that for UUs, the agreement is on first principles only, and where you go after that is more up to you, whereas for most Christian faiths, there’s a little more whittling down, usually to something along the lines of a creed. The way my UU minister explained it growing up is that UUs are engaged in a “covenantal” faith rather than a creed-based faith. That is, UUs choose their religious community as a kind of promise of mutual support and spiritual engagement, without any insistence or pressure that folks arrive at the same answers. In a way, it’s sort of the culmination of Lutheran protestantism, allowing for the individual to process his/her spirituality on a completely individual basis in terms of “correctness,” while at the same time encouraging a community of engagement. And, at least in my experience, it’s not an uncritical community, just a less judgmental one, as far as faith conclusions are concerned.
Also, other avenues of communal engagement that are focused on political or aesthetic pursuits don’t have human spirituality (yearning for transcendence, desire to be a better person, again, all good points by urwelt) as their focus. And for at least some people, that topic in itself deserves central focus and nurture, rather than tangential stimulation on occasion. And also, there are very few of these political / aesthetic organizations (at least that I know about) that have a real desire to engage with people’s families the way that churches do. So, if you’re a young parent with kids and you’re now dealing with Life Issues times 3 because some small person is asking “why” all the time, you may benefit hugely, both emotionally and socially, from the structure support and focus that a religious community provides but that other organizations typically don’t, probably because they’re not set up that way.
Which is to say, maybe you just don’t like cats? =)
*on the mutually contradictory point, I find that many things that seem mutually contradictory can be existentially solved with something along the lines of a multi-verse concept, which to me seems like a spiritual / religious tenet in itself (at least at the point where high-energy physics collides with religion, which I also think is the awesomest thing ever). So, I just don’t get all that worked up about whether things make sense together or not, except when the not-making-sense-together creates a sense of spiritual / cognitive dissonance. Hence the simplification. But, as with all things, ymmv.
Thanks, this was very detailed and I appreciate your response. Your argument doesn’t feel semantic to me re the core moral principles; that makes a lot of sense, re not literally any truth-claim (though we might disagree on whether a truth-claim can violate a moral principle). Your point about a covenantal faith is also very interesting – I presume the covenant is with the congregation, rather than a deity?
“Also, other avenues of communal engagement that are focused on political or aesthetic pursuits don’t have human spirituality (yearning for transcendence, desire to be a better person, again, all good points by urwelt) as their focus. And for at least some people, that topic in itself deserves central focus and nurture, rather than tangential stimulation on occasion. And also, there are very few of these political / aesthetic organizations (at least that I know about) that have a real desire to engage with people’s families the way that churches do. So, if you’re a young parent with kids and you’re now dealing with Life Issues times 3 because some small person is asking “why” all the time, you may benefit hugely, both emotionally and socially, from the structure support and focus that a religious community provides but that other organizations typically don’t, probably because they’re not set up that way.”
This was really well put and I appreciated reading it. I think this is one of the few things that makes me dread having kids (I’m normally pretty baby rabid) — I’m very hostile to spirituality/transcendence. It makes me want to itch all over/puke, and yet there’s clearly some strong demand for this, especially for families with young children. I hated going to Hebrew School going up (big surprise, right?), and I’m fairly sure my parents sent me for exactly this reason – support structure/instill ethics, etc. But I found the whole thing very repulsive as a child and it was about as liberal/inclusive a synagogue as you can get. I think you’re probably right that most non-religious communal engagement points are not structured around families, though I think that good friend groups with mutually aged children might satisfice this need. It will be interesting to see if my child reacts the same way I did at a young age to what I thought of as authoritarian superstition. (I can’t imagine how I would have reacted in a more strict religion!)
A few small points: I think we disagree in a way that’s not reducible re your extensive point about metaphysical claims. To enumerate:
a) I think there’s a pretty strong epistemological distinction between (1) internally inconsistent or incomplete claims (e.g., Trinitarianism) and (2) externally inconsistent theories or groups of claims in that to accept (1) is to reject naive falsification, while to accept (2) is to accept some form of anti-realism. That is, I can accept that (1) quantum mechanics is approximately true even if it does not satisfactorily incorporate gravity, but I can’t simultaneously accept (2) quantum and classical mechanics as true, even if I think that both are useful models at different scale, unless I take a somewhat strong anti-realist position (i.e., the world changes to reflect my model).
b) I find cognitive dissonance to not evoke grace, but a strong sign of error, but that’s aethestic (cats!);
c) I think we differ over what a many-worlds interpretation would mean; I don’t see it as allowing anti-realism via accepting contradictory models of physical behavior, just allowing infinitely contradictory physical states.
I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to me that UU-ism is asking anyone to accept mutually contradictory beliefs. The point is, rather, to accept people with beliefs you may not personally agree with, honoring each individual’s right to explore what is true for them.
Exactly. Being a covenantal faith means that we agree on ways to be with one another – in other words, on behaviors in the world. Unitarian Universalism is non-credal, which means that there is no institution that decides what beliefs we must subscribe to in order to belong. We each have to determine which beliefs resonate within our own spirit, and hold fast to those while we may need to discard others. As a group, and as individuals, we do not believe *everything*, and we certainly don’t believe in *nothing*.
Thank you so much, Pwickup, for this excellent response.
If you live in NYC it is not very difficult to get some answers to your questions by visiting one of the many congregations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Come to a service and ask a minister or a congregant. I’ll see you at the Welcome Table after the service. Or perhaps your username tells us you are not serious and just trolling this post.
No – my user name is an old joke w/ Nicole, who I’ve been friends with for over a decade. I’m not trolling — I’m just very anti-religious (politely), again generated by my growing up in a reform Jewish community that was very similar to UU. I’ve been to Quaker meetings here in NY with my wife, and they’re kind of terrible for the same reasons that I remember as a kid. But I tell you what, I’ll go this Sunday to your congregation – which one? Maybe I’m totally wrong.
I’ll go to FUUB this Sunday! (11 AM at Pierrepont between Clinton and Monroe).
I can 100% verify this is a real, live, devoted male reader of The Toast who has indeed been putting up with me since 2003 and seeks truth.
Hello, JoeGreensFlaccidPeen! Thanks for spurring so much interesting conversation. Just curious to hear whether you made it to visit this congregation, and if so, how your visit went? I’m particularly fascinated by your experience, as a Unitarian Universalist employed by a Reform congregation.
If you a’re interested in reading my recent response to positions such as that which you took in your original post, please see “Unitarian Universalists Believe What We Must”
Hey, I went, and I don’t think it was for me. Allergic to it, and all that. I can discuss in depth if you want. For what it’s worth, I think I was wrong going in — you, @Pwickup, and many other UUs at the service I attended clearly have religious beliefs.
The non-credal religion definition was a helpful one; certainly your blog post and from the practice of other deity-believing UUs I observed matched that. An interesting thing was that the woman at the welcome table at FUUB said that despite the reverend, Ana, being a person of faith and calling upon ‘God’ frequently, the majority of the congregation were non-spiritual religious humanists who did not incorporate a concept of ‘God’ into their belief. That was actually somewhat confusing to me and seemed like a bit of historical legacy (the woman said that 15 years ago, people in the congregation would ‘gasp’ if you said ‘God’; things seemed to have changed a bunch!). After your and @Pwickup’s definition, and a very religious sermon, the non believer in me very much felt like outside, despite what was apparently a silent plurality in the pews.
At any rate, the coffee was good and the people nice. The sermon was logically incoherent, in that it was structured around an explicit syllogism, but the message was a good one, and anyway, I feel that way at most houses of worship.
I think that I am too intolerant to appreciate UU – my bullshit meter kept on getting set off, I kept on wondering why people weren’t arguing with each other about competing truth claims, and that was without any New Age discussion or reference to nature/pantheism. But clearly UU is filled with really nice people who are religious believers and really nice people who are not religious believers but who enjoy the community.
One of the principles of Unitarian Universalism is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We believe in the right of conscience and that no one religion has all of the answers. We have Christians and Jews and Pagans and Buddhists and everyone else in our churches. We believe that what every person knows about God is a piece of the truth. So even though I identify as a UU pagan, because I find god in nature, one of the best sermons i have ever heard was about Jesus. I’m not arrogant enough to think I have all of the answers. I listen respectfully to all kinds of different religious teachings, and I learn something every time. Even if I learn that I disagree with it. You don’t have to agree, but don’t knock it till you try it!
Don’t forget us UU atheists, of which there are quite a few. 🙂 For me at least, I too see the value in many of the religions out there and enjoy the multi-cultural/multi-religious sermons, but the draw isn’t in what that tells me about “god”, but rather what that tells me about myself and my fellow human.
If it is Cultural Appropriation, it means you treat the culture you’re appropriating from with respect & honor. Cultural MISappropriation is what we should be against. More online liberal-hipster types (I’m one!) should work to make sure this terminology is used correctly. Brian from UUABQ.
I had the truly weird and equally gratifying experience of growing up UU in Alabama! Loved the article, so spot-on in so many ways.
The Simpsons’ Unitarian jokes are great, but I *LOVE* the ones in many episodes of A Prairie Home Companion (public radio, another strong UU stereotype…). I think that UU jokes probably fostered my great love of religious humour in general.
How many UUs does it take to screw in a light bulb? We choose not to make a statement either in favour of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey, you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is wonderful. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship with your light bulb. Present it next month at our annual Light Bulb Sunday Service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, 3-way, long-life, and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.
Alternative answer: 20: 10 To form a committee to explore the options in changing the bulb and make a recommendation to the board of trustees, 1 to run the announcement in the church bulletin, 1 to change the letters on the sign, 3 to organise a discussion-group, 4 more to participate in the discussion group, and 1 to actually change the bulb. :)-
OR: None! We don’t screw in lightbulbs! We screw in sleeping bags!!
The other week in my congregation we all sang Katy Perry’s “Firework.”
A Unitarian funeral: All dressed up and no place to go.
Acknowledging that UU’s affirm and promote “a free and responsible search for truth,” I’d like to add a comment, though an example of the manifestation of a deeper truth. “The UU church has been ahead of the cultural curve on other social issues” …unless it’s through individual UU’s, UU congregations, or UU’s for Justice in the Middle East, the UUA as a whole has held back in honestly grappling with human rights in Israel-Palestine. Perhaps it will be the next UU Congregational Study Action Issue: UU Values in Pursuit of a Just Peace for Israel-Palestine. Please do not support SodaStream which is produced in the illegal settlements of the Israeli-Occupied West Bank. Let us move closer to that “world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. ”
Peace – Salaam – Shalom
I wish this article would have been published 15 years ago when I was going to the church in my adolescence and I tried to explain to my peers what Unitarian-Universalism was. I went to one of those built-before-1850 churches in the northeast in high school. The church had a much smaller congregation than any other church in town, but it compromised a closed-knit community of some really wonderful people: college professors, artists, poets, businesessmen, politicians, New Agers, and all manner of wingnuts, and their chldren. I had some really wonderful spiritual and social experiences with my friends in the youth group and attending regional youth conferences in the 1990’s. “if my childhood experiences in the early 1990s were any indication, American UUs got to yoga and veganism before most of the rest of the country. We’d be fantastic hipsters if we weren’t so fastidiously uncool and earnest about everything.” <—I actually think back to the kids I knew back then and think that today’s modern-day “hipsters” were just trying to be as cool as the kids I knew at UU “cons” (as they were called) back then.
And I have never laughed so hard than at [JoeGreensFlaccidPeen]’s post than any time in my life. I agree, the religion itself is very vapid and represents no concrete spiritual dogma or beliefs. The church is more of a community of people with varying degrees of psuedo-religious creeds or beliefs between them. I mean, that’s cool if that’s your thing, but I am the opposite to JGFP’s viewpoint, in that I have deeply held, concrete religious beliefs. I just don’t go to the UU church anymore. Which is actually typical for the church: There are only about a quarter-million UU’s in the United States, and that number has remained more or less steady. The children of UU’s never really tend to stay with the church, because we tend to find out own divergent spiritual paths.
And I think that’s a wonderful thing, that so many kids I grew up with were really able to decide for themselves what to believe in, in an environment that encouraged freethinking on that level. If I ever have kids, I would take them to the UU church just for the religious education program in order to give them that privilege to decide what to believe in, if anything. It’s a beautiful thing, really.
Hey, I went, and I don't think it was for me. Allergic to it, and all that. I can discuss in depth if you want. For what it's worth, I think I was wrong going in — you, @Pwickup, and many other UUs at the service I attended clearly have religious beliefs.
The non-credal religion definition was a helpful one; certainly your blog post and from the practice of other deity-believing UUs I observed matched that. An interesting thing was that the woman at the welcome table at FUUB said that despite the reverend, Ana, being a person of faith and calling upon 'God' frequently, the majority of the congregation were non-spiritual religious humanists who did not incorporate a concept of 'God' into their belief. That was actually somewhat confusing to me and seemed like a bit of historical legacy (the woman said that 15 years ago, people in the congregation would 'gasp' if you said 'God'; things seemed to have changed a bunch!). After your and @Pwickup's definition, and a very religious sermon, the non believer in me very much felt like outside, despite what was apparently a silent plurality in the pews.
At any rate, the coffee was good and the people nice. The sermon was logically incoherent, in that it was structured around an explicit syllogism, but the message was a good one, and anyway, I feel that way at most houses of worship.
I think that I am too intolerant to appreciate UU – my bullshit meter kept on getting set off, I kept on wondering why people weren't arguing with each other about competing truth claims, and that was without any New Age discussion or reference to nature/pantheism. But clearly UU is filled with really nice people who are religious believers and really nice people who are not religious believers but who enjoy the community.
“Actively working to not be a dick”! Yes! What a great description of UU. I really enjoyed this.