Open source Bible is back again. A little geekier than part 1, but with a weekend project I know you’ll want to try. (4:59) Part one
Quicktime video — Click link, and where it says “Select a format” choose “Source — Quicktime”. Wait until the file downloads to your computer, and then click play. This should work for dial-up connections, and offers higher-resolution for all connections.
Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.
Mike Lee and Aaron Krager, two students at Chicago
Theological Seminary, are managing the excellent blog Faithfully Liberal, and Mike Lee has a couple of posts on Augustine’s just war theory that I found worth reading. In Augustine’s just war theory, Mike gives a summary of Augustine’s just war theory, based on the book Just War, Political Realism and Faith, by Bernard T. Adeney. And in Increasing technology and the just war, he has a nice discussion on how Augustine’s just war theory fares in light of nuclear war and other massively destructive war technology. Thoughtful reading for all you religious peaceniks out there.
Some of my favorite online videos are how-to-do-it videos, like Make TV. So I figured I’d make a how-to-do-it video for post-Christians — a video on how to do open source Bible. (4:44)
(And yeah, I’ve listened to your criticisms, so now I’m scripting the videos. Past videos were way too non-linear.)
Quicktime video — Click link, and where it says “Select a format” choose “Source — Quicktime”. Wait until the file downloads to your computer, and then click play. This should work for dial-up connections, and offers higher-resolution for all connections.
Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.
Theology and society
Somehow, I missed Diana Bass Butler’s book The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church when it first came out in 2004. Butler has excellent insight into the current state of congregations in North America, and I find myself returning to the book again and again First Unitarian in New Bedford and I navigate the changed religious landscape of the early 21st C.
One key insight that Butler offers is that when things go wrong in your congregation, maybe you shouldn’t try to point fingers at blame at anyone in particular:
In the midst of [congregational] conflict, people often fail to recognize the obvious. What if no one can be blamed? What if no one is at fault? Many changes, conflicts, and tensions do not arise from factors within religious communities themselves. Rather, these things are the result of institutions reacting and responding to larger cultural changes — trends, ideas, and practices outside the church building [emphasis in original]….
As I think back on some of the congregational conflicts I have witnessed over the years, that strikes me as a very useful insight. Even in conflicts that have arisen from identifiably egregious behavior — clergy sexual misconduct comes immediately to mind — I believe that in some cases the egregious behavior has been able to infect a congregation only because the congregation’s natural “immune system” has been seriously weakened because the congregation is no longer well-adapted to the world around it.
Butler points out that the past fifty years have seen major cultural shifts in the surrounding culture:
The congregational experimentation in the 1970s and 1980s was the result of cultural shifts that occurred in the two decades immediately following World War II: the rise of the middle-class meritocracy, suburbanization, the birth of the baby boom generation, expanded access to college and university education, the civil rights movement, feminism, Sunbelt immigration of whites and northern migration of blacks, and the turmoil over Vietnam. All these changes unhinged traditional American religious patterns and called for greater clarity about the Christian message and greater authenticity in Christian congregations.
Obviously, you could substitute “post-Christian” for “Christian” and come up with the same conclusion.
UU culture and theology
For most Unitarian Universalist congregations, these cultural shifts in the surrounding culture paralleled a theological shift within many or most of our congregations — the shift from liberal Christian to post-Christian positions. (Not coincidentally, 1971 is the first time I am aware of a Unitarian Universalist leader referring to our movement as post-Christian.) But what I see is that our social patterns didn’t get updated to match our theological changes.
Butler continues:
Some churches rose to the challenge, but many did not. In a wave of social change (and often unreflective resistance to it), many congregations lost their ability to retain younger members or attract new ones. Congregations often suffered because of the gap that developed between their internal inherited practices and external cultural realities.
This was certainly true of Unitarian Universalism during the 1960s and 1970s — those were the decades when we saw a precipitous drop in membership, and when young people stopped being a part of our congregations. In the next passage from Butler’s book, but I’m going to substitute “Unitarian Universalist” for Christian, and change a few other phrases, so that it sounds as if she’s talking directly to us:
…Congregations often suffered because of the gap that developed between their internal inherited practices and external cultural realities. And, more than occasionally, they suffered because their particular pattern of congregational life was considered coterminous with “Unitarian Universalism” or “liberal religious theology,” hence confusing a historical moment in American culture with theological vitality and eternal truths. In short, many mid-twentieth-century Unitarian Universalists enshrined the social pattern of their congregations as something akin to eternal truth!
And that’s just what happened in the the 1960s and 1970s.
Then in the 1980s and the 1990s, social change continued and even accelerated, through the twin processes of detraditionalization, and the disestablishment of the 1950s civic religion. The end result? Many or most Unitarian Universalist congregations today follow social patterns straight out of the 1950s. Our post-Christian theology is increasingly relevant to the world around us — but that theology is trapped in outdated congregations.
I hope I have piqued your curiosity enough that you will now go read the rest of Diana Butler Bass’s book, and find out how to update your congregation to match the changed society around you. It’s available from the Alban Institute.
Just a reminder — this blog is completely non-commercial and ad-free? I discussed this book because it interested me, not because anyone asked me to, or paid me to do so.
Twenty-odd years ago, I was in the Harvard Bookstore buying a philosophy book when I saw, there on a little stand next to the cash register, a bright red pamphlet with the provocative title “Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy.” Even though I wasn’t in law school (and had no intention of subjecting myself to that experience), I was a young left intellectual trying to make sense of the fast rightward drift of the Reagan years. On an impulse, I bought the pamphlet. I think I paid three dollars for it.
Within a few months, I had given the pamphlet to a friend of mine who was actually in law school. She needed it more than I did. But I remembered the pamphlet’s advice that students should form study groups. Stand up at the end of class, the pamphlet advised, and say that you will be forming a study group at such-and-such a time, at such-and-such a place. When I found myself in graduate school for creative writing, in 1990, I did exactly that. Not that I tried to form a left-leaning study group — by that time, almost no one leaned left in public any more — but I found that participating in any kind of small study group turned out to be a good way to fend off the crushing anonymity of graduate study. (Analogies to small group ministries in congregations would be well-taken.)
As the years went by, I drifted away from left politics, and drifted into religion. I felt that Jesus (and Buddha, and a few other religious geniuses) did a better job of articulating egalitarianism and the essential worth of all persons, than did the Frankfurt School or the New Left.
So there I was yesterday, back in the Harvard Bookstore, when I saw a trade paperback published by New York University Press titled Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy: A Polemic against the System: A Critical Edition:– a critical edition of the little bright red pamphlet I had bought twenty years earlier. I had forgotten how turgid the prose had been, how simplistic the political analysis. But that little red pamphlet still offers good advice:
Because hierarchy is constituted as much through ideology as through physical violence, it is meaningful to oppose it by talking, by joking and refusing to laugh at jokes, through the elaboration of fantasies as well as through the elaboration of concrete plans for struggle.
Let me hasten to affirm, O Reader, that not all resistance is equally heroic, or equally successful, or equally well-conceived, or equally adapted to an overall strategy for turning resistance into something more. I propose in the next chapter that law students and teachers should take relatively minor professional risks. All over the world, workers and peasants and political activists have risked and lost their lives. There is a gulf between these two kinds of action, and I have no desire to minimize it.
But they are nonetheless parts of the same universe, and we possess no grand theory telling us that actions of one kind or the other are bound always and everywhere to be futile, any more than we can no that the most heroic behavior will be always successful.
Tomorrow, those of us who are spiritual followers of Jesus of Nazareth will remember his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. That’s always the occasion for me to wonder whether Jesus’s acts of resistance in Jerusalem were well-conceived and adequately adapted to an overall strategy for turning resistance into something more. It’s also the occasion for me to think about how far I want to go with my own resistance to the inhumanity of hierarchy, with my own personal work to promote egalitarianism.
Not that I have a final answer to that question, but it’s something to think about.
Recently, I’ve been bothered by ill-informed commentators and pundits like Richard Dawkins who assume that all religion is defined by some belief in a supernatural God. Those of us who are Unitarian Universalists encounter this attitude frequently;– I’ve had people say to me, “Well, you don’t belong to a real religion, ’cause you don’t even have to believe in anything.” Even some Unitarian Universalists worry about coming up with a statement of what they believe.
But belief is not the single most important defining characteristic of religion. Today I happened to be reading Introduction to World Religions, edited by Christopher Partridge, and I found some powerful examples of religions in which belief is not particularly important. For example, Hinduism:
Hinduism has no historical founder, no unified system of belief, no single doctrine of salvation, and no centralized authority.
And what about Confucianism:
Neither Confucianism nor Taoism is like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — monotheistic religions with God at the centre. Confucianism, especially, became a religion without any great speculation on the nature and function of God. For this reason it was often not even considered a religion [by Westerners]. However, it clear that Confucianism is a religion, and that it was the dominant tradition of pre-modern China.
And this interesting bit about Judaism:
From biblical times Jews have subscribed to a wide range of beliefs about the nature of God and his action in the world… Reconstructionist and Humanistic Judaism rejected the supernaturalism of the past, calling for a radical revision of Jewish theology for the contemporary age. In more recent times, the Holocaust has raised fundamental questions about the belief in a supernatural God who watches over his chosen people….
Yes, Christianity is somewhat obsessed with belief in God. But it is wise to remember that outside a Christian context (e.g., as a post-Christian, or as a non-Christian), you can be perfectly religious without worrying one way or the other about belief in God.
One of my favorite religious blogs is “Speaking Truth to Power,” in which blogger “uugrrl” talks about clergy sexual misconduct. She writes with deep insight both because she’s naturally a thoughtful person, and because she herself is a survivor of clergy sexual misconduct (and yes, the perpetrator was a Unitarian Universalist minister). In an especially good post late last week, uugrrl quotes Thich Naht Hanh on sexual misconduct:
Responsibility’ is the key word in the Third Precept. In a community of practice, if there is no sexual misconduct, if the community practices this precept well, there will be stability and peace. This precept should be practiced by everyone…. If you don’t practice this precept, you may become irresponsible and create trouble in the community at large. We have all seen this. If a teacher cannot refrain from sleeping with one of his or her students, he or she will destroy everything, possibly for several generations.
Then uugrrl goes on to comment:
I once read of a Zen survivor of abuse who made the abuse her koan. It seemed a perfect fit to me. Perhaps this is why I still care about this subject so many years later.
I’m still working on how suffering sexual abuse could be a koan — I guess that will be a koan for me to work on. Anyway, read the whole post:
Link.
Second in a series trying to find theological significance in typical elements of Unitarian Universalist worship services.
In Protestant days of yore, the sermon was straightforward. The preacher expounded the word of God: “Warrant for regarding preaching as word of God is found in Jesus’ declaration, ‘Whoever hears you hear me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me'” (The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones et al., rev. ed. [Oxford, 1992]). Doubts about God grew in liberal religious circles, and the old death-of-God theology of the mid-20th C. meant Unitarian Universalists couldn’t depend on everyone affirming God’s existence any more — but once God is gone, what then is the purpose of the sermon? We had better figure out what exactly the sermon is, if it’s not the word of God.
I’d like to think the sermon could be an expression of the gathered, covenanted community, but all too often it has become an opportunity for self-indulgence by the preacher, as when the preacher presents us with slice-of-life vignettes, using his or her life to (allegedly) make some religious point. Or the sermon becomes entertainment, as when the preacher is under the mistaken impression that Garrison Keillor represents the sine qua none of preaching (he doesn’t, and many of us feel he isn’t even a particularly good entertainer). Or, most dreary of all, the sermon becomes an “address” or a “talk,” and is reduced to being a mediocre lecture by a mediocre intellect.
Our problem with sermons is compounded by a mistaken understanding of “freedom of the pulpit.” Preachers and congregations interpret “freedom of the pulpit” to mean license to say whatever the hell you want. Call it cowboy preaching: the preacher rides into town, two six-guns slung low on the hips, ready to shoot it out with anyone who dares tell him or her what to preach. In the old days, freedom of the pulpit meant the preacher had license to speak truth to power, like the prophets of old; with the understanding that speaking truth to power was done under divine inspiration. Since God can no longer be relied upon, we can no longer rely on the justification for freedom of the pulpit. As one old Unitarian Universalist minister said to a bunch of new ministers, “There’s no such thing as freedom of the pulpit, so just forget it.” Unfortunately, too many preachers still say whatever the hell they want.
No wonder so many people are trying to eviscerate the sermon. The “Soulful Sundown” crowd wants to replace the preacher with the singer-songwriter (at least the signer-songwriter is entertaining). The fellowship crowd wants to turn the preacher into an adjunct faculty member of the nearby university (too bad you can’t get academic credit for attending church). The NPR-loving crowd listens to “Prairie Home Companion” instead of bothering to come to church at all.
Instead of eviscerating sermons, think of the sermon as one installment in a long conversation. The evolving conversation takes place within a covenanted community; the sermon should offer a snapshot in time of the conversation’s evolution; the purpose of the conversation is a search for truth and goodness. The preacher has the holy trust of accurately reporting the concerns of the convenanted community as one participant in the community of inquirers. And the preacher should remember that she or he is responsible for furthering the conversation based on careful listening, deep reflection, and participation in the wider conversation going on between congregations. The congregation has to do its part: listen carefully, reflect deeply, participate in the wider conversation outside the congregation, and carry on the conversation outside of the Sunday morning worship service.
If we’re not all going to affirm God, then it’s up to all of us to co-create the sermon, by doing the hard work of actually talking about religion with each other, and with the preacher.
I don’t usually put sermons on the blog (I feel they’re too long for the blog format, and besides sermons are for listening to, not reading). But since I have been sounding off recently about the “seven principles” of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and since today’s sermon was in effect a more sustained and more systematic critique of the “seven principles,” I thought it would be fun to share this sermon with readers who don’t live in New Bedford. Hope this provokes some critical discussion.
Readings
The first reading this morning comes from the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the association of which First Unitarian is a member congregation. While excerpts from bylaws are not usually read as a part of a worship service, this particular piece of bylaws has taken on the status of an affirmation of faith among many Unitarian Universalists. This is section C-2.1, titled Principles.
We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:
- 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.
The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:
- Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
- Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love;
- Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
- Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
- Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
- Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.
Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.
The second reading is another excerpt from the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which immediately follows the first excerpt we heard. Although rarely quoted, personally I consider these of equal importance to the more familiar principles.
Section C-2.2. Purposes: …The primary purpose of the Association is to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new congregations, extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions and implement its principles.
Section C-2.3. Non-discrimination: The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility, and that of its member congregations and organizations, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its and their activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, language, citizenship status, economic status, or national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or creed.
Section C-2.4. Freedom of Belief: Nothing herein shall be deemed to infringe upon the individual freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and Unitarian heritages or to conflict with any statement of purpose, covenant, or bond of union used by any congregation unless such is used as a creedal test.
Sermon: “Seven Principles”
As you may or may not know, one widely-used statement of faith among Unitarian Universalists is commonly called “the seven principles.” We heard these “seven principles” in the first reading this morning, and as commonly used they are:
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.
It’s an admirable statement of faith. And unusual, for that matter. As I said when I introduced that first reading, this statement is an excerpt from the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association. How many religions do you know of that use an excerpt from their bylaws as a statement of faith? As someone who is fascinated by institutional structures — I suppose you could call me a “bylaws geek” — I am tickled to think that many Unitarian Universalists use an excerpt from a set of bylaws as a statement of faith. What better way to merge the personal and the institutional, linking the individual with the communal.
But even though these seven principles may make an admirable statement of faith, they cannot serve as a final statement of faith among us. One of the grounding principles of Unitarian Universalism is that we have no final answers when it comes to religion. Revelation is not sealed, that is, there is plenty more revelation to come before we’re done. Unitarians and Universalists have revised our statements of faith many times over the years; I expect that we shall revise our current statement of faith before too many years have gone by.
Another way of saying this is that we are a critical, argumentative people. And we like it that way. We thrive on disagreement, because we know that disagreement can lead to constructive dialogue, and from that constructive dialogue we might get just a little closer to truth. In fact, the story of the how the seven principles came into being is indeed a story of constructive dialogue that led us closer to truth.
What happened was this:
Back in 1961, when the Unitarians and Universalists consolidated together, we had to write new bylaws for our new Unitarian Universalist Association. I am too young to remember any of this, but as I understand it the debate about the principles grew so contentious that it almost put a stop to consolidation. I have been told that the debate went on all day and all night. Somehow, compromises were reached, and a set of six principles was enshrined in the bylaws of the new Unitarian Universalist Association. As a child, I vaguely remember seeing a copy of those principles framed and hung on the wall of my childhood church somewhere. They actually don’t sound all that much different from our current seven principles — but as I read them, see if you can pick out the glaring differences:
1. To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship; 2. To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to man; 3. To affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships; 4. To implement our vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice and peace; 5. To serve the needs of member churches and fellowships, to organize new churches and fellowships, and to extend and strengthen liberal religion; 6. To encourage cooperation with men of good will in every land.
You probably noticed the the glaring differences between these old principles, and the current pricniples:– the old useage of the word “men” to mean all human beings, and the old useage of the word “brotherhood” to mean common humanity. Back in 1961, though, no one gave a second thought to sexist language like that.
Within a few years, by the late 1960’s, feminism began to creep into Unitarian Universalist congregations. Many women, and not a few men, began to realize that Western religion pretty much left women out of the religious picture. By the 1970’s, groups of women (with a few men) had gathered in various Unitarian Universalist congregations to see whether Unitarian Universalism suffered from sexist bias. The widespread conclusion was that yes, it did. The next question was: What shall we do about it?
One of the women who had been investigating gender bias in religion was Lucile Shuck Longview, a member of the Unitarian Universalist church in Lexington center, Massachusetts. Lucile Longview decided that there should be a resolution introduced at General Assembly, the annual gathering and business meeting of Unitarian Universalists. She drafted a resolution that she called the “Women and Religion” resolution. Her resolution said in part:
WHEREAS, a principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to ‘affirm, defend, and promote the supreme worth and dignity of every human personality, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships’; and, WHEREAS, some models of human relationships arising from religious myths, historical materials, and other teachings still create and perpetuate attitudes that cause women everywhere to be overlooked and undervalued; and WHEREAS, children, youth and adults internalize and act on these cultural models, thereby tending to limit their sense of self-worth and dignity;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the 1977 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association calls upon all Unitarian Universalists to examine carefully their own religious beliefs and the extent to which these beliefs influence sex-role stereotypes within their own families; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the General Assembly urges the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association to encourage the Unitarian Universalist Association… to make every effort to: (a) put traditional assumptions and language in perspective, and (b) avoid sexist assumptions and language in the future.
That sounds pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t. It may be hard for us to realize it now, but in 1977 this was a pretty radical resolution. And the part that called on Unitarian Universalists to “avoid sexist assumptions and language” would prove to be quite radical, for it would cause us to revise our 1961 statement of principles.
Years later, Lucile Longview recalled how the Women and Religion resolution came to be passed at the 1977 General Assembly. She wrote:
I conceived of and wrote the resolution and sent it to 15 associates around the continent, soliciting feedback. They encouraged me to proceed, and offered suggestions. At First Parish in Lexington, Massachusetts, six other laywomen, one layman, and I sent personal letters to members of churches, with copies of the petition to place the resolution on the agenda of the 1977 General Assembly. We received more than twice the requisite 250 signatures. The Joseph Priestley District submitted the resolution directly, with some text revisions. Both versions were placed on the GA Final Agenda. We lobbied friends, GA delegates, and presidential candidates to support the District’s version, which passed unanimously.
In other words, the Women and Religion resolution was the result of non-hierarchical, grassroots effort. And it passed unanimously. That contentious, argumentative Unitarian Universalists could pass anything unanimously indicates to me that we saw a new truth in the statement that we needed to remove sexist attitudes from our religious stories and myths.
Of course, one of the first places to look for sexist language was in the six principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association. After the passage of the Women and Religion resolution, who could help noticing that the six principles referred to men but not to women? And so a movement arose to revise the six principles.
It took seven long years to revise the six principles into something that nearly all Unitarian Universalist congregations could agree on — seven long years, and lots of arguing. A seventh principle, respect for the Earth as sacred, was added as well, based on the emerging feminist idea that human beings are not disembodied beings and cannot be separated from the world around them. An initial draft of the revised principles was brought to General Assembly, but it was criticized for completely leaving out the word “God,” which many people felt was tantamount to pushing theists and Christians (many of whom were strong feminists) out of Unitarian Universalism. Finally, in 1981 the General Assembly formed a committee to reach out to every Unitarian Universalist congregation for suggestions and comments and criticisms.
This grassroots effort paid off:– in 1984 and 1985, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association finally approved a new improved statement of principles, the one which you heard in the first reading this morning. The vote to approve these new principles was not quite unanimous, but it was pretty close to being so.
So here we are, 21 years later. We have this great set of principles. Many people feel deep affection for our statement of principles. Quite a few teenagers and young adults have grown up in our churches having been taught those seven principles — some churches even have their children memorize the simplified version of the seven principles that we read together as a responsive reading this morning. Everyone seems happy with the seven principles.
There’s a provision of the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association that requires us to review the principles at least every fifteen years, and make any revisions that might be necessary. We are just beginning that review (six years late, which means we’re in violation of our own bylaws, but those things happen). Many people are saying that this only needs to be a cursory review;– for after all we’re all pretty happy with the seven principles. Right?
Well, not quite everyone. After all, we are an argumentative people.
No, we’re not all happy with the seven principles as they now stand. A small number of people — and I count myself as one of them — feels that it’s time for the principles and purposes to be revised. I personally would like to see a substantial revision. I personally am fairly unhappy with the current principles. To tell you why, I have to tell you a little story about the evolution of feminism.
As I told you, the principles as we now have them grew out of the feminist movement of the late 1960’s and the 1970’s. We can call that feminist movement “second wave feminism.” “First wave feminism” was the feminist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a movement that perhaps reached its high point in legal reforms like women winning the right to vote. Within Unitarianism and Universalism, first wave feminism resulted in the first ordinations of women as ministers.
Second wave feminism came about when middle class white women realized that although they had won the right to vote, and a few other legal rights, sexism was still rampant and widespread in our society. Second wave feminism pointed out, for example, that women earned less than men for the same work, and also pointed out how few women served prominent political offices or other positions of power. Within Unitarian Universalism, second wave feminism led to the eventual result that half our ministers are now women, that women now fill some of our most prominent pulpits, and that the last five moderators of the Unitarian Universalist Association have been women.
Then along came third wave feminism. Thoughtful women of color began to realize that second wave feminism did not adequately represent the particular circumstances of women who didn’t happen to be white. Thoughtful working-class women began to realize that second wave feminism assumed the kind of access to money and influence that many working class people, both men and women, just didn’t have. These women, and some like-minded men, began to ask why it was that middle-class white women seemed to be making so much more progress towards equality than women of color and working class women. To put it bluntly, second wave feminism did not deliver the same equality to all women.
Many third wave feminists are younger women who came of age in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and some of them feel as though they are supposed to be “dutiful daughters” who follow the old second wave feminism without question — but then they ask, isn’t that exactly the kind of hierarchical thinking that the second wave feminists were trying to break away from? An increasing number of women who call themselves feminists are not Westerners, and they point out that second wave feminism almost requires a woman to adopt Western ways of doing things. Third wave feminism has led to a deeper questioning of second wave feminism.
Religion has become something of a bone of contention among North American feminists, too. Many of the second wave feminists rejected all religion as inherently demeaning to women, while other second wave feminists rejected Western Christianity or Judaism in favor of Paganism. But now younger women are coming along who are questioning the ways in which second wave feminism has rejected religion. Some of them are saying: You know what, I can believe in God and still be a feminist.
As you can see, lots of people are having lots of arguments about feminism these days. Loving to argue as much as we do, those arguments have even crept into Unitarian Universalism. The questions that third wave feminists have posed have caused people like me to question how we Unitarian Universalists do feminism. As a result, a few of us have begun to question those wonderful seven principles, principles which emerged from the insights of second wave feminism.
Speaking for myself, in the past few years I have grown unhappy with the seven principles. [At this point, someone raised to hand, wanting to say something, but I asked for us to save the arguments until after the worship service was over.] …To say that I affirm “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations” sounds very fine indeed. Of course I want to be treated with justice, equity, and compassion. But when I remember how many women have to live with domestic violence, I’m not sure those fine-sounding words are quite strong enough. When I remember that far more women and children live below the poverty line than men, particularly women of color, I find I really want a stronger statement of something which I can affirm.
In the second reading this morning, you heard what might be just such a stronger statement. The second reading this morning gave the rest of the principles and purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the parts that are rarely quoted, the parts that don’t appear on the little wallet cards we have at the back of the church. I am particularly fond of this statement: “The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility, and that of its member congregations and organizations, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its and their activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, language, citizenship status, economic status, or national origin….”
Those of you who come here regularly on Sunday mornings have probably noticed that the welcoming words that we hear each week at the beginning of the worship service include a similar statement:
Here at First Unitarian, we value our differences of age, gender, race, national origin, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, and theology.
Isn’t this a stronger statement than to say that we long for some abstract notion of justice, equity, and compassion? Isn’t this a stronger statement than to say merely that we value the inherent worth and dignity of every person? The seven principles are easy to affirm if you’ve already got some measure of justice, equity, and compassion in your life, if you’re already treated with inherent worth and dignity. But I’d rather affirm that I have a special responsibility to value the differences between people; and I’d rather be reminded of quite specific differences that I should be paying attention to;– those differences that historically have resulted in certain groups of people being pushed to the margins of power and influence; that have resulted in people being pushed to the margins of religion.
As I say, this is a debate that is going on right now in Unitarian Universalist circles. Within a couple of years, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association will be asked either to affirm the principles and purposes as they now stand, or to make changes. You’ve heard my opinion — I think I’d like to see some changes, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what those changes might be. You probably have your own opinion. Perhaps you would prefer that our principles and purposes remain as they are now. Perhaps you have some good ideas for specific changes that should be made. Perhaps you will be the next Lucile Shuck Longview, and start a new grassroots effort that will change Unitarian Universalism for the better.
Whatever your personal opinion, our shared faith of Unitarian Universalism requires all of us to talk these things over; we are required to remain in critical dialogue with each other and with our shared statement of faith. Ours is not a religion for complacent people. We can’t just come and sit in church once a week for an hour, and say that is the extent of our religion. The search for truth and goodness draws us ever onwards, into deeper and more careful reflection. The search for truth and goodness isn’t a part-time affair, but it permeates every aspect of our lives; and any affirmation of faith that we make must be regarded as provisional and subject to revision.
In short, go forth and think deeply — and argue!
*****
The sermon indeed provoked some dialogue after the worship service.
A member of the worship committee pointed out, “Not enough verbs in the seven principles. The one about ‘justice, equity, and compassion’ needs a verb or two. Because of that, they’re hard to remember.” I had never thought of that, but it’s true.
A professor of English in the congregation said that he felt the 1961 principles were better written, and besides that it would have been easy, in his opinion, to simply degenderize that language. When you read both the 1984/85 principles and the 1961 principles out loud, you realize he’s probably right — the 1961 principles are more concise and sound more vigorous.
A couple of people threatened to start some kind of grassroots discussion group on the seven principles here at First Unitarian. We’ll see what happens.