Category: Religion

Thinking about Abigail Eliot

Abigail Eliot was a member of the Unitarian Universalist church I grew up in. I have only vague memories of her, but somehow knew she was someone important. I didn’t realize just how important she was until I read No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World by Cynthia Grant Tucker.

It turns out that Abigail Eliot was a pioneer of early education in the United States, and one of the founders of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Eliot first trained at Margaret McMillan’s famous nursery school in England. McMillan developed the nursery school for children who lived in English slums; her school was designed to educate the whole child, mind and body, including nurturing health through outdoor education. Eliot returned to the United States and founded the Ruggles Street Nursery School in Boston.

While Eliot was not the first person to bring the nursery school concept to a city in the United States, she was one of the most influential pioneers of American nursery schools. She founded her school in 1922, and four years later turned her school into a training center for other nursery school teachers. Eliot’s training center for educators continues in the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School, a lab school that’s part of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University.

In addition to the material on Abigail Eliot in No Silent Witness, here are links to more information about her life and work:

I think Abigail Eliot has become a spiritual exemplar for me. She dedicated her life to child-centered education, and in so doing used her significant intellectual talents for the betterment of humankind. I wish I had better memories of her, but all I really remember is seeing her walk down the driveway to her house near the church. My friend Alison, who is my age and grew up in the same Unitarian Universalist church I did, is lucky enough to retain vivid memories of Abby Eliot. Perhaps not surprisingly, Alison went on to a lifelong career as a kindergarten teacher, and now Alison’s daughter is a schoolteacher in East Boston.

Those older Unitarian Universalists, people like Abigail Eliot, inspired many of us younger Unitarian Universalists to devote our careers to making the world a better place. Many of those older Unitarian Universalists worked in fields that are mostly ignored by the public. (Sadly, Abigail Eliot’s contributions to humankind receive far less recognition than those of her famous poet cousin, T. S. Eliot.) Yet what I learn from those older Unitarian Universalists is that public recognition is less important than doing good work in the world. That’s one of the reasons why we should continue to hold them up as spiritual exemplars.

Clerical stoles

In two earlier posts (one and two), I wrote about preaching gowns. Personally I’m not a fan of preaching gowns, but I understand why they can be of use. Now I’d like to think out loud about clerical stoles.

Stoles are those long pieces of cloth that clergy drape around their necks. The stole comes from the Christian tradition. I don’t remember Unitarian Universalist clergy using stoles until the 1980s. My recollection is that Eugene Pickett, when he was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, insisted that clergy should wear stoles. By the 1990s, clerical stoles were pervasive in Unitarian Universalism. And by 2003, the year I participated in the Service of the Living Tradition as a newly ordained minister, I think I was the only minister who didn’t wear a stole.

Some people understand the stole to be a symbol of ordination. But choirs that wear robes often also wear stoles, and we generally expect most of our choristers to be non-ordained persons. So I’m not convinced that the stole is a symbol of ordination, and only to be worn by ordained clergy.

Also, stoles are reminiscent of other special religious clothing in other traditions. A stole is somewhat similar in appearance to the Japanese Buddhist wagesa, though the wagesa has very specific symbolic meanings (as I understand it) which obviously differ from any symbolism a stole might have. A stole is perhaps slightly reminiscent of the Jewish tallit or prayer shawl, insofar as it’s something to drape over your shoulders when engaging in religious observances.

It seems to me that there are other cultures that drape long pieces of cloth around your neck. Think of Hindu men who wear a dupatta over a sherwani for their wedding. I feel like there are other examples, though I can’t think of any right now. So even though there’s a strong connection between the stole and Christianity, it you take the cross off a stole maybe it’s not a Christian stole any more. When Unitarian Universalist minister Hank Peirce wears his Boston Bruins stole, there isn’t much connection between the stole and Christianity.

I don’t like wearing a preaching gown, but I feel reasonably comfortable wearing a stole. I think of it as a uniform. Like when I worked at the lumber yard, and I had to wear a shirt with a “Concord Lumber Corp.” patch over the shirt pocket, and my first name embroidered on the other side of my chest. (And yes, I’ve thought of having a stole made with a patch that says “First Parish Unitarian Universalist” on one side, and my name embroidered on the other side, but rejected the idea for obvious reasons.)

I wish I didn’t have to wear any special clothes to be a minister. As a Universalist, I think all humans are of equal worth, and wearing special clergy clothing sets my teeth on edge. But I realize that people want to see their clergy wearing some kind of uniform. For me, a stole represents a reasonable compromise between egalitarianism and the need for a uniform. So on Sunday, when I participate in the Town of Cohasset 9/11 observance, I’ll be in uniform, wearing a stole.

(Getting a stole for Sunday proved to be a challenge. I have a stole that my younger sister gave me when I was ordained, but it’s still in a moving container somewhere. I just found out about the Cohasset 9/11 observance, and had to get a stole on short notice. But finding a stole without any Christian symbolism on it, that could be overnighted to me, was a challenge. I finally found Threads by Nomad, a small company that’s trying to provide clothing that doesn’t do “damage to people or the planet.” They had clergy stoles on sale and they were able to overnight one to me. Sadly, it looks like they’re selling off their stole inventory, so maybe it hasn’t been a good business opportunity for them. Their website tells me that the stole I bought was “made from a fabric called mud cloth from Mali. Mud cloth is dyed using fermented mud — a traditional dying technique in many parts of the world but notably in West Africa. Our mud cloth is not mass produced and therefore every piece is different in design.” Since I’ve been influenced by African philosophy, this seemed like a serendipitous find. Plus the stole was made by an “artisan [who was] fairly compensated.”)

Preaching gowns, part two

In a previous post I outlined some reasons why I don’t want to wear a preaching gown. In this post, I’ll do my best to give some of the many good reasons why Unitarian Universalist ministers should Geneva gowns, or other types of preaching gowns.

First, women ministers are held to impossible standards of dress, and for them a preaching gown makes sense. I have heard from many women ministers about the comments they have to endure from congregants about their clothes. I’ve heard about other women giving backhanded compliments on articles of clothing, compliments that are really criticisms. I’ve heard about men making inappropriate comments on how “sexy” or “attractive” a woman minister looked. As a man, I could deal with that kind of comment by wearing exactly the same kind of clothes all the time (which is in fact what I do), but women are held to a different standards and if they don’t wear a variety of clothes they are subjected to criticism. So if I were a woman minister, I wouldn’t want to deal with this kind of bullshit, and I’d seriously consider wearing a preaching gown.

Second, ministers who are not white typically experience varying levels of racism in our predominantly white Unitarian Universalist congregations. As an example, recently I heard about a minister of color who was told that they were very well-spoken — well of course they are, they have been trained in the art of public speaking, as have all ministers — white male ministers don’t receive this sort of backhanded compliment (sadly, white women do hear similar comments). If I were a person of color and a minister in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, chances are good that I’d want to wear a preaching gown.

Third, there are ministers who are poor dressers. I’m one of those ministers. I simply don’t pay attention to clothes most of the time. On one memorable occasion, I showed up at church on Sunday morning wearing a coat and trousers from two different suits. I frequently forget to fasten collar and cuff buttons. I have poor taste in ties. I try to remember to pay attention to my appearance, but I frequently forget; it’s not that I don’t care, I’m simply not aware. Ministers like me might to do better to wear wear a preaching gown, to save our congregations from occasional embarrassment. In my case, however, I’m sure I’d find ways to look slovenly in a preaching gown; the gown might hide some of my sartorial blunders, but not all of them.

Fourth, a preaching gown is a symbolic tie to Unitarian Universalist history. It’s not a wholly bad thing to be descended from the Protestant Reformation. Some of our most cherished values — freedom of individual conscience, the priesthood and prophethood of all persons, etc. — derive from the Reformation. Ralph Waldo Emerson wore a preaching gown, as seen in Daniel Chester French’s sculpture of the seated Emerson. Wearing a preaching gown can symbolize the tie to our most brilliant Unitarian minister, and to a host of other Unitarian and Universalist and Unitarian Universalist ministers.

In short, there are very good reasons for a Unitarian Universalist minister to wear a preaching gown. There are very good reasons for Unitarian Universalist congregations to want their minister to wear a preaching gown. Perhaps most importantly, given the persistent and pernicious sexism and racism in Unitarian Universalism (which is a reflection of the racism and sexism in our wider society), preaching gowns make a great deal of sense. Wearing a preaching gown can serve as a symbol that the person wearing it is a highly trained and skilled professional. Well-meaning white parishioners, and parishioners of all genders, may need this weekly reminder. The reminder of professional competence offered by preaching gowns might also be useful for ministers who are young, disabled, LGBTQ+, etc.

Indeed, white male ministers like me should probably consider wear preaching gowns to show solidarity with our ministerial colleagues. However, this must be balanced against another consideration. In my experience dealing with the aftermath of ministers who engage in unethical behavior and misconduct, I have a strong sense that misconducting ministers use all the little signs and symbols of authority to insulate themselves from being held accountable for their ethical violations. I believe some misconducting ministers have used the symbolic power of a preaching gown to allow them to hide from accountability. So white male ministers who choose to adopt the signs and symbols of ministerial power — preaching gowns, titles, and the like — must be careful to ensure that there are robust institutional structures in place to hold them accountable for their behavior. Actually, all ministers should make sure there are robust institutional structures in place to hold them accountable, but white male ministers need to be especially sure of this.

For me personally, the decision on whether or not to wear a preaching gown comes down to two competing demands. If I were to wear a preaching gown, I could express solidarity with non-white and non-male ministers. Balanced against that is my strong sense that wearing a preaching gown can serve as one of those little things that can serve to insulate ministers from ethical accountability. For me — not for anyone else, mind you, just for me — the balance is tipped in favor of any slight increase in ethical accountability. But I think for most ministers, and for most congregations, the balance will be tipped the other way.

Preaching gowns

I was trying to explain to someone why I don’t wear a preaching gown, or any other clerical vestments. It’s kind of a long explanation, so I thought I’d turn it into a blog post.

Unitarian Universalists ministers who wear gowns to preach typically wear one of two types of gown. If they have a doctoral degree, they can wear a doctoral robe. When I was a teenager, the minister of my Unitarian Universalist church was Rev. Dr. Dana Greeley. As I recall it, he wore his Harvard doctoral robe to preach: crimson fabric with black insets, and black velvet bars on the sleeves.

The other choice of robe is the traditional Geneva preaching gown. This is the gown worn by ministers in traditions that trace their lineage (to use a Buddhist term) back to the Protestant Reformation, particularly to John Calvin in Geneva. The Protestant Reformation put the emphasis on preaching the Word, and they wore gowns that resemble academic gowns showing the importance of their education, their focus on the Word.

Since I don’t have a doctoral degree, I’m obviously not going to wear a doctoral degree. My reasons for not wearing a Geneva gown are more complex.

First, I feel that Unitarian Universalism has drifted far enough away from Protestantism that Geneva gown have little symbolic value for us any more. A Geneva gown symbolizes Protestant shift from priest to preacher, where preaching the Word became central to the Protestant religion. Our worship services no longer focus on preaching as much as we used to — I remember sermons lasting for close to half the worship service, but today my sense is the typical Unitarian Universalist sermon lasts for about 15 minutes of an hour-long service. So we are not preaching as many words as we used to do. Nor is it clear to me that we are preaching the Word — capital “W” — that is, the Word of the Christian God. A Unitarian Universalist minister who is Christian might want to wear a Geneva gown. But even Unitarian Universalist ministers who are Christian need to preach to theologically and religiously diverse congregations, so the Geneva gown might be about as appropriate as the saffron robes of certain Buddhist monks. A Unitarian Universalist minister who wears a Buddhist saffron robe is making a definite statement about their religious outlook; if I were to wear a Geneva gown, I feel I’d be making an equally definite statement, and I’m not sure it’s a statement I want to make.

Second, Protestant ministers wear a Geneva gown to set themselves apart from ordinary members of the congregation. The gown is a sign of their special religious status. I’m not sure that Unitarian Universalist ministers actually have that kind of special status. I feel that my position as a Unitarian Universalist minister is closer to the position of rabbis as described by Coffee Shop Rabbi: “Rabbis are ordinary people with specialized knowledge. Unlike a priest, we do not have special powers. A rabbi is a person who has studied Torah, Jewish law and tradition. Someone, either an institution or another rabbi, has declared that they can call themselves ‘rabbi’.” As a Unitarian Universalist minister, I consider myself to be an ordinary person who has specialized training: a three and a half year graduate degree, a one year internship under an experienced minister, and clinical pastoral education. Both a local congregation and the Unitarian Universalist Association have declared that I can call myself “minister.” In my understanding, my specialized training does not give me a special status such that I need to wear special clothes to lead worship.

Third, anyone can lead a Unitarian Universalist worship service. We are not like many Christian denominations, where only a priest or ordained clergy can preside at worship services. (Nor are we like the Church of the Latter-day Saints, where only men can preside at services.) So you don’t need a special person to lead worship, and the worship leader doesn’t need special clothes to lead worship. Alternatively, if ministers wear special clothes to lead worship, then maybe ordinary Unitarian Universalists should, too.

Fourth, I’m a cheapskate, and Geneva gowns are expensive. Yes, you can purchase a polyester Geneva gown for under three hundred dollars. But I don’t want to purchase any artificial fiber clothes any more — artificial fibers are one of the chief sources of microplastics in the environment. And a natural fiber gown will cost upwards of $1,000. I find it hard to explain to myself why I’d spend well over $1,000 on a garment that I’d wear at most 40 hours a year. Better I should either put that money into my retirement savings, or give that money to a local homeless shelter.

There are lots of arguments about why Unitarian Universalist ministers should wear some kind of special clothes to lead worship. I’ll outline some of those arguments in a follow-up post.

More on electric cars

Rabbi Yonatan Neril, founder of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development and co-author of the Eco-Bible, adds another reason why electric cars won’t solve the ecological crisis:

“The ecological crisis is a spiritual crisis. It’s not just about nature and bees and the birds and the trees and the toads. It’s also about human beings and how we live as spiritual beings in a physical reality. And so, you know, with all due respect to Elon Musk and everyone buying a Tesla, we’re not going to curb climate change with Teslas alone — when the operating system of billions of people is consumer-driven.”

As Rabbi Neril points out, we’re not going to stop climate change by buying something new. In fact, buying an electric car is really just part of consumerism, the ideological myth that buying something new can solve our problems. Consumerism is the problem, not the solution. Rabbi Neril continues:

“The only force in the world that changes this operating system of consumerism is religion and spirituality. The root issues we’re talking about are greed, short-term thinking, egoism, seeking pleasure in the physical. The spiritual solutions to those are humility, long-term thinking, caring for other people and creatures. The only institutions in the world that can deliver that are religious institutions.”

Electric cars are not the solution to the world’s problems

Science fiction author and Scottish nationalist Charles Stross opines:

“I’m going to suggest that American automobile culture is fundamentally toxic and aggressively hegemonizing and evangelical towards other cultures, and needs to be heavily regulated and rolled back.”

Not to belabor the point, but while electric cars may help us address climate change, they still emit toxic substances (tires spewing microplastics into the environment, for example), and they also enable habitat destruction. Even when it comes to climate change, their carbon footprint is not zero.

(Why mention that Stross is a Scottish nationalist? Because that means he apparently hasn’t bought into the American mythos.)

Don’t call it the “Axial Age,” please

If you’ve ever referred to the “Axial Age,” Jack Tsonis, lecturer at the Graduate REsearch School, Western Sydney Univ., suggests you might want to stop. “Axial Age” is a term coined by Karl Jaspers to describe a time about two and a half millennia ago when several key religio-philosophic texts emerged: the Dao de Jing, the Bhagavad Gita, the writings of Plato, the Lun Yu (Analects), the books of Jeremiah and Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible, etc. The “Axial Age” is typically represented as a time when religion and philosophy emerged, as it were, into the light from the darkness of “primitive” thinking. This would imply that, for example, Christianity is somehow better or more advanced than Lakota religion and spirituality. Tsonis says:

“We need a full-scale acknowledgement of just how problematic this whole ‘Axial Age’ story is. So my big thing, I suppose, is that we’ve got to just stop using this term. The ‘Axial Age’ should not have credibility. It’s like ‘world religions.’ You shouldn’t use the term ‘world religions’ if you’re analytically responsible and politically responsible…. I don’t even care how we describe the first millennium B.C.E., I’m not going to use the term world religions, I’m not going to use the term Axial Age, because they’re bankrupt [and] founded in racial ideologies [Editor: and colonial ideologies]. But if you keep using them, even if you’re not aware of this stuff, you feed that discourse. We just need to starve those terms of oxygen.” Link to the Religious Studies Podcast where he makes this comment

Another way of putting this: Using the term “Axial Age” (or the term “world religions”) promulgates a theological position that sets up a hierarchy where indigenous religious traditions are ranked lower. It’s not what you’d call respectful.

Three books on Transcendentalism

Three recent books provide new insights into the nineteenth century Transcendentalist movement.

The Transcendentalists and Their World by Robert A. Gross (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2021).

Robert Gross is perhaps best known for his brilliant use of social history techniques in his 1976 book, The Minutemen and Their World. Social history was a mid-twentieth century intellectual movement that, rather than focusing on elite powerful figures, focused on the mass of people in a given historical era. In The Minutemen and Their World Gross and his research assistants pored through historical documents like voting records, deeds, tax rolls, and the like. Using both quantitative techniques, like statistical analysis, and qualitative techniques, he was able to tell a much richer story about the Minutemen of Concord, Massachusetts, and why they decided to take up arms against His Majesty’s troops.

After completing that book, Gross extended his research into nineteenth century Concord. He wanted to figure out why such a small town became the home of both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two major Transcendentalist figures. He also wanted to find out more about the social and cultural milieu of Emerson and Thoreau, as a way to better understand their intellectual accomplishments.

Continue reading “Three books on Transcendentalism”

Going to have to work for peace

Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the rumors of war and the panic for war and the preparations for war.

Peace is not the absence of war,
it is the absence of the threats of war and the rumors of war and the preparations for war.

There’ll be no freedom without peace.

— Gil Scott-Heron, “Work for Peace” (2001)

Why UUA General Assembly can’t be reformed

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), the U.S. denomination of U.S. Unitarian Universalists, holds its business meetings every year. There’s no need to hold business meetings this frequently. And in fact, holding business meetings this frequently wastes resources. I’m going to go over the reasons why we don’t need to have General Assembly every year, and then I’ll tell you why we’re stuck with an annual meeting that we don’t need.

First, we don’t need an annual meeting because other religious groups get along just fine without meeting every year. The Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) meets every other year — they have about 850 congregations, compared to the UUA’s 1,000 congregations, though their congregations are on average larger than ours. The United Church of Christ (UCC), our closest religious relatives, meet every other year — they have about 4,800 congregations. Of course there are religious denominations that meet annually — the Swedenborgian Church of North America is one such group — but the experiences of the URJ and the UCC demonstrate that annual meetings aren’t essential.

Second, meeting every year contributes to global climate change. Most of the attendees travel to General Assembly on airplanes. It’s pretty hypocritical for a denomination that claims to be environmentalist to host annual meetings that contribute to global climate change. True, the organizers of General Assembly attempt to make the meeting as environmentally friendly as possible. That’s great, but if we’re really going to avoid hypocrisy we shouldn’t meet every single year. (And others do perceive us as hypocritical — I recently had a conversation with a non-UU who knows us well and who was gently scathing on the topic of our insistence on annual in-person meetings.)

Third, meeting every year ties up denominational staff hours. Rather than using their time to support local congregations, denominational staff have to devote too many hours to preparing for General Assembly. This means that the small minority of Unitarian Universalists who can afford the time and travel expenses to attend General Assembly receive an inordinate amount of time and attention from denominational staff. This diverts staff time away from local congregations, and away from the vast majority of Unitarian Universalists who can’t (or won’t, or don’t) attend General Assembly. (The same non-UU who knows us well was scathing on the topic of the way General Assembly misuses denominational staff time.)

None of these is a new argument. All of these are, to me, convincing arguments. Why, then, does General Assembly continue to meet every year?

First of all, because the delegates who decide how often to meet have a vested interest in meeting every year. General Assembly is designed to be a democratic institution. Delegates to General Assembly are the ones who vote on how often to meet. But from what I’ve seen, many or even most delegates to General Assembly are self-selected. Most local congregations can’t pay travel and lodging expenses for their delegates. That means most delegates attend General Assembly because they’re the ones who can afford it, and they’re the ones who enjoy it. The delegates are high-minded people — they wouldn’t be delegates if they weren’t high-minded people — but they like General Assembly the way it is. So without being aware of it, they have structured General Assembly to meet their needs, not the needs of most Unitarian Universalists.

Second of all, General Assembly meets annually because of what used to be called the Old Boys Network. Up until a half century ago, the Old Boys Network was an informal network of well-to-do, college-educated, upper middle class white men who all knew each other, and who informally looked out for the interests of one another. Again, many of the Unitarian Universalist Old Boys were high-minded, and most of them were perennial delegates to General Assembly. They honestly believed that their interests coincided with the interests of every other Unitarian Universalist. Over the last half century, the Old Boys Network has changed to include both people of other genders and non-white people — which is all to the good, and now they need a new name so I’ll call them the “Old Network.” Yet, inclusive though they now are, the Old Network retains one or two unfortunate features of the Old Boys Network: a certain lack of perspective, a certain defensiveness when their hegemony is challenged. The Old Network depends on an annual face-to-face General Assembly to maintain their social ties, so without being aware of it they’re going to resist attempts to change the frequency of General Assembly. And they have a lot of informal power within the Unitarian Universalist Association, so their resistance is a powerful force.

In short, we’re stuck with an annual General Assembly.

Even though we don’t need it.

Even though it makes us look hypocritical.

Even though it diverts resources away from local congregations.

I can only see one solution to this problem. It’s up to the perennial delegates and the Old Network to end this. I’m not a member of either group, so I’m not going to try to tell them what to do. (If it were up to me, we’d permanently end face-to-face General Assembly, and conduct all our business online, but I recognize this is a minority opinion.) But please, people, could you do something? I’m tired of being embarrassed at the way General Assembly misdirects staff resources and contributes to global climate change.