Singing gospel, serving at Guantanamo, and an offensive ad

Continuing the covenant conversation

David Pyle looks at the historic role the blog conversation is playing.

What I love most about the UU Blogosphere is how it is filling the role in our faith once filled by hundreds of pamphleteers and Unitarian and Universalist printed newsletters. During the late 1800s there were debates on theology, on polity, and on the issues important to our faith between the voices of competing journals, and that debate reinforced how the shifting conversation between ministers and lay members helped to continually define and re-define who we are as a faith tradition. With the exception of a few journals (including UU World and the Universalist Herald), most of those printed journals have gone away… but the energy they carried for our faith is now represented by the many lay-members, seminarians, and ministers who cast their ideas into the UU Blogosphere… and I am honored to play a small part. ("Celestial Lands," August 29)

Paul Kent Oakley also takes a look at history:

All the talk concerning covenants on the UU blogosphere recently prompted me to look back at a few of the denomination's historical worship resources readily available to me to see if I could figure how covenants were used in Unitarian and/or Universalist worship in the past. ("Inner Light, Radiant Life," August 29)

ChaliceChick is still pondering whether UUs need a different term than "covenant" and raises questions about appropriation.

And in all fairness, it certainly seems like we grandfather in appropriation after awhile. Pagans aren't asking Christians to cease and desist on Christmas trees, and, to use my favorite example, nobody is asking Chartres Cathedral to take out its labyrinth. Black Christian churches aren't asking white Christian churches to quit singing "go tell it on the mountain" either. Nor are the shakers asking for "Tis a Gift to be simple" to be returned or even sung with its original words. ("The Chaliceblog," September 1)

PolityWonk also gets into questions of appropriation.

"Non-Credal."

Time has completely removed the meaning it had for our forebears. To save our religion from complete theological disintegration, we have to rediscover what they meant by that. We then need to reinvent, for our own world, the integrity of theological process that the term summed up for them...

As a diehard Sabellian, I personally accept appropriation from other faiths. All their Gods, all their forms of worship, are all just transient modes of the same eternal energy. But I have an obligation to those other religions to name my appropriation and explaqin the boundaries I each place on it. I am obliged to show how it differs from the faith where I found it, and how I accomodate that practice -- with some element of its inherent theology -- to the faith my forebears gave me. ("PolityWonk," August 31)

DairyStateDad thinks there are different kinds of appropriation:

In a nutshell, I believe that while concern over appropriation is valid, at times it becomes overblown, even wildly so. Sometimes it becomes like the casual accusation of "racism" or "fascism" in certain contexts -- to the extent that it actually diminishes real appropriation that is wrong and, in some instances, even harmful. ("DairyStateDad," September 2)

Gospel music and suffering

Seminarian Kim Hampton thinks UUs aren't in touch with their emotions:

Some of you know that I am TA-ing a class at Earlham College this semester. The class is History of the African American Religious Experience. (I’m really happy... I’m not the only dark face in the room) Anyway...while in class today watching a documentary, one of the people in the documentary said “hope that comes out of the denial of suffering is false hope.” That got me to thinking.

There’s a reason that UUs don’t sing gospel well...most UUs don’t do suffering. And gospel, at its heart, is about people who have suffered. People who have made a way out of no way. That’s just not something most UUs are comfortable talking about. ("East of Midnight," August 31)

Chuck B. replied in the comments:

The UU sermons I have heard (excluding an award winning one “we are in Katrina”) tend to be dispassionately self reflexive, with moments of intellectual clarity based on cross reviewed analysis. More akin to a person having a revelation under Psychoanalysis. That kind of sermon will not bring about Gospel fervor. (September 3)

'They would just say I was an atheist anyway'

Wade G. writes about which kind of atheist he is:

When folks in Illinois asked if you believed in God few of them were wondering if I believed in the sum total of the physical laws of the universe. They were asking whether I believed in the fellow (and it was definitely a fellow not a lady) who caused the great flood, performed miracles, rose Jesus from the dead, etc. It was that God in particular that was the God of the time and place I grew up in and it was that God that I was making reference to when I self-identified as an atheist. To have said "yes" to the question "do you believe in God" at that time would have been to say (to them) that I believed in the God that they had in their minds. My choices were to say "no" and self-identify as an atheist, or say "well it depends on what you mean by God," like Sagan did, which would mean having to get into a long discussion explaining what I meant. And really what would the point be? If I described the God of Spinoza and Einstein that I could believe in to them they would just say I was an atheist anyway. Why not just save time and call myself an atheist? ("Evolution of the Mystery," August 31)

Spiritual practice as a center

JohnFranc is wondering about what holds a group together. Comments left on his blog seem "to confirm my suspicion that there is no religious center in Unitarian Universalism. And this small sample size seems to be quite OK with that."

I shouldn’t be surprised. When I look around at other denominations, I don’t see much in the way of religious centers there either.

The Episcopal Church is currently in the middle of a nasty schism precipitated by the consecration of an openly gay bishop. If that’s important enough to split over, is the center of Episcopalianism a commitment to heterosexuality? That’s a silly thought. Is it a commitment to Biblical inerrancy? I’m no expert on Anglicanism, but I don’t think that’s been a key part of their doctrine in many decades, if ever. ("Under the Ancient Oaks," August 30)

On September 1 he posts a summary of a UU spiritual practice.

First-hand account of Guantanamo detention facility

Captain Thomas R. Beall (U.S. Navy, retired) served at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and has posted a sermon he gave to his UU congregation not long after his return home in 2006:

If compassion is so lacking in America that we can accept the brutality of war, we can pass on attitudes like that of the camp commander at Guantanamo, we can convince ourselves that suicide and death are simply “asymmetric warfare” waged by an enemy who is not worthy of human dignity, how can we as Unitarian Universalists effect change? As Rev. Tom Owen-Towle said, “We must stop agonizing and start organizing.” We can bear witness individually and as a faith community to the need for compassion as the basis for promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I’m not talking about doing this at coffee hour after service but around the coffee pot at work. Turn down the Fox News commentary on the TV set in the break room and appeal to your co-workers’ compassion. Ask your neighbors whether they think suicide really is an asymmetric warfare weapon. Ask questions, get people to think, appeal to their better natures. ("Living the Prophetic Imperative," September 4)

Offended by UU World ad

Many bloggers have weighed in on an ad from the Freedom from Religion Foundation found on the inside front cover of the Fall 2009 issue of UU World. Berry's Mom, a UU minister, was the first to post, and many comments have been left on her blog. She writes:

I am stunned, appalled and very disappointed with the managerial decision at the UU World to publish a FULL PAGE advertisement by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the Unitarian Universalist denominational magazine. This organization is not merely atheist or agnostic — they are ANTI-religion. We have absolutely no business carrying their advertising in our denominational magazine. ("Berry's Mom," September 2)

Joel Monka expresses similar sentiments ("CUUMBAYA," September 3), while Chalicechick invites readers to pretend to be the business manager of UU World in evaluating a range of controversial ads ("The Chaliceblog," September 4). Several people have already taken up her challenge in the comments, and Joel Monka does so in a blog post.

The Rev. Cynthia Landrum further critiques the ad:

The problem is that [the] impact of this advertisement is that you open up our denomination's major publication, and what you see first is an advertisement that seems to be saying, "What are you doing being a Unitarian Universalist? We'd like to free you from that." It really does, after all, come down to the name of their organization, the comparing of religion to slavery, and the "non-prophet" quip. ("Rev. Cyn," August 4)

Scott Ullrich, Business Manager of UU World, responds to the complaints. (uuworld.org, August 4)

Around the blogosphere

Memorial services for UU minister and blogger the Rev. Tim Jensen have been set for September 19 in Portland, Oregon, and November 7 in Portland, Maine. ("One Day Isle," September 3)

Laverne Coan considers the Unitarian and Universalist threads of UU Christianity:

Personally, I'm a Unitarian and a Universalist who is closer to our origins. I believe in one God and do not ascribe to a theology of the Trinity and I believe that everyone is saved and all spiritual paths are valid. But in my experience so far, it's how UU Christians approach their faith that sets them with the Universalists. Mystic, expressive, leading with the heart, UU Christians may read and cogitate about the Great Spirit and how nature manifests it, but what energizes them is when they experience the Spirit at the soul level. They seek out opportunities for that experience; they need that experience on a regular basis to feel whole. ("Lifting the Spirit: Experience of a UU Christian," August 29)

The Rev. James Ford offers "A Few Words Against One Hundred and Ten Percent, and a Few More in Favor of One Hundred Percent." ("Monkey Mind," August 29)

Paul Kent Oakley belongs to a new, small congregation that is still discovering the joy of doing things for the first time:

It's a wonderful thing, being an emerging congregation just over four years old, that so many things we can still do for the first time, still explore possibilities that custom has not yet obstructed. And now, all in the same year, we've held our first Flower Celebration and our first Mingling of the Waters. ("Inner Light, Radiant Life," August 30)

"Earthbound Spirit" recalls the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina:

[Hurricane Katrina] dominated my first year at seminary as Katrina refugees were offered student housing and shared in our community meals. Our responsibilities as people of faith to speak out on the issues of justice raised by Katrina and its aftermath were discussed in classes and preached on in chapel. My roommate (African American, middle class, and middle-aged) and I (white, middle class now but born to and raised by working class parents, and middle-aged) shared space and stories with each other, finding common ground that led to frank conversations on topics often taboo between the races – topics like prejudice and “passing,” and how we each perceived and experienced (or didn’t experience) institutionalized oppression. ("Earthbound Spirit," August 31)

The Rev. Daniel Harper offers suggestions about what UUs might have to say about teen suicide:

In the past five months, three teenagers have committed suicide in Palo Alto... On Monday evening, six people from different faith traditions were on a panel to talk about how persons of faith might respond to this community tragedy.

I attended the panel on Monday night, and listening to what people said raised an interesting question for me: What might we as Unitarian Universalists say about teen suicide? ("Yet Another Unitarian Universalist," September 2)

Jess ("Jess's Journal") and Bill Baar ("Pfarrer Streccius") are having a discussion about H.R. 3200, end of life counseling, and "death panels." (Jess on September 2, Bill on September 3, Jess on September 3, Bill on September 3)

And just because

It's not a UU post, but because I want to encourage him to do the same for UU movies, I will draw attention to the Rev. James Ford's post about Buddhist movies. ("Monkey Mind," September 2)