Unitarian Universalism a Faith Community?

KS to MP UUFoF 2-12-20- no, I don't disagree that many folks do not relate well to theological words. Where we disagree is whether or not Unitarian Universalism can be described as a religion or a faith community. As a Unitarian Universalist, I refuse to cede those words, and so many of the strongest words in the English language, to the Christian culture which is dominant in this culture. They are our words too.

MP UUFoF 2-12-20 You rightly point out that those words have an accepted meaning which is not the UU meaning. UUs misuse the words.

Me You just misused the phrase "accepted meaning" instead of "widely-used" or even more accurately, "used by many followers of conventional Christian denominational doctrines." Unfortunately for all of the "conventional" types, UUism is actually a polarized cauldron faith-type community that reflects the importance of the much ignored realm of Civil Society and the University that have largely been relegated to a "widely-used" non-Christian secular realm. UUism contains that polarized microcosm, as did FDR and his heart- and brain-child the UN. It´s also like Thomas Jefferson historically as a visible public official who invoked secularism and the Freedom of Religion to moderate denominational and religious conflict. That has shifted in its resulting interpretation in materialistic secular society that is multi-polarized with psychosocial spectra artificially among mostly atheistic Science, Business, and religious faith. UUism juggles or jingles with aspects of that. University academia serves as a powerful catalyst for valuing sociology and the larger importance of secularism as a modernization strategy in Christian Western Civilization, and UUism the same. UUism is pretty clear about its Christian origins, but bought into the pretenses of secularism and humanism, etc that they could just stop referring to Jesus at the whisk of an idea. Voila! Denial of historical and sociological continuity. History permits that when it is unsociological and unpsychological. It is, however, a definite maneuver with consequences that can be recognized, and the dissociation undone.

As a Christian UU, I cite UUism per se as a transitional association embodying an important unlabeled and intellectualized form of Christian modernization. Christian denominations have developed and survive in society, but have been subordinated in politics by Business corporate profiteers and their Religious Right collaborators and passive liberal hypocrites. University Social Sciences contextualizes all that, itself a modernized Christian institution conventionally considered secular. "Western" Secularism, like Fundamentalism and hypocrisy, is a thin veneer, however. The expectations for Civil Rights and Human Rights all trace back to nothing less than the Anti-Slavery Movements led by Quaker-Friends and other Christians dissenting from authority. That is to say, they were high integrity Christians honoring pointedly Jesus´ pre-crucifixion teachings and new commandments as the self-identified Son of God like, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." UUism´s principles have not failed to honor that much. Contextualizing UUism and conventional denominations adequately in complex modern society is another thing.

*** J W FB UUFotF - I don’t think direct experience of mystery/wonder, “live and learn” or learning from one’s mistakes constitute what is referred to as “infallible guidance in religion.” Even if they are sources of faith and guidance, they rely on a human ability to perceive, know and understand. The very human search for truth, as a process with both freedom to discover the unknown and limits on what can be known, seems to me to render the notion of infallibility fallacious or downright fantastical. I agree that there is a lack of clarity about divine relationship in liberal religion. We rely on reason and personal experience and freedom of conscience, and don’t affirm truth based on who or what purports to espouse it alone.

Me to J W So, we are at the point where we need to splice terms and define them more precisely. Disclosure, or subjective ownership and identification of individual and shared points of view is also important. When you refer to "Infallible guidance in religion," you are likely to be understood as talking about Christian Fundamentalist literalists who call the Bible infallible, and maybe papal infallibility, with Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists other possibilities. God hates homosexuals, non-believers, and th By then defining my references merely humanistically, you are not so much talking about "truth," but the approach you identify with and use without qualification. I don´t share the same basic lack of clarity about divine relationship that you identify with. In fact, by your citing reliance on "reason, personal experience, and freedom of conscience," along with "the unknown and limits....", you have in fact identified your own kind of shared source of infallibility. My theism began by interest in scholar Huston Smith´s definition of the Chinese Tao that is identified with Lao Tzu. I got my college degree in a science, and have weighed the spiritual and scientific conjointly over the years. "Unknown" as a highest value has its own key limitations, and the progressive angle is paralysis, fragmentation, and alienation. A crucial issue in linking "reason" with the "unknown" is the neglectful exclusion of spiritual practice and experience. That is a kind of rationalism, although it is often linked with science. Spiritual and religious practice and experience is not usually talked about in terms of infallibility, but needs to be identified for its qualities, benefits, and legitimacy. That is where I like to cite Al Gore, historical George Fox and the Quaker Friends he founded, and Gandhi, and MLK. The divine then isn´t so much about anti-modernist infallibility, but the reality of the Divine Source in grounding courage against injustice and recognizing the urgency of taking action.