Is Unitarian Universalism Classist? Is It Christian?

RE J R R It may vary from (UU) congregation to congregation, but all of these things occur in UUA congregations, and also in the UUA administration itself. The anti-racism programs are quite divisive. There is tension between various religious factions within UUism, perhaps especially between the Atheists and Theists of various types. UUism is only half-jokingly described as "The Religious Arm of the Democratic Party". How many moderate card-carrying Republicans belong to UU churches? Most were driven out over the last decade ot two. UUs are overwhelmingly upper-middle-class White people, and can be quite classist and elitist. Indeed a book has been written about that in recent years. Am I wrong about any of the above?

B B R E yes, you are wrong about most of it.

Me: Unsupported assertions are wishful thinking and de facto opinions, and often enough like here denialism, attempting to masquerade as an unassailable declaration of truth and refutation. In simple and polite terms, it sounds like your head is buried somewhere in the sand. You need to totally refute the statement you oppose by attempting to provide examples that comprehensively add up. Anything less equates to superficial posturing. I volunteered at my UU homeless shelter at CCNY and recognize the significance of their hosting 12 step group Recovery meetings. However, I worked in Social Services, joined a food co-op, and delved into Fair Trade, Solidarity Economics, and Quakerism s leading organizational and doctrinal innovations to pioneer progressive spiritual Chriistianity, all on my own. I started to try to share my passions and discoveries without being able to generate any substantive interest. I noticed that at the UU community in the suburbs where I grew up there was no homeless shelter or 12 step groups, although one guy was inspired by his reading Thoreau in healthy reflections. I tended to spend my time elsewhere as my grad studies deepened my understanding of activism and led me abroad into another cultural context. In Brazil, non-Christian UUism is very clearly an intellectual interest with class underpinnings. My own evaluation has pushed me to further visceral intellectual and spiritual insight. UUism is implicitly Christian, and has been missing the discipline of Jesus´ significance. One profound disadvantage is Jesus´ imperative to help and give the Good News to the poor in modernized ways and counter directly the crass misrepresentation of Jesus by Fundamentalists and the Religious Right. Even Gandhi´s interfaith and activist Christian Hinduism is basically ignored.

Me R E As far as UUism being a largely secular progressive organization, I agree. The secular ideal and definition of "fairness" in an abstract sense might make Republicans appear unfairly treated by egalitarian ideals is, however, largely a kind of optical illusion. More on that below. Some aspects would sound plausible to me if they were adequately contextualized. As the "Religious Arm of the DP," I see the fact that UU congregations don´t normally do much worship and are largely secular, although they honor the UU principles. My assessment over time as a spiritual seeker has determined that Jesus Christ is not merely the historical or symbolic platform for UU history born in the titillating region of Dracula Vampire fiction in Transylvania. He is the ultimate key source of UU principles, but has been artificially disconnected from his direct role, clearly by the well-intended but largely anonymous founders of UUism in 1961. Are Jan Hus, Michael Servetus, and Joseph Priestley so important that their profound basis in Christianity can be reduced to considering Jesus Christ as adequately "Just another prophet" for the principles? The revolutionary meaning of both Jesus and his legacy formulated in UU principles actually lacks the discipline of integrity that his signal and landmark figure provides. He has long been called the Savior in his tradition, and if that is considered incompatible with UUism´s noble pluralism, that is a major assumption so critical it should be made explicit. I find it untenable. UUism´s noble principles confirm Jesus´ hallowed and momentous role even as they make it possible to clarify Jesus Christ the Savior as inclusionary on behalf of the Jewish prophetic tradition and all the eclectic influences and innovations that make up Jesus´ complex legacy community. God deserves eplicit worship, as does Jesus who taught God´s love as God´s son and the need for individuals to seek the Kingdom of God and Heaven within and among themselves here on Earth.

As for Republicans, that party´s values are not merely frivolous, but ideologically toxic, profiteering anti-social and anti-democratic, and have been conscientiously crafted by rich conservative funders since around the time of the 1970s Powell Memo. UU´s may not give Jesus adequate recognition or qualify as a technical "Christian church," but their ideology is pro-social and pro-democratic their ideology is pro-social and pro-democratic consistent with a modernized form of the actual integrity Jesus taught and showed. I have to subordinate my formal UUism to my interfaith Christianity weighed with Gandhi the interfaith Christian-Hindu, the Quaker-Friends, Christian Science, the 12 Step Recovery Movement, and the strongly activist United Church of Christ. If some or many UUs are identified as "classist and elitist," the question is, according to what and whose standards? Jesus WOULD BE the highest standard, with George Fox and Lucretia Mott of Quaker fame and Gandhi being excellent proteges. Meanwhile, say, the rationalists Unitarian Joseph Priestley and Deist Thomas Jefferson made key compromises that even anti-religionist pro-social businessman Robert Owen and UK Christian "socialist" FD Maurice didn´t make. By JP and TJ´s standard, "classist and elitist" UU´s are who the UU association agrees with mostly, and they don´t see things your way. UUism is a religious association, not a church, and has principles that show why Greek philosophy didn´t thrive much onits own, and secularized unacknowledged Christian rationalism are easily fudged within wider social conventions.