Coffee Hour

RevThom says:

While Unitarian Universalism is a mouthful and too often leads us to adopting the off-putting insider-speak of acronymns (UU), I think it a bit hasty to scrap it. After all, we've only had the name for 43 years.

As much as I might wish for something new and catchy, I'm aware that most things new and catchy today are old and passe tomorrow. Our name sounds new-agey (face it: Universalism sounds 'new-agey'... like, the universe, man) enough without having to lose all our historic ties. I like the fact that I can explain the 200+ year history of Unitarianism and Universalism in America to anyone who suggests it must have been invented in the sixties.

It seems like you can name a religion after a founder, a practice, a theological difference, or an organizational form.

If we were to name ourselves after our polity, then the best name for us becomes clear:
CONGREGATIONALISTS! :)

Thomas Dunn says:

It is common today to hear "Unitarian" used as a working title for "Unitarian Universalist" or "Unitarian Universalism" (at least here in San Francisco)and it is my observation that terms used colloqially have a way of eventually becoming accepted language. I don't see the need to take any action. Time will take care of it for us.

Michael Ivey says:

As someone more Universalist than Unitarian, I am dismayed by the seemingly growing trend of calling us Unitarians. That was a primary objection of the Universalists to the merger in the first place.

Will Shetterly says:

RevThom, thanks for sending me out to learn a little about congregationalists. It is a shame all the best names are taken.

Thomas, my suspicion is that inertia and nostalgia will keep us from finding a new name, unless something pressing arises, like another merger. And then I fear we'd end up tacking something new onto what's already a list instead of a name.

Michael, if we were to fall back on one of our parent names, I'd prefer Universalists, too. Our unitarian heritage seems rather irrelevant today, but our concern with inclusivity is as strong as ever, even if the focus isn't on salvation.

Matthew Gatheringwater says:

Although I try to be conscientious in saying "Unitarian Universalist", sometimes when people say Unitarian, they really mean Unitarian. Just as there are people who more strongly identify with Universalism and describe themselves as Universalists, there are folks who strongly identify with the Unitarian tradition. I became a Unitarian before I even knew there were Unitarian Universalists, and I was born after the merger. Perhaps that is why I am surprised to see my chosen religious tradition described as "irrelevant." I've just got to ask: what, exactly, is irrelevant about our Unitarian heritage?

Will Shetterly says:

Matthew, I was also a Unitarian before I knew about Universalists. (Born in '55, went to a church in Gainesville, Florida in the '60s that I never heard called anything other than the Unitarian Church.) I love the Unitarian presence in the history of civil rights.

But when was the last time anyone was burned or even excommunicated for believing that God had one nature rather than three? You can find Protestants, and maybe a few Catholics, who'll tell you that they don't get the Holy Ghost thing--they're effectively Christian Unitarians. It's just not a big deal anymore.

It's also true that Univeralism isn't a big deal anymore--there are Universalist Christians who aren't paying dues to the UUA. But you're not going to find very many who will agree with you that God is going to bring Hitler, Saddam, and Osama into the heavenly choir. And the ones who don't agree with you are far more likely to get pissed off than the ones who disagree with your quaint notion that there's something wrong with the Trinity.

I want a name that means more than a merger. So if I have to pick one of the pieces of our name, I would like the one that better suggests our range of beliefs. Unitarianism suggests a singleness of nature that I don't see in the UU congregations that I've known. Universalism suggests an acceptance that I do see.

Chris Walton says:

"Liberal" is a even older word in our tradition than "unitarian." (Before they were known as Unitarians and certainly before they embraced the label, our high-brow Congregationalist predecessors were known as "liberal Christians." That's a term with more breadth in it than the doctrine-of-divinity label they got tagged with later on.) I wish there were a way for us to reclaim what is deepest and best in liberalism and embrace it publically. There was a proposal early in the 20th century to bring Unitarians and Universalists together in the Liberal Churches of America or something similar. I could have supported that idea.

When I'm asked about my religion, I will sometimes take the time to say that my religion is Christianity, that my theology is liberal, that my philosophy is a blend of pluralism, pragmatism, and process metaphysics, and that my denominational affiliation is the Unitarian Universalist Association. My much shorter answer is that I'm a Christian humanist.

Dicing up the nuances of one's "identity" may not appeal to everyone, but this approach has allowed me to see how my commitments are related to each other even though they don't all share the same genealogy.

As for "Unitarian Universalist," well, I think doing away with the name would make it too easy for us to go completely ahistorical. ("Protestantism broken loose from general history" was what Henry Whitney Bellows worried was happening to the Unitarians as far back as 1859. I think he accurately named an ongoing problem for us.) The last thing our tradition needs is to lose the need to wrestle with an unwieldy past.

I don't believe there's really an "ism" in Unitarian Universalism, but if people don't want to call themselves religious liberals who attend Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist churches, I can hardly stop them from calling themselves UUs!

Will Shetterly says:

Chris, I was just thinking of another name I like, based on who we are: the Religion of Social Justice. Dunno what that would make us. Activists, I suppose. But I could be very happy with something like the Assembly of Liberal Religion. It has the advantage of not scaring off those UUs who think we're more of a Sunday morning social club than anything else.

My primary objection to our current name comes from my complete agreement with "I don't believe there's really an "ism" in Unitarian Universalism." If it's meaningless, why keep it? What are its advantages? I can't get past two: "It says who we used to be" and "Keeping it is easier than changing it." The second makes a lot of sense to me. But, for all that I love history, I think it's a good thing every now and then to throw dead weight overboard and set a new course.

Will

Stentor says:

To me, "freethinker" connotes a sort of dogmatic hyper-rationalist atheism. I don't know how widely that association holds -- it may be just a quirk of the people I've met who most loudly proclaim their freethinking status.

If "church" is a problem, you could easily enough grab the term "assembly" from your later suggestions. "Seekers' Assembly" has a nice ring to it, and it seems to connote the elements of non-doctrinalism and congregational democracy pretty well.

Matthew Gatheringwater says:

In all of the panic and outrage surrounding the threat of a Unitarian Universalist congregation losing its tax-exempt status for not being recognized as religious enough (Boycott Texas? As if Texas would notice…), it is ironic that there has been little conversation about how Unitarian Universalists are not sure they are a religious group, either. If we can't figure it out, can we really blame public officials in Texas?

Thanks, Will, for explaining your comment. I guess our difference comes from the fact that "Unitarian heritage" means something more to me than a single doctrinal position. It represents a particular expression of the liberal religious impulse that caused people to reject the Trinity as irrational and unscriptural in the first place. It is the rigorous practice of a rational and loving faith, with shared beliefs about human nature and shared dreams for our human future. It is the insistence that truth is more important than tradition in religion. It recognizes that the greatest freedom is the freedom of the mind. It is the practice of self-culture and an optimistic conviction that we really can improve ourselves and the world in which we live. It is a religious response to the Enlightenment, modernism, and new discoveries in science. It is the flowering of American literature, for goodness sake! None of that is irrelevant to me.

Perhaps the doctrine of unitarianism isn't a big deal for Unitarian Universalists, but it was certainly a big deal for Andrew Furlong when he was called up on charges of heresy for denying the divinity of Jesus. (His book, "Tried for Heresy: A 21st Century Journey of Faith," tells his story.)

Jeff Wilson says:

There's lots of great comments on this thread. I've thought about this from time to time--Unitarian Universalism is certainly a mouthful, not to mention a lot of typing. I'm one of those who doesn't like the tendency to call us all Unitarians as shorthand. I grew up in the Universalist Church of West Hartford, and even though this was well past the merger, the church is in many overt ways still a New England Universalist church. We've got a stained glass Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount behind our pulpit, the baptismal font is there to the right, our doxology praises God, our fifth-graders receive Bibles (I still have mine), there's a biblical verse on the outside wall of the church, and our white steeple is one of the most prominent landmarks in the town. The orthodoxy of the church is no longer Christian, but the religious philosophy of the congregation is clearly Universalist in tone.

I also don't like the catch-all term Unitarian because I'm not a Unitarian, and I'm not a Universalist--I'm a Unitarian Universalist. I cherish both of my parental religious lineages and feel they are inseparable from each other in the religion that I follow. I'm not a Unitarian in the way that British or Continental Unitarians are: the Universalist co-mingling is something specific to this continent and adds something valuable to me. I'm not a Universalist either--despite the trappings of my home church, I've never been a Christian. Unitarian-Universalist may be a dismayingly long term, but it is the only one that accurately describes the lineages that influence me as a spiritual being and the happy marriage of two faiths that has nurtured me all my life.

Will Shetterly says:

Stentor, I have to agree with you about "freethinker." I don't like smugly arrogant names--I hate the use of "brights" for atheists because of the implicit "dims" for everyone else. I prefer "heretic" to freethinker because it accepts some danger--there are people who think self-proclaimed heretics and witches and liberals should burn in hell, and a few who would be happy if the roasting began sooner. So I hereby withdraw my support for "freethinker."

I also like Seekers Assembly a lot. Thanks!

Matthew, I love your love of the connotations of "Unitarian," but couldn't you say much the same about "Universalist"? My problem with our name continues to focus on the denotation.

Thanks for reminding me about the Furlong case. I did a quick google to refresh my memory, and came across an entertaining set of comments at titusonenine, where a few traditional Anglicans weigh in. One post I liked was the suggestion that Furlong was a 19th century Unitarian and should join us (but I don't know if he's a Universalist, so maybe he shouldn't join us). Another was a conservative's argument that begins, "Definitions matter. The terms Church, Christian, Communion, schism, inclusiveness are used so loosely they risk losing any sensible meaning. If one does not believe our Lord’s death on the cross “relates” to the forgiveness of sins, then he is not a Christian." I quite agree that definitions matter. That's why I'm being so tiresome about our name. (And the moment I become annoying, please tell me! I don't consider this A Major Issue, honest!)

Jeff, this discussion has had me thinking more and more about names of merger and names of marriage: Usually the wife takes the husband's name, but sometimes that's reversed when wealthy families want to continue their names. Sometimes both names are kept, usually as hyphenates, but not always (one of our favorite couples are the Nielsen Haydens). Sometimes a new name is chosen to represent the new union.

I'll never think there's anything wrong with our parent religions. I just think they've given birth to something new, and the growth of that new thing is hindered by a long name that no longer represents us.

This discussion has made me conclude that we won't change our name unless we merge with another group or have a split-off of our own. But we could have a new nickname. It doesn't have to sound anything like our formal name: look at Quakers and Mormons. (Though it's true those names were given by outsiders. Maybe I should just hope that some outsider will give us a name we'll be willing to accept.)

Chris Walton says:

Ooh, Will, let's merge with the Quakers and the Mormons! Then we could be the Unitarian Universalist Society of Latter-day Friends! (Or something . . .)

Eileen says:

The Association formerly known as Unitarian Universalist?

chutney says:

What about Emersonian? I know he's not the founder, but the name recognition would help people clue in to what we're about...

Chris Walton says:

Well, I guess we can't claim to be the only "UUs" anymore: Meet the United Universists.

Meanwhile, on a somewhat related note, the Unitarian Universalists at LiveJournal are discussing "UU Atheists: An Endangered (and Embattled) Species?" You have to be a LiveJournal member to join the discussion, but it's fascinating simply to read.

Will Shetterly says:

Eileen, hey, if there are Congregationalists, why not Associationalists?

Chutney, I could be happy with Emersonians. Quibblers would say that Emerson moved beyond 19th century Unitarianism, but the fair response is that so did we.

Chris, I read the other UU's front page, and I don't see why we couldn't merge with them. Yooyoo-yooyoos, anyone?

Steve Caldwell says:

On 4 June 2004, Will Shetterly wrote:
"But when was the last time anyone was burned or even excommunicated for believing that God had one nature rather than three? You can find Protestants, and maybe a few Catholics, who'll tell you that they don't get the Holy Ghost thing--they're effectively Christian Unitarians. It's just not a big deal anymore.

It's also true that Univeralism isn't a big deal anymore--there are Universalist Christians who aren't paying dues to the UUA. But you're not going to find very many who will agree with you that God is going to bring Hitler, Saddam, and Osama into the heavenly choir. And the ones who don't agree with you are far more likely to get pissed off than the ones who disagree with your quaint notion that there's something wrong with the Trinity."

Will,

The names "Unitarian" and "Universalist" both reflect historical roots that we can trace as the source of the growth of our shared UU spiritual home. Rebecca Parker (President of Starr King School for the Ministry) did a series of theme talks on theology of UU religious education at the 2002 LREDA Fall Conference. Rebecca's metaphor for looking at UU theology was that of a house and each component of our house represents a different aspect of theology (e.g. foundation = theology, roof = soteriology, walls = ecclesiology, etc).

Kate Tweedie Erslev (the author of "Traditions with a Wink!" and "Chalice Children") has prepared a UU young adult small group ministry curriculum that uses Rebecca's house metaphor to explore our Unitarian Universalist roots (see sessions 4 and 5 in the curriculum). This curriculum could be adapted for use with youth and older adults as well.

In this curriculum based on Rebecca's talk, Kate Erslev writes on the subject of UU theology (how we view God and humanity in our tradition):

"Our UU theology has emerged out of a historical process. Our theology is not that 'We can believe anything we want to.' The early house of Calvinism in the 19th century had as its foundation that human power was in bondage to sin. In contrast, the American Unitarianism that emerged had as its foundation that humans have a power to choose. Humans had willpower, and the powers of the soul are good. Universalism gave us a foundation that God is good. Twentieth century humanism contributed to the foundation of our house by adding that we don't need a supernatural 'God' but that goodness comes from within us as human beings."

In the past, the word "Unitarian" may have implied a belief in a singular deity and a rejection of the doctrine of the trinity. But we have Unitarian Universalists today who do not believe in a deity (e.g. atheists and agnostics) and Unitarian Universalists who believe in many manifestations of the divine (e.g. some pagans). Since our faith tradition is a living one and not static, I would suggest that we have moved beyond the 19th century meanings of the labels "Unitarian" and "Universalist" in our shared Unitarian Universalist faith tradition.

In this curriculum based on Rebecca's talk, Kate Erslev writes on the subject of UU soteriology (how we view salvation in our tradition):

"Once again, in contrast to the predominant foundation of the theology of Calvinism, our roof was raised by the 19th century Universalists. Universalism gave us a roof that saved us all. They said that what saves us is the power of creative love made viable to us in
the person of Jesus.

Do we need to be saved from Hell? The Universalists said that we create heaven and hell on earth. We need to be saved from the Hells that we create."

By the 19th century, our Universalist ancestors had moved beyond a literal "hell" as a place and towards the ideas that "heaven" and "hell" are situations we can create on earth.

Finally, there's a suggestion provided by Sharon Hwang Colligan in "Children of a Different Tribe" that our core identity isn't Protestant Christianity or Humanism but rather a Pagan faith tradition. Our Sunday morning services (which often resemble the form of Protestant Christianity) and our training provided to our ministers (which allows them to explain who we are to others in theological terms they'll understand) are ways of providing outreach to newcomers. But our religious education classrooms, youth groups, camps, conferences, etc. (what Sharon calls the "heart of our spiritual community") are deeply Pagan at heart. Here's what Sharon writes about this view of Unitarian Universalism as a Pagan tradition:

"UUism, at least in the form it takes in our camps, conferences, and Sunday Schools -- which I believe are the heart of our spiritual community -- is in my perception a Pagan religion. It is circle-based, earth-honoring, and present rather than distant in spirit. It honors human sexuality, and female leadership. It seeks harmony rather than domination.

In a cross-cultural context, that is pretty much the definition of Paganism.

The boring, overly rational, Protestant style Sunday morning services for which we are famous? They're a front.

They exist primarily to convince outsiders that we are really a Christian Church, or almost, just like one. To introduce them gently to our ways, in a framework they can understand.

The same is true of our divinity schools. They exist primarily to train a class of leaders who can talk to the Christians, who are trained to argue with them in their own terms."

So ... I'm OK with the multi-syllabic mouthful called "Unitarian Universalist" even though we are not fighting theological battles over trinitarian doctrine and hellfire. They do respect the history and the process that provides the unique theological house that we share today with our children, youth, and young adults raised as birthright UU and also our newcomers who discover us later in life from other faith traditions and the ranks of the unchurched.

Chris Walton says:

Steve, I'm not sure if these are your words or Sharon Hwang Colligan's, but I'm just going to be blunt about the following passage:

The boring, overly rational, Protestant style Sunday morning services for which we are famous? They're a front.

They exist primarily to convince outsiders that we are really a Christian Church, or almost, just like one. To introduce them gently to our ways, in a framework they can understand.

The same is true of our divinity schools. They exist primarily to train a class of leaders who can talk to the Christians, who are trained to argue with them in their own terms."

Whoa. If I ever came to the conclusion that this was true about the Unitarian Universalist movement as a whole, I'd pack my bags and leave. The UUs who believe this about themselves — who believe that our current tradition and contemporary practice have no meaningful relationship to our tradition's past except as a kind of false front — are deluding themselves and lying to others.

Do we have a problem comprehending our own history? You bet we do. But the sort of Trojan Horse approach you seem to be endorsing — "Hey, you sure got some famous names, pretty buildings, and old endowments there; it'd be cool to borrow them to make my made-up faith seem okay to the neighbors" — just pisses me off. I did not spend four years and thousands of dollars in seminary to make a sham religion look nice.

If this is somehow the mentality of the "circle-worship" contingent, please have the integrity to just call yourselves pagans and get on with it. But thanks for making me aware of it.

Will Shetterly says:

Steve,

You say, "Since our faith tradition is a living one and not static, I would suggest that we have moved beyond the 19th century meanings of the labels "Unitarian" and "Universalist" in our shared Unitarian Universalist faith tradition." That's at the heart of my wish for a new name. When you combine red and blue, you don't make red-blue; you make purple.

Or to try the house metaphor: The Smith house and the Jones house are moved onto a new piece of property and joined so nicely that only an architect could tell where the join was done. Two Smiths and a Jones continue to live in the place, but a dozen others--Chans, Cohens, Muhammeds, and more--also move in. They paint and decorate the place together. Should it be called the Smith-Jones house? Or would a new name be more appropriate?

Jeff Wilson says:

I think that Sharon's essay is really a separate topic, but it's funny that it came up here just as I'd finished reading it for myself online. For an article that takes some smart, interesting approaches to people born within the UU fold, it sure ends stupidly. That's not a term I use lightly. UUism as front, as Paganism, as site of resistence to whiteness: this essay ends on a surprisingly ill-informed, close-minded note. Sharon can't seem to differentiate between her own biases and the general history of the denomination, and worse yet she's been co-opted by the pseudo-history of the self-congratulatory Neo-Pagan community. Even those of us who frequently don't relate to Sunday services wouldn't go so far as to suggest they are some sort of prop. I was really disappointed that she drifted so far into fantasy and polemic at the end.

Steve Caldwell says:

On 10 June 2004, Chris Walton responded to Steve Caldwell:
-snip-
"Steve, I'm not sure if these are your words or Sharon Hwang Colligan's, but I'm just going to be blunt about the following passage"

Chris,

My punctuation may not have made this clear enough ... I was quoting Sharon Hwang Colligan's writings.

I do think that she raises some valid points ... how do our Sunday morning worship services appear to those raised in a UU faith tradition? If we were to have a worship experience welcoming to all ages (children, youth, young adults, older adults), how would that worship be different or the same from what we currently have in most UU congregations on Sunday morning? If we were intergenerationally welcoming and retained most of our UU youth and young adults, how would our congregations look? How would this affect congregational growth in numeric and other incarnational ways?

On 10 June 2004, Chris Walton responded to Steve Caldwell:
-snip-
"But the sort of Trojan Horse approach you seem to be endorsing — "Hey, you sure got some famous names, pretty buildings, and old endowments there; it'd be cool to borrow them to make my made-up faith seem okay to the neighbors" — just pisses me off. I did not spend four years and thousands of dollars in seminary to make a sham religion look nice."

Chris ... I don't think it's really fair to call youth or young adults raised in our congregations as some sort of "Trojan Horse" sneaking into Unitarian Universalism. I've attended enough youth and young adult conferences to see that there are stylistic differences in worship, social justice activism, governance, etc in UU youth and UU young adult communities. These youth and young adults were children that we raised in our faith communities.

Many of those you refer to as the "'circle-worship' contingent" are youth and young adults we nourished in our UU congregations ... they are the adolescent and adult children of our faith communities. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for folks like myself to be quiet and listen to their concerns rather than telling what their faith tradition is or should be. They may have something to teach us about worship, community, social justice, etc.

I find the attitudes commonly held towards our youth and young adults puzzling. What other faith tradition would consider the experiences of "homegrown" youth and young adults raised in a faith tradition to be a "trojan horse" that is somehow "sneaking" into the faith tradition? Most survey data I've read is that 90% of our adult UU population are adult converts to Unitarian Universalism. I'm not suggesting that we adjust this 90-10 split by reducing the number of adult converts we bring into UUism. Rather, I think we need to examine ways to make our UU congregations more welcoming to youth and young adults ... adjusting the 90-10 split from the youth/young adult side instead.

Perhaps we can make an analogy between faith and languages. I can take language classes in a language I have never spoken until adulthood, but the person who is fluent in the language since childhood may have an outlook and abilities in this language that I don't have. The attitudes and abilities that I have with this language (while important) are not the same as the native-born speaker of that language. Imagine how Spanish would be as a linguistic community if only 10% of Spanish speakers were "homegrown" speakers of the language and the other 90% were "adult converts" to Spanish? Imagine the impact on available Spanish literature, language usage, word play, etc.

Moving from this language analogy to our faith communities, it's fair to ask what effect having an adult UU population that is 90% converts does to worship, adult RE, church governance, social justice activism. If our congregations were intentionally welcoming to those who are not present at the welcoming table now, how would they look and how different would they be from their current state?

Here's my background describing how I discovered Unitarian Universalism. I was an adult convert to Unitarian Universalism. My partner and I celebrated our relationship in a UU ceremony in 1981 (we were trying to find a spiritual setting for a recovering Catholic and a "dogmatic agnostic"). When I joined the US military in 1983, I picked the more famous label "Unitarian" for my dog tags and personnel records and began my journey as a self-identified member of this faith tradition (I wanted this label rather than "generic Protestant"). When we had our first child in 1987, we joined the only available UU congregation in our 3000 person town in Northern Michigan (Church of the Larger Fellowship) -- being an example of the punchline to the old joke:

Q -- What's a Unitarian Universalist?

A -- An agnostic (or atheist) with children.

When we moved to Rapid City SD, we joined the congregation there. And when we moved to Shreveport LA, we joined the congregation in our current town.

At age 44, I'm certainly not a youth or young adult, but I've learned so much from working with UU youth and young adults in my congregation, my district, and the wider continental UU movement. There are possibilities that we older adults are not learning from UU youth and young adults and we older adults are poorer for this lost opportunity.

Chris Walton says:

Steve, as a long-time Sunday School teacher and as a former high school youth advisor at one of the UUA's largest churches — and as a former facilitator of the Continental UU Young Adult Network (C*UUYAN) — I'm highly sympathetic to people who want to do a better job integrating young people into our regular Sunday services and into congregational life generally. Don't get me wrong.

But it is a specific idea of what youth and young adults want that I'm criticizing — because I believe, based on my own experience as a young adult and as someone who has worked closely with congregational and denominational programs for young people, that they deserve and often want something better than the watered-down, anti-historical, quasi-pagan thang that gives some con-goers such goosepimples.

You're right that many youth and young adults — and many older UUs — find spiritual value and a strong sense of community in the circle-worship model. I'm not denying that. But I know for a fact that there are many, many "birthright" UUs who find little to no value in it. This isn't a divide between born-and-raised UUs and newcomers; it's a divide between a historically-conscious sense of congregational tradition and an ahistorical, extra-congregational paganism. And I can't help but notice: You're a boomer on one side of this divide; I'm a Gen-Xer on the other.

One reason that the Sunday service can seem cold and boring to kids is that many churches never bother to bring those services to life for their own children. Adults don't think about why they worship the way they do, or seek to understand how a church service can touch people more deeply or without using grad-school vocabulary, and they rarely teach their children to think about and value the parts of a Sunday service or its overall structure and form. (In many congregations, worship is probably a hodge-podge that barely makes sense to the adults. But that's another problem.)

But before we abandon valuable and meaningful models, I'd think we could try teaching them to our children.

When I was a youth advisor, some of the adults on the YAC thought we should just toss out the church's typical order of service for Youth Sunday and "do it youth-group style." I said no, and instead put together a curriculum for our overnight Youth Sunday planning-session lock-in to help the kids see why the adults worship the way they do — and to invite them to think about how we could achieve similar goals using materials more familiar to us. My goal was helping familiarize them with our tradition even as I was helping them bring their experience and tastes into that form. They didn't know very many hymns, and weren't sure they liked the ones they knew, so the musicians in the group and I spent some time learning some hymns I thought they might like. (They gravitated in the end to some surprisingly "traditional" ones.) We talked about what a pastoral prayer does — and then some of the kids wrote one. We talked about what an offering is, what a benediction is for, what opening words can do. We talked about the ministry of ushers; we talked about looking like we took the congregation seriously — you know, dress up! We didn't break the form; we embraced it and put it to work for us.

The result: The kids put together a service they were proud of and that the adults respected. Over the three years I was in the position, attendance at Youth Sunday and Coming of Age Sunday went way up because people knew the quality would be high and the spirituality deep. I didn't ask the kids to stop being themselves. I helped them translate — and in the process helped the adults in the congregation listen to and appreciate what the kids had to say.

The only thing dead about our Protestant-style worship is our imagination. A good church service can speak to people of any age. And yes, it can learn a thing or two from informal midnight circles in the woods. But when we don't help our children understand where their own tradition came from and help them relate to it, we effectively show them the door — even if we then try to lure them back by asking them to make the church over in the image of whatever they've come up with to fill the void.

Jeff Wilson says:

Chris Walton said:

But it is a specific idea of what youth and young adults want that I'm criticizing — because I believe, based on my own experience as a young adult and as someone who has worked closely with congregational and denominational programs for young people, that they deserve and often want something better than the watered-down, anti-historical, quasi-pagan thang that gives some con-goers such goosepimples.

You're right that many youth and young adults — and many older UUs — find spiritual value and a strong sense of community in the circle-worship model. I'm not denying that. But I know for a fact that there are many, many "birthright" UUs who find little to no value in it. This isn't a divide between born-and-raised UUs and newcomers; it's a divide between a historically-conscious sense of congregational tradition and an ahistorical, extra-congregational paganism. And I can't help but notice: You're a boomer on one side of this divide; I'm a Gen-Xer on the other.>>

I'm just pulling these two paragraphs out because I think they are so right, they deserve to be read again. I'm a birthright UU, now 28-years-old. I grew up in UU Sunday School and youth group. Neo-Paganism is something I understand from long-time exposure, and feel sympathic toward. But as a thinking UU, the average Neo-Pagan myth of history is as repugnant to me as your garden-variety Biblical literalism. And I don't think circle-worship is in any way superior to typical Protestant-style UU services. What matters is that you do things right. I've been to plenty of lame circle-worship services and lots of awesome church services. And vice versa. The people who want to claim the voice of all UU youth/young adults as being somehow inherently Neo-Pagan, anti-church, or any other partisan thing are simply coopting a very diverse cacophony of voices for their own ends. Sharon Hwang Colligan does not speak for me, and does not speak for many birthright UUs I grew up with (which doesn't mean that I don't agree with many of her points and see her as a kindred spirit).

On another note, are we really sure that 90% of UUs are adult converts? I see this percentage mentioned frequently, yet no one ever cites a reliable study.

Steve Caldwell says:

On 11 June 2004, Chris Walton replied to Steve Caldwell:
-snip-
"Steve, as a long-time Sunday School teacher and as a former high school youth advisor at one of the UUA's largest churches and as a former facilitator of the Continental UU Young Adult Network (C*UUYAN) I'm highly sympathetic to people who want to do a better job integrating young people into our regular Sunday services and into congregational life generally. Don't get me wrong.

But it is a specific idea of what youth and young adults want that I'm criticizing because I believe, based on my own experience as a young adult and as someone who has worked closely with congregational denominational programs for young people, that they deserve and often want something better than the watered-down, anti-historical, quasi-pagan thang that gives some con-goers such goosepimples."

Chris,

I also writing with some experience in youth and young adult UU ministries and other areas of lifespan faith development:

** local and district YRUU youth advisor -- 1999-Present
** district youth camp advisor -- 2002-2003
** LREDA representative to UU Campus Ministry Advisory Committee -- 2002-2003
** attended ConCentric as a CMAC member -- 2002-2003
** OWL Teacher/Trainer (Grades 7-9 and Adult OWL)
** RE teacher (preschool through high school)

What you're calling " ... watered-down, anti-historical, quasi-pagan thang that gives some con-goers such goosepimples ... " actually has some UU historical roots. This style of worship has roots going back at least to 1960s era LRY and was one of many elements from LRY that was maintained in YRUU. It may not have roots going back to 17th century Puritan Congregationalism, but it's been around long enough to be considered a historical UU tradition (alongside other recent UU traditions such as BGLT advocacy and sexuality education -- both traditions that date back to the late 1960s-early 1970s and would be considered out of place to our pre-UU Congregationalist ancestors).

Personally, I think if we were to move to something closer to "circle" worship on Sunday mornings and at other times, we might lessen the gap between the youth group/con worship experience and the currently typical worship experience.

Then Chris wrote:
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"You're right that many youth and young adults and many older UUs find spiritual value and a strong sense of community in the circle-worship model. I'm not denying that. But I know for a fact that there are many, many "birthright" UUs who find little to no value in it. This isn't a divide between born-and-raised UUs and newcomers; it's a divide between a historically-conscious sense of congregational tradition and an ahistorical, extra-congregational paganism. And I can't help but notice: You're a boomer on one side of this divide; I'm a Gen-Xer on the other."

Chris ... if I hadn't had some experience as a youth advisor, I wouldn't have known about differences in worship and community styles and I probably would have been satisfied with our typical Sunday morning worships.

But I'm glad that I've had diverse worship experiences so I can compare different UU worship styles. I'm sure that others out there may have different experiences than mine, but the most powerful worship experiences I've experienced been in con and retreat settings and not on Sunday morning. Sunday morning is pleasant and often intellectually engaging (especially the worships I've experience in the nearby Longview TX UU Fellowship). But Sunday morning rarely gets far beyond pleasant in my local congregation.

However, I should have suspected that something was different with my response to Sunday worship in my congregation. I enjoyed attending the small and intimate worship experience that we had in the Rapid City SD fellowship. However, 1-2 years after moving to Shreveport with its larger and more traditional worship, I found myself the much appreciated by our RE committee. I would rather spend time teaching RE and not attend Sunday morning worship ... mainly because RE classroom also had the "circle" and "interactive" elements found in con worship experiences.

But my greater affinity for non-traditional worship isn't due to a lack of familiarity. I attended mainline Protestant services growing up as a child and a youth (generic Protestant services in Air Force chapels and neighborhood Methodist church in high school). The Sunday morning model isn't foreign to me and I'm familiar with it ... when I'm attending this style of worship with children or youth, I model appropriate participation in this style of worship.

Then Chris wrote:
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"But before we abandon valuable and meaningful models, I'd think we could try teaching them to our children."

I don't think that we should totally abandon the traditional "rectangular" worship service either and I also think that our children and youth should be familiar with it.

But I also think that we do our adults a disservice by not making them familiar with non-traditional worship models like circle worship that are also a part of our UU heritage.

My partner is the DRE in our congregation and she has often commented that we should expect our children to "stretch" in their development in intergenerational worships that use a "rectangular" model. However, I've pointed out that we never see anyone saying that our adult population needs to "stretch" by participating in a non-traditional and interactive circle worship on Sunday morning.

Also ... if we insist on the "rectangular" worship style because it's preferred by the dominant age demographic group, we may want to view this trend through an anti-bias/anti-oppression lens. If I've learned anything from reading historians like James Lowen (who's also a UU), what is "historical" and who determines what is recorded in our history isn't a neutral fact-finding effort.

Both worship models are UU traditions and are part of our history, but I rarely see anything outside the "rectangular" model on Sunday morning. If both "rectangular" and "circle" worship styles have validity, then we do our congregations a disservice by not engaging our entire congregations in "rectangular," "circle" and other worship styles.

Steve Caldwell says:

On 11 June 2004, Jeff Wilson wrote:
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"On another note, are we really sure that 90% of UUs are adult converts? I see this percentage mentioned frequently, yet no one ever cites a reliable study."

Jeff,

Here's what I found on the UUA web site ... it's a summary of the 1998 UUA’s Fulfilling the Promise Survey Results prepared by Laurel Amabile (Church of the Larger Fellowship Board Member and Lifespan Program Consultant for the Thomas Jefferson District and The Mountain) for the CLF Board:

"When describing themselves, about 63% of the nearly 10,000 Fulfilling the Promise survey respondents indicated that they had been Unitarian Universalist for eleven years or more. Nearly 37% had been UUs for 10 years or less. Nearly 10% of these identified as lifelong UUs (birth right), and the median was about 16 years."

In the sometimes imperfect world of social science surveys, this 10% number is as close to fact as we can get. In the six years since this survey, I don't know how much this demographic has changed ... does anyone know of any recent surveys of UU demographics that's more current than this 1998 survey?

Jeff Wilson says:

Steve, thanks very much for that link and info, it's helpful. I went and checked out the site for myself, and noticed that the CLF survey listed after the Fulfilling the Promise one found 11% of their respondents to be lifelong UUs. That's mighty close to the just under 10% figure found in the survey you cited, which lends it some strength.

I've been hearing this whole 90% thing for longer than 1998, and when I reflect on it, I realize that what I often hear is fellow younger UUs lamenting that 90% of our compatriots eventually leave the denomination. I'm not a math expert, so I don't know if the fact that 90% of current UUs are converts necessarily means that 90% of birthright UUs switch religious affiliations. In fact, it may be that we often confuse these numbers, or that the statistic on birthright UUs is more speculation than based on hard data.

I guess that a large part of this is out-marriage. UUs I've known were often willing to convert or at least allow their children to be raised in their spouse's religion, which typically placed more demands on staying within the fold. I was lucky, I married a girl I met at church, so our kids will be UU.

Chris Walton says:

Steve, we've probably taken Will's original theme off on a tangent. I hope he doesn't mind!

I don't want "circle worship" excluded from the Unitarian Universalist movement. I just think it works better in a conference setting, in a small-group setting, in informal settings. It does many things very well, but it does not offer a viable alternative model for weekly congregational worship. Why? The settings where it is most successful are essentially in-group focused. Its strengths are intensifying the sense of intimacy and bondedness. But its weaknesses are its reliance on intensifying vulnerabilities and its exclusion of people who are on the threshold, checking us out. I don't think it can be done in a truly intergenerational setting, week after week, as the primary service of a congregation that is anything but very small and essentially static in membership.

Circle worship can't really help Unitarian Universalist congregations grow — although it may be able to help Unitarian Universalist congregations grow deeper when implemented in a small-group setting or as part of a larger educational vision. I'm convinced that paying attention to improving the formal qualities of our larger, public worship services offers a much better way for us to grow in size and relevance.

From my perspective, trying to approach the youth-friendliness of a worship service from an "anti-oppression" angle is (usually) to raise the emotional and political stakes in a way that makes it almost impossible to evaluate the situation honestly. I have seen too many "traditional" churches do an outstanding job of involving young people in their services to believe that the real issue is the style of the service. And to suggest that the style is somehow innately oppressive is to wander into the absurd sort of argument that a friend of mine once offered when he told me that classical organ music was "racist" and that only a Hammond B3 organ could be "anti-racist." Huh?

Will Shetterly says:

Chris, hey, all the best conversations digress!

Chris Walton says:

Maybe we can change "Unitarian Universalism" to "Conversational Digressionism." It's one syllable shorter, and more accurate!

Will Shetterly says:

I just took the poll. (Voted for "Church of the Search" because I keep liking "Seekers," but I probably should've gone with "None of the Above," since my favorite wording for a new name right now would be something like Assembly of Seekers.) The poll gives the results after you vote: what's not a surprise is that the current name is leading. What is a surprise is that it only has 35.5% support; the majority (of 17 voters) likes a name change.

Steve Nohe says:

How about joining with the active movements in the UK, Australia, and NZ in becoming a "Sea of Faith Network"?

roger says:

might it be that the circle worship favored by younger members and youth groups is liked because it is different from what is happening in the regular service?
I would agree that a blending and stretching from all involved is what is needed to grow a UU church.
as far as the name is concerned, how about "You-Me"?...

Mark Brooks says:

I have come up with my suggestion. Church of the Not Otherwise Specified. Check my blog for more about it.

Joanna Crawford says:

Choking at the thought of changing our name. Knee-jerk choke, in this case. A few years ago, our church tried to change our name (Northwest Community not being particularly poetic) and it nearly killed the church. Go figure.

What's the thing about having two UU's in a room and three opinions? ;P