Unitarian Universalism and ‘apostasy’
The UU blogosphere is an interesting place. Throughout the past three to four years since I’ve been active within Unitarian Universalism (hence “UU” for those unfamiliar), I’ve watched a couple of bloggers leave the movement for Christianity (United Church of Christ and Brethren in Christ). There’s been quite a bit of debate about how unfriendly UUism can be towards non-Trinitarian Christians and/or pagans. It’s full of fundie atheists, some say. Well, it looks like one blogger has left his church (and the movement at large) because of its antagonism towards atheism. It sounds like his minister had decided to interpret the world through James-Fowler-colored-glasses and to understand the aim of “faithing” as a pluralistic eschaton where: “people can enter into virtually any tradition’s religious festival with an openness to receive whatever truths are convincing and comfortably leave behind the parts of the tradition that don’t speak to truth or to their conscious or unconscious mind. There’s a readiness for significant encounters with other religious traditions” [source].
Although this sounds like Unitarian Universalism in a nutshell, the problem is that Fowler makes it a normative description: this is how people should develop. And if you’re an atheist, the implication is you’re stuck at Stage 4, where they are “unaware of the sharp limits of their empathy and their abilities to construct and identify with the interior feelings and processes of others.” I have to say that, personally, Fowler’s Stages of Faith was one of the first books I read as I explored my own questions about Christianity–at least one of the first non-theological ones.
But, honestly, I’m not “up” on UU theology and denominational heavy-hitters enough to know whether he is truly influential in Unitarian Universalism. What I find telling is that the people whose “apostasy” stories I’ve read all seem to have one thing in common: they find the pluralism in UUism to be not only intellectually weak (or at least insufficient for them), but in practice to alienate their personal development. And that, it seems, is the only real way to “apostatize” from Unitarian Universalism, whose theology is grounded in the belief that God loves all and that no one is ultimately punished.
Someone who believes that they cannot accept words whose use becomes so flexible as to make them ambiguous, someone who believes that they have–more or less–some truthful representations of reality and that others are in error (and not just the “fundies”), someone who believes that maturity may mean telling someone their ideas are not as legitimate as everyone else’s…does that someone have a place within Unitarian Universalism?
In two months as I move to Austin, I have a suspicious that I’ll be finding some Buddhist sanghas to practice meditation with, rather than UU congregations where I will “worship” a “god” that I don’t believe exists.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I’ve never heard Fowler’s name mentioned in a UU church.
You will be a much bigger loss than Dr. Rieux, who has never understood that part of free religion is other people having theological opinions as well as you being allowed to have your own.
CC
June 19th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
(I first met him on Beliefnet like five years ago.)
June 19th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
CC, thanks. I’m not necessarily saying that I want to leave because of a Fowler-induced mania, but as I’ve mentioned a few other places here, I haven’t been attending in nearly a year, don’t find a need for “worship”, and am not comfortable re-appropriating god-talk, even metaphorically. It’s more like a moving on to a place where I fit. I’m not sure that the UU aim of pluralism works for everyone, is all.
But it’s good to know that the views Rieux represents as being part of his church aren’t necessarily widespread.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Yeah, I’ve known Rieux for years and he has always reminded me of Ignatius J. Reilly, particularly Ignatius’ habit of going to vulgar movies just so he can bitch about how vulgar they are and how far society has fallen. (As he’s exactly as impressed with himself as his handle would suggest.)
The trend has certainly been a theistic one in the UUA, and I’m sad to see some of the people that feel left behind. You will really be missed.
CC
June 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Well, let’s put it this way–I’m probably going to Oak Park UU on Sunday with my wife, so it isn’t as if I’m shaking the dust off of my sandals. I simply am not sure that it makes sense for me to use that label for myself as I’m not really bought into the movement, though I can respect it and have participated (teaching adult Sunday school, joining a Covenant group).
I never signed a membership book due to my hesitations; I am perfectly happy being an occasional UU church-goer. And perhaps having kids in the future would change my mind about the role of the institution.
At least now, I’m content being an agnostic with no need for a religious community.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I’ve never heard Fowler’s name mentioned in a UU church.
Neither have I, but it’s true that his ideas about faith stages have enjoyed a lot of UU currency lately, primarily because UU minister Scotty McLennan relied heavily on them in his recent book Finding Your Religion.
Although I haven’t read McLennan in several years, I don’t recall that his adaptation of Fowler was anywhere near as hostile to atheism or non-theism as Dr. Rieux avers.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Well, hi, y’all–what a reunion this is. Our host here just invited me over from the chalice_circle LJ, and it’s instant memory lane!
I do indeed remember the old days with chalicechick on beliefnet (sniff–she liked me back then….), and if memory serves fausto gave me a little drive-by ad hominem on Paul Wilczynski’s blog last summer.
In my own defense, I think I’ve produced a very large amount of material (you can read some relevant examples at http://tinyurl.com/2kz7gg ) that explains, in often excruciating detail, what it is that leads me to the conclusion that various prominent UUs have mistreated nonbelievers. I have to question the parallel between “vulgar movies” and the works that I criticize; works like A Chosen Faith and “The Language of Faith” represent several of the most prominent and influential texts in the past 25 years of this Association. If they’re a movie, it’s freakin’ Star Wars. (And it’s hardly widely accepted that those texts are “vulgar.” I think that’s a reasonably good word for ACF, actually, but my interlocutors frequently beg to differ.)
I’m afraid that the notion that I “never understood that part of free religion is other people having theological opinions as well as you being allowed to have your own” is absurd. I have never denigrated a UU for having theological opinions that differ from my own. The only thing I have ever protested is UU expression that mistreats or marginalizes innocent people–and my focus has largely been on the many shots that have been directed from UUA bigwigs toward nonbelievers.
CC, you have me absolutely wrong if you think I have any problem with the existence of UUs who have different theological outlooks than I do. Until this past year, during the tenure of our interim minister, I was delighted with my church of several years, a place in which atheists are a distinct minority. The senior minister who was fired in 2007 was a staunch theist, and he made no bones about it; he preached from the New Testament on a regular basis. I thought he was great (thanks in no small part to the respect that he showed toward folks with different beliefs than his own), and I was not pleased that the lay leadership ran him out of town. If you read the sermon that I delivered–at that minister’s request–in July 2006 ( http://tinyurl.com/2npuk3 ), you can see the shout-out I gave him near the end.
As I have maintained doggedly, what I have always objected to is the serious mistreatment of nonbelievers by people who profess to affirm and promote the First and Fourth Principles. I have explained, quoting chapter and verse, where I think prominent UUs have gone wrong on this score. If you think I’m wrong, would you mind explaining where, specifically, you think I made a mistake?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Okay–now to the actual issue our host raised.
Until this past October I had (like CC) never heard the name James Fowler mentioned in a UU church. Actually, I’d never heard of him at all. But the sermon that my church’s interim minister preached that month, with its rancid shots at us Stage 4 Neanderthals, piqued my interest a little.
(Speaking of said rancid shots–hey, Fausto, didja catch the peachy passage from Fowler that my minister ( http://tinyurl.com/2vt2w7 ) quoted at us? Here’s Fowler blowing kisses at my kind:
These persons [in Stage 4] are often unaware of the sharp limits of their empathy and their abilities to construct and identify with the interior feelings and processes of others. Religiously, these persons are often drawn to the rigidities and seemingly unambiguous teachings of fundamentalism–and there are liberals and radical fundamentalist spirits. As spouses, parents and bosses, such persons are, at the best, insensitive, and at the worst, rigid, authoritarian, and emotionally abusive.
What a swell guy!)
Anyway, I read Stages of Faith and came away more than slightly unimpressed with Fowler’s attempt to declare a system of “faith development” that (1) conveniently places his own religious outlook at or near the “developed” peak; (2) denigrates conflicting ideas as less-developed steps in a normative, hierarchical, and immutable series; and (3) carries very dubious pretensions of being reproducible social science. The notion that Stage 5 is normatively superior to Stage 4 (or 3, etc.) is absurdly pejorative, and it’s substantiated by nothing but Fowler’s own religious partialities. I just don’t think that–to say nothing of the potshots at my people he takes in the process–deserves any respect.
AM, you write:
What I find telling is that the people whose “apostasy” stories I’ve read all seem to have one thing in common: they find the pluralism in UUism to be not only intellectually weak (or at least insufficient for them), but in practice to alienate their personal development. And that, it seems, is the only real way to “apostatize” from Unitarian Universalism, whose theology is grounded in the belief that God loves all and that no one is ultimately punished.
I think there are cogent concerns in there (ones to which I’m generally sympathetic–I think they resemble the reasons I’m an atheist even though I’ve read plenty of Tillich and Spong), but in my personal case those aren’t the grounds for my (second) apostasy. I have no problem accepting the pluralism of UUism; I think the diversity of outlook in the congregations I’ve been a part of has brought benefits that, for me, outweigh the intellectual concerns you cite. I’m sure you’re correct that those concerns have been a bigger problem for other ex-UUs; perhaps one such apostate can be found at http://tinyurl.com/63snrl . But the Rieux that left UUism because liberal theism (or something) was “intellectually weak” is the caricature that CC has created to knock down, not the actual person over here.
No, my overriding concern is that I think there is considerable evidence that there are powerful figures within the UUA, especially within the clergy, who see it as their right to attack atheists on incredibly personal and cruel terms, frequently in extremely public fora. I’ve been trying to draw attention to that problem for several years now, to little avail. I constantly get pigeonholed as this God-hating atheist who’s trying to muzzle theists and shove them out of UUism, even though I’ve never breathed a word in that direction. Atheophobic stereotypes do all the work; all my thousands of words of citations, quotations, explanations do nothing to prevent me from being branded (not least in this comment thread) with a ridiculous cliche.
The final straw for me, as I mentioned in my last chalice_circle LJ entry, was the realization that my theologically diverse congregation, which I’d been so proud to be a part of, was not going to do anything at all to protest or challenge the atheophobic nastiness in our interim minister’s program. I thought I was safe from UUA-empowered jerks who write garbage like this:
For an atheist to expect CHURCHES to pander to the a-theistic search for truth and meaning is like hiring a dental hygienist with no arms to do your cleaning, and expecting her to do a good job of it.*
…because my friends in my congregation would rise up to defend me and mine. When the time came, though, they didn’t rise up; my kind was bashed in ugly fashion from our own pulpit, and no one did anything at all. My unhappy missives to the president of my congregation and to members of our Ministerial Search Committee, complaining about the inappropriateness of the Fowler-inspired shots at nonbelievers, met with blinking incomprehension.
So at that point I decided I had to leave. If a community can stand for that garbage without protest, it seems to me an unavoidable conclusion that that community isn’t interested in upholding the inherent worth and dignity of every person or the free and responsible search for truth and meaning at all.
That’s why I’m an ex-UU.
–
* For clarity, I should mention that this “dental hygienist” crack didn’t come from my interim minister, though the interim’s Fowler-inspired stuff wasn’t all that far behind in its venom quotient. The UU minister responsible for “dental hygienist” does happen to be a good friend of CC’s, though.
June 20th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
@ Fausto - thanks for the perspective. I read McLennan when I was leaving the Reformed church and remember appreciating his take on Fowler, but I haven’t looked at it in years. My guess is that Fowler’s framework could be appropriated in any number of ways.
@ Dr. Rieux - thanks, I think, for the lengthy replies. I don’t have the time to sift through all of it, nor do I really have a desire to. I was curious about your take on UU pluralism, which is why I left the comment at LJ and linked to this blog. Perhaps it’s just more my own hang-up than anyone else’s! I wish you the best as you move forward.