Thom Belote, a guest Philocriteer, is asking if there could be anything like an "emergent UUism."

• Is Emergent a style/form or a theology/theological process or both or something else?

• Would an Emergent-style UU church work?

• If so, would such a UU-Emergent church need to be grounded in U/U/UU Christian theology, or could such a church work with a theology that wasn’t Christianity-based?

• If our congregations could learn one thing from a place like Jacob’s Well, what would that be?

Then, in comments, Clyde Grubbs makes this excellent observation:

Based on my observation, congregations like those in the Emergent network develop a coherent story of freedom and liberation based on the Biblical narratives.

If a Unitarian Universalist group decided to build a church on such a model, the founding group would need to covenant around a set of stories to create a narrative of freedom and liberation, and develop its various ministries to bring those stories to life in people’s lives.

(Before I talk about Clyde’s point, I want to point to an old post of mine on "emergent UU worship."  It answers some of Thom’s questions.)

Clyde wonders if we’d need a set of liberation narratives and, even more, a group that would covenant around them.  I’ll agree about the set of stories and almost go with the covenant.

I wouldn’t necessarily limit the set of stories to liberation stories, which would, as Clyde tend to be perceived as "too Christian."  (Or too political, depending on how it was done.)  Going with the "sources of the living tradition" we could also have narratives of transcending wonder, spiritual wisdom, ethics, reason, and harmony with creation.  This diverse set of narratives would make it a distinctly UU set of narratives.

It would also be an open set of stories.   Open in the sense that the set is open to many faith traditions, but also open in the sense that we wouldn’t be closing it off, wouldn’t be saying, "These are all the sacred stories anyone needs.  We will accept no more after today."

Then there’s the question of covenant, and I almost agree with Clyde.  But I think something like a pre-covenant or, better said, a covenant to consider, by engaging and exploring the narratives, making a covenant around the stories.  That is, through this hypothetical UU worship service, we would "try on" (with a mind toward purchasing) each of the sacred narratives.

There are twin dangers to avoid.  One is a premature covenant, or one that would exclude UUs with other sacred narratives.  For example, I’m not a Buddhist, and though I deeply admire the Buddha and want to learn more about him, I would go to a sangha if I wanted a Buddhist service every week.  Rotating faith traditions and the ideals behind the sources of the living tradition would insure that we would all be challenged and comforted by new and familiar narratives in turn.

The second danger is a worship service that presents a religious flavor of the week.  Or, "let’s pretend we’re just like those silly/precious/misguided/pitiful Buddhists/Christians/humanists/etc."  If worship leaders don’t lead the worshippers into an honest engagement with each week’s sacred narrative, you’ll end up with little more than religious tourism.

A final thought.  The uus that are not UUs that I know would probably eat up this kind of worship.  They find our worship too intellectual, too sermon-centered, and not nearly liturgical enough.  An emergent UU worship service would meet their needs.  And there have to be more than just the ones I know out there.