So it’s time for Making Chutney to jump in on the controversy surrounding Rev. Peacebang’s recent post, “Having Opinions.” Better late than never, eh?
To summarize her critique of UUism, which grows ever more precise:
- The Eternal Sharing of Opinions About Who We Areâ„¢.1 A potential turn off to new folks. Boring. And offers nothing new to lifelong UUs. (I recently learned that some lifelong UUs will even attend seminary just to ask “where’s the beef?”)
- Vague Religious Seekingâ„¢, a three-pronged practice involving (a) reading books, (b) coffee houring, and (c) Having Opinionsâ„¢. Problem because it directly counters UUs’ belief in Our Terminal Uniquenessâ„¢, at least in any town with a bookstore or coffee shop. Another problem: who gives a damn that We Have Opinionsâ„¢?
- She attributes the situation to a lack of options to do otherwise, or, more specifically, to a lack of training and teaching to do otherwise. In our ardor to avoid one-path-ism, we have defaulted to charting no paths, or at least no path that hasn’t been charted by PBS and the local book club.
The main problem with Peacebang’s analysis, as I see it, is that she’s right.Â
She also makes a prognosis: offering a living tradition, clearly defined and stated in affirmatives. I want to be more specific. And I’m guessing Peacebang and I are not far apart on what follows.
We need to start teaching each other spiritual disciplines, intentionally and systematically.2 By “spiritual discipline” I mean a practice that (a) can be taught in two hours or less, (b) forms and transforms who you are, and (c) takes a lifetime to master.3
Arbitrary Marks has suggested that the Eternal Sharing of Opinions About Who We Areâ„¢ may itself be a UU spiritual discipline. I am open to this suggestion as it stands, and I’m a sucker for any discussion of self-reflexivity (would that make it reflexive self-reflexivity?). But I don’t see how it is taught or can be taught in a two hour workshop, so that rules it out, in my book, as a spiritual discipline. That is, there is no clearly recognized and taught method to the madness, like with the Quakers and consensus.
Further, returning to Peacebang’s critique, I can’t see that UU self-definition, as it’s done now, leads to transformed lives. To state it baldly: we do not have the luxury of doing things that do not transform lives (or lead to transformed lives). Of course this, precisely, is our “luxury,”4 but this isn’t the post for another of my classism critiques of UUism. We ought to get about our business, and quit talking so much about what our business is.
Arbitrary Marks suggests we take a look at the Hindu model of four spiritual paths. Hinduism is at least as inclusive as UUism, and yet it offers four distinct and teachable spiritual paths. Could we not do something similar and still count ourselves inclusive? The six “Living Traditions” look as good a place to start as any.
So to take my own medicine, I’ll be following up in the days ahead with posts teaching the ancient spiritual discipline of Lectio Divina, or “spiritual reading,” a UU-friendly discipline I’ve both taught and practiced. I invite others of you to join me in creating online UU instruction in spiritual disciplines. We will still have the larger question of the “Hindu model” to address, but I suspect that delving into instruction in spiritual disciplines will get us a good deal of the way there.
Yeah, this definitely resonates. I understand the point of your reference, but when I was mired in quakers, the method of learning how to work the consensus tool was pretty clear to me: observe those who know how to do it. And not unlike many things friend, it’s simple and to the point, yet hard for non-quakers to understand. At least that’s how I saw it.
Off to start a committee or something…
Bless your heart.
Arbitrary Marks suggests we take a look at the Hindu model of four spiritual paths.
He does? Where? I didn’t find it.
I did mention the four paths in one of my posts. Care to follow up with that theme? Might be interesting….
It’s in the sixth paragraph of the post I linked to.
What’s the address for your post?
Kim emailed me the address. It’s the fifth comment here.
Is it possible to slow down enough to find the sacred in the every day without living in a hut at Walden Pond?
You need to explain this better to me tomorrow at work. Maybe I’m just tired, but this didn’t make a terribly large amount of sense.
Further, returning to Peacebang’s critique, I can’t see that UU self-definition, as it’s done now, leads to transformed lives. To state it baldly: we do not have the luxury of doing things that do not transform lives (or lead to transformed lives). Of course this, precisely, is our “luxury,â€[4] but this isn’t the post for another of my classism critiques of UUism. We ought to get about our business, and quit talking so much about what our business is.
I think that this, in a nutshell, captures an important point. Religions should definitely be about tranforming lives. A religion that doesn’t transform lives and reveal itself through the lives of its believers is a stale one indeed.
I’d like to read more about the multi-paths approach when I have time, but my immediate reaction is one of intense interest. It seems much more helpful and coherent to say “We believe there are many paths to Truth, and we usually group them together in 4 paths like this: Service, Ritual, Learning, Kinesthesis (or whatever we decide they are)” That seems a much friendlier approach to giving people complete spiritual freedom. There’s some methodology there: “OK, I can pick one of these to explore thoroughly, or do a combination of them, and I can switch back and forth throughout my life if I choose.” OR “You know what, I’m always approaching Truth through Learning. What would happen if I tried some Ritual for a change?” If UU is currently a smorgasbord, this appraoch might be Dim Sum.
Kinsi,
:-P
Whoa, does a religion have to be about transformation? What about simply enhancing meaning (or is that akin to transformation?), fellowship, structure, and service? Am I missing the point? This “transformation” sounds like a “saving” of some kind to me.
On a side note, I did go to a UU revival of sorts – at suusi. It was mildly campy, but not a parody at all. There was honest-to-? *testifying*, boo-hooing, and Amen Brother/Sister! People talked about when they got the call, came to UU’ism, fo trill.
[…] Links « Calling the question […]
Danielle, in a word, “yes.”
Would you really want to belong to a church where people were doing fellowship and service from a place of nasty factionalism, stiff self-righteousness, and coldness of heart? There are thousands of such religious communities in the world. Without a belief that we must all be, in some measure, “saved,” there’s no point to a church. Every religious tradition has at its heart and soul the urgent message that we must conform our lives more and more in accordance with some higher ideal. Without that commitment, it’s all empty show. And it really is. I’ve seen that show, and it’s one of the saddest spectacles on earth. I thank you for asking this question because it has clarified for me my certainty (which I get not only from Christ but from Jung) that the entire purpose of a life is to grow the soul. This cannot happen with transformation.
I’ve been ruined by my historical training–I always come back to the past to see what we have been, in order to determine if there might be a clear way forward. When I survey U and U history, I see several specific movements that have developed within our denominations (some went outside of U or Uism for a time before effectively moving the denominations forward along their lines). They could be listed in the following way, in approximate historical order:
anti-Trinitarian Unitarianism
freedom of conscience Unitarianism
Trinitarian Universalism
unitarian Universalism
Transcendentalism
Free Religion
Humanism
Unitarian-Universalism
Overall, these tended to be movements related to thought, not practice. They did not offer unique spiritual disciplines, though they did carry implications for the disciplines we already had in place. In general, U and U spiritual disciplines historically have been prayer, reflection, scripture study, moral conduct, and social service. These are not unique to U, U, or UUism, though they have sometimes existed in unique combinations and/or with unique interpretations in our denominations. We also have had other practices that are not in themselves disciplines, such as hymn singing, communion, discussion, etc.
U and Uism have most often been about transforming Christianity, not transforming individuals. Each of these movements was a reform movement–except for Unitarian-Universalism, which was an organizational restructuring (but an argument can certainly be made that it has developed along reforming lines). The concern with these movements overall has been to advance organized religion to make it more truthful, flexible, and/or inclusive; this does not mean that such reforms weren’t expected to have beneficial impacts on their practitioners, but there has simply been far more rhetoric about transforming religion than transforming persons in our past. Obviously this is a generalization, but even Transcendentalism, to which this observation applies the least, still displays considerable interest in reformulating religion in the abstract when you burrow back into the sources. The transformation of individuals in all these movements was still expected to come through some combination of those traditional disciplines already listed (prayer, moral conduct, etc), perhaps more efficiently now that religion had been purified. In relation to individuals specifically, it has not been our impulse, historically seeking, to transform persons, but to reform them.
By this last statement, I mean that Unitarianism and Universalism, taken on the whole, have both been less radical than some may suspect. We were generally the anti-evangelicals, and don’t let the revisionist approach to Universalism fool you. We have never been about changing what people are, but about making them more fully follow the good impulses that already exist within them. Most of the movements listed above took human nature to be at least as good as bad, if not moreso, and sought to refine those better angels of our nature and set them a-wing. The disciplines of orayer, reflection, and scriptural study pointed the way, and moral conduct and social service put our ideals into practice.
In short, I don’t find that UUism offers a unique spiritual discipline. But this may not be such a problem, since our general orientation has not been to be unique, but to be as faithful to our commitments to truth and freedom as possible, commitments others also often share, though they may reach different conclusions about what reforms are thereby made necessary. If we might apply all of this to modern UUism, we could consider the process/idea of building your own theology. The production of a personal theology is not generally a transformative activity–it clarifies and codifies thought structures and heart orientations already in place, reforming (not transforming) them so that they are most faithful to themselves and therefore operate most effectively.
When people come to us wounded, I think we would prefer to reform them, or rather than they reform themselves through interaction with our community. Personal reform is something that one largely undertakes oneself; those who refuse to reform themselves and move toward greater spiritual maturity–who need genuine transformation–put us in a considerably more difficult place. Sharing opinions about who we are and encouraging vague religious seeking are indeed unlikely to provoke significant personal transformation, but I think many UUs are uncomfortable with trying to transform others or even telling them that they need to undergo transformation. This is not the only option–many churches out there are daily demanding transformation from their parishioners (these churches have historically been our adversaries). If we are to move toward a UU commitment to transformation it will take considerable examination of our motives and practices.
The difference in my view between “transforming” and “saving” is that those who talk about being “saved” are concerned about the afterlife; “transforming” focuses on this life in the here and now.
Jeff,
Great to hear from you. I’ve missed your comments in the UU blogosphere.
I think I take most of your points. I don’t think UUism needs a unique spiritual discipline as it needs simply to encourage and cultivate spiritual disciplines. From this, new and unique takes on classic spiritual disciplines will arise naturally, as folks share and learn from one another.
Your distinction between reformation and transformation is helpful. Because of our orientation toward personhood, I hear you saying, we are asking for change from a different starting point than traditions that allege one degree or another of human depravity. But I think the UU reformism you mention would fit within my own understanding of transformation.
I very deeply believe in our inherent worth and dignity, but I also very deeply believe in our profound brokenness. Human brokenness has been a minor them in UUism, to say the least. I think we have a lot to gain from acknowledging our brokenness and working to heal it. Spiritual disciplines will go a long way toward helping that happen.
Let me say that I believe our brokenness to be circumstantial more than essential, which is to say that I’m not veering in to Original Sin here, lest feathers be ruffled.
Danielle,
As I said via email, I think we can talk about immanent transformations (closer to Jeff’s notion of reform) and transcendent transformations, immanent transformations being slow and subtle, transcendent being sudden and crisis provoking (or crisis provoked). I’ve experienced both in my life.
I would see us being more concerned to encourage immanent transformations (and here I am probably in tune with the larger UU tradition) more than transcendent, but I do mean to encourage. Spiritual disciplines are more about immanent, ongoing transformation anyway.
We should also be open to the radical breaks that transcendent transformations make happen. Transcendent experiences tend to elicit either fear or scorn and that seems illiberal and unliberating both.
Thanks for the kind words, Chutney. Lord knows I’ve been busy, still am (just finished teaching a summer session class on Liberal Traditions in American Religious History, and now I’m preparing for three months of dissertation research in Kyoto). But I do read the UU blogs when I can.
I think you read me right; I also think you’re right that this vocab of transformation vs. reform can be understood in more than one way and that what I’ve grouped for apparent clarity’s sake under one term could arguably go under the other from a different perspective. I’m only trying to provide tools for thinking and discussion, not stating the final word on these issues in any way.
Brokenness in U and U lingo has more often refered to communities than to persons, but I think there is a place for it on a more individual level. Growing up UU, I think I was given an outsize impression of my own capacity for positive good in the world. Now as an adult, I find that I’m in much less control of myself than I imagined I would be, and that I move forward as often by letting go as by pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. If I’m not necessarily “broken,” I’m certainly imperfect and have no realistic hope of true perfection, which was a bitter pill to swallow in my younger days. This isn’t Original Sin, with its metaphor of stain and pollution–it’s Original Imperfection, our inability to truly live up to our own highest ideals no matter how hard we try. Meanwhile, many people come into our denomination with real brokenness, and we need to be able to help them heal. They probably need a different metaphor than me, who needed some air taken out of his over-inflated head.
It is interesting that you use the term “transcendant transformations,” since it was the Transcendentalists who most nearly developed a program for actual transformation of individuals within U and Uism. This relates to their understanding of the nature of language, as famously displayed in Emerson’s Divinity Address, among other sources. Language has power, it should actually provoke inspiration in the hearer. These inspirations are mainly reformist in principle I would argue, but there is room for more radical transformations as well in the Transcendentalist critique of organized 19th century Unitarianism. Since Transcendentalism was as much a literary movement as a spiritual one, and emerged from Puritan New England with its (historically unusual) emphasis on preaching and the place of the sermon in the church service, they had great confidence that inspired words could inspire and change others. If there is a place for transformation in U and Uism, at least historically speaking, I would locate it in open receptivity to inspired preaching. This isn’t quite a discipline, which as you note has more relation to reform than transformation.
The truth is, we rarely transform ourselves. We reform ourselves. Transformation is usually the result of something acting upon us. Thus the effects of inspired preaching in Transcendentalist Unitarianism, or of awakening to God’s unconditional election of all humanity in traditional Universalism. Just some more thoughts in this same vein.
A few clarifications…
1. I’m a She, not a He. For some reason, a lot of people make that mistake, though I mention that I’m a lesbian throughout my site. Kim is the fourth, I think, to do so. Not sure what that means.
2. I don’t think I used the term “Eternal Sharing of Opinions About Who We Areâ„¢”, and I know I didn’t talk about the Hindu paths. Though I did mention Hinduism.
3. As relates to the ESOAWWA(tm), I am not advocating mere “sharing” but a fuller interaction with texts in our history and in community with each other. My idea is basically that if we view revelation as ongoing, we ought to make strides towards a hermeneutic interpreting that revelation. A group, perspectival, dynamic hermeneutic seems a good place to start. My post was mostly just that, a start.
cK,
I believe Peacebang used ETOOAWEA. Sorry about the misattribution—I got confused amongst all the posts and comments. And I take your point. I’m all about perspectivalism. And starts. I hope I didn’t imply disagreements between you and Peacebang that weren’t there.
chutney, no prob. Just thought I would make the comments here where the discussion is. It’s a complicated issue. Peacebang and I probably agree more than is evident online. Plus, she’s got more experience with UUism than I do, so I will generally defer to her observations. My perspective is of a newbie.
Thanks for picking up the discussion and running with it. It’s good to see.
Sorry CK — I didn’t know you and Arbitrary Marks were the same person (am I correct that you are?)
Jeff — the thread you and others are leaving out is the other Hindu path — that’s why I brought it up:
My source is Huston Smith The Religions of Man and the revised version The World’s Religions:
the four paths to The Infinite are love, work, psychological exercises, and knowledge. Americans have a problem with acknowledging that knowledge or intellectual pursuits can lead to enlightenment. We tend to think of intellectual as escapist. But Smith says the intellectual path is considered the “shortest but the steepest” path to enlightenment. I submit that I am not the only one in UUism who has stumbled onto the intellectual path to enlightenment — I have tried meditating and etc, but each time I have had a transcendant Experience of the Divine (or whatever you want to call it), it has been triggered by something intellectual, an idea. I know I am not the only one.
UUs are criticized by others and by ourselves for being “too intellectual”, but I think it might be because we have had a succession of leaders who truely Experience enlightenment through intellectual means (“people for whom ideas dance and sing”), and they don’t state it explicitly enough for people to understand that the intellectuality is a path not an end in itself. And people who are on other paths don’t understand this one, or even acknowledge that it exists often. Maybe it’s hard for people to really see that any path that is not their own truely exists — we UUs generally have trouble really believing that the path of Love (devotion to deity) can REALLY be spiritual…. It’s so hard to see someone else’s point of view!
It would be nice to develop some stuff around UU revelation, and maybe not just be the religious “Miscellaneous file”.
I won’t contribute anything else to the blogosphere until everyone knows that CK IS A WOMAN! Including me!
Thank you.
I’m very proud to have coined another set of complicated UU letters that only insiders understand. I think “ESOOAWWA” is a lot snappier than Rachel Ray’s “EVOO” (Extra Virgin Olive Oil). Take THAT, Rachel.
Carry on, everyone! Great discussion! I’m getting sermon topics left and right!
Peacebang, thanks:)
Yes, I am “ck” and I have a blog called Arbitrary Marks. I usually sign my comments as ck but my WordPress account is set up to say arbitrary.marks. Sorry if it is confusing. I don’t mention my gender much, so people will often assume one way or the other.
Kim, yes, I remember reading about the Hindu path to liberation that involved intellectual study, and thinking–YES, that’s my path, if I had to choose! I do meditate, and I took one yoga class–I’ll never get enlightened if I have to go those routes (unless it takes many lifetimes…) But I don’t think intellectualism is not limited to dry propositions.
I spent some time reading a festschrift for Raimon Pannikar today–who is a Christian turned Buddhist turned Hindu (but while staying a Christian, he says). I haven’t read his work yet, but I highly recommend this book about his writing. I will have to post about it later, but essentially he argues for an approach to religious pluralism that incorporates love, and has a vision for justice. It was very encouraging and tantalizing. I made a few notes in my reading journal where I marked “UU?” next to some quotes.
I second PB–carry on with the discussion, I’m learning quite a lot.
Just curious — what are the ideas for sermons you got from this discussion?
[…] Last month I promised to start a series on the ancient spiritual discipline of Lectio Divina, or spiritual reading. And, well, here we go: some words on rationale, purpose, and sports equipment. […]