I suppose folks will be lining up around the block now that somebody has found an image of Jesus on their dog’s butt. The Lord works in mysterious ways. (Hat tip to the General.)

A quick excerpt from church consultant Mike Durall’s book The Almost Church: Redefining Unitarian Universalism for a New Era. (You can read a quick summary of the book here.)

While our principles call for the respect and dignity of every person, not all members serve the congregation well. Unfortunately, some people come to church with their own agendas, which may not benefit the congregation as a whole. In fact, the persistent efforts of six to ten people can turn a healthy congregation into a dysfunctional church.

When people come to church, they don’t want to get into conflict with their friends and neighbors. This is not to say that disagreements never occur. Churches are human institutions and good decisions are often the result of ideas from different points of view. however, most parishioners will walk away from conflict when it arises in church, leaving those who created the conflict in a position of inordinate strength.

A friend of mine is a Presyterian minister and he related an incident in his church regarding a group of perinnially disgruntled members. He and the board chair gathered this group together and said to them, “We love you dearly, but we’re going to ask you to take a leave of absence from the church for a year or two, to think and pray about whether this church is truly the one for you.” As much as we desire our church to serve all in our midst, som epeople should be cut loose—perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently.

Anybody in the mood for some goat kicking?

I’m teaching high school religious education this year, and we’re starting the year off with the UUA’s “Articulating Your Faith” curriculum. Today we were talking about what we say when folks ask what UUism is.

The phrase that popped into the mind is “an open faith for religious humanists.”

Does that work? Does it leave anybody out?

Recently, I would have considered the “humanist” label too narrow. But in a recent congregational survey, it came up that “humanist” was the most popular choice of theological flavor, but that it seemed to be everyone’s second choice. That is, most people who chose “humanist” also chose something else (Christian or Buddhist or pagan or what have you).

I’m growing more and more fond of the term “religious humanist” since I first heard it. And I still find Lo-Fi Tribe’s thoughts on it very chewable:

I do believe humanity to be the author of our world’s religions — great and small. I don’t believe the fact at all diminishes the importance of religion. In fact, I think it actually increases it. Why would not a properly thinking humanist NOT consider religion to be EVEN MORE IMPORTANT if it IS truly a product of human rather than divine revelation?

I suppose the “religious” end of “religious humanist” might ruffle a feather or two. But if we are a prediminantly humanist religion, doesn’t that make us religious humanists by default? (I suppose the objection could be made for the “open faith” part of the definition too.)

What about “spiritual humanist” as an alternative? Better or worse? Seems a little more descriptive and evocative, though the way these folks us the term doesn’t mean what I thought it should mean. Throw “religious naturalism” into the mix, and the waters get muddier still.

Mostly, I want a definition that’s descriptively correct, but also proscriptively useful. It should say something not only of who we are and who we’ve been but also of who we wish to be. “An open faith for religious humanists” is the closest I’ve been able to get so far.

Free with your love gift to the 700 Club.

What I’ve been reading this week at The Daily Scribe:

• The ever-fecund Pop Occulture coins a new term: “convergent spirituality.”
• Threedays tells us why men hate going to church.”
• The Journey reminds us that the Gospels aren’t bedtime stories.
• Arbitrary marks gives us the word on truthiness and the Pope, and also warns the Pope’s fellow academics.
• Lo-Fi Tribe makes an announcement: he’s not only a religious humanist but also a UU Christian.
• Finally, Yet Another UU renews the conversation about an “emergent” UUism.

There’s been an ongoing discussion in UU blogs about the need for theological renewal and, more specifically, a religious narrative that works for UUs. (To follow the post trail, start here, then go to Philocrites, then to Lo-Fi Tribe, then to Arbitrary Marks.)

I want to mark off two kinds of narratives: mere-stories and plot-stories. (Don’t kill me, English majors—I know this ain’t quite right.) By “mere-stories,” I mean—to bounce off of Arbitrary Marks—narratives without eschatons. By “plot stories,” I mean narratives with eschatons. I’d also say that any narrative with a plot is a narrative with an eschaton. I’ll try to fill all this out more.

A plot-story is one with suspense, one that leads somewhere. We may not know where it’s going, but we know more and more as we go along. Plot-stories open a space for us to get inside of them. They become part of us, as they are told, and we become part of them. Plot-stories make new stories happen.

Mere-stories are more observational. That don’t make us feel like something is at stake. We aren’t invited to have strong feelings about them, and they don’t invite us to reason our way through them, hoping to anticipate the end.

UUism has a lot of mere-stories.

I also want to suggest two kinds of religion: liberal religion and liberating religion. Liberal religion tells mere-stories. Liberating religion tells plot-stories.

So I ask: Why does it matter that Jesus is not God? Why does it matter that there is no Hell? Why does it matter that all are saved? Why does it matter that we are not born into sin? What is the plot-story that makes these questions liberating? Click to continue reading “A sacred story in need of a plot”