Unitarian Universalists: C/D

I just joined the local church yesterday, which feels as weird as me saying I got elf-ear implants – joining a church is something I never thought I'd do. Anyway, mostly it is a bunch of groovy retirees and some young weirdos, and it's nice to have a space where everyone's totes chill with one another and it's understood everyone'll help each other out and maybe share some fun, too. I dig it.

I have a great friend who is UU. I back it, and I love her dearly and think she's wise and seeking and listening and developing her person-ness in the world, so they must be teaching something right over there.

My experience is that this is pretty much indistinguishable from a particularly supportive hiking club, which I guess is a decent enough thing to be

abbott i am very interested in hearing your experiences at your new church. i know nothing about UU's except a joke i heard an old folk singer tell, about how the militant ones go around burning question marks on people's lawns.

but more sincerely, i have been feeling the urge to go out and find some sort of spiritual fellowship but for obvious reasons i'm not interested in any main-line faith. i mean, i'm a total junkie for iconography & incense & ritual & liturgical majesty, just not at all cool with the beliefs that those devices serve.

i kinda got that from yr poem dude ;)

x-post: And they don't have the Ten Commandments, they have the Ten Suggestions.

Can be a declared atheist and still join?

Do you believe in hanging out, discussing stuff, potlucks, and camping?

Hahaha that is excellent.

My experiences thus far is it's kind of like...let's see...I'll never write or draw or make something 90% of the time without a deadline. It's a lame thing of me, but it is also true (and v important to know it is true) about me. So this church provides that deadline-type feeling of significance (without perhaps the urgency) about trying to be a better person. That's the thing I like best about it. It's people all trying to figure life out in a curious, earnest and kind way, which I need.

It also provides genuinely good feelings during the service! They pass around the collection plate & the $$$ in it goes to the kid's homeless shelter here in town. They really do a lot of service & charity but in a fairly discreet, non-circle-jerk way. Like there's not a lot of smugness.

Also they are cool w/me being an atheist, which is enormously relieving, esp. in an area where it's kind of viewed as a bad character trait. I mean, I missed the community/social net of church but cld not get over the whole 'but they want me to believe in god?!?!' thing.

Also, they do have a lot of groovy rituals! I mean, a lot is just like 'I know a lotta you have never had a seder so us Jewish-types'll throw you one.' But in the service, there's a kind of structure, and ceremony to it, with a lot of room for imaginative, challenging free-form content, too.

Do you believe in hanging out, discussing stuff, potlucks, and camping?

Hahaha I fucking hate camping.

maria keeps saying she's gonna go to the uu church here on sundays. when she isn't hungover.

abbott, that sounds pretty groovy imo

The first service I went to was done by the kids, who talked about 1. sharing, 2. Obama is cool, 3. pets are very important, 4. a video clip from a Bollywood film with no subtitles about 'a man who reconsiders the importance of wealth.' It fucking ruled.

hahaha emlo I have tricked you into calling things groovy

I was married UU precisely because of the "we're cool w/ atheists" thing

ed do you attend services ever?

i went to uu sunday school. i dug it. i learned sex ed there. i have fond memories of our church in ct. and going to star island in the summer. that was fun. star island is a uu retreat. my dad went there when he was a kid. and his dad too. i'm 6th generation uu. which is unheard of.

star island:

http://yruustar.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/east-rock.jpg

i had some friends when i was in hs whos families were big into the UU scene - it seemed from a youths perspective to be an amazing sex and drug network - those kids knew so many people all over the place

elmo, have you ever been to beneficent at the corner of weybosset and empire? it's united church of christ which is related to unitarian (somehow, forget how). they used to have a pretty good service, lots of music, v. queer friendly. the minister there was tres cool but he moved on some years ago, I haven't been there in a while.

xpost - just saw yr question, lol, haven't gone in years

the main UU associate I know met her husband (and was latter married) on Star Island

I was once invited there and declined

(it does sound pleasant, though)

According to the old joke, if given a choice between going to heaven or going to a discussion group about heaven, Unitarians will opt for the discussion group.

All the UUs I have known have been lovely, loving people.

Did this shit briefly in high school, after I told my parents I wasn't too keen on a lot of aspects of Catholicism and they were like, "Yeah, us neither." And so we scouted for new churches for a few months and landed on a UU church that we liked.

Engaging woman minister, wide breadth of readings, thoughtful sermons, some cool and spiritually focused traditions. Only thing I didn't like was that they were big on having the kids do some Sunday School equivalent while the adults were in the service, and so for a couple of weeks I sat around with other 15-year-olds talking about Catcher in the Rye until I was like "this is dumb" and went back to the service with my parents instead.

And then after the minister left for another church, my parents stopped going because they didn't really like her replacement, and the nature of the religion is such that I think the individual minister sets the tone a lot more than in most places.

The last UU service I went to was in college, and it was the week before Election Day 1996, and the sermon was basically an exhortation to re-elect Clinton, which sort of turned me off (the injection of party politics, that is). But I've always been meaning to check out one of the churches in Chicago to see what they're like.

i went to star island a few times back in highschool!!! incredible place

http://www.csug.rochester.edu/users/ugrads/ebluest/SNES/thumbnails/CSTARROAD.jpg

I had never heard of this church before. Wiki tells me this:

Unitarian Universalists (UUs) believe in complete but responsible freedom of speech, thought, belief, faith, and disposition. They believe that each person is free to search for his or her own personal truth on issues, such as the existence, nature, and meaning of life, deities, creation, and afterlife. UUs can come from any heritage, have any sexual orientation or gender identity, and hold beliefs from a variety of cultures or religions.

Concepts about deity are diverse among UUs. Some believe that there is no god (atheism); others believe in many gods (polytheism). Some believe that God is a metaphor for a transcendent reality. Some believe in a female god (goddess), a passive god (Deism), a Christian god, or a god manifested in nature or the universe (pantheism), as revealed by science. Many UUs reject the idea of deities and instead speak of the "spirit of life" that binds all life on earth. UUs support each person's search for truth and meaning in concepts of spirituality.

Is it basically a gathering of people "searching for truth or meaning", as stated above? Is it a 'religion', or rather a group of people you're down with talking about all sorts of stuff, like, everything?

and are there potlucks?

can i just say i hate potlucks?

i hate potlucks too. nothing against unitarian universalists, if that is part of their religion, though.

Potlucks are crappy as hell. The only thing crappier is a 'luncheon' that involves putting baloney (arranged in a circle on a plate) + 'all the finxins' onto bagged bread. (Those are both big Mormon things.)

my parents were big on UU round robins. start at one house for drinks, then drive to another house for appetizers, then on to the main course, then on to dessert, and then a final drive for coffee and more drinks. this was the 70's though. people in ct. drove drunk more often than not.

my potluck/camping/hiking jokes were, well, half-jokes, based partly on observation and partly on the fact that when there's no unifying theology to your church, your practice does just kinda wind up being like "hey, who wants to have a picnic" -- i.e., a lot of the same community-based interaction/support of most religious groups

^ that is totally not a criticism and is cool by me for basically the reasons Elmo and Jaymc have talked about, where there's like this concerted variety of "fellowship" and community that tries to be positive and doesn't much bother with theological structure; "people hanging out and trying to be nice" is impossible to fault, no matter how much you want to joke about whether or not it constitutes a religion

the tone of the service really depends on the minister. they are all different. lotta hymn-singing in my church growing up.

it's weird, when my sister died we had a thing at our old church in redding and i hadn't been there in years. such a rush of memories. anyway, my mom made a point of telling the minister not to mention God in his eulogy. cuz i guess he believed in him. or it. or her.

There was definitely some potlucking going on at the church we went to. I think it was like a once-a-month deal where you rotated among different families' houses. The only thing I remember about the one that my parents hosted was that there was a retired couple there who were very loud about the fact that they were atheists.

Abbott, you'll know best whether your UU church is a good place for you. I think each UU congregation is going to have a different character and dynamic. There are squabbles and frictions and politics in most any church, but also fellowship.

If, after a time of really hanging with these folks you decide they just are not the thing, gently break off. But give it a decent chance. It isn't quite like a marriage, but making a church work for you is not easy, either.

I hope you've fallen among friends; it would serve you right!

Aw, thx Aimless. I am pretty happy w/it, and I think it will be good for me, or I wouldn't have joined.

if you decide you don't like them just say cant go with u too many U's

u__u

This is the kind of thing that makes me proud to be a Unitarian.

In 1984, the UUA General Assembly passed a resolution affirming the right of UU ministers to perform same-sex union ceremonies, and clergy have performed them ever since.

I was not yet able to walk!

Then you went to a faith healer?

I walked to one.

am a member and got married in the uu church, def the tone is set by minister. ours is a short, ex-air force dude whose parents were christian scientists (his dad died because he refused medical care for some routine shit). has name dropped black flag in sermon before.

abbott do you feel like uu churches are like safe havens in somewhat more conservative (or orthodox maybe?) locales for not-very--religious/would-be academic theological types?

the u_u church, morelike

I have lived in hyper-religious, hyper-conservative communities most all my life – the only tolerant, kind adults I knew in my hometown/towns in Idaho were Unitarians. There's a pretty big homogeneous xtian culture here, too – when I told people I was getting married, people asked if I was 'having a church or state marriage.' (I was surprised at this question & how common it was.) And when I said 'state' they were always like, 'oh...........that's cool.' And the Unitarian church here is basically entirely academic/would-be academics and they're more than happy w/any level of religiosity/'spirituality' a person chooses (tho I think they like if you think abt that kind of thing).

do you feel like uu churches are like safe havens in somewhat more conservative (or orthodox maybe?) locales for not-very--religious/would-be academic theological types?

not to make the obvious grim reference, but ... (obvious grim reference)

oh right except for that lol

Nowhere in the U.S.is safe from gun-toting crazies.

I mean actually we're quite safe & it hardly ever happens but the chance of it happening is a chance.

i know, just couldn't help coming to mind. some friends of mine go there, including one whose husband and toddler son were actually at the service that day.

i've never been a u.u. myself, but i've always thought they were very cool. was married by a unitarian minister (my first wedding). and my awesome 90-yr-old great-aunt is very active in her local unitarian congregation. i have photos of her out protesting the iraq war with them.

thinking abt this (there's a church in london http://www.new-unity.org/Home). everything abt it seems 2 b rad rad rad.

ya gotta love that "300 years of dissent" is a selling point.

that made me <3

# Members are invited to show courtesy to each other.
# Members are invited to treat each other with respect.
# Members are invited to refrain from gossip.

not really suitable for an ilxor, lj

it seems more a positivist socialist gathering than a scriptural institution. am down for attending services. anyway, have sent the minister a very nice email containing my ideas about peaceful revolution and empirical paradigms and whatnot. :)

i can change, buzza. actually this sort of thing might help banish my occasional demon. sorry @ everyone i've abused on ilx :(

I am rly curious about UU and think occasionally of going to a service. I love a good hymn-sing and I'd like to hand down some kind of religious observation/worship tradition to future family and not have it end w me, but I couldn't support any other sect or denomination so had put it to back of mind for 10+ years.

Such a dud. "We're Christian, but not like THOSE Christians."

Unitarian Universalists are not really Christian in any meningful sense. Seems like a clearinghouse for the "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" crowd.

I'm an atheist for the record.

I have been one of "THOSE Christians" and let me tell you, I would be grateful to someone who could recover something true and useful from that wreckage.

the joke is that unitarians are atheists with kids

It's a hippie church! *Cue Jesus Christ Superstar / Godpsell*

The Unitarians I know are craggy old twinkly-eyed thrifty Eastern Seaboard-y types with dry humor, who do country dance for fun and renovate old houses. "Hippie" is not in the running.

I know exactly 3 Unitarians, btw.

ha i remember my violin teacher from the east coast once asked me what i was doing for the big holiday. there being no big holiday as far as i knew, i was like, "?". and she said, "passover? don't you guys do that one?" and i said, "lutherans? no, passover is no big deal. i'm sure the pastor will say something. i think it's a much bigger deal for jews. i thought you were jewish?" and she was like "well technically i guess. i mean my mom was jewish. we were unitarians" and she rolled her eyes. "i never know which ones go with which, you know?"

I'm an atheist for the record.

― thirdalternative

we know

im atheist btw

i was raised UU and still enjoy sunday services when i go, which is admittedly very infrequently these days, maybe a couple times a year. i suspect i'll fall back into it more as i get older though.

Laurel, you should try attending a service sometime, at least to see what it's all about and whether you like the minister and whether the congregation is friendly & welcoming. these things can vary a lot from church to church.

Such a dud. "We're Christian, but not like THOSE Christians."

Unitarian Universalists are not really Christian in any meningful sense. Seems like a clearinghouse for the "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" crowd.

I'm an atheist for the record.

― thirdalternative, Monday, December 13, 2010 6:16 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark

there are lots of atheists at the uu church i work at & attend. and some christians, and lots of "im not religious, im spiritual" ppl, too. it would be soooo hard to be enough of an asshole to hate on the latter group on any degree greater than 'silly to me but ymmv.' also you seem to think there's something wrong w/ wanting to distance themselves with "those" christians but you yourself are an atheist. like whats up w that

am attenting a service on sunday btw. have had a delightful email exchange with the reverend - not only have poetic tips been exchanged but the Oppressor has been rigorously trash-talked and the Community cheered! much better dichotomy than Satan/Jesus imho

also ILX having more Unitarian presence than it lets on = I figured

it seems more a positivist socialist gathering than a scriptural institution.

this is definitely consistent with my experience. it's a lot more meaningful to me than real church could ever be bc the motivation to go is much more about being a part of the community, voluntarily waking up sunday morning, coffee hour etc, than salvation or the content of the actual sermon (which are sometimes very good)

I'll have to wake up extra-early, as I have to travel right across London to get there

although in practice what will happen is that I will stay up all night, then attend, then come home and crash

also you seem to think there's something wrong w/ wanting to distance themselves with "those" christians but you yourself are an atheist. like whats up w that

― flopson, Monday, December 13, 2010 6:56 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

wanted to elaborate on this. just to make it known there is a tension b/w uu's who want to separate entirely from the christian church & those who want to retain some ties & those who think it has already diverged too far. couple years ago there was a big debate at my congregation about whether or not to continue to refer to it as a 'church.' the impression thirdalternativ has of uu's politely tiptoeing away from christianity but not wanting to let go is at least a bit antiquated, and p myopic

btw flopson are u a new poster? u seem a good egg :D

the joke is that unitarians are atheists with kids

― goole, Monday, December 13, 2010 11:18 AM (10 hours ago)

looooollllllll

I love Unitarian jokes.

I was thinking baout checking out a UU branch here in Tucson. Taking things slow. TBH I don't think I have a spiritual bone in my body. UU Church did fulfill my need for community on a bottom of Maslow's pyramid sorta level. ex: if I were dying I think some of them would have been actively sad and maybe brought me some meals I could heat & eat. That's what I was hoping for, and mostly what I got. Like one time I was stuck in El Paso (40 miles or so from the city I lived in) and I called a lady from church and she picked me up, no questions asked. Which was very nice of her! Also I got to sing some songs.

I was kind of mad that they wanted my $$$ but I guess churches need $$$ to get by just like the rest of us fools. And at least all their staff & leaders were actually getting paid unlike in the Mormon church, where they wanted more of my money (10% of gross, shit) and then no one saw any of it. Anything that reminded me of Mormon church just turned me off tho & forking over $$$ was part of it.

I loved that the LC UU church had all these rumors about the El Paso one, like they were secretly dedicated to revolution in South America and really hard commie stuff. I don't know if it's true or not but it made me laugh.

That was my UU experience, I kind of dropped out at the end when I found another community that would take care of me if I were dying (stitch & bicth knitting group), which actually was about half Unitarians and 85% atheists (some overlap). Plus, it had knitting. Come on, no competition.

In sum, it's a fairly chill place to meet some cool people, esp. if you like old people bcz you never had a grandpa.

I like that they are really inclusive even if it makes the start of their ~prayers really extra long.

It's like the Dykes to Watch Out For of religions.

Abbott and I fell out of the UU church for opposite reasons, I think. I didn't feel like I was getting enough spirituality and possibly Abbott felt like there was too much of it. It was a really positive experience overall, though, the UUs I met were among the nicest I'd met ever. It helps that they all have a strong commitment to humanism, no matter their spiritual inclinations. That is really the point of it all, I think. I guess I just felt I needed more religious experience rather than social action. For many, these are the same thing -- and that's really awesome, its just not where I'm at in my own head, I guess.

Obv., I am not an atheist but some of the most famous UUs have been; like Rod Serling for example. UU church is definitely a safe haven for "heretics" who still want community and to absorb the positive vibes of a Sunday service. Anyone who actively mocks Unitarians is just a juvenile asshole IMO.

so yeah the w and I have followed through on the half-promises made upthread and joined up to the Newington church - our first service was last Sunday and was notable for its extreme commitment to inclusive humanism - especially poignant was a section where members of the congregation lit a candle at the front and explained the joy or sorrow it was commemorating

also that's definitely the first time I've told a vicar that I was 'disappointed by atheism' only to be told in reply 'I'm an atheist, but....'

my overall impression: thoroughly enthused