I was, a few months ago, carpet bombed by the muse. I don't read music, I don't play an instrument, and essentially sing only in groups. I rarely write any sort of poetry. So finding myself suddenly with what was clearly song and... rap... was more than unexpected.
Worse, it demanded it be presented. And now it has been; sung as part of a sermon, sung to a camp, and shared in print with classmates.
So now I'm unleashing it. Feel free to rap it yourself, however the spirit moves you. I just ask that if you use it in a service or such--or reprint it--that you keep my name associated with it.
As I've performed it, the refrain's sung and the rest is a sort of spoken word rap.
Universalism Rap
© Patrick McLaughlin (with many thanks to Marcia Stanard for her assistance)
It's a crazy idea, in the end love wins
and God's looking forward to forgiving sins.
It's a crazy idea, being loved so well,
No one in the end gets damned to hell.
If you go back to the second century,
Origen preached to folks like you and me,
saying God doesn’t hate, God’s all about love,
and salvation happens when push comes to shove.
It says love is patient; love is kind.
We know that love is crazy and can be kind of blind.
It says love’s forgiving; it sure isn’t hate—
and even devils are forgiven when it gets real late.
It makes plain sense, said Hosea Ballou.
Eternal punishment, it just can’t be true!
So he wrote it and preached it in the 19th C—
and made a whole lot of people just crazy.
It's a crazy idea, in the end love wins
and God's looking forward to forgiving sins.
It's a crazy idea, being loved so well,
No one in the end gets damned to hell.
He wasn’t alone; there was also John Murray,
whose tale reads like Job in the Bible story.
His family all died; he was jailed for debt—
so his country and his pulpit and his faith he fled.
His ship stuck off New Jersey, at Good Luck Point,
where he met a man – Potter – who owned a joint;
a church he’d built, for someone to come preaching
universal salvation (he knew about the teaching).
Murray was done, “I’ll be gone on the sea!”
Potter insisted, said there’d be no breeze.
“I know god sent you here this church to fill,”
and Murray preached, ‘cause on Sunday it was still.
It's a crazy idea, in the end love wins
and God's looking forward to forgiving sins.
It's a crazy idea, being loved so well,
No one in the end gets damned to hell.
Like Jesus planting mustard in the parable field,
this crazy idea that all souls get healed.
And most who preach it just get the sack—
but universal salvation keeps coming back.
It’s a gospel of inclusion that some teach.
Final reconciliation might be preached.
They’re just different words for God’s great scheme—
everyone’s included in that final dream.
It's a crazy idea, in the end love wins
and God's looking forward to forgiving sins.
It's a crazy idea, being loved so well,
No one in the end gets damned to hell.
So follow the logic when you teach God's love;
your hope isn't just in heaven above—
because heaven's on earth, wherever love's found
and everywhere we go is holy ground.
‘Cause truth's not held in just one place;
God's been talking to the whole human race.
There's not one truth, or just one way,
and there's not gonna be any judgment day.
Because heaven's on earth, wherever love's found,
and everywhere we go is holy ground.
Yes, heaven's on earth, wherever love's found
and everywhere we go is holy ground.
It's a crazy idea, in the end love wins
and God's looking forward to forgiving sins.
It's a crazy idea, being loved so well,
No one in the end gets damned to hell.
It's a crazy idea, being loved so well,
No one in the end gets damned to hell.
Nuh-uh. No hell. Amen.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Of Wild, Feral, and Domestic UUs...
UPDATE: I've made a correction based on Chris Walton catching an error I made while moving data from the World's pdf to Excel. I've corrected the data in the columns so that it's accurate, but am striking through the erroneous data in the text and replacing it with the corrected numbers. Thank you, Chris!
Also, Christine asked about how I extracted numbers from the Pew survey on the unchurched, which made me realize I'd forgotten to write about assumptions and method, as I'd intended. The basic assumptions; the two surveys are accurate and reliable, and the Pew survey includes both churched (member) and unchurched UUs in proper proportions, as well as that the two data sets, taken four years apart, represent pretty much the same population. I think all of those are reasonable, but any one of them might be questioned.
It's that second assumption that the actual math rests on. If member UUs are represented in Pew's sample in proper proportion to the overall population, and non-member UUs are as well, then we can take the Pew number, subtract the UUA's adult membership data, and discover how many unchurched UUs there are (the "wild" and "feral" populations). This, in fact, is what was done in the post I linked to in Transient and Permanent. When I saw that post, and the data from UU World, I realized that one could do some fairly simple algebra; we had the Pew numbers (UUs at large) and the UU World data (member UUs). Backing out the UU World numbers from the Pew numbers would give the numbers for the free range UUs. If the two sub-population were the same size, I'd simply have subtracted (Pew - UU World = unknown). Transient and Permanent's insight that there were three free range UUs for every member UU (actually, just over three--the numbers are 76% free range and 24% members--since I don't believe that the numbers we're working with are that precise, I worked with the 3:1 ratio) just required weighting the numbers. Thus the actual formula looks like 4(Pew) = UU World + 3(unknown) -- the need to multiply Pew's number is because we're working in percentages, not absolute numbers.
-------------------------
On Facebook this morning, Chris Walton posted a link that I'd previously missed at UU World, a comparison of data from two polls, one by UU World in 2004 and one by Pew Research in 2008. Both look at reported data from UUs. What's fascinating are the differences....
I am indebted as well to this posting at Transient and Permanent, which mulled over some of the Pew data three years ago.
Here's the basic data:
The asterisk notes that UU World used the UU range of 18-35 for Young Adults, when surveying.
Pew surveyed some large number of Americans and calculated that there were, as of 2008, some 683,000 UUs. Adult UUs. Given the data from the UUA at the time, Transient and Permanent observed that this meant that there were just over three UUs out there, unchurched (but familiar enough with us to claim to be UUs) for every one of us who's on the books as a member. That's a startling number.
The Pew data alone is striking. In the population at large, slightly over half of those affirming they're UUs are male. But no more than a third of those who are members are male. Given the imperfect overlap on the age ranges, it looks like there are five times as many under 30s who say they're UUs as are members. Etc., etc. The numbers clearly indicate that there's a very real difference between the different UU populations, the unchurched--what worker referred to as "free range," recently--and the churched.
And then it hit me. The Pew survey wasn't of the unchurched. It's of those who responded that they were UUs; members and not, both. The difference between the churched and unchurched would be even more extreme. So I did some number crunching (after having sufficient coffee, because uncaffeinated this morning, I managed the trick of multiplying billions by two (I think that's what I did, anyway; it's irreproducible) and came up with trillions). What I did was to figure out what the unchurched population would have to have responded with in order for Pew to get its numbers after adding in the churched part of its sample. (Note to self: Take this back to the kids to prove that there are occasional adult uses for algebra.)
The numbers are, of course, imperfect; there are rounding errors, and such. So columns do *not* add up to 100%, etc.
The classism that some of us have talked about becomes more apparent when we look at what economic class member UUs are likely to be in, versus non-member UUs. Ouch. Interestingly, the people in the upper middle class-to-wealthy range are the only group that seems unaffected. They're equally likely to be UUs.
Education is even more striking. That's where the real class boundary is stunningly apparent. Mark Morrison-Reed's analysis that education is the single best marker for whether one is likely to be a (member) UU is clearly on the money. Ouch, ouch.
Gender... ok, so it's not news to anyone that the outwardly religious have been predominately female for well over a century. It thus isn't surprising to see that UU members are two-thirds women. But if it was a surprise that over half of those who say they're UUs are male, to find that three out of five people who are unchurched UUs are male was startling.
And then there's the age data.65% 29% of those who are members are over 65. Only 17% 20% of those who are unchurched UUs are over 65--and while at most 4% of those who are UU members are under 30, 23% of those who aren't members are under 30.
So what's the picture look like--in very crude, simplistic averages?
Church-going UUs are relatively well-off, extremely well-educated older white women. Indeed, that's what we see in congregations. "Free range" UUs are probably middle class, but are pretty likely to be lower middle class, if not poor; they're much less educated (perhaps struggling still to get educations?), they're young, and male. Simply taking US demographics--young, male, lower education and income... they're also far, far more likely to be mixed race or people of color.
Now that's a divide that's going to take a lot of work to bridge.
Also, Christine asked about how I extracted numbers from the Pew survey on the unchurched, which made me realize I'd forgotten to write about assumptions and method, as I'd intended. The basic assumptions; the two surveys are accurate and reliable, and the Pew survey includes both churched (member) and unchurched UUs in proper proportions, as well as that the two data sets, taken four years apart, represent pretty much the same population. I think all of those are reasonable, but any one of them might be questioned.
It's that second assumption that the actual math rests on. If member UUs are represented in Pew's sample in proper proportion to the overall population, and non-member UUs are as well, then we can take the Pew number, subtract the UUA's adult membership data, and discover how many unchurched UUs there are (the "wild" and "feral" populations). This, in fact, is what was done in the post I linked to in Transient and Permanent. When I saw that post, and the data from UU World, I realized that one could do some fairly simple algebra; we had the Pew numbers (UUs at large) and the UU World data (member UUs). Backing out the UU World numbers from the Pew numbers would give the numbers for the free range UUs. If the two sub-population were the same size, I'd simply have subtracted (Pew - UU World = unknown). Transient and Permanent's insight that there were three free range UUs for every member UU (actually, just over three--the numbers are 76% free range and 24% members--since I don't believe that the numbers we're working with are that precise, I worked with the 3:1 ratio) just required weighting the numbers. Thus the actual formula looks like 4(Pew) = UU World + 3(unknown) -- the need to multiply Pew's number is because we're working in percentages, not absolute numbers.
-------------------------
On Facebook this morning, Chris Walton posted a link that I'd previously missed at UU World, a comparison of data from two polls, one by UU World in 2004 and one by Pew Research in 2008. Both look at reported data from UUs. What's fascinating are the differences....
I am indebted as well to this posting at Transient and Permanent, which mulled over some of the Pew data three years ago.
Here's the basic data:
|
| UU World | Pew Research |
| Income |
|
|
| < $30,000 | 14% | 19% |
| $30k–$49,999 | 13% | 25% |
| $50k–$74,999 | 19% | 16% |
| $75k–$99,999 | 16% | 13% |
| $100,000> | 25% | 26% |
| No response | 13% |
|
|
|
|
|
| Education |
|
|
| < high school | 0% | 3% |
| High school | 2% | 16% |
| Some college | 11% | 30% |
| College grad. | 20% | 22% |
| Post-graduate | 65% | 29% |
| No response |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Gender |
|
|
| Male | 31% | 54% |
| Female | 65% | 46% |
| No answer | 4% |
|
|
|
|
|
| Age |
|
|
| Under 30* | 4% | 18% |
| Over 65 | 29% | 16% |
Pew surveyed some large number of Americans and calculated that there were, as of 2008, some 683,000 UUs. Adult UUs. Given the data from the UUA at the time, Transient and Permanent observed that this meant that there were just over three UUs out there, unchurched (but familiar enough with us to claim to be UUs) for every one of us who's on the books as a member. That's a startling number.
The Pew data alone is striking. In the population at large, slightly over half of those affirming they're UUs are male. But no more than a third of those who are members are male. Given the imperfect overlap on the age ranges, it looks like there are five times as many under 30s who say they're UUs as are members. Etc., etc. The numbers clearly indicate that there's a very real difference between the different UU populations, the unchurched--what worker referred to as "free range," recently--and the churched.
And then it hit me. The Pew survey wasn't of the unchurched. It's of those who responded that they were UUs; members and not, both. The difference between the churched and unchurched would be even more extreme. So I did some number crunching (after having sufficient coffee, because uncaffeinated this morning, I managed the trick of multiplying billions by two (I think that's what I did, anyway; it's irreproducible) and came up with trillions). What I did was to figure out what the unchurched population would have to have responded with in order for Pew to get its numbers after adding in the churched part of its sample. (Note to self: Take this back to the kids to prove that there are occasional adult uses for algebra.)
The numbers are, of course, imperfect; there are rounding errors, and such. So columns do *not* add up to 100%, etc.
|
| Churched | Unchurched |
| Total UU pop | 24% | 76% |
|
|
|
|
| Income |
|
|
| < $30,000 | 14% | 20% |
| $30k–$49,999 | 13% | 29% |
| $50k–$74,999 | 19% | 15% |
| $75k–$99,999 | 16% | 12% |
| $100,000> | 25% | 26% |
| No response | 13% |
|
|
|
|
|
| Education |
|
|
| < high school | 0% | 4% |
| High school | 2% | 21% |
| Some college | 11% | 36% |
| College grad. | 20% | 23% |
| Post-graduate | 65% | 17% |
| No response | 3% |
|
|
|
|
|
| Gender |
|
|
| Male | 31% | 62% |
| Female | 65% | 40% |
| No answer 4 | 4% |
|
|
|
|
|
| Age |
|
|
| Under 30* | 4% | 23% |
| Over 65 | 29% | 20% |
The classism that some of us have talked about becomes more apparent when we look at what economic class member UUs are likely to be in, versus non-member UUs. Ouch. Interestingly, the people in the upper middle class-to-wealthy range are the only group that seems unaffected. They're equally likely to be UUs.
Education is even more striking. That's where the real class boundary is stunningly apparent. Mark Morrison-Reed's analysis that education is the single best marker for whether one is likely to be a (member) UU is clearly on the money. Ouch, ouch.
Gender... ok, so it's not news to anyone that the outwardly religious have been predominately female for well over a century. It thus isn't surprising to see that UU members are two-thirds women. But if it was a surprise that over half of those who say they're UUs are male, to find that three out of five people who are unchurched UUs are male was startling.
And then there's the age data.
So what's the picture look like--in very crude, simplistic averages?
Church-going UUs are relatively well-off, extremely well-educated older white women. Indeed, that's what we see in congregations. "Free range" UUs are probably middle class, but are pretty likely to be lower middle class, if not poor; they're much less educated (perhaps struggling still to get educations?), they're young, and male. Simply taking US demographics--young, male, lower education and income... they're also far, far more likely to be mixed race or people of color.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
You've GOT to be kidding me...
(Okay, so I've been deep in the weeds of my internship for the last eight months. So mostly I've just been too busy with that, and the rest of life, and trying to maintain my family's sense of family--and feeding my own tremulous sense of sanity to blog. And before that, hospital chaplaincy--and HIPPA regulations are more intimidating to the idea of blogging anything having to do with one's life than anything my former life's security clearances might have done. But this... just demanded a rant...)
So, apparently, some folks have been suggesting/arguing that one isn't UU unless one is a member of a congregation. (I'd like to point out here that Rev. Naomi's post is entitled "Faith is not Membership;" we're not disagreeing. I just find her response too gentle for my soul; as I said, it called forth a rant.
And the first rant dropped into the ethereal abyss of the internet. So this one is Mark II, now with less spittle.
You have got to be kidding me. Really? Seriously? Someone wants to really make the assertion that you can't adhere to UUism without being a member of a congregation?
Someone hold back the Logicians of the HUUmanist wing of the faith, because it wouldn't be pretty if they ripped into it.
Really, one only becomes a UU by signing a book (or a membership card--not everyone has books. Some may not even have either of those...)? It's just a club?
So, kids--who aren't permitted by our congregation to be members until they're nearly adults, and only then by a more onerous process than the adults ever go through--aren't UUs? The youth I've chaperoned and ministered to at UU Youth Camps weren't UUs either? My goddaughter, who read the adults at her congregation the riot act (from the pulpit, during a Youth-led service) for their failure to live up to UU standards--those that they have taught to the kids in Children's RE--she wasn't a UU (and if so, what business did she have telling adult UUs that they were an embarrassment to the faith?)?
And the people who've written down--over a decade ago--what their vision of religion is, thinking that no such religion exists... and are overwhelmed to find out that it does, that there are already thousands of people who share their faith--they're not already UUs?
When do the members of a dying congregation cease to be UUs? When the last one goes in and turns off the lights, they are now no longer UUs, just because the congregation failed?
When someone who was raised UU and lives in some benighted backwater (which might, from census data, be some rural area, or might be a vastly populous part of some urban center...) decides to try to found a new congregation... they aren't UU? And they're not until someone else shows up and wants to be one?
Really?
The people who've spent decades feeling alone and isolated, who weep when they join a congregation and ask us where we've been all these years (because we failed them, keeping the light hidden so well that they'd never even heard our name...), they only become UUs when they sign up? Even though their beliefs didn't change in the slightest?
Seriously?
Let us speak then to the false idol of congregationalism, to the fetishising of a means of organization.
Because UUism isn't conferred magically by congregationalism. Baptists are congregationalists, too. And so are many others.
And our Unitarian cousins in Transylvania aren't congregationalists at all.
Congregationalism is simply the vessel in which UUism exists. In our tradition, in our time. But it's not hard to imagine a presbyterian form of UUism (and in fact, it's pretty clear that there are more than a few of us who'd be more comfortable with just such a scheme). But that wouldn't make it not UUism.
So the people who grew up UU, who think of themselves as UUs, who practice their beliefs and faith, and who adhere to the kinds of attitudes and behaviors that we hold up and inculcate--they're not UUs? Just because they either can't attend a UU congregation, or don't want to (or can't) drag themselves to the local congregation on Sunday morning? Or because the music and form of worship that the congregation is wedded to is demonstrably 19th century, and the individuals are used to late 20th and early 21st century forms of UU worship and music that speaks to them?
Words fail me.
On both sides of our tradition, the faithful have been free-rangers; going where the congregations weren't, or where the congregations (or ministers) weren't ready or willing to go. The idea that we want to jam the world into the Procrustean Bed of formal congregational membership so that we can sneer at those outside the walls and insist that they aren't really UUs... is insane. Were it a proposal from the dreaded entity "Boston," there would be a serious risk of the UUA being dissolved, or of a competing association/conference/convention forming (we've done it before).
Get over yourselves.
If there are UUs out there who aren't connected, then it's more likely our fault for not letting them know we exist, or not providing what they need in order to be in covenant and community with us. But for the love of that which has been called god, stop demonizing them. Stop pointing the finger. Stop falling into the illogical trap that imagines that there's something magical and mystical about a signature on a Book. Because there isn't.
The failing is ours, whatever it is. Perhaps it's the daunting paleness of an array of UUs. Perhaps its the grotesque and often ignored (and denied) classist attitudes and behaviors of our congregations. Perhaps its that a foray into Gershwin is avante-garde music for the local congregation. Perhaps... oh, hell, who knows?
But just stop. We are the people who keep trying to draw the circle larger. Not the people who exclude. At least that's our intent; we're human and we fail. But don't try to create an exclusionary communion of the booked held apart from the not-booked. That is just utterly contrary to our traditions, and it's a hideous violation of the universalist spirit.
Here I stand. Love ya. You're entitled your opinion, of course. And I'll insist on your right to hold it. But it doesn't mean I have to respect it.
So, apparently, some folks have been suggesting/arguing that one isn't UU unless one is a member of a congregation. (I'd like to point out here that Rev. Naomi's post is entitled "Faith is not Membership;" we're not disagreeing. I just find her response too gentle for my soul; as I said, it called forth a rant.
And the first rant dropped into the ethereal abyss of the internet. So this one is Mark II, now with less spittle.
You have got to be kidding me. Really? Seriously? Someone wants to really make the assertion that you can't adhere to UUism without being a member of a congregation?
Someone hold back the Logicians of the HUUmanist wing of the faith, because it wouldn't be pretty if they ripped into it.
Really, one only becomes a UU by signing a book (or a membership card--not everyone has books. Some may not even have either of those...)? It's just a club?
So, kids--who aren't permitted by our congregation to be members until they're nearly adults, and only then by a more onerous process than the adults ever go through--aren't UUs? The youth I've chaperoned and ministered to at UU Youth Camps weren't UUs either? My goddaughter, who read the adults at her congregation the riot act (from the pulpit, during a Youth-led service) for their failure to live up to UU standards--those that they have taught to the kids in Children's RE--she wasn't a UU (and if so, what business did she have telling adult UUs that they were an embarrassment to the faith?)?
And the people who've written down--over a decade ago--what their vision of religion is, thinking that no such religion exists... and are overwhelmed to find out that it does, that there are already thousands of people who share their faith--they're not already UUs?
When do the members of a dying congregation cease to be UUs? When the last one goes in and turns off the lights, they are now no longer UUs, just because the congregation failed?
When someone who was raised UU and lives in some benighted backwater (which might, from census data, be some rural area, or might be a vastly populous part of some urban center...) decides to try to found a new congregation... they aren't UU? And they're not until someone else shows up and wants to be one?
Really?
The people who've spent decades feeling alone and isolated, who weep when they join a congregation and ask us where we've been all these years (because we failed them, keeping the light hidden so well that they'd never even heard our name...), they only become UUs when they sign up? Even though their beliefs didn't change in the slightest?
Seriously?
Let us speak then to the false idol of congregationalism, to the fetishising of a means of organization.
Because UUism isn't conferred magically by congregationalism. Baptists are congregationalists, too. And so are many others.
And our Unitarian cousins in Transylvania aren't congregationalists at all.
Congregationalism is simply the vessel in which UUism exists. In our tradition, in our time. But it's not hard to imagine a presbyterian form of UUism (and in fact, it's pretty clear that there are more than a few of us who'd be more comfortable with just such a scheme). But that wouldn't make it not UUism.
So the people who grew up UU, who think of themselves as UUs, who practice their beliefs and faith, and who adhere to the kinds of attitudes and behaviors that we hold up and inculcate--they're not UUs? Just because they either can't attend a UU congregation, or don't want to (or can't) drag themselves to the local congregation on Sunday morning? Or because the music and form of worship that the congregation is wedded to is demonstrably 19th century, and the individuals are used to late 20th and early 21st century forms of UU worship and music that speaks to them?
Words fail me.
On both sides of our tradition, the faithful have been free-rangers; going where the congregations weren't, or where the congregations (or ministers) weren't ready or willing to go. The idea that we want to jam the world into the Procrustean Bed of formal congregational membership so that we can sneer at those outside the walls and insist that they aren't really UUs... is insane. Were it a proposal from the dreaded entity "Boston," there would be a serious risk of the UUA being dissolved, or of a competing association/conference/convention forming (we've done it before).
Get over yourselves.
If there are UUs out there who aren't connected, then it's more likely our fault for not letting them know we exist, or not providing what they need in order to be in covenant and community with us. But for the love of that which has been called god, stop demonizing them. Stop pointing the finger. Stop falling into the illogical trap that imagines that there's something magical and mystical about a signature on a Book. Because there isn't.
The failing is ours, whatever it is. Perhaps it's the daunting paleness of an array of UUs. Perhaps its the grotesque and often ignored (and denied) classist attitudes and behaviors of our congregations. Perhaps its that a foray into Gershwin is avante-garde music for the local congregation. Perhaps... oh, hell, who knows?
But just stop. We are the people who keep trying to draw the circle larger. Not the people who exclude. At least that's our intent; we're human and we fail. But don't try to create an exclusionary communion of the booked held apart from the not-booked. That is just utterly contrary to our traditions, and it's a hideous violation of the universalist spirit.
Here I stand. Love ya. You're entitled your opinion, of course. And I'll insist on your right to hold it. But it doesn't mean I have to respect it.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Fellowships...
Scott Wells (Boy in the Bands) asks "What's Wrong With Fellowships?"
It's a bit late to reply to there--and I'm aware that I may go on at enough length that I shouldn't reply there. So here...
It seems like the issue of fellowships must be in the (UU) air. It's the third or fourth time in a few days that it's been brought up where I'm aware of it.
I think my first answer is "Who Cares What's Wrong With Fellowships?"
The UUA and AUA (and so far as I can tell, the UCA) have no history of a successful church planting program. Period. With one noteworthy exception--the Fellowship Movement. According to the small volume by that same name, congregations that are, or started as, fellowships account for close to a third of current UU congregations, and about the same percentage of current UUs. And I'm pretty sure that doesn't include congregations that started after the end of the Fellowship Movement, as supported by the UUA (the date escapes me now--in the late-mid 1960s, if memory serves at all). But more congregations have continued to rise up more or less along that model, even without the scant encouragement and assistance.
Great amounts of UUA staff time and significant sums of money have been invested--both before the Fellowship Movement and since--in very intentional church plantings. I don't think that even their great fans would disagree that the results have been profoundly underwhelming, considering the amount of money and support. Particularly compared to the money and support given the the Fellowship Movement (one staff person, Monroe Husbands--a name I doubt the MFC will ever ask anyone about, but should be, and some office support. Plus his slender travel funding).
What flaws would one accept today for an effort that added a few hundred congregations to our movement?
I suspect that the answer is "at least a few; even serious ones."
The complaints I have seen range from "well, many failed," to "they didn't often grow into larger churches and call ministers," to "they tended to be anticlerical." I'm sure there are a few others.
And they're no doubt largely accurate. Sort of.
So let's just sift through that, a bit.
Many failed. Of course many failed. Most new institutions fail, whether businesses or non-profits, or churches. And--lets be fair--these were start ups in places that were often explicitly in places that no one in their right mind saw as hot options for starting a new UU congregation. They were seen as marginal places, if that, most of the time. And so a higher than average failure rate should have been expected. But the author of The Fellowship Movement rather debunked that. The survival rate was actually pretty good, all things considered. And there are still ~300 UU congregations that come out of that. How many failed start-ups, with minimal UUA input, would we accept failing, in order to get 300 new congregations? (My answer? I don't think I'd bat an eye at 75% failure rate, in such conditions.)
They didn't often grow very large. True. But then... many of them started in marginal areas. And the vast majority of our congregations are on the small side. Critiquing fellowships for not being more likely to become large (and none are more than about 60 years old) than their non-fellowship counterparts is... well.... Is there an obligation to become large? And some have broken those size boundaries--particularly, it's my impression, when they're in areas that became suburbanized by metropolitan area growth in the past 50 years. In short, when there were plenty of people to draw on.
They didn't call ministers. Well, in part that's true. In part, some remain too small to do so. And in part some are happy as fellowships--with all their flaws and drawbacks--and the lay led style of worship. The implication that they're something less than real UU churches is unjust, and violates the notion of what a congregation is, all the way back to the Cambridge Platform. Of course, there's also no UUA requirement. It's something that almost all of them get over if and when they grow to a size where professional ministry becomes not simply a good idea, but necessary. It is, I think, a natural price of the very feature that made them successful and able to survive; they were able to do jsut fine on their own, thanks... and the question of why they need a minister is a shade obscure to them.
They were anticlerical. Well, there's a strong bit of truth there. Of course, so was the whole era that they existed in--being founded in the 1950s and '60s. Anticlericalism was rampant in the whole society, and in UU circles in general. In fellowships, that wasn't countered (as a result of no ministerial presence) and probably they got a bit stuck in it. Also, as they began to explore professional ministry, there were culture clashes. Ministers who expected them to be like "normal" churches, and to treat their ministers accordingly, were often oblivious to the fact that these people had done a very laudable job of running the whole show on their own, for years, and perhaps were less sensitive and graceful about things than they ought to have been. The assumption that the model of ministry in such a congregation would be pretty much just like that in another UU church was an error. And both sides paid for it. Some ministers were harmed and careers damaged. And so were some fellowships, as well.
And a fair amount of all this is, I believe, a feature of the times. Fellowships (to some degree) flourished because of the culture they were launched into, and the demographic shifts of the times. But they were also relatively isolated, and had to grow and survive on their own. They created their own cultures and ways--which actually are in many ways remarkably consistent from one to the next.
And because of the above, the UUA (and many ministers) are horrified at the idea of replicating the experiment. Never mind that it was successful--and that nothing else has been.
I'll just observe that I find that incredibly foolish and short-sighted, not to mention critical in all the worst (and none of the best) senses of the word.
New fellowships--congregations popping up along that same model, without the official encouragement--are really not different creatures. But their environment today is vastly different. It's not the 1950s and '60s and '70s. The cultural anticlericalism is a different beast. And probably most significant, these new congregations are not utterly isolated, as their forebears were. The very nature of the internet means that they have access to contacts and resources and information and models that early fellowships would have given their right arms for. They have access to professional sermons that can be used, from many more sources than they'd have had in the past. And the potential exists for them to have vastly more local support than in the past, even if just in the form of seminary students and occasional ministerial preaching. They can be informed of the hazards that their cultures risk developing, and means of avoiding them.
And so on.
What's wrong with fellowships?
Given current attitudes in the UUMA and at UUA HQ, what's wrong is that there won't be many more. "We" would rather not deal with the possible headaches--even if it means refusing to try a fellowship movement for the 21st century, with lessons learned from the first run.
Given that I've seen some of our best contemporary worship and such at fellowships that have grown up and out of their worst flaws, I think the whole movement suffers a lot more than merely missing a few hundred more congregations....
Better, apparently, that there are amazing gaps in where one can find a UU congregation--as Scott's just shown with his analysis of where there are, and aren't, congregations to be found.
I think it's a damned shame.
It's a bit late to reply to there--and I'm aware that I may go on at enough length that I shouldn't reply there. So here...
It seems like the issue of fellowships must be in the (UU) air. It's the third or fourth time in a few days that it's been brought up where I'm aware of it.
I think my first answer is "Who Cares What's Wrong With Fellowships?"
The UUA and AUA (and so far as I can tell, the UCA) have no history of a successful church planting program. Period. With one noteworthy exception--the Fellowship Movement. According to the small volume by that same name, congregations that are, or started as, fellowships account for close to a third of current UU congregations, and about the same percentage of current UUs. And I'm pretty sure that doesn't include congregations that started after the end of the Fellowship Movement, as supported by the UUA (the date escapes me now--in the late-mid 1960s, if memory serves at all). But more congregations have continued to rise up more or less along that model, even without the scant encouragement and assistance.
Great amounts of UUA staff time and significant sums of money have been invested--both before the Fellowship Movement and since--in very intentional church plantings. I don't think that even their great fans would disagree that the results have been profoundly underwhelming, considering the amount of money and support. Particularly compared to the money and support given the the Fellowship Movement (one staff person, Monroe Husbands--a name I doubt the MFC will ever ask anyone about, but should be, and some office support. Plus his slender travel funding).
What flaws would one accept today for an effort that added a few hundred congregations to our movement?
I suspect that the answer is "at least a few; even serious ones."
The complaints I have seen range from "well, many failed," to "they didn't often grow into larger churches and call ministers," to "they tended to be anticlerical." I'm sure there are a few others.
And they're no doubt largely accurate. Sort of.
So let's just sift through that, a bit.
Many failed. Of course many failed. Most new institutions fail, whether businesses or non-profits, or churches. And--lets be fair--these were start ups in places that were often explicitly in places that no one in their right mind saw as hot options for starting a new UU congregation. They were seen as marginal places, if that, most of the time. And so a higher than average failure rate should have been expected. But the author of The Fellowship Movement rather debunked that. The survival rate was actually pretty good, all things considered. And there are still ~300 UU congregations that come out of that. How many failed start-ups, with minimal UUA input, would we accept failing, in order to get 300 new congregations? (My answer? I don't think I'd bat an eye at 75% failure rate, in such conditions.)
They didn't often grow very large. True. But then... many of them started in marginal areas. And the vast majority of our congregations are on the small side. Critiquing fellowships for not being more likely to become large (and none are more than about 60 years old) than their non-fellowship counterparts is... well...
They didn't call ministers. Well, in part that's true. In part, some remain too small to do so. And in part some are happy as fellowships--with all their flaws and drawbacks--and the lay led style of worship. The implication that they're something less than real UU churches is unjust, and violates the notion of what a congregation is, all the way back to the Cambridge Platform. Of course, there's also no UUA requirement. It's something that almost all of them get over if and when they grow to a size where professional ministry becomes not simply a good idea, but necessary. It is, I think, a natural price of the very feature that made them successful and able to survive; they were able to do jsut fine on their own, thanks... and the question of why they need a minister is a shade obscure to them.
They were anticlerical. Well, there's a strong bit of truth there. Of course, so was the whole era that they existed in--being founded in the 1950s and '60s. Anticlericalism was rampant in the whole society, and in UU circles in general. In fellowships, that wasn't countered (as a result of no ministerial presence) and probably they got a bit stuck in it. Also, as they began to explore professional ministry, there were culture clashes. Ministers who expected them to be like "normal" churches, and to treat their ministers accordingly, were often oblivious to the fact that these people had done a very laudable job of running the whole show on their own, for years, and perhaps were less sensitive and graceful about things than they ought to have been. The assumption that the model of ministry in such a congregation would be pretty much just like that in another UU church was an error. And both sides paid for it. Some ministers were harmed and careers damaged. And so were some fellowships, as well.
And a fair amount of all this is, I believe, a feature of the times. Fellowships (to some degree) flourished because of the culture they were launched into, and the demographic shifts of the times. But they were also relatively isolated, and had to grow and survive on their own. They created their own cultures and ways--which actually are in many ways remarkably consistent from one to the next.
And because of the above, the UUA (and many ministers) are horrified at the idea of replicating the experiment. Never mind that it was successful--and that nothing else has been.
I'll just observe that I find that incredibly foolish and short-sighted, not to mention critical in all the worst (and none of the best) senses of the word.
New fellowships--congregations popping up along that same model, without the official encouragement--are really not different creatures. But their environment today is vastly different. It's not the 1950s and '60s and '70s. The cultural anticlericalism is a different beast. And probably most significant, these new congregations are not utterly isolated, as their forebears were. The very nature of the internet means that they have access to contacts and resources and information and models that early fellowships would have given their right arms for. They have access to professional sermons that can be used, from many more sources than they'd have had in the past. And the potential exists for them to have vastly more local support than in the past, even if just in the form of seminary students and occasional ministerial preaching. They can be informed of the hazards that their cultures risk developing, and means of avoiding them.
And so on.
What's wrong with fellowships?
Given current attitudes in the UUMA and at UUA HQ, what's wrong is that there won't be many more. "We" would rather not deal with the possible headaches--even if it means refusing to try a fellowship movement for the 21st century, with lessons learned from the first run.
Given that I've seen some of our best contemporary worship and such at fellowships that have grown up and out of their worst flaws, I think the whole movement suffers a lot more than merely missing a few hundred more congregations....
Better, apparently, that there are amazing gaps in where one can find a UU congregation--as Scott's just shown with his analysis of where there are, and aren't, congregations to be found.
I think it's a damned shame.
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