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Many Unitarian Universalists participate in lively online discussion of a wide variety of topics. Keep up with the conversation: Read UU World’s new Editors’ Blog, where you’ll find links to the best commentary about Unitarian Universalism each week. (uuworld.org/blog).
Black lives matter
Writing at East of Midnight, Kim Hampton challenged liberal religion to find its prophetic voice: “What would liberal theology and religion look like if it took into account those who have had to make a way out of no way? Those who have been plundered and pillaged for generations?” (eastofmidnight.wordpress.com, April 13)
The Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern of Sermons in Stones encouraged her mostly-white congregation to link arms with black communities: “If black people did not have to stand alone—if the wider community, especially the wider white community, stood with them against the powers of white supremacy, then the supremacists would eventually lose. But often, the wider white community has been complicit and cowardly.” (sermonsinstones.com, July 2)
In a Facebook post, Raziq Brown commented on American racism: “When people say that ‘America is racist’ they often don’t mean that every white person in America is a possible Dylann Roof. They mean that America is a country that is ultimately hospitable to people like Dylann Roof and kind of has been for about 400 years. Sort of the same way parts of Iraq are hospitable to isis.” (facebook.com/raziq.brown, June 18)
On CLF’s Quest for Meaning blog, the Rev. Lynn Ungar responded to the Charleston murders: “Maybe we could just sit down and cry together first. In the presence of Black rage. In the presence of white shame. In the presence of grief and despair and the overwhelming knowledge that white men with guns just keep
killing people.” (patheos.com/blogs/uucollective, June 18)
The Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein posted a call to action on Facebook: “Anti-racist work is work. . . . We are caught in ‘an inescapable network of mutuality’—Dr. King said that, and I don’t guess he meant that that network was a freaking hammock.” (facebook.com/peacebang, June 18)
Sara Lewis of The Children’s Chalice offered guidance for talking to children: “As Unitarian Universalists, we often quote Theodore Parker about the moral arc of the universe being long, but it bends toward justice. . . . But the only way that arc will bend is if we make it bend. We must be justice-makers, and we must also raise the next generation of justice-makers if the world will change.” (childrenschalice.wordpress.com, May 23)
fully human, fully dignified
Adam Dyer of Spirituwellness wondered if white, financially comfortable gay and lesbian couples will abandon activism once marriage equality is legal across the United States: “We cannot let the LGBT movement turn into a cultural Detroit, Oakland, or Cleveland . . . abandoned by the people who can now afford to disappear into the suburban mainstream. (spirituwellness.wordpress.com, May 1)
On The Huffington Post, the Rev. G. Jude Geiger shared what the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality means to him: “There’s a stunning distance between the idea of equality and the realization that you’re no longer a second-class citizen. . . . For those of us who have spent a lifetime as second-class citizens, we’re waking up to a new day, where our humanity is not limited by the will of another. And now that the curtain has been pushed to the side for me, I want even more for all the rest of us to get the same treatment—fully human, fully dignified.” (huffingtonpost.com/rev-g-jude-geiger, June 26)
The toll of ministry
In his blog, Held in the Light, the Rev. Peter Boullata explained why he is leaving parish ministry for ministry in a different setting: “I’m spent. . . . I miss having my soul tended to by a gathering of imperfect, loving, genuine people—among whom I am most authentically myself, my undivided, wholehearted self.” (peterboullata.com, June 3)
Valuing religion
The Rev. Scott Wells of Boy in the Bands wrote that, if we don’t want to downsize church, we need to change how people perceive the value of religious community: “[If] someone feels like a sucker for participating in a church, no cost savings, no special programming, no reasoned (or emotional) appeal will make it seem like
a good idea.” (boyinthebands.com, May 14)
The Rev. Tom Schade of The Lively Tradition shared his theory about declining pledge giving in UU congregations: “The cause of Unitarian Universalism, as we now understand it, is not sufficiently compelling to generate the resources to continue itself. . . . There is a much larger group of people we would reach IF they could see that we would directly connect them to the transformation that they are anxious to see in the world.” (tomschade.com, April 22)