Farewell to UU

This may be my last post about Unitarian Universalism. I just don’t care anymore. I haven’t been to a service at my local church since January (it’s now September), and I didn’t send them any money this year. No need to belabor the details, which are personal.

That’s just local news. There’s a big picture.

The upper management of the UU organization, the UUA, has been taken over by a radical clique of social justice activists. These folks mean well, and I have a good deal of sympathy for their ideals, but their efforts are tragically misguided. They mean to reform the UU denomination by stamping out what they see as white supremacy, homophobia, cisgender normativity, and similar forms of discrimination within the UU congregations.

Never mind that these ills exist only in occasional, subtle form in UU congregations. Never mind that the UU denomination as a whole is shrinking in numbers, and that by marching forward in militant lockstep they’re making the shrinking worse. Never mind the hypocrisy of violating their own bylaws in order to push dissidents out of the denomination. That’s all just a tempest in a teapot.

No, the real issue is that they’re aiming their efforts in the wrong direction. You’ve got dirt in the rifle barrel? Okay, stare down the barrel while pulling the trigger a few times. That’s bound to help, right?

Religious fascism is on the rise in the United States and around the world. A recent story in the Atlantic explores how the Unification Church (the Moonies — nothing to do with UU) has infiltrated the government of Japan. Closer to home, the religious right has become a potent political force distorting both our state legislatures and our judiciary. Children are suffering. Women are suffering. Doctors and librarians (librarians!) are being threatened with jail time.

In this climate, the UUA could both encourage action in the wider world and nurture a church that would provide a real alternative. A wholesome model for what a church can be. This nation needs a liberal church, a place where those who have different ideas can gather, explore their differences, and find common ground. But the very last thing the UUA wants is to have members expressing different ideas. They want everybody to sign on to the same set of ideas, the ones the UUA potentates have deemed correct and acceptable. They want UU to welcome diversity in race and ethnicity, diversity in gender identity and expression, and so forth — but there is to be no welcome at all for diversity of thought.

Meanwhile, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But the UUA people don’t care about that. They’re rather in the position of firemen who have been called to deal with a blazing building, but they’re ignoring the blaze. Instead, they’re sitting around a little campfire in the yard arguing about the correct way to toast marshmallows.

Ending racism is hard! You’d have to start by reforming our antiquated drug laws, reforming our prison system, and reforming educational funding. You’d have to provide universal health care and meaningful requirements for time off from work so that poor working mothers can take time off to take their sick kids to the hospital. How about meaningful job training for young black men, and jobs for them when they finish the training? I’m sure other items should be added to this short list.

But no, the UUA just wants to make sure there are enough black and brown faces in UU congregations — and if there aren’t, they want to blame somebody for being a white supremacist.

Here’s the bad news, folks: If the UUA totally succeeded in stamping out every trace of racism, homophobia, and all other forms of discrimination from every UU congregation in the world, it wouldn’t make a fucking bit of difference. Racism and religious fascism would still be a common ill battering the lives of millions of people in this country. Conversely, if you managed to enact meaningful reforms that eliminated most of the racism and other bigotry in this country, UU congregations could be dominated by KKK members wearing pointed white sheets — and again, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference in the real world.

Unitarian Universalism is not the problem. And the way the UUA is focusing its efforts, UU sure as shit ain’t gonna be the solution.

I’m done.