Salvation -- July 2010 UU Salon Topic

The July 2010 UU Salon topic is "salvation." Here are the questions for all of us to consider:

• What is it?
• Who gets it?
• How do you get it?

I'm going to start off with a short segment from my answer for the June question where I wrote about Universalism:

The UU religious educator and curriculum author Kate Erslev provided a descriptive summary of current-day Unitarian Universalist theology of salvation in her UU Identity curriculum for young adults:

Once again, in contrast to the predominant foundation of the theology of Calvinism, our roof was raised by the 19th century Universalists. Universalism gave us a roof that saved us all. They said that what saves us is the power of creative love made viable to us in the person of Jesus.

Do we need to be saved from Hell? The Universalists said that we create heaven and hell on earth. We need to be saved from the Hells that we create.

The portion of Kate's curriculum that talks about UU theology and how we view salvation was based on Rebecca Ann Parker's talk that she presented at the 2002 LREDA Fall Conference on theology of religious education. Rebecca talked about how our current-day implicit theology of savalation or soteriology comes from our Universalist heritage.

One short and pithy statement describing current-day UU theology of salvation that I heard at this conference from Rebecca Parker was that we offer salvation from those things that deny life or make it less whole.

As an Our Whole Lives educator and curriculum trainer, this simple statement about salvation explains why we offer sexuality education in our congregations. We provide sexuality education because it offers salvation in a very real sense.

This view of UU salvation may sound just too simple, but I'm OK with that.

So ... here are my answer to the questions about salvation.

What is "salvation"? -- it's anything that saves us in the here-and-now from those things that deny us life or make that life less whole.

Who gets salvation? -- In theory, it should be more available than it currently is. Many of the things that deny us salvation are human-created. But there are some things that we cannot change such as incurable disease and natural disasters. It's our job as Unitarian Universalists to help create a world where suffering is reduced even if we cannot eliminate all suffering in this world.

How do you get it? -- Ideally, we would all get salvation. Given the imperfect world we live in and the reality that there are some things we cannot change, we should work to ensure that as many people as possible should experience salvation. As we learn more about the world and each other, we may find out that what we've done in the past may have denied salvation for some.

For example, the UU Committee on Goals published results of its survey on beliefs and attitudes within the denomination on sexual orientation in 1967:

• 7.7% of UUs believed that homosexuality should be discouraged by law
• 80.2% that it should be discouraged by education, not law
• 12% that it should not be discouraged by law or education
• 0.1% that it should be encouraged

This shift in attitudes between 1967 and today means that more people are being saved from those things that make our lives less whole -- this is true for BGLT folks and their allies.

Universalism in Our History and Where We Are Today

Recently on the "The UU Salon" blog, the topic of Universalism was introduced for discussion during the month of June 2010:

Universalism, the "other U." What does it mean to you? Do you resonate with Universalism, or not? What about the Universalist perspective challenges or comforts you? This is what I've been thinking about lately, and I'll post on it over at Earthbound Spirit in a day or two.

First, classic "No Hell" Universalism was important prerequisite for the development of freethought within Unitarian Universalism and our society.

Universalism has spread beyond the earlier Universalist Church of America and the present-day Unitarian Universalist Association to moderate and liberal Christianity. And this is more important than we realize.

As long as the threat of eternal torment in Hell was a possibility, it would be hard for those who concerned for the well-being of others to let them have freedom of belief.

Sam Harris talks about the problem that Hell in religion poses for freedom of belief in his book The End of Faith:

Many religious moderates have taken the apparent high road of pluralism, asserting the equal validity of all faiths, but in doing so they neglect the irredeemably sectarian truth claims of each. As long as a Christian believes that only his baptized brethen will be saved on the Day of Judgment, he cannot possibly "respect" the beliefs of others, for he knows that the flames of hell have been stoked by these various ideas and await their adherents even now.

So ... moving away from the traditional religious idea that there is only one (traditional Christian) way to avoid Hell allows us to have the religious diversity we have today within Unitarian Universalism and beyond.

Both UU Christians and UU Humanists owe a debt of gratitude to this weakening of the Hell concept. And so do many, many more within Unitarian Universalism.

Second, the movement away from atonement in Universalist theologies of salvation to other ways of gaining salvation was an important part of our current-day Unitarian Universalist theological development.

The UU religious educator and curriculum author Kate Erslev provided a descriptive summary of current-day Unitarian Universalist theology of salvation in her UU Identity curriculum for young adults:

Once again, in contrast to the predominant foundation of the theology of Calvinism, our roof was raised by the 19th century Universalists. Universalism gave us a roof that saved us all. They said that what saves us is the power of creative love made viable to us in the person of Jesus.

Do we need to be saved from Hell? The Universalists said that we create heaven and hell on earth. We need to be saved from the Hells that we create.

The portion of Kate's curriculum that talks about UU theology and how we view salvation was based on Rebecca Ann Parker's talk that she presented at the 2002 LREDA Fall Conference on theology of religious education. Rebecca talked about how our current-day implicit theology of savalation or soteriology comes from our Universalist heritage.

One short and pithy statement describing current-day UU theology of salvation that I heard at this conference from Rebecca Parker was that we offer salvation from those things that deny life or make it less whole.

As an Our Whole Lives educator and curriculum trainer, this simple statement about salvation explains why we offer sexuality education in our congregations. We provide sexuality education because it offers salvation in a very real sense.

Excerpts from "Companions for the Journey"

At All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Shreveport, we have a recurring sermon series where members share the journey that led them to All Souls and why the continue to stay.

On 25 July 2010, I was one of three persons who talked about these questions and here is what I said:

The journey that led me to this church
Good morning – I'm Steve Caldwell and here's the journey that me to All Souls.

Does anyone know what a Unitarian Universalist is?

Well, the punchline for this joke is “An atheist with children.”

And that joke is the short version of my journey. But there is a longer story as well.

Many years ago, my first encounter with Unitarian Universalism happened in 1981 when Susan and I had out wedding in Athens, Georgia.

We were looking for a setting for us to get married. Susan was raised as a questioning Roman Catholic by a Presbyterian mom and Catholic dad. And I wasn't very religious (much to the aggravation of my Mom).

We both had relatives who would be more comfortable with a religious wedding instead of simple justice-of-the-peace ceremony.

Susan's dad suggested that we talk to the Unitarian minister in our town. He thought this would be a solution for both of us.

I attended church occasionally but I didn't call myself a “Unitarian” or a “Unitarian Universalist” yet. In 1980-1981, “signing the book” was just too religious for me.

A few years later when I enlisted in the Air Force, I told the recruiter that I was a “Unitarian” and that is what they put on my dog tags.

Fast forward to 1987 when Delia was born. We faced a dilemma that many UU parents face. How do we let our child know what our values are and also let her discover her own values? How to achieve this delicate balance?

From our wedding experience, we knew about Unitarian Universalism but we were far away from the nearest UU congregation because we were living in a small town about 3 ½ hours north of Detroit (Wurtsmith Air Force Base - near Oscoda).

However, we discovered that the UUA have an excellent “church by mail” program for isolated families like ours (Church of the Larger Fellowship). We did some UU stuff with Delia around the holidays and such. And we added yet another wonderful person to our family when Charlie was born in 1992.

Shortly after Charlie was born, we left Northern Michigan for Rapid City, South Dakota. In Rapid City, we discovered that there was a “real” UU congregation for our family where we could meet with other Unitarian Universalists face-to-face. And they had real religious education classes for our children as well.

After 3 years in South Dakota, we moved once again to Shreveport and Bossier City in December 1995.

I had visited All Souls a few times during the autumn of 1995 before our entire family moved to Bossier City.

I remember Ron Thurston and Charlotte Crowley who were working the membership table greeting newcomers like myself when I first visited on a warm September day.

Compared to our “church by mail” experience and our small lay-led fellowship congregation in Rapid City, we were amazed by how big All Souls seemed to us at the time.

Our kids enjoyed having RE classes where half of the kids did not have “Caldwell” as their last name.

And that's the long story about how I got to All Souls.

The reasons why I've stayed
The other question that I've been asked to talk about the reasons why I've stayed.

Charlie overheard me asking Susan about this and he had one possible answer – “computer tech support.”

But I should provide a more complete answer than that.

We don't talk about “salvation” very much in Unitarian Universalist circles. I've never heard anyone in a UU setting ask “are you saved?”

Hellfire and damnation in Unitarian Universalism went out of fashion back in the early 1800s with the theological writings of Hosea Ballou and other early Universalists who rejected the idea of Heaven and Hell in the afterlife.

We do have a theology of “salvation” today – we just don't talk about it very much.

Rebecca Parker (President – Starr King School of the Ministry and one of our leading theologians) provides a short and pithy summary of our implicit theology of salvation.

“We offer salvation from those things that deny life or make life less whole.”

When I heard this, a light bulb went off over my head. To me, this explained why I'm at All Souls and active as a Unitarian Universalist elsewhere.

I've been very active in our denomination as a curriculum trainer for the Our Whole Lives lifespan sexuality education series that we jointly developed with the United Church of Christ.

Our sexuality education curricula are just one example of the salvation what we offer – just one example of how we can save people from those things that take away life or make it less whole.

For example, a person who is struggling with negative messages about bodies and sexuality which are all too common in the Southern “Bible Belt” culture would find a message of salvation in a church like ours which teaches that our bodies and our sexuality are a good part of the human experience.

And there are plenty of other ways that we can provide salvation in this life to a world greatly in need of salvation.

The promise of salvation – along with providing computer tech support – is why I stay at All Souls.

Thank you.

The audio podcast recording with Gia Motti, Kathy Osuch, and myself can be found online here.

"What about those who have never heard about Christ? Is is fair they be 'damned' just because they were never exposed to Christianity?"

If you find these questions seem to be odd from a Unitarian Universalist perspective, then you're probably wondering why I've used them for the title of this blog article.

These questions are the topic for next Wednesday's meeting for my congregation's Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship Bible Study Group (this group is one of our congregation's "covenant groups"). Our local UUCF group is hosting a multi-week forum on "Questions and Concerns About Christianity" and these two questions will be discussed next week.

I'm surprised to know that these questions are current concerns for modern-day Unitarian Universalist Christians because I thought they were discussed in-depth during the 1800s and we have moved on to other aspects of Christianity in the Unitarian Universalist tradition.

Our Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist heritage is rooted in the Protestant Chirstian tradition and our tradition has looked at these questions in depth.

The early 1800s Unitarian view was one of "salvation by character." Rev. Jane Rzepka (Senior Minister, Church of the Larger Fellowship) describes "salvation by character" using the following words in her 2003 General Assembly CLF Worship Service:

"We are Unitarian Universalists, and our salvation comes not in the rapture but, historically at least, in 'salvation by character.' We believe there is something wonderful inside us -- you could call it inherent dignity and worth -- that allows us to work toward good character, wholeness, healing, and all that is good. We have within us a little core of natural hope -- Thoreau's bug in the sixty year old table metaphor could work here [refers to reading] -- some little bit of hopeful life that lies waiting to spring into action. And even better, most UUs don't just sit for sixty years waiting, we act to realize that hope, that life, that wholeness. In spite of the difficulties in our own experience and of life in the larger world, we do what we can. Therein lies our Unitarian Universalist salvation."

The early 1800s Universalist view was one of "salvation irrespective of character." That is best described using the words of Hosea Ballou in the address he gave to the 1851 Universalist General Convention in Boston (as recorded in his online biography page):

"In homely language, he summed up his belief in a God who, as a Father, loves all his children: 'Your child has fallen into the mire, and its body and its garments are defiled. You cleanse it, and array it in clean robes. The query is, Do you love your child because you have washed it? Or, Did you wash it because you loved it?"

A recent summary of the origins of modern-day Unitarian Universalist soteriology (theology of salvation) can be found in "Unitarian Universalist Identity" curriculum for young adults by Katie Tweedie Erslev:

UU Soteriology: Raising the Roof
"Once again, in contrast to the predominant foundation of the theology of Calvinism, our roof was raised by the 19th century Universalists. Universalism gave us a roof that saved us all. They said that what saves us is the power of creative love made viable to us in the person of Jesus.

Do we need to be saved from Hell? The Universalists said that we create heaven and hell on earth. We need to be saved from the Hells that we create."

So ... I guess that many Unitarian Universalists would view Jesus, his teachings, and the example he set during his pre-Easter life on Earth as one example of creative love saving others.

But I don't think that we would say that Jesus is the only example of creative love saving others.

These questions may be important for Christian newcomers to our congregation who are dealing with concerns about competing claims over Christian exclusiveness and religious pluralism.

But while this theology is an important part of our heritage that we should celebrate, it's not an urgent theological concern for most Unitarian Universalists today.

If one doesn't believe in Hell other than the hells we create in the here-and-now, is there any point in talking about it or wondering if those who have not heard about Christ are possibly condemned to hellfire and damnation?

And that's why I would find the discussion questions for this group's next meeting to be odd from my Unitarian Universalist perspective.

How Do Our Churches Survive in a Non-Religious World?

On Chalice Chick's Chaliceblog, she mentioned a member of her congregation speaking this concern during a public forum:

"This year, a lady said 'I went to a book signing Richard Dawkins did a few weeks ago, and there were SO MANY young atheists there. We need more young people, and I think the problems is that our services are too theist. How can we make our church more atheist as to attract more people? If we don't, our church is going to die ... '"

Chalice Chick made the following comment about this:

"It's been my observation that cold war era kids all had justifications why their hometown, wherever they grew up, was the first place the Russians were going to attack.

I can't help but think "There are billions of people out there who believe what I do, and the church is dying because it has not properly conformed itself to what I believe. If only UUism were more theist / atheist / spiritual / pagan / multicultural / activist, then it might have a chance, but it's not and indeed my people are terribly discriminated against, so it is surely doomed" comes from the same impulse.

Why do so many of us get off on feeling so persecuted,while at the same time believing that our message will be salvific for UUism?"

And Ms. Kitty made the following observation in the comment section of this blog:

"I'll bet the ministers in the porch chat just quietly and internally sighed at the shortsightedness of this questioner."

I think that there is a kernel of truth the congregant's concern about Unitarian Universalist churches becoming less friendly and welcoming for non-theists (Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-believers).

I think we're in danger of losing Will's "Denomination of Last Resort" market niche because church attendance as a behavior and the expectation of church attendance is dropping in North America. There is no need for a "Denomination of Last Resort" if there is no community pressure to attend church weekly.

Prior to the baby boomer generation, there was a community norm that everyone should be at church on Sunday morning.

Perhaps an exception would be made for Jewish folks and Christians who held their sabbath on the 7th day of the week.

But the idea that a person would sit at home or do something else other than church on Sunday morning would be a violation of community norms.

I suggest that this may have been a reason for many older Atheist, Agnostic, and Humanist Unitarian and Unitarian Universalists joining our congregations.

If your neighbors expect you to go to church, you're going to find the one that is most Atheist-friendly. We didn't require a belief in God -- because of our non-creedal nature, we were a welcome home for Atheists and Agnostics.

But our society has changed. Sunday church attendance isn't a community norm any more.

40% of Americans (according to social science survey data) SAY they attend church weekly. When behavior is observed, the actual figure is a two-fold over-estimate. Observed weekly church attendance is closer to 20%. See the information on the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance web site for details behind this change.

To further complicate this, Christianity is shrinking relative to the US population (7.3% between 1990 and 2001 according to the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). The "No Religion - Atheist - Agnostic" category has grown by 6.6% during this same period (8.4% of the population in 1990 vs. 15.0% of the population in 2001 according to the ARIS data).

To summarize:

(1) Church attendance isn't a social norm anymore.

(2) Because of changes in social norms (item 1), we shouldn't assume that our Atheist, Agnostic, and Humanist friends will always be in our congregations.

(3) Christianity is losing "market share" in North America.

(4) The "No Religion - Atheist - Agnostic" is gaining market share.

Given these trends, can Unitarian Universalism adapt to a North American culture that is becoming less traditionally religious and can we provide a welcoming home for the growing North American non-religious demographic?

Or will we compete over a shrinking theistic market share with our Mainline Protestant church neighbors?

What we can offer as a religion is salvation for a world badly in need of salvation here-and-now and not in the afterlife (see my blog posts here about Unitarian Universalist salvation).

How do we survive as a religious community that offers salvation in a world that is becoming less traditionally theistic and less traditionally religious so we can continue to provide this salvation?

Do We Really Talk Too Much About Sex?

My blog post is a response to Rev. Christine Robinson's concern that we spend too much time on sexuality education in Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Wow ... where should I start?

I hate it when folks use numbers as a rhetorical device and not as a tool for conveying accurate information. I think I've said this a million times that we should not exaggerate numbers for rhetorical effect.

First, the 25% of religious education contact time spent on the Our Whole Lives program isn't factually accurate.

And the misunderstanding that the Our Whole Lives (OWL) sexuality education program isn't "real" religious education (grounded in Unitarian Universalist theology and/or the United Church of Christ understanding of the Bible and their theology) is all too common among some folks who are not familiar with the Our Whole Lives program and the Unitarian Universalist/United Church of Christ Sexuality and Our Faith religious supplement for the Our Whole Lives program.

When one realizes that "sexuality" is more than body parts and lubricated friction and that it includes friendships, relationships, discovering who one is, etc, the time spent in OWL class isn't excessive at all.

This is one religious education (RE) class that we know our youth will use as adults.

Dr. Rebecca Parker has a very short and concise explanation of what Unitarian Universalist soteriology that she presented at the Liberal Religious Educator Association Fall Conference back in 2002. She says that we offer salvation from those things that deny life or make life less whole.

Using this view of salvation, I would suggest that the Our Whole Lives program is part of that salvation that we offer a world badly in need of salvation.

That's enough theology -- let's go back to the numbers.

Here's a breakdown of the time spent in the Our Whole Lives program at each age/grade level for Unitarian Universalists who are not adults:

Grades K-1 - 8 sessions (8 hours)

Grades 4-6 - 8 sessions (8 hours)

Grades 7-9 - 27 sessions (41- 54 hours, depending on the amount of religious ritual used with the basic 90 minute sessions)

Grades 10-12 - 14 sessions (28 hours)

The total amount of time spent in formal sexuality education classes is 98 hours (based on the figures provided above).

The estimate of time spent in all RE activities (based on Christine's estimate) is 520 hours.

Assuming that OWL program happens on Sunday morning instead of non-OWL RE classes, the percentage is not 25% -- 18.9% is what I come up with.

However, I doubt that the figure is any near 18% in most Unitarian Universalist congregations.

For example, my congregation only offers the grades 7-9 program and I suspect this is true for many other congregations (the grades 7-9 program is viewed by many as the replacement for About Your Sexuality, the earlier UUA sexuality education program).

Furthermore, we offer the program outside the Sunday morning RE time slot and it doesn't replace the non-OWL RE program. It supplements it. For my congregation and for many others like it the actual figure is 9.4%.

It's rare to find a congregation that offers OWL at all age/grade levels. I know this from my experience as a trainer in my district. The only OWL training workshop that has happened every year in my district is the training for adolescent OWL. Some years, the children and adult programs don't make the minimum enrollment number.

However, there are some congregations that do offer all age/grade levels of OWL. But they offer them outside Sunday morning as a supplement to the non-OWL RE program. In those cases, the percentage isn't 18%. For these congregations, the percentage is closer to 15%.

Finally, I'm sure that somebody is wondering why anyone would need 27 weeks and 40-52 hours to talk about sex. If all we provided in the OWL program was just the biological - medical facts about anatomy, reproduction, disease prevention, etc, 52 hours of class time would seem excessive.

However, we cover more than just "sexual health and reproduction" in the OWL program.

We talk about sensuality -- body awareness - how we feel about our bodies, how it looks, feels and what it can do. Sensuality is about being aware of and in touch with the pleasure our bodies can give us and others.

We talk about intimacy -- the basic need to be emotionally close to another person or persons and have that closeness returned. Relationships give us a sense of belonging, connection, and affection. Relationships can be friendships, family relationships, or romantic relationships.

We talk about sexual identity -- who we are sexually, including our sense of gender; the ways we express our gender; and the direction of our romantic and sexual attractions.

We talk about sexualization -- the use of sex or sexuality to influence, manipulate, or control other people. Sexualization is not always negative. It can range from harmless flirting to extreme violence.

This multi-faceted and complex model of sexuality that we use in the OWL program can be found online here:

Circles of Sexuality

Teaching abstinence or condom use are both simple skills that can be taught in less than 1 hour. The hard part is providing the opportunity for folks to explore the relationship issues so our youth have the ability to negotiate effective and safe sexual decisions with their partners as adolescents and as adults in the future.

End of my rant.

"Sex education helps save the world" (UU World Magazine Article)

In the Fall 2005 Issue of UU World, there's an article titled "Sex education helps save the world" by Cynthia Kuhn (a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University, and co-author of Buzzed: The Straight Facts about the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy. Cynthia is also an Our Whole Lives Grades 7-9 facilitator in her congregation).

Here's a short passage from Cynthia's article:

This year one of my owl students brought to class a book the public school had passed out. One of its "top ten reasons" why teens have sex was participation in sex-education classes. Another section stated that condoms do not halt the spread of HIV/AIDS or even effectively prevent pregnancy! In fact, as I had just been teaching my medical students, condoms are 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and significantly decrease the transmission of HIV when they are used properly, according to well-designed, peer-reviewed research studies. A colleague and I tried to get the local newspaper to address these falsehoods being taught in our schools but failed to spark any interest. We live in frightening times when scientific truth is suppressed in our public schools and forums.

Abstinence-only programs do not accomplish their goal of delaying sexual intercourse until marriage, According to a review of such programs in eleven states conducted by Advocates for Youth. Eighty-eight percent of young people in such programs have sex by the time they leave high school. And when they do have sex, they are less likely to use contraception and more likely to engage in dangerous sexual practices than children in programs that teach about contraception. The majority of scientists who specialize in children's health, as well as the American Medical Association, Planned Parenthood, and the U.S. Surgeon General, have all endorsed comprehensive sexuality-education program -- programs that advocate abstinence for teens but also provide complete and accurate information about contraception and STDs. The OWL program epitomizes that approach.

UU parents should certainly feel proud that their kids, by participating in OWL, are the smartest kids on the block about these issues. But our responsibility doesn't stop at our church doors. Those of us with the expertise need to advocate for all kids, especially the ones who get only the little book about the ten reasons that teens have sex. We need to show up at school board meetings and talk to teachers, principals, and superintendents about curriculum, armed with facts. (Planned Parenthood, the National Institutes of Health, and Advocates for Youth all have excellent, up-to-date, and scientifically accurate information.) We need to bombard our state legislatures so that they can have the courage, as the state of California did, to turn down federal "abstinence-only" money and develop effective programs instead.

In our religious-education program we have a slogan: "Nothing less than saving the world." I believe that is exactly what we do with OWL. Our children can grow up to enjoy healthy relationships, have a sexual life without contracting disease, and bear their children when they are adults and not children themselves. Teaching our kids about safe, mutually respectful sexual behavior in the context of our value system, I believe, is indeed nothing less than saving the world.

And this is why Our Whole Lives and supporting other comprehensive sexuality education are so important in our congregations and our wider communities. We are offering salvation from those things that deny life or make life less whole. This is just one example of how Unitarian Universalism offers salvation to a world in need of salvation.

Implicit and Explicit Theologies - Part II

This post is in response to the discussion on Philocrites about Unitarian Universalist theology ("A religion still seeking definition").

As a religious educator who is familiar with Maria Harris' book Fashion Me a People and the related UU essays on current and future trends in religious education found in The Essex Conversations, I really think we need to look at our "implicit curriculum" if we are serious about theology in our congregations.

Our "implicit" or "hidden" curriculum is very close to the unstated theological assumptions behind the way that Unitarian Universalists currently "do church." While complaining about the lack of theology in UU churches, we overlook the existing "theology" that's currently in use every day in our congregations.

The complaints about modern-day Unitarian Universalism lacking a well-formed and articulated theology may be really be complaints about an explicit theology. To me, this is related to the concept of "explicit curriculum":

"Explicit curriculum refers to what is consciously and intentionally presented. It is the official curriculum, or written curriculum, which gives the basic lesson plan to be followed, including objectives, sequence, and materials, what is taught by the teacher, methods used and the learning outcomes for the student."

Contrast this idea with the concepts of "implict curriculum" and "null curriculum":

"Implicit (hidden) curriculum includes the norms and values of the surrounding society, the setting in which the learning occurs (including the decoration and set-up of the area), and the broader environment in which education occurs."

"Null curriculum consists of what is not taught. Consideration must be given to the reasons behind why things are not included in the explicit curriculum or recognized in examination of the implicit curriculum."

Extending these concepts of "explicit," "implicit," and "null" to our theologies, I think we can find some theological questions. We may find some theological history and even some current-day theology being practiced in how we run our churches.

1. What topics fall into our "null theology" (topics that we avoid in our pulpits and religious education settings)? What does this "null theology" say about us?
2. In terms of implicit theology, what is our implicit theology (or theologies) in how we view the nature of god and humanity and the relationship between god and humanity?
3. As an implicit theology, what is our "ecclesiology"? How do we define who is and isn't a member? How do we decide matters in our governance? Where does authority reside in our tradition?
4. What is our implicit theology of "soteriology"? Do we even have a theology of salvation in modern-day Unitarian Universalism? What does salvation mean for those Unitarian Universalists who are not Christian and are non-theists?
5. What is our implicit "missiology"? How do we interact with folks who are currently not in our faith tradition?
6. What is our implicit "eschatology"? What do expect to find as the "final destiny" or "end state" in our tradition?
7. Finally, what is our implicit "pneumatology"?

Well ... that's plenty for now. Go discuss.

My Survey Responses in the Ministerial Search Process - Part 5

This is my response to the eight, ninth, and tenth open-ended questions in the survey provided by my congregation's Ministerial Search Committee. The first response and the background behind these survey questions can be found here.

Would you like to see the church’s membership grow? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of growing?
I would like to see the congregation grow so much that we need to create new UU congregations in Shreveport to handle the numbers and theological diversity.

It would be very selfish of me to not want congregational growth. We don’t realize it but Unitarian Universalism does offer salvation. We can save people in Shreveport from those things that deny life or make it less whole.

Our UU tradition of offering health-promoting and sexuality-positive information for our youth is one very concrete example of how we offer salvation in our world. Since the early 1970s, UU churches have provided “About Your Sexuality” for youth. Today we offer the “Our Whole Lives” lifespan sexuality education program for children, youth, and adults.

Are there any special issues that you would like our Ministerial Search Committee to consider and on which you would like to express your views?
- How comfortable would a ministerial candidate be with promoting lifespan sexuality education and other matters related to congregational sexual health at All Souls?

- How comfortable would a ministerial candidate be with promoting the theological foundation of Unitarian Universalist youth ministry found in YRUU (Young Religious Unitarian Universalists)? These concepts include “youth empowerment,” shared youth-adult leadership, “power shared equals power multiplied,” youth ministry as a form of anti-oppression work that addresses ageism, etc.

- How comfortable would a ministerial candidate be with promoting congregational involvement in other types of anti-oppression work like “Welcoming Congregation” and “Journey Towards Wholeness”?

What would make you want to attend Sunday Services more often?
I usually don’t attend Sunday worship because I’m in the RE wing for most Sundays. Given that fact, you probably don’t want to listen to my thoughts.

But I’ve also found that what most Unitarian Universalist congregations offer on Sunday morning to be much less spiritual, less deep, and less intense than the typical worship experience I’ve seen at weekend YRUU rallies, SWUUSI youth camp, and UU young adult conferences.

From my experience with youth and young adult conferences, I would like to see us break out of the traditional Protestant “Sermon Sandwich” model for our worship services. There are UU models for doing alternative and contemporary worship that would free us from the mostly non-participatory, unidirectional communication style, lecture-sermon worship model that we inherited from our Protestant history.

Could our worship be done in a “circle worship” format instead of the current “rectangular” format?

Could it happen outside from time to time? Does it have to happen on Sunday morning? From a circadian rhythm point of view, Sunday morning is a bad time of day for some youth and young adults.

For youth and young adults who attend school five days a week, a worship experience that is a lecture-sermon is just another day of school work for them … do we want to add an extra day of work to their school schedule? Or do we want to offer a worship experience that allows one a chance to let his or her soul catch up with him or her … a refreshing break from the very busy lives we all lead?

Where Does "Theology" Stop and "Mental Masturbation" Begin?

I've been looking at the recent replies on Philocrites' blog to the "Isaac Newton's anti-Trinitarianism in the news" article.

Much of the discussion touches on speculation about Jesus and his relationship to God along with various competing christologies -- unitarian, trinitarian, etc.

Maybe I'm just too simple-minded but I'm finding most theological discussions to be "mental masturbation." The Urban Dictionary definition of this term is "The act of engaging in useless yet intellectually stimulating conversation, usually as an excuse to avoid taking constructive action in your life."

Personally, I don't totally like the term "mental masturbation" because it implies that masturbation (the physical sexual act ... not the "mental" variety) is a useless and non-productive act. I've blogged about the life-affirming and spirituality-enhancing aspects of this in the past:

• Sexuality and the "Direct Experience of That Transcending Mystery and Wonder"
• Here's Hoping That You Have a "Happy Ending"

However, I can accept this phrase as an imperfect metaphor.

So ... most theological discussions are a lot of mental fun but I find too much too much theology to be useless and non-productive for the work that needs doing in the world.

Certainly, too much theological discussion can be a real "Doritos syndrome" experience once you're done.

I'm really not that concerned about christology but I am concerned about practical soteriology.

How can Unitarian Universalists offer salvation and protect us from those things in the world that deny life or make life less whole?

To me, that is a more important question for us than the existence and the nature of God, the relationship between God and Jesus, and all the other questions that come up in most theological discussions.

Pale Blue Dot

A video on the folly of expecting an external source for our salvation:

UU Discussion Questions For "I Sold My Soul on eBay" (Part V)

This post is a continuation of the Unitarian Universalist re-framing of the discussion questions at the end of Hemant Mehta's I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith through an Atheist's Eyes. Hemant is also the author of the Friendly Atheist blog.

The discussion questions for the book's Introduction can be found here:

UU Discussion Questions For "I Sold My Soul on eBay" (Part I)

The discussion questions for Chapter 1 can be found here:

UU Discussion Questions For "I Sold My Soul on eBay" (Part II)

The discussion questions for Chapter 2 can be found here:

UU Discussion Questions For "I Sold My Soul on eBay" (Part III)

The discussion questions for Chapter 3 can be found here:

UU Discussion Questions For "I Sold My Soul on eBay" (Part IV)

Chapter 4: What the Nonreligious Believe
(1) The author identifies the deciding factor in his de-conversion: "I could no longer follow the logic in [Jainism's] most fundamental claims ... But when I reexamined life using the reasoning of atheists, everything started to fall into place." Does atheism have more authenticity than a belief in God? Why or why not? If you are using this discussion guide with a group, please have people share their responses. Would an atheist raised in a Unitarian Universalist congregation have this de-conversion experience?

(2) Hemant writes, "I appreciate the honesty of an answer that admits 'We don't know for certain.'" He seems to feel that atheists, more than Christians, are willing to admit that they don't have all the answers. Do you feel that most people come to Christianity hoping to get all their questions answered? Do you feel that most people coming to Unitarian Universalism are also looking for answers? If so, what do you think those answers are?

(3) Here is the author's definition of doubt: "Doubt for me had to do with giving serious consideration to certain religious beliefs and teachings and finding heightened confusion rather than explaining life as I knew it." What do you feel about the suggestion that religion may create confusion? In what ways does Unitarian Universalism heighten confusion? In what ways does Unitarian Universalism reduce confusion?

(4) Here is one example of a traditional Christian teaching that Hemant cannot accept: "There is the belief that murderers who 'accept Jesus' will go to heaven when they die but someone like Mahatma Gandhi, who used nonviolence to combat India's caste system and to fight for the country's independence, went to hell because he was a Hindu and not a Christian ... How could someone who took another human's life reap greater eternal rewards than a person who dedicated his life to helping others?" How would you personally answer Hemant's question? Do you feel that an early Universalist theology of universal salvation (e.g. a loving God would not condemn anyone to eternal punishment) would provide a different Christian answer for Hemant's concerns? Do you feel that a later Universalist theology (e.g. there is no hell -- heavens or hells are situations we create through human agency in this life) would provide a different Christian answer for Hemant's concerns?

(5) Hemant points out that atheist parents show their children how to "think critically about what society tells them," so they can avoid being deceived by the messages of the culture. Have you ever considered that atheist parents would be concerned about how the culture might corrupt their children? If you are a Unitarian Universalist parent, have you taught your children how to think critically about popular culture? Do you think atheist parents would approve of the messages we teach in our Unitarian Universalist religious education programs? Why or why not?

(6) The author states that when atheists support efforts to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Alliegence or to remove a nativity scene from public property, they are not motivated by a hatred of religion. "Our real motivation is to respect constitutional guarantees against governmental establishment of a particular religion," he writes. "If atheists truly sought to remove religion from public life, I would imagine we would fight to change the line in the Pledge of Allegiance to 'One nation, under no God, indivisible.'" What do you feel about this statement?

(7) Hemant refers to "the most fundamental question there is: what is the meaning of life?" Does it surprise you that an atheist thinks this? Hemant says that an atheist answer to this question is "all people choose the meaning in their lives." What do you feel about this view? Do you think it's true for Unitarian Universalists as well? Why or why not?

(8) Hemant reports that in every church service he attended, he asked himself, Does Christian faith answer the big questions of life in a more satisfactory way than nonsupernatural explanations do? As a Unitarian Universalist, how would you respond to this concern? Do you think that we provide answers that are compatible with nonsupernatural explanations? Why
or why not?

My Survey Responses in the Ministerial Search Process - Part 1

My congregation (All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana) is currently in the search process for a settled minister.

As part of this search process, our search committee is surveying the congregation for their views on the role of the minister, personal spiritual leanings, and more. The survey used by search committee is the one recommended by the Unitarian Universalist Association's Ministry and Professional Leadership Staff Group.

The final portion of this survey is a series of ten open-ended questions. The following blog entry is written in response to the the first question in the list of open-ended survey questions:

What current strengths does our congregation possess that you would like to either see maintained or developed in the immediate future?
In my opinion, our biggest strength is our religious “brand name” and the marketing niche associated with our denomination in North American religious life.

In much of North America and certainly in Shreveport/Bossier City, where can a political liberal go and feel affirmed on Sunday morning at church?

Where can a bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender person and/or family go and be affirmed on Sunday morning at church?

Where can an interracial couple go and be affirmed on Sunday morning at church?

The obvious answer should be “All Souls Shreveport.”

In terms of denominational “brand names” and theological marketing niches, we are the only Unitarian Universalist congregation within 70 miles. This means we have a potential strength that we can use to grow both in numbers and also grow the souls in our congregation.

Being a Unitarian Universalist doesn’t mean we can believe “anything we want to believe.” We are not a “consumer-driven” religion but rather one that should both comfort and challenge us.

As a faith community, we have a history and a shared theology that we have inherited, inhabit today, and will be passed along to later generations after we are gone.

This theology and its components that we have inherited are distinctively Unitarian Universalist and reflect our history as a North American religious movement … how we view humanity and God, how we form church communities, the “end result” of our theology, how we view other faith communities, how we view salvation, etc are distinctively “different” from most Shreveport churches. Hiding this difference would be a grave mistake.

[Note: See Karen LoBracco's sermon based on Dr. Rebecca Parker's Liberal Religious Educator Association talks on UU theology of religious education presented at the 2002 LREDA Fall Conference for details about what I think we offer that is unique in Shreveport.]

We cannot use this unique marketing strength if we market ourselves as a “Protestant-Lite” church in Shreveport and Bossier City … other churches can do “Protestant-Lite” better than we can and we’re the only church in town who can offer Unitarian Universalist theology.

Programs like “Welcoming Congregation,” “Journey Towards Wholeness,” “Young Religious Unitarian Universalists,” and “Our Whole Lives” do run counter to prevailing cultural norms of Shreveport and Bossier City. Given the stifling and unhealthy cultural norms in our community, being “out of step” should be a marketing plus and not a problem for us in our marketing.

Our Unitarian Universalist neighbors in Longview, TX have marketed themselves as a distinctive religious community that is different from other Longview churches. When they offered Unitarian Universalist sexuality education for their adults, they sent a press release to the local paper religion editor. This informed their community that their church was uniquely sexuality-positive. When they started the Welcoming Congregation study process (about a year before they took the congregational vote to become a Welcoming Congregation), they sent out a press release to the local paper again. This informed their community that they were uniquely BGLT-friendly. One end result of the Longview UU fellowship’s positioning of themselves as a unique congregation in the Bible Belt has been numeric growth … so much growth that they are outgrowing their building and will be receiving the next SW District “Chalice Lighter” grant to assist them in growing further.

However, we also have some other strengths that should be mentioned as well:

- Children and Youth Faith Development Programs (“Religious Education”)

- Dedicated church staff who work incredibly hard for us

- Dedicated volunteers who support the life of the congregation.