My district clergy retreat is winding down. Our program was driven by a curriculum called “Whose Are We?” I admit I was grumpy going into it. The assumed theism (oh, no, you don’t have to assume a deity, perhaps your larger is the community…) annoyed me no end.
But the deal for me in these things is as colleagues when called together we show up. I don’t have to be happy. I just have to be there. Okay, and maybe be polite while there.
And some stuff showed up within this conversation that I’m having trouble processing. Here’s a rough outline of what I’m dealing with…
Now, there are all sorts of moving factors. About twenty-five UU ministers, mostly serving smaller churches, a few part time, a few community ministers. A good range of age. A majority female. All, near as the eyeball can tell, of European descent. Mostly from middle class or higher backgrounds. New England.
And, of course, clergy of pretty much all religions have a somewhat different view of their theology than the rank and file…
Still…
No hard numbers. But it seemed to me there are three largish breakouts.
The smallest of these are actively hostile to theistic language.
Another group, happy to use god-talk, but push come to shove are naturalists.
A third group, what I’d call theistic dualists. When they use the word God they mean an entity not identical with the world (or, only partially identical, as in panentheism) to whom prayers may be addressed and from whom intervention might be hoped for.
What shocked me was that this third group appears to be the far and away largest group of the clergy present.
Until this gathering my best read on the theological trending among UUs has been that the majority of us, perhaps the larger majority fit the naturalistic mysticism model, with the rejectors and the dualistic theists as quite small.
Might yet prove to be so. But, not here…
Those who follow my blog know I’m comfortable with theistic language. I like Spinoza’s pantheism (but no “en” in the works, or, rather outside it). So, put me in the naturalistic column…
Unitarian Universalism has been a congenial home for me to work out my liberal Buddhism. I remain grateful beyond saying to this tradition, for what it has allowed me to do, and to be…
And, I guess, I thought someplace more or less along the lines of my spiritual understanding, comfortable, even grateful for much of the spiritual style of the West, but ultimately based upon an intuitive insight that we are one was more or less where a very large group of us have been going.
May still be so…
But, perhaps not…
And, I guess, I’m more invested in this than I thought…
Seems pretty important to me…
Pretty important…
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