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<\/a>In an earlier post I expressed my profound concern with a line in the proposed revision<\/a> of the Statement of Principles and Purposes of our Unitarian Universalist By-Laws. It is so important for the continuing life of our Association I feel a need to expand a bit on my feelings and thoughts regarding this matter. While we are a fiercely non-creedal people, and indeed the draft contains an \u201cescape clause\u201d in section C-2.6 \u201cFreedom of Belief;\u201d this statement is enshrined in the Association\u2019s By-Laws, and while not binding in regard to anyone\u2019s thoughts or personal beliefs, it does have the effect of defining appropriate behaviors. And implicit within that is the possibility of punishment and even expulsion for those deemed to violate the By-Laws. This is particularly relevant for ministers.<\/p>\n
My problem is with the closing sentence to Section C-2.3 \u201cSources.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGrateful for the traditions that have strengthened our own, we strive to avoid misappropriation of cultural and religious practices and to seek ways of appreciation that are respectful and welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems innocuous enough. And on the face of it seems a generous attempt to engage the cultures and religions of the world from a respectful stance. And I believe the authors of this draft are indeed writing from that generous spirit. I have no argument with the spirit it seems to wish to promote.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s the problem as I see it.<\/p>\n
The issue of cultural and religious misappropriation has been on the table in UU circles for years. The argument turns on who has a right to use the rituals and symbols of another religion or culture. The deeper question seems to be how can the dominant (white) culture assimilate the rituals and symbols of oppressed peoples?<\/p>\n
The question is considerably (and to my mind fatally) muddied by multiple layers of concern that are carried within the rubric \u201ccultural misappropriation.\u201d Some argue that shamanistic practices are so much a part of larger cultural frames that those who attempt to extract those practices are doomed to failure while at the same time trivializing the original cultural matrix. In our North American context this is specifically a concern for non-Native Americans \u201cappropriating\u201d rituals such as vision quest and even symbols such as \u201cdream catchers.\u201d This is rich and difficult territory. And I think quite worthy of engagement.<\/p>\n
Others, however, go on to claim a necessary, sometimes even genetic, connection to specific practices and even ways of thinking. They assert if you are not of the original faith community you have no right to those practices or even spiritual perspectives. (East is east and West is west\u2026) Ultimately it is a seeking of religious purity. Most importantly, this argument extends beyond indigenous cultures to include world religions. And in the process presents what I find to be a complete misunderstanding of what a world religion is and its relationship to any given culture.<\/p>\n
As far as this later point goes, UU minister Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, generally an advocate for the anti-cultural misappropriation movement within our denomination, acknowledges some of the difficulty when she writes. \u201cThere is probably no such thing as a pure religion or a pure culture. To some extent we all appropriate culture. Since time immemorial, religions have borrowed from each other. Judaism was shaped in part by encounters of the ancient Hebrews with the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians. Similarly, Christianity is rooted in the Jewish tradition, Islam begins with both the Jewish and Christian traditions, and so on.\u201d My only quibble would be with the modifier \u201cprobably no such\u2026\u201d I would state unequivocally, there is no such thing as a pure religion.<\/p>\n
And specifically our contemporary Unitarian Universalism has strong eclectic and syncretistic threads.<\/p>\n
While no doubt dangerous in some ways, and we need to be wary; at the same time I am a UU specifically because of its eclectic and syncretistic inclinations. This inclination, dangerous as it is, is, I believe, the hope for the future.<\/p>\n
I would assert and celebrate how beyond our historic roots in Protestant Christianity, and through that world Christianity and its roots in Judaism and classical Paganism and Judaism\u2019s root in Near Eastern antiquity, our faith has been informed by world religious sensibilities since at least the early part of the nineteenth century, as well as our profound debt to the European Enlightenment and the rise of scientific method, and since the second half of the twentieth century the rise of a comparative mythology which nearly all of us have embraced to some degree.<\/p>\n
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