I personally experienced a lot of cult like behaviors, but didn’t believe it and thought it was just only my own triggers from past trauma. If only I became completely healed and have no triggers, then the cult like behaviors would dissolve into normal behaviors, but that never happened, but actually increased the more I worked on my triggers from my past.
Only since I left (escaped) have I finally been able to dissolve my triggers from my childhood and stabilize my mental and emotional state.
I suspect that some of the churches were more cult like than others, and it eventually bubbled up to the national level.
I don't see the UUA as a cult. As I have noted elsewhere, there are 2 cultures now in UUism. The first is the traditional "Culture of Dignity", which is based in the Enlightenment, and elevates the individual and the humanist tradition of UUism. The new culture is the "Culture of Victimhood", which reduces all persons to an intersectional product of their skin color, sexual views, and sex. In the Culture of Victimhood, all that matters is if someone is in a traditional "marginalized community". The 2 cultures see the world in very different ways, and adherents to these cultures have trouble understanding the "moral values" of the other culture.
The key point is that the "Culture of Victimhood" members, which includes many current clergy, see nothing wrong with "burning down the village to save it".
Just a small point, but intersectionality, to my understanding, is the idea that people are *not* reducible to the sum or product of their various identities. Rather, each of us experience unique and complex combination of those identities.
But unfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding (at best) of this concept on all sides. I've seen a lot people who are coming from a marginalized perspective write off commentary from a white person as "privileged". Which ignores the fact that they are interacting with someone who can't simply be reduced to "white" to understand everything about their perspective. Too often, the terminology gets formed into a weapon, rather than provoking humility.
And I'm sure it's this abuse of the concept that you're referring to.
The term "cult" is too general a term to be useful. But the UUA certainly has become dogmatic and to some degree authoritarian--lurching away from what made UUism distinct and valuable.
I personally experienced a lot of cult like behaviors, but didn’t believe it and thought it was just only my own triggers from past trauma. If only I became completely healed and have no triggers, then the cult like behaviors would dissolve into normal behaviors, but that never happened, but actually increased the more I worked on my triggers from my past.
Only since I left (escaped) have I finally been able to dissolve my triggers from my childhood and stabilize my mental and emotional state.
I suspect that some of the churches were more cult like than others, and it eventually bubbled up to the national level.
Cults make you cut off association with people outside the cult so I think of the "cult" designation for the UUA as hyperbole or at best a metaphor
Good point. However, according the BITE model, that is not a requirement.
I don't see the UUA as a cult. As I have noted elsewhere, there are 2 cultures now in UUism. The first is the traditional "Culture of Dignity", which is based in the Enlightenment, and elevates the individual and the humanist tradition of UUism. The new culture is the "Culture of Victimhood", which reduces all persons to an intersectional product of their skin color, sexual views, and sex. In the Culture of Victimhood, all that matters is if someone is in a traditional "marginalized community". The 2 cultures see the world in very different ways, and adherents to these cultures have trouble understanding the "moral values" of the other culture.
I discuss all of this in an essay on my substack:
https://georgeqtyrebyter.substack.com/p/the-2-cultures-of-unitarian-universalism
The key point is that the "Culture of Victimhood" members, which includes many current clergy, see nothing wrong with "burning down the village to save it".
Just a small point, but intersectionality, to my understanding, is the idea that people are *not* reducible to the sum or product of their various identities. Rather, each of us experience unique and complex combination of those identities.
But unfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding (at best) of this concept on all sides. I've seen a lot people who are coming from a marginalized perspective write off commentary from a white person as "privileged". Which ignores the fact that they are interacting with someone who can't simply be reduced to "white" to understand everything about their perspective. Too often, the terminology gets formed into a weapon, rather than provoking humility.
And I'm sure it's this abuse of the concept that you're referring to.
The term "cult" is too general a term to be useful. But the UUA certainly has become dogmatic and to some degree authoritarian--lurching away from what made UUism distinct and valuable.