I belonged to a UU congregation for 22 years, where I was very involved - on the board and head of several committees, before I quit after a sustained change in direction, when the president pointed out to me, "If you are so discontented, why don't you leave?" Basically the message was: "Disagreement is not welcome here." Since that time, the congregation numbers are half what they were a decade ago. My son once described UUs as "atheists in denial." Over 30 years, it has become more humanist and more activist. These are not necessarily bad, but they probably are not the main reasons why and when people join a church, which tend to be around personal milestones: a death, divorce, marriage, or child, moving to a new community, etc. The church would do well to uplift and nurture its members, not demonize them. For a tiny and declining denomination to actively segregate, isolate, and evict members seems pretty stupid from and institutional perspective.
The Doctrine of Original Sin, together with denying the dignity and worth of the individual, were two MAJOR reasons or factors which alienated and turned me away from fundamentalist Protestant religion some decades ago. Later, over the next few years, I became active in the UUA. This was due to the actual historical beliefs of Unitarianism (at least as I understood them). I ended up leaving the UUA, however, when I came to realize that it was little more than a leftist political advocacy group -- giving me what amounted to a de facto political creed in the name of a religion which claimed to be "creedless."
Thank you for continuing to write about this. I left almost a year ago when I got Covid and ended up spending 2 weeks away from church, and then got attacked for talking about my life story because it was too scary or intense.
They became just like the southern Baptist church from which I had left when I moved out of my home town, that I later realized was a violent neighborhood and had been victimized in. They used all the same tactics and fallacies, but used them to justify physical violence.
There was no way for me to tell that the church would not resort to physical violence when they couldn’t force me to stop having a speech disorder or apologize for things I had no control over.
In Montgomery, AL, the UU sold the church building due to declining membership. The local UU became a leftist transgender church where anyone white was viewed as bad. I was far left. Once. I still have leftist ideals yet do not line up with any political group. I am tired of the constant whining from the Left of how anyone white is somehow evil.
David - as usual, you have written a concise and well-sourced description of an aspect of the human condition. I am in sympathy with your perspective as I felt a heartbroken betrayal by the UUMA in the way they treated the Rev Eklof. But, and this is not a criticism of your article, what is the way forward? Those of us who believe that the treatment of Rev Eklof fell below the standards of our norms are probably in the minority. A majority of the clergy must assume that the Gadflies just don’t get the pervasive and virulent racist legacy of our culture. Is a healing possible? Are the only viable options to walk away or coalesce around a new organization formatted around a nostalgic restatement of someone’s view of classic liberalism?
Many thanks for this terrific work. It concisely summarizes the illiberal drift of the UUA and UUMA and its effects on the Unitarian movement’s mental health. As a multi-term congregational board president I have experienced a malaise settle over our members with the unending barrage of UUA and UUMA pro Article 2 propaganda. “There’s something going on but I don’t know what it is.” A creeping fear of being outed as a dissenter became pervasive. We couldn’t imagine we were being taken over by a cult. It’s almost too late but because of writers like David Cycleback UU members are being exposed to information suppressed by the UUA the is stiffening resistance.
I belonged to a UU congregation for 22 years, where I was very involved - on the board and head of several committees, before I quit after a sustained change in direction, when the president pointed out to me, "If you are so discontented, why don't you leave?" Basically the message was: "Disagreement is not welcome here." Since that time, the congregation numbers are half what they were a decade ago. My son once described UUs as "atheists in denial." Over 30 years, it has become more humanist and more activist. These are not necessarily bad, but they probably are not the main reasons why and when people join a church, which tend to be around personal milestones: a death, divorce, marriage, or child, moving to a new community, etc. The church would do well to uplift and nurture its members, not demonize them. For a tiny and declining denomination to actively segregate, isolate, and evict members seems pretty stupid from and institutional perspective.
There was always drama in the Montgomery, AL UU. A RE leader just left and went to the Birmingham UU which is close to 2 hours.
The Doctrine of Original Sin, together with denying the dignity and worth of the individual, were two MAJOR reasons or factors which alienated and turned me away from fundamentalist Protestant religion some decades ago. Later, over the next few years, I became active in the UUA. This was due to the actual historical beliefs of Unitarianism (at least as I understood them). I ended up leaving the UUA, however, when I came to realize that it was little more than a leftist political advocacy group -- giving me what amounted to a de facto political creed in the name of a religion which claimed to be "creedless."
Time to rename themselves the Church of Perpetual Everlasting White Guilt.
They could poach a lot more liberal white Catholics with that - not that they haven't already!
Thank you for continuing to write about this. I left almost a year ago when I got Covid and ended up spending 2 weeks away from church, and then got attacked for talking about my life story because it was too scary or intense.
They became just like the southern Baptist church from which I had left when I moved out of my home town, that I later realized was a violent neighborhood and had been victimized in. They used all the same tactics and fallacies, but used them to justify physical violence.
There was no way for me to tell that the church would not resort to physical violence when they couldn’t force me to stop having a speech disorder or apologize for things I had no control over.
In Montgomery, AL, the UU sold the church building due to declining membership. The local UU became a leftist transgender church where anyone white was viewed as bad. I was far left. Once. I still have leftist ideals yet do not line up with any political group. I am tired of the constant whining from the Left of how anyone white is somehow evil.
David - as usual, you have written a concise and well-sourced description of an aspect of the human condition. I am in sympathy with your perspective as I felt a heartbroken betrayal by the UUMA in the way they treated the Rev Eklof. But, and this is not a criticism of your article, what is the way forward? Those of us who believe that the treatment of Rev Eklof fell below the standards of our norms are probably in the minority. A majority of the clergy must assume that the Gadflies just don’t get the pervasive and virulent racist legacy of our culture. Is a healing possible? Are the only viable options to walk away or coalesce around a new organization formatted around a nostalgic restatement of someone’s view of classic liberalism?
Many thanks for this terrific work. It concisely summarizes the illiberal drift of the UUA and UUMA and its effects on the Unitarian movement’s mental health. As a multi-term congregational board president I have experienced a malaise settle over our members with the unending barrage of UUA and UUMA pro Article 2 propaganda. “There’s something going on but I don’t know what it is.” A creeping fear of being outed as a dissenter became pervasive. We couldn’t imagine we were being taken over by a cult. It’s almost too late but because of writers like David Cycleback UU members are being exposed to information suppressed by the UUA the is stiffening resistance.