Outsiders don’t want to know what we believe in, they want to know who we are, and how to characterise us. In the case of born-again Christians that is best summed up by their belief in a personal saviour Jesus, in the case of British Unitarians, it’s their quest for religious meaning, in reason, freedom and tolerance - I guess UUs aren’t that dissimilar.

As far as I can see, it’s the journey that defines the Unitarian experience, so that’s what we should be promoting. And not using theological terms at all.

As an aside, if the Christians all left to join the UCC, and the humanists left to join Ethical Culture Societies, surely the next two largest sub-groups would have the same sorts of arguments and disagreements.

Get well soon and good luck with the condo purchase.

However, he goes on to say, “and I feel that the definition that she provided in the article is an accurate description of who we are today theologically,” and that’s where I disagree. It may indeed accurately describe where a majority of us are today theologically. It certainly seems to be the direction in which at least some of the prophetic visionaries at 25 Beacon (or at least some of them) would like to lead us, as well. But it also seems to be contrary to recent trends in the younger cohorts of our ministerial college, who in many ways offer a glimpse into our future, and it does injury to the diversity and integrity of all that we are to describe all of us that way. A spokeswoman speaking publicly on behalf of all of us to the outside world ought to know better.

To borrow Martin Buber’s vocabulary, the cure for this might well be more “thou” statements. Not only in context of the the “I-thou” relationship between the believer and God, but also in the context of building a connection between the self and the “other”. For example, if someone wants to describe the entire UU denomination as “post-Christian”, how would he or she say it, not using the first person to describe “us”, but when speaking to a “thou” who is a Christian, either inside or outside the denomination?

I should have quoted some examples of what I’ve seen and what I’ve felt it has meant. However, the three places online where this has been discussed are the following that I’ve read are:

http://radicalhapa.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/uupost-christian-i-agree/

http://infidelity.blogsome.com/2008/08/14/unitarian-universalists-as-post-christians/

This thread on Scott’s blog.

An example of the “non-I” statement about this in the comments of a reader on another blog would be a person saying that Post-Christian sounds snotty to people who don’t know what it means and this blog commenter assuming that the group of folks who don’t know what the word means would include most readers of the Washington Post.

To reframe this as an “I” statement, it might look like this:

“I think(or feel) that ‘Post-Christian’ sounds snotty and I’m concerned that others might get the same impression.”

Personally, I really don’t know the typical level of theological literacy in the Washington Post. I used to live the DC metro area and I used to read the Washington Post regularly but I have no current knowledge of where the readership is with respect to religious terms. Perhaps that would come through a long-term sampling of letters to the editor?

I don’t think the UUA spokesperson intended the term to be offensive. And I feel that the definition that she provided in the article is an accurate description of who we are today theologically.

Perhaps we should frame our remarks as “I” statements and speak from a personal view.

That’s what Scott did when he said he was hopping mad.

But much of the blogosphere commentary isn’t about personal feelings but rather speculation on what others might be thinking or feeling in response to the term “Post-Christian.”

Also, as a non theologian (just an ordinary ol’ lay person), post-Christian doesn’t sound rude or insulting to me at all, so I’m wondering if it’s even true that “regular” people would be offended by this. That’s kind of a big assumption to make.

I think one of the main problems here is that people are trying to put a label on something that by its nature is attempting to defy definition (UUism) in the world of religion. I think that when Ms. Hayes included the term “Christian” in “Post-Christian” it created too much definition, and it will probably move the average observer to conclude that UUism is a lesser known division of Christianity. I think the term Christian is just too big a word in this context, creating more problems in its attempt to provide a definition. Would it make more sense to get away from religious language in our attempts to create a simple definition for UUism? Were there any good ideas created by the so-called “elevator speech” campaign a few years ago?

“Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself.”
Quote-”Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”-

What this really reminds me of though is European politics. In Europe, there is the vision of the politicians, and the vision of the people. The people have rejected the European Constitution through referenda on various ocassions, but the politicians keep dressing it up and putting it to the people in different clothes because they know better than their citizens, don’t they.

This is what this smacks of - a (largely, I bet) self-selecting elite deciding their “vision” is superior to that of the little people. And in doing so they will ultimately destroy the very institution they claim to stand for.

My totally inadequate summary statement is that by the time of the consolidation, Unitarian Universalism has moved from being a liberal Christian church to being a liberal church with Christians. And humanists, and Jews and Buddhists and various others…

The problem for me is that we not only are a liberal church with Christians, but that our whole ethos is Protestant, our unspoken metaphors arise from the tradition, and whether humanist or Buddhist, or whatever, our debt to our Christian roots is incalculable…

In ten words or less?

And this leads back to the wider debate. I do think what emerges from this whole debate is an increased awareness that how we interpret language is largely shaped by our own position and background - naturally a significant proportion of UU Christians are going to find Unitarian-Universalism defined primarily as ‘Post-Christian’ as offensive (to varying degrees). And naturally also, those who feel less affinity with and a certain detachment from Christianity, will perhaps not be able to understand why it may offend others and may even see it as a positive-affirmative term.

I think particularly in communities like Unitarian-Universalism - where different faiths / philosophies are interacting and where identity has become highly individualised - then the use of language becomes increasingly important. And it can be divisive if used without thinking over how it will be percieved (I readily admit to have been guilty of this myself in the past).

So perhaps there needs to be a heightened state of sensitivity - perhaps it goes with the territory. And perhaps, as Patrick says, using neutral, pretty ambigious terms such as ‘Pluralist’ for shorter media soundbytes would suffice?

One last brief point, if I look over to the Quakers again - what I like is that they often frame their own identity debates in terms of ‘my liberal Friend’ or ‘my evangelical Friend’. It would be good if UUs come up with some similar way of emphasizing unity / fraternity in diversity, although I’m not exactly sure how.

Hee hee. I can just picture Ned Flanders serving his kids “Post Christians” and milk. I’m thinking something like the satanically pagan Lucky Charms, except instead of oat runes you would have oat Alphas and Omegas, and instead of magickal symbols on the marshmallows you would have silhouettes of apostles, saints and Reformers. Kids could learn their church history by guessing who was who before chomping on their heads.

I’m even imagining a “Post Heretics” spinoff with marshmallows representing, say, Spinoza, Servetus, David, Socinus, Hume, Arius, Origen, Hus, Wycliffe and so on — but I bet it couldn’t command any shelf space in the major supermarket chains.