How many of you still live in the same world, the same universe, the same cosmos as your parents and grandparents? That last question may be a little trickier than it seems. There are some who would claim that none of us are living in the same world in which our parents or grandparents were born. They tell us that the modern world, the world as we have imagined it for at least three centuries is passing away and we are already living in the post modern world---whether we like it or not! Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we may be living in the same house, but look outside the window: "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore."
The universe itself presumably has not undergone a radical metamorphosis here in our life time, but the ways in which we conceptualize our world are changing dramatically. We are told that this thing we call reality, concrete, objective, solid is not really real at all, rather it is nothing more than a kind of consensus of imagination. As that consensus starts to erode, we begin to imagine our world in radically new and different ways. Gradually a new consensus takes hold and almost without realizing it, we are living in a whole new, post modern world.
Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. And I would agree with that. But imagination is a word that has a mixed reputation. In the vernacular, imagination has come to mean that which is untrue, insignificant, unauthentic, even crazy. As in "Don't let your imagination run away with you." As in "You're just imagining things." As in "I can even imagine where you got that wild idea." As in "Are you telling the truth, or did you just make that up in your imagination?" To accuse someone of having a rather fertile imagination is tantamount to saying that they prevaricate. To say of a man or woman, he lives in an imaginary world or she imagines things, is to say in effect that the individual has probably lost all touch with reality and is drifting into insanity.
Imaginary: it has come to mean the opposite of the rational, the reasonable, the factual, the true. Along with words such as dream, play and fantasy, imaginary is used to describe the realm of things that have no business in the adult world in which hard choices have to be made based on the facts alone. That which is imaginary is not true. And anything that is not true is a lie.
The supreme irony is of course that we all imagine the world into being. That is to say we impose an imaginary model, paradigm, or theory upon the world of matter. And then we conveniently forget that we have imposed a rather arbitrary model and start to label as true, real, rational, logical, and sensible those phenomena that fit neatly into our paradigm, while at the same time excluding data that does not fit by calling it fantasy, fiction, superstition, untruth or even lies.
In other words, science, fact, reason, truth is that which fits well within the universe as we imagine it. Something seems real, logical, or rational simply because we all have a tacit agreement to call it so. Things that fall outside of the universe which we have created in our minds are discounted, disparaged, or simply ignored. When we imagine the world differently, when the model or paradigm shifts a little, suddenly things that once seemed absurd, irrational, unthinkable, even a little crazy start to make perfect sense. And ways of thinking that used to be taken for granted, are called into question. What has changed? Our imaginations...
When I say that we may be living in a different world, a different universe than the one in which our parents, grandparents and great grandparents were born and lived, what I mean is that with out noticing it, we human beings have started to imagine our world in radically different ways. Suddenly ideas that once made no sense at all are starting to seem reasonable, while things we once took for granted no longer ring true. What is changing, is, of course, not the world, but the dominant paradigm, or the collection of unconscious myths and metaphors that have long functioned as the lens through which we have observed, and organized our world. If the futurists are correct, whether we like it or not, a new paradigm or a completely new way of understanding ourselves and our world is beginning to emerge here at the end of the century.
I suspect that ever since Westerners began to measure the passage of time, the end of one century and the beginning of another has been a period filled with so called signs, wonders and prophecies. The turn of the century is also a time characterized by a general sense of anxiety and anticipation. So it should come as no surprise to discover that here in the last half decade of the 20th century the world as we know it ---world as we have known it for centuries--- is passing away.
Added to what ever other fears, hopes, and anxieties that naturally arise in our imaginations at a point in time such as this, the turn of this century is also characterized by a common sense of urgency: the pervasive feeling that we are on the brink of a planetary crisis. Something has got to change. Something has got to give. The old answers, the old solutions are not working to address the old problems, much less the new ones. My colleague Dan O'Neil expresses it so eloquently: "Many dynamics, long in development, seem to be coming to a head in this era. The human population explosion cannot continue at its current rate much longer. The many indications of environmental destruction-- from the unprecedented rate and number of species extinction to massive pollution of the earth's air, water, and soil to the deforestation of the globe; to global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer--portend a frighteningly unsustainable scenario.
"Add to this the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation, the accelerating pace of life with the accompanying decay of traditional cultural structures, the rapacious growth of the world economy with the seeming intent to transform the entire planet's surface into commodities, the development of global communications linking all parts of the world together for the first time in history, and the invention of even more clever and unimaginably powerful technologies and it is easy to see why this particular millennium has us holding our collective breaths with anticipation." (from THE TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT IN LIBERAL RELIGION.)
No wonder our world feels out of kilter. Here in the final years of the 20th century modern prophets say that we are standing at the cusp, between the twilight of the old paradigm and the dawning of the new. This cusp, or borderland, as it were, feels unstable and full of contradictions because it has characteristics of both modernity and of the post modern future. These feelings of instability coupled with the sense of urgency increases our anxiety.
The paradigm shift is felt most acutely at the personal level. We are living in an era filled with underlying psychological fears and tensions. For the individual, these tensions may operate at the unconscious level and produce intense feelings of loss, anger, confusion, and frustration. We are aware that something is going on and that some of our most basic and hitherto unquestioned assumptions about the nature of the world we live in, as well as the nature of human relationships are being challenged. At the personal level we may feel vulnerable and misunderstood and wonder why the values that have formed the bedrock of our belief systems are suddenly being called into question.
Here at the end of the century, many of us find that even our best intentions and our most generous impulses are being questioned and criticized. Those of us who enjoy the comforts of a middle class life style, are accused of being guided in our moral decision making not by reason, tolerance, and democratic values, but rather by the unconscious but no less self serving biases of our gender, race, nationality and class. We find ourselves feeling wounded by the accusations that we are unconsciously racist, sexist, ageist and classist and that our rational and objective world view is neither rational nor objective, but rather riddled with biases that serve as cultural blinders preventing us from seeing or understanding view points and needs other than our own.
Feminists accuse men of 'not getting it' when it comes to the oppression of women. African Americans accuse white liberals of 'not getting it' with regard to their participation in racial oppression. Ecologists accuse industry of 'not getting it' when it comes to the needs of business versus the needs of the environment. In our liberal congregations, neopagans claim that humanists just 'don't get it.' Some how 'getting it' is tied to this paradigm shift. Once we 'get it' we have made the transition from modernism to post modernism. But many of us are still not sure what 'getting it' means. We do know this, there are no unquestioned assumptions any more. Every relationship, every role, every institution, every belief is "up for grabs." The theological, philosophical, and social foundations of our world are being shaken. And we are being told that it is not just our cherished beliefs that are in jeopardy, or the institutions of family, church, school, and government that must adapt to suit the demands of the new century, but something even larger is at stake- --human survival.
As psychologist, and cultural critic Sam Keen writes: "Nearly every generation since the Renaissance has touted itself as modern as the new age, as having arrived at the moment of enlightenment when the quaint superstitions and myths of the past are finally being swept into the dustbin of history. As is the case in every society, the myths and rites that form our minds, emotions, and actions remain largely invisible and unconscious. One of the best ways to discover the living myth of any society is to examine what everyone accepts uncritically as the way things really are..." ( from FIRE IN THE BELLY)
And psychologists Maureen O'Hara and Walter Truet Anderson add: "Without quite noticing it, we have moved into a new world, one created by the cumulative effect of pluralism, democracy, religious freedom, consumerism, mobility and increasing access to news and entertainment. A new social consciousness is emerging in this new world and touching the lives of all kinds of people who are not the least bit interested in having a new kind of social consciousness." (from "FAMILY SYSTEMS NETWORKERS")
The move from modernism to post modernism surfaces those unquestioned and often unconscious beliefs and assumptions that form our picture of the world. What are some of these values and assumptions that are being called into question? And what challenges and changes promised by post modernism are already being felt within our congregations and our Association at large?
We have all grown up in a world shaped by the beliefs and values of modernism. What we have come to call the modern world view came into being roughly in the 18th century. Known as the Enlightenment, this scientific, philosophical, theological and social movement was shaped by Newtonian physics, and Cartesian logic. Under the modern paradigm, the world came to be thought of as a vast mechanism, a universal machine governed by strict causitry. God was likened to a watch maker who created the world, set it in motion according to fixed natural laws and then withdrew from it. The scientific method was the best means by which those natural laws could be understood and explained, and by which the secrets of earth and the universe could be systematically revealed, objectively understood and even on occasion manipulated by human beings.
The modern world with its mechanistic model gave birth to science and modern medicine as well as the industrial revolution. The world was now thought to be completely knowable in a rational, objective, and scientific way. Also characteristic of modernity is the belief in human equality and in human liberation through democratic means. Humankind is liberated from superstition into reason, and from political oppression into freedom.
Religion could fit into the modern world view, in so far as it could be rational, that is to say stripped of all supernatural elements and reduced to a common set of ethical propositions. Modern religion is a universal religion: optimistic, naturalistic, humanistic, democratic, ethical, socially progressive, and cheerfully agnostic regarding questions that cannot be answered empirically. The only ways of knowing and believing that are acceptable in the modern religious paradigm are ways of knowing and believing that are compatible with the scientific empirical method. In modern religion strong feelings, intuitions, emotions, ecstatic experiences or what might be described as a sense of the transcendent are considered suspect because they are highly subjective and hence not rational. Modern religion refuses to consider questions concerning the soul or the spirit, or transcendence dismissing them as being unknowable. Certain questions simply 'do not compute' in the conceptual framework of modernity.
Modern religion has a positive vision of human nature and an abiding faith in human progress guided by reason. Modern religion considers its self to be the enemy of all forms of fundamentalism, orthodoxy, superstition, and tribalism. It rejects the notion of sin preferring instead to blame most social ills on ignorance. Modern religion is prophetic and justice seeking. Believing that justice too flourishes when of the light of reason is used to banish the darkness of ignorance, superstition, oppression and fear. The problem afflicting humankind is perceived as intellectual and physical bondage and the solution to the problem is freedom. Under the modern paradigm, our liberal churches and fellowships existed to institutionalize that freedom.
Modern religion contends that unity of all religions could easily be achieved by stripping away the supernatural, transient, and culture bound elements revealing the common, universal ethical core at the heart of all belief systems. Modern religion strives to be that universal religion: humanistic, ethical, rational, objective, tolerant, and justice seeking. Unitarian Universalism in its present incarnation might well be described as the quintessential modern religion: rational, objective, intellectual, and humanistic.
Post modernism is a vast subject with intentionally fuzzy boundaries. Social scientists can't agree on a common definition of the term. I will not attempt to define post modernism so much as I will attempt to describe certain characteristics of it. For the sake of time, I will try to identify only those elements of post modern thought that I believe have had and will continue to have the greatest impact on liberal religious thought.
Is your Unitarian Universalist church currently experiencing tension between members who demand more emphasis on spirituality and those for whom spirituality is associated with the orthodox religion they gladly left behind years ago? Does your congregation have a CUUPS chapter that is struggling for respect and recognition? Have you been involved, as a congregation, in anti- racism work? Are you a welcoming congregation? Long time church members who have come to expect a thoughtful, intellectual sermon and excellent classical music are often appalled to come to church on Sunday and discover that the sermon has been replaced by a ritual and the classical music has been replaced by drumming and chanting.
Ideas once considered to be objective, rational and scientific are now being challenged as inherently racist, sexist, homophobic or paternalistic. The way we worship, the way we speak, the way we do social justice, the way we relate to each other are being called into question.
Whether the issue is 'god talk' or 'goddess talk,' intellectual stimulation versus spirituality, paganism, feminism, gay and lesbian rights, or multicultural R.E. curriculum, many of the tensions we are now experiencing in our UU churches and fellowships may be traced to the shift between the modern imagination and the post modern imagination.
In the modern paradigm, history is factual and objective, science is rational, progress is inevitable and beneficial, and we may speak of reason as that predisposition to search for objectivity, and fairness in all aspects of our common existence. Truth is singular, reality is objective, values are universal. Modernism might be characterized by the phrase 'onward and upward forever!'
In the post modern paradigm, history is neither objective or factual, but rather is the official version of the story as told from the perspective of the winning side. For the most part what we call history is a story told from the Western, Eurocentric, capitalistic, technocratic standpoint, which omits the histories of women, people of color and nonwesterners. From the post modern paradigm, there is no such thing as objective reason. What is reasonable in the context of one set of cultural values, may seem irrational in another. So called scientific or empirical evidence is likewise viewed with suspicion. The notion that progress is inevitable or desirable, or that the present is better than the past, or that the future will be better than the present are considered to be unproven assumptions.
Post modernism seeks to 'deconstruct' modernity. That is to say, post modernism attempts to 'unpack' modernity revealing the hidden biases, the unconscious assumptions, the social constructs,--- what the Jungians would called the 'shadow side' that ---exists within the modern world view. According to the post modern critique, far from being rational, objective, and scientific, modernity is riddled with unproven assumptions, as well as class, race, and gender biases. Modernity, for all of its desire to demythologize religion and history, failed to see that it too was based on a myth.
Post modernism claims that by imposing an artificial mechanical model on the universe, modernism left us with a fractured world view, a world view that creates artificial dualism that drastically separate mind and body, subject and object, culture and nature, thoughts and things, values and facts, spirit and matter, the human and the nonhuman. This artificial mechanical model has proven to be a dirty and distorted lens through which we have come to misunderstand our world and our relationship to it. Modernism gives us a world view that is dualistic, mechanistic, atomistic, anthropocentric, and pathologically hierarchal.
Post modernism claims that by depersonalizing and desacralizing the earth and reducing it conceptually to a mechanism, or to dead matter, modernism paved the way for scientific exploration and the all benefits and advantages that have come to us from that exploration. But by descralizing the earth, modernism also paved the way for environmental exploitation and destruction, as well as the exploitation and genocide of indigenous people. Inherent to modernism is the concept of entitlement and domination: humans are entitled to dominate the earth, first world people are entitled to dominate people of the third world, whites are entitled to dominate people of color, and so forth. The post modern world view seeks to provide a conceptual framework that is more holistic, more relational, more Earth-honoring, and less arrogantly human centered.
Post modernism rejects the mechanical model of the natural world, boldly asserting that the universe is less like a machine and more like a living, breathing organism. Post modernist claim that this view of the earth is not merely romantic or poetic, but is also consistent with current thinking in the ecological sciences as well as the 'new' physics.
Out of post modern thought, a wholistic model of reality is emerging from the integration of science, medicine, and ecology and while this new model claims to be as scientifically based as modernism, unlike modernism it has room in it for the consideration of factors than can described as transcendent or even spiritual. In post modern thought, the concept that everything is connected to everything else in an interdependent web is a scientific conclusion with numerous spiritual implications. The world is understood to be organically as well as spiritually interdependent.
Some post modernist even go so far as to say that the earth has a level of consciousness that can be called the 'anima mundi,' the world soul. Out of this post modern vision of the world as both nature and spirit, have emerged the distinctive but overlapping disciplines of ecospirituality, a philosophy which remerges the concept of the sacred with the natural world and with earth science, ecofeminsim, a philosophy which links the exploitation of the earth to the oppression of women, deep ecology, a conceptual framework that seeks to expand the boundaries of community to include not just the community of those who make up our immediate environment, but all people and all forms of life, and ecopsychology, an interdisciplinary field that seeks to link the health of the human psyche to the health and well being of the environment. All of these disciplines claim that our inner feelings of anomie, brokenness, and alienation are directly connected to our modern illusion that human beings are somehow distinctively different and separate from their environment. Too many of our Western religions, spiritualities, and psychologies have been inner focused, dealing with the individual's inner life as though this were the principal form of reality, and thus they have only increased and reinforced the sense of loneliness and alienation they were seeking to cure.
Post modern spirituality speaks of healing our relationship to the earth or restoring our right relationship to the earth. In post modern religion the problem that afflicts humankind is a false sense of separateness from the earth and from each other. Dualisms, hierarchies, oppressive relationships blind us to the essential interconnectedness at the heart of all being. We cannot be healthy, whole, or holy until we consciously restore our physical and psychological link to nature.
Post modern religion strives to be strictly egalitarian, rejecting what it calls hierarchies, maintaining that all hierarchies involve a ranking or dominating judgement that oppresses other values. Post modern religion prefers the notion of heterarchy, flexible boundaries (not fixed rules) established through the pluralistic and egalitarian interplay of all parties concerned.
Reason, truth, objectivity, the primacy of empirical knowledge: all hallmarks of modernity are deconstructed by post modernism. In the post modern framework, there is no such things as a neutral, objective understanding of truth. Truth is personal and community specific; and although it may be relative it is not arbitrary. Post modernism expands the range of legitimate epistemologies beyond strict empiricism to include intuitive knowledge, the knowledge of the body, and the kinds of knowing that are transmitted through cultural mythos, ritual, drama and art.
"Post modernism abandons the notion of objective reason. Reason is criticized for allowing 'little room' for cultural and personal idiosyncrasies. According to political scientist Pauline Rosenau: "Reason like modern science, is understood to be dominating, oppressive, and totalitarian. The post modernists focus on how reason and rationality are employed as legitimating devices to defend modern bureaucracy, law, economics and politics. Reason reduces the domains of indeterminacy, contingency, and democracy for reasons of efficiency, domination and power. As a product of the Enlightenment, reason is infused with the idea of progress and humanism. But reason, the post modernists argue, has neither improved the human condition nor solved the problems of the homeless, women, Blacks, and other oppressed groups.
"Post modernist criticize all that modernity has engendered: the accumulated experience of Western civilization, industrialization, urbanization, advanced technology, the nation state, life in the 'fast lane.' They challenge modern priorities: career, office, individual responsibility, bureaucracy, liberal democracy, tolerance, humanism, egalitarianism, detached experiment, evaluative criteria, neutral procedures, impersonal rules, and rationality. Post modernists conclude that there is reason to distrust modernity's moral claims, and traditional institutions. They argue that modernity is no longer a force for liberation; it is rather a source of subjugation, oppression, and repression." (POST-MODERNISM AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES)
Post modern religion is emotional, intuitive, and experiential. In its style of worship it emphasizes ritual over preaching, and feeling over intellect. Post modern religion feels no need to explain or demythologize or justify itself. It is comfortable juxtaposes aspects of the sacred with the mundane, the old with the new, the mystical with the high tech, computer generated music with ancient chants. Post modern religion seeks to reclaim ancient matriarchal religious traditions and myths and to infuse them with a modern feminist sensibility. Likewise, it seeks to 'borrow' elements from Native American rituals and other so called earth based or pagan traditions. Where rituals do not exist, they are created, often times on the spot. Dance, movement, 'body prayer', claim to celebrate and honor the wisdom of the body and our connection to the sacred earth.
Post modern religion is not concerned with historical tradition, claiming that history itself is an artificial construct, a mere retelling of the myth from the stand point of those who won the war. Minority histories, the histories that have been left out of the text books, are found in the myths or ballads or oral histories are no less valid, or accurate than the so called 'official versions' of the story. Revisionist history is a post modern phenomenon. In post modern religion, where the historical connection is missing, intuition may be used to fill in the gaps.
The question confronting us at this point in time is not how will the post modern imagination affect liberal religion, but rather how is post modernism already shaking the foundations of the liberal church. Feminist spirituality, earth based traditions, ecological spirituality, the call for more intentional racial, ethnic and class diversity in our movement all evidence the impact of post modernism. Many Unitarian Universalists resist the influences of post modernism in their churches and fellowships claiming that post modern expressions of religion, specifically those that emphasize spirituality, are a giant step backwards into darkness of mysticism, superstition, prerational, unscientific, and potentially dangerous beliefs. Reason alone can and should be the basis for Unitarian Universalism. We cannot abandon the primacy of reason and maintain our distinctive Unitarian Universalist character. If the free and responsible search for truth and meaning is still at the heart of our movement, then we have no choice but to defend reason as the best, if not the only means of seeking truth.
On the other hand, those who whole heartedly embrace the post modern trends claim that liberal religion can and must be reinvigorated by a new kind of spirituality that is as comfortable with science and reason as it is with mysticism. Post modern religion doesn't reject reason, but believe that human beings also have ways of knowing their world that transcend the limits of reason. Many Unitarian Universalists believe that the post modernist movements within our Association have the potential to finally unthaw God's frozen people and allow Unitarian Universalism to attract a whole new generation of seekers.
The majority of new Unitarian Universalists are not 'come outers' who have rejected the irrationality of religious orthodoxy or fundamentalism, but rather they are 'come iners' who have rejected the empty values of secular materialism. They come to us on a quest for meaning that transcends secular culture. These new comers are for the most part unchurched. They are neither prejudiced against or predisposed toward religion, their search is intuitive. If this feels right, it must be right. Unlike past generations who came to Unitarian Universalism consciously seeking freedom, and intellectual stimulation, this new generation is consciously seeking connection, both in the form of community and in the form of a theology or spirituality that will enable them to experience a deeper sense of relatedness to their fragmented world. Unitarian Universalism which has existed as a reform movement in relation to religious orthodoxy and fundamentalism, must learn to redefine itself in relation to secular culture. We are no longer the rational alternative to fundamentalism, we are the spiritual alternative to secular materialism.
The post modern age will not begin on January 1 in the year 2001, but undeniably that date has come to be laden with meanings, portents, and prognostications. For those of us whose lives and hopes are intimately interwoven with the fate and future of the liberal church, the turning of the century marks the point at which we can no longer deny the changes that have taken place in the culture and their impact on our religious communities as well as the changes that are to come. There is an undeniable sense of urgency in the air fueled by the belief that we are on the brink of an ecological crisis. Additionally, the long ignored needs and aspirations of historically discriminated against and dispossessed peoples are coming to the fore as women, gay men and lesbians, the poor and people of color cry out for justice. The question remains to be answered: how will the liberal church in the post modern world meet the challenges set before it? How will we imagine this new world into being?
Unitarian poet James Russell Lowell wrote: "New occasions teach new duties/Time makes ancient good uncouth. We must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth." Universalist L.B. Fisher expressed something of the same sentiment when in 1921 he wrote: "Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move. Or we are asked to state our position. Again we can only answer that we are not staying to defend any position, we are on the march." Although the contexts in which Lowell and Fisher wrote were indeed different, their sentiments were identical, when applied to liberal theology's progressive quality
The history of our movement reveals, however, that we Unitarians and Universalists have often been less than sanguine when confronted by progressive elements within our own traditions. We have often found ourselves torn between our belief that "the revelation is not sealed" and our fear that by uncritically "wedding ourselves to the spirit of the age" we stand to lose our integrity and our commitment to a well reasoned, sensible, thoughtful approach to religious questions.
What are the natural boundaries that define us? What is the enduring center of our movement---that part of us that was also part of the Unitarian Reformation in 16th century Poland and Transylvania; that part of us that was part of the Pilgrim Churches; that part of us that was part of Transcendentalism, Prairie Progressivism; Religious Humanism ? Is it reason that serves as the connecting link, or freedom, or an ongoing spirit of reformation that unites us? Not a few within our movement claim that we have simply sold out and become a religion "as defined by popular, secular culture," going which ever way the wind blows and having traveled beyond that point of no return, already lost or abandoned any legitimate claim to stand in the historic tradition of Unitarian Universalism.
We would do well to remember that within our movement the radical young Turks of one generation frequently become the revered sages of the next. And that the long term test of any social, political or theological change within our movement is not how well it survives in intellectual circles, but how well makes sense out of the lives and aspirations of the people in the pews.
The question is not how will post modernism affect Unitarian Universalism, but rather how is post modernism already challenging and changing our congregations. Although, most of our churches and fellowships would probably describe themselves as predominantly theologically humanist in make up, feminism and neopaganism, two post modern movements are beginning change that make up in ways some find disturbing and others find exhilarating.
Feminist thealogy can be described as post modern because it attempts to deconstruct the western religion revealing the patriarchal bias at the heart of all of the major western traditions. It claims that not only is patriarchy a 'conceptual trap' that automatically excludes the uniquely female experience from religious, social, and political discourse, but that patriarchy in whatever incarnation damages a woman's psyche and prevents her from seeking and finding her true self. Patriarchy does not just exclude women, it destroys them. Every form of violence against women, past and present can be traced to the door step of patriarchy. Feminist theory has even linked the destruction of the environment to the fear and repression of the feminine in western culture. Feminist theology claims to be both a spiritual movement seeking to restore the divine feminine to western religion, and a justice seeking movement bent on ending all forms of the oppression of women.
Most Unitarian Universalist congregations have had no problem accepting feminism as a justice seeking movement that extends full social and political equality to women. Nor has there been much resistance to degenderizing the language or to accepting women in leadership roles within our churches. However, the proclamation "women need the goddess" meaning, that in order to be spiritually whole women need to reclaim the rituals and traditions of ancient matriarchal cultures, or where no rituals can be reclaimed, invent their own rituals and rites of passage, has met with some bewilderment in not a few of our congregations. Reclaiming the goddess, even in the metaphoric sense of reclaiming the lost feminine concept of the divine, seems to many Unitarian Universalist to be an unnecessary step backwards into the intellectual muck and mire of theism. Many humanist, among them some feminists, who, having long before ceased to feel the need for an ancient male tribal deity in their religious life fail to see that any advantage or insight might be gained through the resurrection of an even more ancient female deity, metaphoric, or otherwise.
The rise of earth based traditions, sometimes called paganism, or neopaganism in our Association, are also evidence of the impact of post modernism on our congregations. Using the same method of deconstructing Western culture that the feminists used, neopagans have made a serious a bid for legitimacy and recognition within the Unitarian Universalist tradition. Claiming that the Western religious tradition has not only ignored, suppressed, or discounted the wisdom of indigenous, folk religions, but that the western church also sanctioned and participated in the genocide of the people who were the bearers of these traditions. Neopaganism which embraces wicca, Native American traditions, African forms of worship as well as other reclaimed or reinvented forms and rituals, seeks to restore and honor the lost wisdom of these traditions. Neopaganism also embraces feminism and quite naturally ecological spirituality. And paganism also claims to be a justice seeking movement advocating on behalf of indigenous people, women, and the earth. But neopaganism is vulnerable to criticism, and not just from humanists who find it to be antintellectual, irrational, and internally inconsistent, but also from feminists and members of so called native communities. From the feminist perspective the question is posed: Are all of the so called indigenous earth based traditions egalitarian with regard to the role of women? Many are not. For example, do we honor the tradition of female genital mutilation as a valid part of an indigenous spirituality, or do we selectively impose our Western biases in these matters. Can we simply accept those pagan traditions we find appealing and reject the ones we find gruesome? Do we dishonor the integrity of these traditions by selectively borrowing from their sacred rituals? Not a few Native Americans have accused modern neopagans of 'ripping off' their rituals and desecrating their sacred spaces. Some neopagans find themselves being accused of being spiritual tourists, rather than disciplined seekers.
But perhaps the most stinging criticism of all comes from African American Unitarian Universalist of all theological persuasions who point out that in spite of all of our claims to embrace diversity and in spite of all of our efforts to deconstruct modernism and patriarchy, we have never fully attempted to deconstruct "white privilege." It is even said that our commitment to diversity around the issues of gender, sexuality and paganism have been an effort to mask our unwillingness to look at the racism within our institutions. A commitment to diversity is not identical to a commitment to an antiracist agenda. Adding a Kwanzaa service to the Unitarian Universalist liturgical calendar is a nice gesture, but it is no substitute for the systematic deconstruction and examination of "whiteness" and race privilege in our movement.
The full impact of post modernism on Unitarian Universalism cannot be measured at this point in time. What we do know is that some long time members of our congregations are feeling both a sense of outrage and bewilderment as they observe the changes that are taking place in our worship services and in our General Assemblies. Many of them honestly believe that rather than stepping forward in to the future with reason, freedom and tolerance as our guide, we have stepped backwards into the darkness of myth, mystery, and magic. They claim that for all of our talk of our diversity and openness, we seem to have little tolerance or generosity of feeling for those who speak out from the position of rationalism, religious humanism, and political conservatism. To question the place of goddess worship in our movement is to run the risk of being accused of being misogynistic. To raise an issue about the role of neopaganism in Unitarian Universalism is to run the risk of being labeled an oppressor of ethnic minorities or an exploiter of the earth. Many who take issue with some of the changes that post modernism has wrought claim that we have made a creed test out of political correctness and put a de facto gag order on critical inquiry. Pluralism, some would claim, is politically correct "newspeak" for absolute, uncritical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual relativism. In other words, nothing is of value.
One thing I do know, we must respond to the pain of our members who feel that the changes taking place in our churches are leaving little room for their needs and interests. We must also respond to the pain of those who are coming in to our churches seeking refuge from a world where one's worth and dignity are measured by one's place in the economic system, and self esteem is thought to be something that can be purchased in the market place. These new comers are looking for ways to just say 'no' to the rapaciousness, greed, and violence they observe in the world. They claim to be searching for spirituality, but what they need is moral and ethical boundaries, not absolutes, but boundaries, as well. They need direction, not just shallow, feel good about yourself spirituality. And, yes, they need intellectual discipline, the guidance of reason, and an education in our distinctive history and tradition. They also need to learn from us that a spirituality not wedded to the active pursuit of justice is empty at best, demonic at worst. The same could be said about the pursuit of justice divorced from spirituality.
What is the future of post modernism? We are living in an age in which paradigms have an increasingly shorter half life. What we do know is that there will be no going back to a past before the questions raised by post modernism were articulated. As America becomes more multicultural through the immigration of more Hispanics and Asians, the dominance of white, anglo saxon, protestant cultural assumptions will doubtless cease. We will increasingly live in a world without fixed boundaries and borders. However, unforeseeable historic events, ecological disasters, technological triumphs or failures have the power to completely alter how we see our world, ourselves and our faith.
Web Weaver, Frank Carpenter