Organized for What?

Lately I’ve found myself in several different conversations where folks have begged off of coming to church because they don’t believe in “organized religion.” I’ve laughed and shrugged this off with a line I’ve heard since childhood – that Unitarian Universalism is “disorganized religion.” Pretty good joke. I’ve certainly been to my share of committee and congregational meetings where this appears to be the case. Sometimes it seems like it takes forever for us to get on the same page because, perhaps, we haven’t even been looking at the same book. It brings to mind a joke wherein some UU newlyweds go on their honeymoon, and the groom discovers that the bridal nightgown has been made with 40 yards of fabric, the punchline being: “for UUs, the joy is in the search.” Unitarian Universalism isn’t about coloring in the lines, or painting by numbers – it’s about finding your own way, your own truth, choosing your own palette and canvas of understanding and spiritual practice. Our principles are straightforward in utterance, but highly complex in practice. There is a great deal in our search for truth and meaning that cannot be considered organized.

That said, the months of June and July have taken me for the first time first to UU General Assembly (GA) in Kansas City, MO, and then to the Midwest UU Summer Assembly (MUUSA) in Potosi, MO, where UUs did actually manage to gather in large numbers, hold manageable conversations about policy and practice, hold one another both in love and accountability, worship together, make music and art together, and workshop new ideas together. It feels like a bit of a confession to say it, but the truth is, this was a beautiful thing to see. We managed everything from basics, like registrations and nametags and mic times, to bigger challenges, like ombuds reports and covenantal relations management and harassment interventions and protest marches. We were, undeniably, organized – and I was honestly proud to see it. Indeed, a seed was planted in me, and I began to consider: why do we see it as a good thing for our unions or activist groups to be organized, but not our religious denomination?

In his lecture series, published as Varieties of Religious Experience in 1902, American philosopher and psychologist William James was an early distinguisher between what he called personal and institutional religion, the latter being what we have come to call organized religion. James asserts that institutional religion has the divinity most in mind, while personal religion is focused on “man’s . . . conscience, his deserts, his helplessness, his incompleteness.” James is not himself interested in discussing institutional or organized religion, in its focus on “dispositions of the deity” and other clerical and theological matters. For James, all of this is suspect, in comparison with religion that springs from the individual heart. But what if one’s institutional religion were designed and implemented to support each person in that inward, individual discernment – perhaps of a deity within, perhaps of what else might matter to one in place of a deity? Maybe of one’s more direct relationship with or place in the cosmos? What if one’s religion was organized, not as a way to foment a single idea about the deity, or the divine, or the cosmos, but to support one’s exploration of these? What impact would this have on James’s perception of personal and institutional religion as distinct and separate – one suspect, the other worthy of consideration and exploration?

Indeed, what if one’s religion were organized to support one’s exploration of the immanent, the relational? What if it were organized to support, say, a weekly racial justice vigil? A monthly covenant group? An annual evening of immersion in the arts? What if it were organized to feed the needy, or champion the oppressed, or give expression to one’s own inner strivings? What if one’s religion were organized so that one’s personal reflection could give rise to communal action, and communal action could in turn seed the soul for personal reflection?

I know that many of us have come away from, and all of us live alongside of, religious organizations that seem not to have the well being of their constituents in mind, let alone that of their communities and societies. Some of us have come out of religions organized to tell us we were unworthy, or damned, or that we should not exist at all. This is a crucial danger in organizing – that we will lose sight of our love for one another, our responsibility to one another. It’s true, organizations wield power, and sometimes they wield that power to harm. If we are honest, we must say that sometimes even Unitarian Universalism has succumbed to this misuse of power. This is why holding one another accountable in love is so important to our denomination’s well being. But this danger of abusing organizational power is present whether we are organizing a religion, or an activist group, or a garden party. I believe UUs can be vigilant, hold this danger in mind, and avert it, in order to organize in support of our own personal growth, the communal growth of our congregations, and the growth of our values in the world.

I find myself coming to a place where I can say aloud that I believe that the world could be a better place if Unitarian Universalism were more organized – more willing to grow as a denomination, as well as supporting the growth of our individual members. Coming up in August, I’ll be speaking from the pulpit about some of what is lost when we do not organize ourselves for this purpose. In the meantime, let me thank my congregation for sending me to GA, and for building time for MUUSA and other denominational activities into my job description. It is an empowering thing to see hundreds, even thousands, of Unitarian Universalists coming together in one place to do the work of our faith. I invite each of us to be not only individual, or congregational, but denominational in our thinking, and to consider what it might be that we are called to do to further organize and grow this religion.

© Mary Shelden, July 19, 2018