{"id":3104,"date":"2011-08-21T23:14:56","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T05:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3104"},"modified":"2011-08-21T23:14:56","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T05:14:56","slug":"despite-cuups-unitarians-still-aesthetically-deprived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3104","title":{"rendered":"Despite CUUPs, Unitarians Still Aesthetically Deprived"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria Weinstein, a blogging Unitarian minister (also known for her clerical-fashion advice<\/a> blog) critiques her fellow UUs for neglecting the aesthetic side of worship:<\/a><\/p>\n

I wonder how much of our beauty-avoidance is a hangover from our iconoclastic, Puritan origins in America. If so, it\u2019s time we got over it and started realizing that the Arts are one of the most profound ways to communicate the humanist gospel. All our clergy should have some understanding of the fine arts, the humanities, not just theology and social justice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nor does she think that the increased Pagan element within Unitarian Universalist <\/a>congregations has improved the aesthetic poverty. From the comments:<\/p>\n

In fact, I believe that the neo-pagan <\/em>[sic] community has done more harm than good by inflicting too many embarrassingly bad rituals, dances and music on our worshiping communities. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Discuss.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria Weinstein, a blogging Unitarian minister (also known for her clerical-fashion advice blog) critiques her fellow UUs for neglecting the aesthetic side of worship: I wonder how much of our beauty-avoidance is a hangover from our iconoclastic, Puritan origins in America. If so, it\u2019s time we got over it and started realizing that the Arts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,5,155],"class_list":["post-3104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-paganism","tag-unitarians"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-O4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":721,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=721","url_meta":{"origin":3104,"position":0},"title":"Pagans and Unitarians","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been an interested bystander watching the trend of Pagans joining Unitarian congregations. One group, it seemed to me, had nice buildings but less \"juice.\" One group was just the opposite.But I knew there were tensions. Jason Pitzl-Waters rounds up some of them. Go read his post, and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1428,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1428","url_meta":{"origin":3104,"position":1},"title":"Talking to UUs about Nature Religion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I am busy working up a talk on \"nature religion\" to give to a Unitarian Universalist congregation on Sunday. Hey, it's a change: bring in the Pagan speaker at Ostara instead of Samhain. On the other hand, they did originally try to get me at Samhain, but someone messed up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":651,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=651","url_meta":{"origin":3104,"position":2},"title":"A Unitarian Easter sermon\"Praire Mary\"\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A Unitarian Easter sermon\"Praire Mary\" Scriver, one of my favorite bloggers, re-creates the thread (or whole tangled mess of threads) of one of her Easter sermons from her days as a UU minister.And she concludes,When I explored this stuff, members of my congregations often said afterward, \"I didn't understand one\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4476,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4476","url_meta":{"origin":3104,"position":3},"title":"Critical Theory, Mere Description, and Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Some thoughts after reading Markus Davidsen's review of the Handbook of Contemporary Paganism\u2014and, by extension, of the entire field of Pagan studies. Part of his critique does resonate with me. It raises an issue that I have thought about too. When I saw that the first authority cited was Russ\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":685,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=685","url_meta":{"origin":3104,"position":4},"title":"Margot Adler Speaks on Paganism Today","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Margot Adler's talk from the recent Unitarian Universalist General Assembly is summarized here, together with video links.Jason Pitzl-Waters has more commentary. Here's mine:Adler, who became interested in paganism, and in particular, Wicca, during the sixties, remembers that in those days paganism was a coven-based movement. You had to join a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1141,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1141","url_meta":{"origin":3104,"position":5},"title":"Paganism 101 — A Complete Curriculum","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We joke about \"Wicca 101\" or \"Paganism 101,\" modeling teaching Pagan religion on a university course syllabus, but such a thing actually exists.A group of Canadian Pagans affiliated with a Unitarian church in Vancouver have produced a detailed curriculum, which may be purchased on CD for $75 Canadian (about US\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3105,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions\/3105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}