{"id":425,"date":"2005-05-01T23:44:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-01T23:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=425"},"modified":"2005-05-01T23:44:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-01T23:44:00","slug":"425","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=425","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The juice and the buildings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Strmiska<\/a> draws my attention to an article published 10 years ago on the transformation of the Unitarian church: “Strained Bedfellows: Pagans, New Agers, and ‘Starchy Humanists’ in Unitarian Universalism.”<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the author, sociologist Richard Wayne Lee, the denomination had been a heavily rationalist group in the 1960s, characterized by Newsweek<\/em> in 1967 as “atheists who have not shaken the church habit.” <\/p>\n

The UU leadership of the 1980s made a conscious attempt to incorporate more “spirituality” to appeal to younger Baby Boomers and Generation X-ers, leaving many of the old-line non-theistic humanists feeling pushed to the margins.<\/p>\n

The “rapid influx of women into ministry” changed the denomination, and “female clergy served as the principle conduit into UU of neopaganism.”<\/p>\n

Intuitively, I had tended to see the growth of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans<\/a> as the injection of their “juice,” or energy, into a denomination that happened to own large buildings and meeting spaces, something almost no Pagan group could afford. Lee generally confirms this perception, although his purpose includes an academic definition of “cult” that includes UUs, insofar as it accommodates a number of “cult movements.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The juice and the buildings Michael Strmiska draws my attention to an article published 10 years ago on the transformation of the Unitarian church: “Strained Bedfellows: Pagans, New Agers, and ‘Starchy Humanists’ in Unitarian Universalism.” According to the author, sociologist Richard Wayne Lee, the denomination had been a heavily rationalist group in the 1960s, characterized […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-425","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1141,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1141","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":0},"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":[]},{"id":3898,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3898","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":1},"title":"Survey for UU Pagans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another online survey, this one collecting\u00a0 \"personal experiences from Unitarian Universalists (UUs) who also practice Paganism or have an earth-centered theology.\" Take the survey here.\u00a0 The deadline is March 12, 2012.","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":425,"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":576,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":3},"title":"I still call them \"Christmas\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I still call them \"Christmas cards\"When I was new to the Pagan movement, I was militant about saying \"Yule\" instead of \"Christmas.\" I managed to train one of my sisters to employ the same usage when speaking to me; the other one never really noticed.This year, we are enjoying this\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":681,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=681","url_meta":{"origin":425,"position":4},"title":"Techno-Pagans at workA blogger covering\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 27, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Techno-Pagans at workA blogger covering the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalists writes,Dinner with Niko, the one other member of the New Bedford church besides me to be at General Assembly. He told me about the big outdoor solstice ritual that the pagan group held today. And how did they\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":425,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","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=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}