Expert: Jon Bond - 1/4/2009

Question
Hi Jon.  I attended a UU Church for nearly one year and during this time I regularly attended the Sunday church services and many of the other church's events.  Yet, the "only" time I ever heard any spiritual discussions was when the minister spoke during the Sunday morning service.  I often asked various members why such discussions among the laity never occurred but I never got a real answer.  My impression is that these members were largely from the professional classes (doctors, lawyers, professors, etc.) with a lot of disposable income as you mentioned in your profile.  These members are very likely self-actualized people whom Abraham Maslow spoke about and are self-satisfied with their own success, talents and abilities and therefore have no need to "fill in" the gaps in explaining otherwise dysfunctional and unfulfilled aspects of their lives.  i.e. no need for spiritual assistance!!!  Since I am a blue-collar worker by choice and family heritage, I eventually dropped from the church and am now attending another unitarian church known as Divine Science where the people are not from the professional classes and freely discuss spiritual and personal matters and hold a variety of spiritual programs to assist them in their living.  My question to you is if this has been your experience as well?  Are UU members largely from the professional classes who have little need for spiritual assistance in fulfilling their lives?

Answer
Dear David -

You have posed two questions.  And, I’m more than pleased to answer them.  What a great combination of questions! I, too, have seen two sides of a belief system just like you posed; i.e. on one side are the professional classes who [appear] to have little need for spiritual assistance in fulfilling their lives and yet another side that freely discuses spiritual and personal matters and hold a variety of spiritual programs to assist them in their living.

I’d like to divide my answer into three parts: first, a background of our association; second, what has been my experience? and third, are there professional UU classes who appear to have little need for spiritual assistance in fulfilling their lives and what, in my opinion, do both ‘blue collar’ and ‘professional’ Unitarians believe?  

FIRST– a background (including where the two groups (Unitarian and Universalist) originated):

The concept of Unitarianism generally looks to a Catholic priest, Michael Servetus, as a spiritual originator.  Servetus was born in Spain in 1511 and died in 1553, after attacking the doctrines of the Trinity.  Unitarianism is a doctrinal system characterized chiefly by a belief in the unipersonality of God and the normal humanity of Jesus, as contrasted with the Trinity and the eternal deity (divinity) of Jesus.  Most Unitarians I’ve spoken with reject the divinity of Jesus, but do recognize him (Jesus) as a great moral teacher

Universalism is the theological doctrine that all souls will ultimately be saved and that there are no torments of hell. Universalism has been asserted at various times in different contexts throughout the history of the "Christian church"--e.g., Origen in the 3rd century. The Universalists also denied the miraculous element in Scripture, and rejected such important Bible doctrines as the total depravity of man and the Trinity.

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was created in May of 1961 as a merger of Unitarians and Universalists.

SECOND – In this part of my answer, I’m going to answer your question based on my being around UUs for over thirty years.  Before I retired from IBM, I was invited to speak at a number of technical conferences all over the United States and I always sought out the nearest UU Church, so I believe that I’ve gained a lot of exposure from many different types – both ‘blue collar’ and ‘professional.’  In my home church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, Colorado, we clearly have both ‘blue collar’ and ‘professional.’  The ‘blue collar’ types in our church include manual laborers, painters, etc., while the ‘professional’ include a large number of elementary, middle school, and high school teachers, as well as a healthy number of university professors, along with a good number of ‘hi-tech’ programmers, etc.   Now, David, let’s cut to the bottom of my answer to you – a number of our recent ministers have stopped having ‘Responses from the gathered people’ portion of our weekly Sunday talk.  That is, we don’t have a spiritual discussion on Sunday morning.  But, we do have an adult Religious Education (RE) program where spiritual discussions do take place.  In addition, our Men’s Group (which has been meeting off and on since 1883) has a number of heated, emotional spiritual discussions.  We use and follow Native American, as well as pagan, spiritual rituals.  These spiritual discussions are a bulwark of our intellectual challenges and we all respect each other, in spite of some stark differences.

THIRD - In this part of my answer, David, I believe you are correct in stating that there are UU members largely from the professional classes who appear to have little need for spiritual assistance in fulfilling their lives.  I base that part of my answer on a 1990 National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI), which concludes that UUs have a dominant cultural ethos and identity. The NSRI survey ranks Unitarian Universalists highest among 30 religious movements in aggregate social status on "Protestant ethic variables," which include level of education, household income, extent of home ownership, and patterns of employment. Now, David, I must point out that most Unitarian Universalist Association Churches (hereinafter referred to as UUA) have no spiritual creeds, only statements of purpose.  We pride ourselves in welcoming atheists and humanists, as well as Christians.

To better illustrate, in the late 1980s, the UU organization took a survey to find out what we believe is important in our religious lives.  Almost 10,000 Unitarian Universalists took the time to fill out and return the survey, giving us all an invaluable snapshot of who we are.  Our association has been enriched by the knowledge gained from the answers many UUs provided.

This survey began a process designed to reach out to all UU individuals and congregations called "Fulfilling the Promise." This Concept was set in motion by the Unitarian Universalist Association's Board of Trustees.  Its goal was to help us move toward agreement about why we come together as congregations and as an association, and what we hope to accomplish.

The survey questions came from individual UUs, as did the suggested responses. More than 500 people helped create this survey. We hope you will find your own experience reflected in the questions and answers, even if the exact language you would use is not perfectly captured here.

What follows are the total tabulations for the first 8118 surveys.  At least one question deals with theological perspective.  Question number 30 results follow:

Please check the one of the following which best describes your theological perspective:

• Humanist: 46.1%
• Earth/Nature centered: 19.0
• Theist: 13.0
• Christian: 9.5
• Mystic: 6.2
• Buddhist: 3.6
• Jewish: 1.3
• Hindu: 0.4
• Moslem: 0.1
• Other: 13.3

The balance of the questions (age, sex, length of church membership, etc.), gave us a picture of who are demographically and as church persons.  They provide a picture of what we say our values in religious community are.

As you can see, almost 50% consider themselves Humanists and fewer than 10% of the UUA consider themselves Christian.  Those in the UUA who consider themselves Christian may believe Jesus is god or son of god.  However, many may consider Jesus a prophet of god like the Muslims.  BOTTOM LINE – There is a belief in Jesus as the highest model of the religious life:  At the same time, there is an interpretation of Jesus that equates his ministry with that of Moses, Buddha, Socrates, and Mohammed.  I’m not qualified to comment on whether the other theological beliefs have spiritual concerns.  The main differences would be the fact that the UUA welcomes people from all faiths (see results of survey.)  Another UU expert points out that it is a common misconception that UU Congregations allow all beliefs.  We don't specify a required set of spiritual beliefs.  We do share a set of relational beliefs in our Principles and Purposes.  

For more information, please feel free to check out our web site http://uua.org/   A good book to check on is “A Chosen Faith” – ISBN 0-8070-1617-9.

David, remember that I’m one of over 250,000 UUs and, if you ask another UU (Unitarian Universalist), you may get a different (but, hopefully, not conflicting) answer.  I must thank you for taking the time to question our differences in making individual spiritual searches and I wish you only good luck in your personal search – you’re on the right track!

Jon Bond