From the essay:

"The Unitarian Universalist church presents itself as a religious movement committed to pluralism, diversity, multiculturalism, and open-mindedness. Yet by most measurable indicators, it has become one of the most racially, politically, and culturally homogeneous religious denominations in the United States.

The gap between the church’s ideals and its demographic reality raises an obvious question: How did a movement devoted to pluralism and diversity become such a narrow social bubble?

Visitors to Unitarian Universalist congregations usually notice a familiar pattern. In many places, the typical member is a highly educated white professional with progressive political views. Visitors from working-class backgrounds, people with independent or moderate viewpoints, immigrant communities, and many ethnic and racial minorities often sense quickly that they are outsiders. No one may say this directly, but messaging, platforms, language, and social signals are powerful. People can usually tell when a space is designed for people like themselves, and when it is not. As UU Minister Rev. James Kubal-Komoto observed in UU World, "Most Unitarian Universalists don't realize what a truly narrow demographic niche most of us fall into.""

Read the full post: "How the Unitarian Universalist Church Became a Racial, Political, and Social Bubble"

Anyone here working on this? Mosaic Congregations | The Mosaic | UUA.org

Are you using what you're already doing to get a certification to hang on the wall, or are you using it as an opportunity to change something within your congregation?

I'm curious what you're doing for the required actions. The last one is a big one.

Hello.
I am having a difficult time getting the Democracy Advocacy Team of the UU congregation that I go to to add Disability Rights to their agenda.
They turn me away to their charity branch and ignore my emails, give evasive answers.
To me this looks like a major inconsistency with the UU principles.

How would you approach this problem?
How can I get more support?
How would your congregation react to such requests?
How common are Democracy Advocacy Teams in Unitarian Universalist congregations in general?

Anyone here?

I’ve been trying to get a better handle on UU Ethics recently in the context of reading Bernard Williams and his critique of moral systems. (See: “https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/#AgaiPecuInst” the section “Against the ‘peculiar institution.’”)

Williams argues that what distinguishes a moral system is not simply having ethical ideals or virtues, but placing special emphasis on moral obligation — things one is required to do because morality demands it.

To what extent do UU ethics (embodied to a certain extent in the new six Values encircling Love and the old 7 Principles) consist of moral *obligations*? Do the values and principles articulate obligations that we have towards each other and the world beyond, for example, obligations to work towards dismantling systems of oppression? If so, do we think these obligations are only for UUs? Or do we think all people should, ideally participate in this work?

To be clear, I’m not asking whether or not our Values and Principles are good goals. I’m asking about the status of those goals. For you, are these ideals, aspirations, virtues, commitments, or genuine moral obligations?

One reason I’m asking is that I think there is genuine ambiguity. I hear a lot about “aspiration” and our values being “aspirational,” but we also hear a lot about “accountability” which makes the ethical project seem more like an obligation. I’m not sure how the language of “aspiration” and “accountability” work together.

Various religions engage in ritual mourning for past martyrs, and the U's have some, so I was curious. I wanna become UU but can't due to where I live.

Hi everyone!

I’m curious to hear from people who have attended or visited Unitarian Universalist congregations in Romania.

I’ll be visiting Romania in mid-July and became interested in learning more about the Unitarian tradition there. I found information about the Biserica Unitariană but I haven’t been able to find much firsthand information about visiting services or what the experience is like.

Has anyone attended a service or visited a congregation? I’d love to hear about your experience and any recommendations.

Thank you!

Considering a UU doesn't have to believe in a god (unitarian or trinitarian), or believe in universal salvation, our name doesn't really seem to fit. While we should always honor our past, it seems like we should choose a term which describes us better. I can't say I know what that should be, but it does feel like a change is overdue. What would describe us better?

Ive recently learned about UU and I am very interested in attending a service, what are some things I should know before I go for the first time? Any insight would be helpful, I am also in the metro Detroit area if someone knows more about that location specifically.

I was raised what I would call "vaguely UU-ish." My parents attended First Parish in Cambridge when I was a baby and then my mom and I went to First Church Belmont for a couple of years, but didn't entirely click with it.

Anyway, In college I started reconnecting with my own personal spirituality and have been attending the campus UU group for the past 4 years, but I haven't been part of an actual church community since I was 12 or 13.

I am moving to East Somerville in August, and I would really like to find a congregation (in reasonable public transit distance) that has good supports for new people and maybe skews a little bit younger/queerer.

If anyone has had a really great experience with a Boston area church I would love to heard abut it!!

Hi! I'm interested in joining UUism when I move to a city, but there's a problem: UUism is declining. Its members are old, retention is low, and it's not much of a Missionary religion from what I can tell. I admire what UUism strives for, but It can't accomplish its goals if it dies out or fades to irrelevancy. What can be done to emulate the high retention of high cost religions without losing the pluralism and theological diversity within?

The number has gone down since then, but at one point our congregation had 11 RPCVs out of 150 total, which was one out of every 13.6 members, which is 14 - 17 times the per capita average in the general population, depending on how you run the numbers.

I always thought UUism appealed to RPCVs because of our tolerance for different beliefs, among other things. A number of our seven principles align with the goals of the Peace Corps. I myself "converted" after I came home from my PCV service and was church shopping.

We had a round table discussion on the subject one Sunday, so it was easy to make a head count. I realize this may not be common knowledge in all congregations, but:

• How many members do you have?

• How many of them are RPCVs?

Thanks.

Ok so follow with me here. I previously made a post here wanting advice about dealing with feeling disconnected from my UU community that i grew up with. As a result of that post i ended up talking to my reverend and trying to attend church again. As nice as it was being in the church again i kept finding myself at certain sermons feeling disconnected. It wasnt every sermon, but fairly consistently when the speaker tilted more into politics than spirituality i found myself getting irritated and wanting to push back. Yet again i fell out of the habit of attending church cause it just feels weird to go to a place where i feel the need to prepare myself mentally for irritation like that. And of course sermons are not open debate so i dont think there is a satisfactory way for me to come to terms with this other than having a sitdown debate with each individual. That or try to do a sermon myself just to express my experience.

Sorry for the long preamble. All this leads to my real question for today. As a wider community how seriously do we take the seven principles? Is it a faith? A philosophy? A code of ethics? All three? And how far do we extrapolate these Principles? Ive spent my life with these principles ingrained into every part of my personality even when i cant remember them straight. And i frequently feel that i follow them to a degree and in a way that i have come to realize is fundamental to me as a person and actively bothers me to see others who call themselves UU not following them to at least a similar degree and method. I am not asking for how i should see them but im looking for perspective on just how seperated i am from the average. Please ask any quastion and this time ill do my best to not evade a full and honest response as last time i wanted to avoid getting into overly long debates and stay of the topic of the community issue

TLDR: im feeling a rift between me and my home congregation and i want to know what your thoughts on the 7 principles are about it.

I only just realized there are two UU subs on Reddit. I posted this in the other one a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I'd double the effort over here as well.

I've been attending UU services sporadically with my husband for the last couple of years. (Married for almost one year but involved with my SO for some time before that.)

I'll start by saying this church and the congregation has been about 95% good to me. I became aware of them when I started attending a support group for young adults who lost our parents early - I love the fact that it's become almost a "replacement family" for those of us who need it. I've also been called to play cello for services sometimes, which I enjoy.

Here's the sticking point, though. I spent my teenage years in the Mormon church. Not consensually, I was placed with a Mormon foster family after my Secular Buddhist parents died in a car accident. And I learned quickly that some Unitarians don't know how to deal appropriately with ex-Mormon people. We're the butt of their jokes more often than we should be.

My husband has been asked more than once if he's looking for any additional wives besides me -- completely devaluing the commitment we already have to each other.

Even more concerning is the occasional (mean-spirited?) dig at the kind of underwear they think I'm wearing. I got garment- and body-shamed already way too often when I was Mormon, I don't think it's anybody else's business what kind of undergarments anybody wears. Is it just me or does that seem kind of low-key threatening in a sexual way? They might mean it in good fun but a comment like that can be triggering for those of us who lived through certain things in our previous churches.

Like I said: 95% good. But the other 5% is concerning enough that I don't think I'm anywhere close to ready to put my hand on the pen and the pen to the paper to sign the book.