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Elevator Speeches
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| UU's sometimes speak of "elevator speeches," or in other words, "What would you say if you were on an elevator for one minute, and somebody asks you 'What is a Unitarian-Universalist?" If one reads a list of elevator speeches, the first thing he notices that they are all different. That brings up the old saw, "It depends on which one of us you ask." Yet, though different, one will also notice they are not contradictory. Therefore, there must be some thread of commonality between them. Though we do have a list of "principles and purposes," those are not doctrine, but merely suggestions. Still, if one adhered to absolutely none of these principles, others would look askance, and wonder what he is doing there. Though we insist we have no doctrine, we sometimes ask about the hypothetical Ku Klux Klansman who would want to be a UU. He remains hypothetical, because no KKK'er would want to be a UU. Still, if he were there, what would happen? Firstly, he would not be told that he could not join, nor enter the building. However, he would also receive scarce agreement with his opinions. I do recall one visitor who kept saying, "Blacks all want this, and blacks want that." He heard a great deal of disagreement and zero agreement with his opinions, though politely expressed. And he never returned. We can fairly well say there is a high level of agreement with the Principles and Purposes. Agreement is always an individual matter. There is no such thing as "excommunication," and no formal practice of "shunning." One is voluntarily there because something there appeals to him, or if nothing appeals to him, he isn't there. People sometimes ask, "How can you be a church, if you don't believe in anything?" This is simply because they have missed the point. The case is, we don't require everybody to believe the same thing, especially not in detail, but we all believe in something. People also ask, "How can you be a church, if you can believe anything you want?" The fact is, that's what people do anyway. At this moment, you can choose to be a Catholic or Protestant, Jew, Mormon or Jehovah's witness if you wish. The only difference is that people are not required by the UU church to believe the same things as all other members, in order to be a member. One point probably most of us agree upon, is the idea that ultimate truth can not be absolutely known, nor proven with certainty. Consequently, nobody can claim to have a monopoly on truth. Therefore, it is absurd to say, with absolute confidence, "I know and you don't," where truth about the nature of reality is concerned. As absurd as this may seem (at least to UU's) this writer comes from a background where that was common. I recall having a sort of debate with my fundamentalist grandmother and an aunt, which I lost by default. I pointed out of one window of my grandmother's house, to the Methodist Church. "Over there," I said, "They have read the Bible just as much as you have. They have people who have made a lifelong profession of studying the Bible. They have no problem with honesty, and they aren't trying to trick anybody. Many are highly intelligent. And yet, they have come to different conclusions than you have." I pointed out of another window to the Presbyterian church, and said the same thing. A few blocks away was the Lutheran church. I mentioned it, and said approximately the same thing. "And they all come to a different conclusion. How can you possibly say that you know, and they don't?" "Because," said my grandmother, "they are wrong." And that was all there was to say about it. In addition to toleration of other ideas, which is the logical consequence of that UU thinking, UU's also advocate toleration of behaviors resulting from those ideas, so long as they are not harmful. Those two concepts are closely linked, as toleration of the behavior resulting from viewpoints is the reasonable conclusion of the former principle. Of course, we are all aware of the Inquisition, in which it was assumed that heresy was harmful to one's soul, expressing it was harmful to the souls of others, and it was therefore necessary to rescue the heretic from error, by all means necessary. But I will assume the reader has got beyond that, rather than my arguing the case. A lot of people who belong to intolerant religions, are also intolerant of the actions of others. They want to pass laws outlawing things they oppose on religious principle, and advocate laws requiring the government to promote their own religious ideas. They may want to outlaw birth control, consumption of any amount of any kind of alcohol, buying a lottery ticket, working on Sunday, expressing certain religious ideas, allowing persons to be married by a civil authority, or to live together without marriage, or allowing homosexuals to live as they wish. And they may want to require Bible readings in school and require teaching their view of creation in public school. Most UU's are generally opposite to that. They each have opinions on the wisdom or its lacking in each such choice, in their own lives or the lives of their children, but that falls far short of making their opinions into law, for all the world to obey. Where others want to put their religious views into law, UU's will generally oppose that. When a person is absolute in his view of truth, he tends to see right and wrong in that light. A UU generally accepts a view of "Live and let live," and realizes that "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," or "A sword cuts both ways." I had a discussion with a friend, who felt that school prayer, Bible readings in school, monuments with the ten commandments on public land, nativity scenes on a courthouse lawn, a cross on a city letterhead and other combinations of religion and government are all right. I proposed the possibility that a large group of Moonies or Hare Krishna might move in to her very small community, and have enough votes to take over the school board. Then they might decree that all of the school children would hear readings from their scriptures every morning, and offer a prayer to Krishna afterward. She said she would be opposed to that, "because they would be wrong." Yet she would still not be opposed to Christian readings, "because they are right." The idea that a principle works both ways, or applies the same to all did not faze her. The idea that there might be somebody expressing a mirror image of her thinking, from the other side of the fence, meant nothing, because they would be wrong, and a Christian having such ideas would be right. What astonished me was that this was not an unintelligent person, but was a person committed to that thinking all the same. Unfortunately, there have been people in our history who have put that reasoning into action. Where Catholics were in the majority, or where fundamentalist Protestants were in the majority, or where Jews were in the majority in an area, they manipulated the law to serve their own beliefs. Of course in those places, a person not of the same persuasion could clearly see the injustice. But that same person who moves to an area where his own faith is in the majority may not see a problem with doing the same thing there. UU's generally advocate for rights of minorities, with the idea that a large group has no right to gang up on a smaller one, and usurp their rights to be different from the majority. That means that I may believe differently from Jews, Muslims, Catholics or fundamentalists, but I have no right to impose my religion on them, nor deny them the right to practice their own. I may or may not be a black or a conscientious objector or a homosexual, but I have no right to treat them badly just because they are a minority in most places. That includes the idea that I have no right to tax them to support my own religion. That also means that in communities where they are in a majority, they have no right to do the same to me. (This was not always the case. Before the Civil War, the Unitarian church was the state church of Massachusets.) If I want to make an exception for myself, and can do so, there will be somebody elsewhere, or perhaps in a different year in my own community, who will want to make a different exception for his own view, and who could argue that if I could do it, then when he has the power, he has the same right to do it, too. If I believe a practice is wrong, I can't say it is right part of the time, when if favors myself. So as a matter of principle, I must respect the rights of others to be different from me, even when I may have the clout to do otherwise. If somebody else does want to use the power of the government to promote his own religion, I must oppose him, in defense of my own. The only basis on which I can reasonably oppose him is on principle, under which rules that apply to him also apply to me, and vise versa. Now, all that is too long to be an elevator speech. But if you can boil the essence of that thinking down to a one-minute talk, that would be my elevator speech. --Gene Douglas Below are a couple of elevator speeches I lifted from Wickipedia, and actually can be said before the elevator stops. In Unitarian Universalist congregations, we gather in community to support our individual spiritual journeys. We trust that openness to one another's experiences will enhance our understanding of our own links with the divine, with our history, and with one another. — Rev. Jonalu Johnstone, Oklahoma City, OK[6] Most Unitarian Universalists share a belief that nobody has a monopoly on all truth, or ultimate proof of the truth of everything in any one belief. Therefore, one's own truth is unprovable, as is that of others. Consequently, we should respect the beliefs of others, as well as their right to hold those beliefs. Conversely, we expect that others should respect our right to our own beliefs. Oh -- by the way. If you want to research these ideas further, look in the index pages for words like "truth," "certainty," "reality," "relativism," and "knowledge." If you wish, go to some sources mentioned on this website and add some more. The more you see, the more uncertain it all becomes. Some UU's have joked that the UU symbol ought to be a question mark. For more information, go to "100 Questions" under "U-Index." |
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| GeneDouglas | Doctrine | 0 | Jan 5 2008, 9:11 PM EST by GeneDouglas | ||
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If you read the articles about Canon, Heresy and Church Discipline, you will notice the difference between UU's and many other churches. Because one may be so accustomed to canon law in one church or another, it may be difficult for him to accept the idea of a religion that does not subject its members to discipline, or some form of rejection if one does not adhere to a strict doctrine.
It would be theoretically possible for some UU's to specify what all must believe, but who would be appropriate to do that? And what purpose would be served? Then there is the belief shared by many UU's that truth can not be determined with certainty, so a truth assumed by one person can not be guaranteed to be correct. Consequently, that one person can not say with certainty that competing views are therefore wrong. If many of us believe that, and a particular view is declared to be the right one, with all others declared as heresy, then such an act would be contrary to our beliefs. Because we believe in freedom of thought, we are opposed to creating any such condition. We prefer instead to provide a haven for persons who do not wish their thought and beliefs to be constricted by the demands of others. |
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