Who would be a UU apostate?
An apostate is someone who renounces and leaves a religious body; while a heretic is someone who differs from the religious teachings while remaining within the body, according to Lauren Winner’s article on slate.com. Writing about Paul Haggis’ apostasy from Scientology, she notes that Scientology makes recognizing apostasy simple, because of its clear boundaries about who is inside, and who is outside, the “church.” Because apostasy requires such distinct divisions, few apostatize from mainline Christian denominations. With nothing truly unique against which to rebel, those who leave “simply…float away.” Ms. Winner continues, “It is hard to imagine a Unitarian-Universalist apostate.”
This, of course, makes me want to prove her wrong. While rejecting any temptation to use words like “apUUstate,” I do want to explore the concept.
As a noncreedal, covenantal tradition, any UU apostate would not *believe* something different than the others in a congregation. Rather she would refuse to abide by the congregational covenant. Perhaps she regularly disrupts the public worship services, or maybe he won’t stop hugging people inappropriately. A real UU apostasy would be accosting others and telling them that their beliefs were wrong—and then leaving the congregation when told to cease doing that.
UU membership is less about a particular theological identity than it is a statement about one’s theologically-grounded commitments. So UU apostasy might be reneging on one’s prior commitments. Now, the road back into covenant is well-trod; we all fail to live up to our covenants once in a while. We all (should) help each other to come back into right relationship. When a person breaks the covenant, and resists reasonable invitations and accommodations, and leaves decrying the original commitment, that would seem to qualify as a UU apostasy. I have heard of a few examples.
One example, of which I have *not* heard: if a UU member continues to insist that her right of conscience is absolute, and that she has not only the right, but the responsibility, to block the rest of the congregation’s work if it displeases her, then the congregation might ask her to leave, and declare her an apostate for not living up to their shared covenant.
..or so I think, today. Other opinions are welcome.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mike Argyle, ChipRoush. ChipRoush said: Lauren Winner scoffs, "It is hard to imagine a UU apostate," so I take up her challenge: http://ow.ly/3XFwg [...]
Using the definition of an apostate as “someone who renounces and leaves a religious body,” then I’ve known several who would fit the bill . . . and on the grounds of belief. There are people who at one time in their lives found the open embrace of diverse theological perspectives that is foundational to Unitarian Universalism to be quite appealing. Over time, however, they found themselves coming to believe that there is, in fact, only ONE truth — or, perhaps, one Truth — and they rejected UUism’s acceptance of ambiguity. Some became Catholics; others, Evangelical Christians. But in each of the cases of which I’m familiar, there was a rejection of our core value of liberal pluralism — sometimes to the point of then talking trash about UUs whenever possible. This, to me, seems to fit the “apostate” bill. No?
I’d rather think of UU Churches as homes for apostates. Homes where one can renounce belief, and try to be purely blank about any belief if one wanted to try, yet still belong to a religous community. One can be a member of a UU community yet respond to any question on belief with “I don’t know”. One could abandon the community and church I suppose, and forgo practice, but one could not apostate from UU belief because UUism doesn’t impose any.
I agree with RevWik, you seem to be confusing apostasy (leaving) with excommunication (being kicked out). As a raised UU, I know LOTS of UU apostates, including my own sister. We have an 88% drop-out rate and while most of those folks do drift away because they simple don’t care enough to stay, many denounce the path of UUism, which can sometimes feel like religious voyeurism rather than a true spiritual path, and leave. Those are our many many apostates.
Another raised-UU person here, and I too know lots of apostates. Some examples: the woman who grew up UU but became a Baha’i because they had the real answers. The woman who grew up UU but became completely unchurched because she was disillusioned by how UUs and UU congregations don’t live up to their stated ideals.
Lots of ‘em in history, too, e.g., John Murray Spear, born a Universalist in the early 19th C., became an abolitionist, wound up leaving Universalism for Spiritualism, in part because the Spiritualists were more hardcore on the issue of abolitionism, partly because he was really into spiritualism. Or the Unitarian minister my mother had as a child, who renounced Unitarianism and became an Episcopal priest because of apostolic succession. Or the many African American UUs who left the denomination in the aftermath of the Black empowerment controversy of the late 1960s. Maybe we could count Robert West, 2nd president of the UUA, who after he cleaned up a major financial mess pretty much left UUism for good. So the range of reasons for renouncing UUism ranges at least from doctrinal matters to social justice matters to governance matters.
We also have people who have been unofficially excommunicated from UUism, like the fellow I knew who became a fundamentalist Christian and found UUism wasn’t exactly welcoming to his evolving belief system. And we have those who have been more or less officially excommunicated — mostly misbehaving members who get kicked out of congregations for being antisocial or nasty.
OH yeah, and as for the hypothetical “UU member continues to insist that her right of conscience is absolute, and that she has not only the right, but the responsibility, to block the rest of the congregation’s work if it displeases her, then the congregation might ask her to leave, and declare her an apostate for not living up to their shared covenant” — umm, yeah, it has happened, and no I can’t talk about it.
Actually, I’ve have seen, quite closely, the last situation you describe, Chip. A situation where the majority of a Board wanted to do (or not do) something, while someone else said that our covenants required it of us, and attempted to block the work of the rest of the organisation until that work was done, or the covenants and rules changed (which the others also didn’t want to do… instead just wanting to ignore that they existed)
The one person was eventually removed, though that didn’t make them stay out of the congregation, so it was more an excommunication attemot than apUUstasy.
Dan Harper said – “We also have people who have been unofficially excommunicated from UUism, like the fellow I knew who became a fundamentalist Christian and found UUism wasn’t exactly welcoming to his evolving belief system. And we have those who have been more or less officially excommunicated — mostly misbehaving members who get kicked out of congregations for being antisocial or nasty.”
You mean being excommU*Unicated from a U*U “church” for being ever so “antisocial or nasty” as to dare to file a formal clergy misconduct complaint against a genuinely antisocial and nasty, indeed anti-religious and bigoted. . . “fundamentalist atheist” U*U minister Dan?
Been there.
Done that. . .
And proud of it thank U*U very much.