Birthright UUs vs converts
Transient and Permanent has a posting called Birthright UU: Triumphalism and Discrimination Among Non-Converts?.For many years, I've maintained that there are differences between those who were raised UU and those who converted to UUism as adults. For one thing, converts often (but far from universally) suffer from Angry Ex-Christian Syndrome, which in its related Diehard Secular Humanist manifestation is blamed by many for making UU churches uncomfortable places for theists, Neo-Pagans, and other types of UUs. It also seems to me that converts have lots of issues that just aren't as pressing for people who grew up UU, such as anxiety over whether UUism is a religion, what our core beliefs or values are, concern about our roots as a Christian tradition, etc. In interacting with other people who grew up as Unitarian-Universalists, I've often felt a common recognition of shared understanding of what it is to be UU that is essentially experiential and nonverbal. There also tends to be an easier acceptance of the fluidity of personal and communal religious belief/practice and a predeliction for reconciling different religious ideas or even holding them in creative tension among many lifelong UUs. Many other possible trends that distinguish converts and non-converts might be proposed. ...The writer apparently doesn't like the term "birthright UU" .. "What is this 'right' which is being asserted?".
posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 6:49 AM
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