First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Political Diversity at First Unitarian Society

A Presentation to FUS Board of Trustees

April 28, 2004

By Dawn Cooley

Introduction

This semester, I am doing an independent study researching and analyzing how First Unitarian Society in specific and Unitarian Universalist congregations in general, struggle with political diversity. Towards these ends, I have followed several on-line "conservative UUs" discussion forums, read several "Can one be a UU and a Republican?" sermons, and contacted Rev. Meg Riley in the Washington, DC office. However, the majority of this report reflects the information gleaned during seven interviews that I conducted with people affiliated (past or present) with FUS.

Of these seven interviews, five were conducted in person and two via email. Two of the interviewees had resigned their membership with FUS, two were members but rarely attend anymore, two continue to be active members, and one was the minister of FUS. This appears to represent a nice diversity in affiliations, particularly because the average length of membership/affiliation was 17 years, with a range from 50 years to 1 year. Though the order of the interview questions changed as I gained more experience in the process, the questions remained the same and were as follows:

How would you describe the general political consensus at FUS?
How do you feel your politics differ with the consensus at FUS?
Do you make your political beliefs known or do you generally hide them? Why?
Do these differences hinder your ability to be in community with others at FUS? How?
Do you feel that FUS wrestles with being political diverse? If so, how? If not, how do you think that affects the community?
If you had a magic wand that would instantly transform something about the political environment at FUS, what would it be?
If I were your minister, what could I do that you feel would best affirm your political choices? What would you want me to know?

For the remainder of this report, I would like to walk through each of these questions and discuss the various answers people offered. I will conclude with some of my reflections on this process, as well as some concrete steps FUS might want to consider to address the issue of political diversity within the congregation.

Results
1. How would you describe the general political consensus at FUS?

The consensus was that FUS is left of center. Some described it as aggressively so. One said that the range was Wellstone and to the left. This was perhaps the easiest question I asked, and most people had an answer quite quickly. Long-term members disagreed as to whether it had always been this way, although the disagreement seemed to reside in the fiscal realm rather than social. In terms of social issues, all agreed that FUS is quite liberal (in the modern understanding of the word) and the not-always-unspoken assumption is that all members agree on certain issues.

2. How do you feel your politics differ with the consensus at FUS?

Most of the people I interviewed responded that they considered themselves libertarian in some way - fiscally more conservative and socially more progressive. Those who had at some point been (or still were) affiliated with the Republican Party bemoaned the way the party has been co-opted by the religious right. One person, when elaborating on being libertarian, responded that it means "liberals think I'm too conservative and conservatives think I am too liberal."

However, just because most described themselves as socially liberal does not mean they were in agreement with the perceived consensus at FUS on all social issues. The war with Iraq was an issue on which several members had felt they disagreed with the predominate FUS viewpoint. Gun ownership came up several times as another point of disagreement. However, most brought up (unprompted) that they are supportive of GLBT rights.

One person summarized the feel I got from everyone in a quite concise way by saying that she believed in a more consistent commitment of personal freedom and responsibility, combined with a general distrust of the state.

3. Do you make your political beliefs known or do you generally hide them? Why?

Those who generally made their beliefs known were either no longer members or no longer attending services. Of those who were still active members, one said he does not go out of his way to hide his beliefs (but gave the impression that he did not actively proclaim them either) and the other said he shared his beliefs much more when there were more conservatives around. Kendyl was an exception in that she does not believe that the minister's politics should be relevant, though she does not shy away from sharing them when asked. She also added that people at FUS would be surprised by her politics and by the degree of diversity at FUS.

4. Do these differences hinder your ability to be in community with others at FUS? How?

This question was more important than question number 3, and I found the answers quite surprising. There were two resounding "Yes" answers from people who used to be actively involved at FUS. Another former member answered "yes" as well, but put a caveat that this was his personal issue, not something imposed on him from the congregation. The others answered no. Not surprisingly, the people who provided "No" answers were the people who were still involved in some way with FUS, with the exception of one person who does not attend anymore due to time constraints.

What I found surprising was how the answers to this question had a direct correlation to the participation of the interviewee, yet it did not necessarily correlate with the answers to question number 3. I would have thought that people who had to hide their beliefs would have answered that their beliefs did hinder their ability to be in community with others at FUS, but this was not necessarily the case.

5. Do you feel that FUS wrestles with being political diverse? If so, how? If not, how do you think that affects the community?

The answers to this question depended on how one understood the concept of "wrestling" with being politically diverse. The phrase was mostly interpreted as "Is this an issue FUS needs to work on?" - and the answer was usually affirmative. One person said that not actively struggling to be more diverse "preserved the status quo" and that people worked for diversity, but "not that kind of diversity." A long-term member astutely declared that not actively struggling to be more diverse has absolutely affected the community in many negative ways, as many have left the congregation because of our perceived lack of political diversity. A former member said that FUS does not struggle with these issues because of a self-righteous attitude many in the congregation have that cannot logically believe that people can share their religious beliefs and yet come to different political conclusions.

However, several people did mention that there was more political diversity in the congregation than most people would initially assume - and that usually these people "discovered" each other and kept somewhat to themselves.

6. If you had a magic wand that would instantly transform something about the political environment at FUS, what would it be?

The answers to these questions both saddened me and gave me hope at the same time. I will include them all here rather than summarizing because they were each so powerful:

A long-term member said we needed to somehow mobilize people to become more involved in their local politics, whatever their leanings.

A former member said that forums needed to include a greater variety of points of view (both in terms of primary speakers and for those responding), rather than just ratifying what the status quo already believes.

A former member, a long-term member, and the minister asked for more tolerance of differing views.

A current member and the minister both asked that folks not assume that everyone at FUS has the same politics.

A former member wants a magic wand to change the self-righteous attitude that she perceives is present at FUS, and that actively promoting political diversity (in membership, activities and speakers) would take great steps in achieving this goal.

7. If I were your minister, what could I do that you feel would best affirm your political choices? What would you want me to know?

In answer to this question, I got a primer on how to minister to political diversity in the congregation. However, each of the suggestions apply also to any member in a congregation, not just the minister (and also to situations beyond political diversity):

Be more open to differences.

Be respectful.

Use "I" statements when proclaiming political statements, not "We" statements.

Stick to moral and ethical issues that are adaptable by all.

Try to find common ground.

Remember that people generally have good reasons for thinking the way they do.

Remember and reinforce that being conservative does not mean being self-centered.

Publicly recognize and reinforce that commonly held religious beliefs can lead to different solutions to society's problems.

Reflections

Before I started this endeavor, I was one of the people who did not understand how someone could be conservative and a UU at the same time. My vision of what it meant to be a conservative was someone who is self-centered, uncritical, and, frankly, wrong. During the first interview, the gentleman I was interviewing was describing a friend of his - saying how well read he was, how into poetry, the arts. A real "renaissance man." I was expecting the interviewee to continue by talking about how he and his friend differed in politics. I felt a strong surge of disbelief when the interviewee went on to say that this man was a political conservative. How could that be?

In these ways, I was like many other Unitarian Universalists - both at FUS and abroad. Therefore, because of these preconceived notions on my part, I decided to start this research by reading sermons and articles online with titles such as "Can one be both a UU and a Republican?" and "Is there such a thing as Conservative Unitarian Universalist." These articles began to open my eyes to my own limited understanding both of conservativism and of Unitarian Universalism.

There was one article in particular that really brought things home for me and that I was so glad to have read before going into the interviews. In this article, the writer discussed a way of understanding Unitarian Universalists that made so much sense to me: I wondered how I could not have understood this earlier. He discussed a spectrum that looked like an hourglass placed on its side. On one side is Belief. On this side, many, many grains of sand represent our theological beliefs, our political beliefs, etc. The other side is Action. On this side, there are again many grains of sand that represent the variety of different actions we conclude are "right". The middle, where it is narrow, is what the author called "Values" but I prefer the term "Ideals." This is where we are the same. This is where religion falls. We may have different beliefs, but we share similar ideals. The combination of our beliefs and our ideals may lead to dissimilar actions.

An example would be that I would venture that most, if not all, Unitarian Universalists share the ideal that people should have access to necessary health-care. Some of us would say that it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide monetarily for such access, and others would say the government should stay totally out of it. Some would take a middle ground, some would be for capping malpractice suits, some would be for completely socializing medicine, and some would come up with an alternative that I have not listed here. Our ideal is shared, but how we enact those ideals are different, because we also have different beliefs.

I am glad that I read this article before my interviews because it gave me a starting point - an understanding of what we had in common. When I then met people who had different beliefs than I do, it was not jarring and impossible for me to understand. I did not have to ask myself how these people could be Unitarian Universalists because I understood. Talking to the people I interviewed after having done this research brought the issue home for me. When I have a congregation of my own, my ministry will be different because of this experience. I will be more aware of my own capacity to judge who is or is not, should or should not be a Unitarian Universalist. I will remember that there may be more differences between us than theological or political ones - there may be differences that arise in areas that I cannot now even begin to recognize. Nevertheless, I will think of the hourglass, and look for the shared ideals that we have. I will look for the shared principles. I will look for what we have in common. However, and this is key, I will not assume that we have consensus on hot-topics (political or otherwise!). I will try to always speak from my own experience rather than extrapolating it outwards as though it were a shared experience when it may not be. I will be vigilant in honoring the answers to question number 7, because I now have seen first-hand what might happen if I do not.

But what does this mean for FUS? Where do we begin to struggle to address political diversity? Here are some thoughts that I had as a result of the interviews:

Forums could have panel discussions, not just presentations. This way, multiple sides of an issue could be explored and affirmed.
An intentionally politically diverse discovery group could start to expose members to a variety of different perspectives. It is a lot harder to say "Republicans are evil" when one of them is a dear friend of yours in a discovery group!
A diversity committee could be formed to help review publications, events, services and gatherings for how we politically represent ourselves and report its findings to the congregation.
Each committee could have one person who is tasked with watching the process of the committee and making sure that no personal attacks are made as a part of the process. This person could be a "Diversity Officer"; making sure diverse viewpoints are upheld rather than denigrated.
Congregational meetings could have several "Devil's advocate" positions, where specified members are intentionally looking for places to directly question the unquestioned status quo. These people need not be political conservatives to make sure that perspective is heard - in fact, it would be better if the "devils advocate" was not a political conservative!

These are just some ideas - hopefully they help spark more. However, how will we know when we have adequately addressed this issue? The answer to this question has multiple parts. One obvious one is that people will not leave because their political choices are not affirmed. Another is that we will see more self-identified conservatives join us and not hide their affiliations. Additionally, political liberals will start sticking up for political conservatives in congregation gatherings and meetings - even if there are no political conservatives present! However, the final answer to this question is that there is no final answer. Struggling to be politically diverse is a journey, not an endpoint. It is a journey that it is time to begin.