This has been a hell of a year. I keep up with some ministers; the tension is strong. Will the UUA last, and will it matter if it doesn’t? Will we give up on our claims of liberal religion? Is our only appetite for political reaction? There’s a lot of fear, too. A fear of being ganged-up-on and denounced by amateur revolutionaries if your politics aren’t right.
Rather than making one big post, I’ll get my thoughts out in managable pieces. I ask your indulgence if the flow is a bit uneven.
The UUA Board of Trustees is having a meeting now, and so was looking at the packet. Within it is “draft|proposal” charge to the Ministerial Fellowship Committee. (PDF)
One line stands out, following a rehearsal of the anti-oppression language we all have heard so much of for years. “The MFC shall ask relevant constituencies for recommendations and direction on how the MFC should be restructured, rebuilt, or disbanded.”
Disbanded? When did that become an option?
Looking at that, in the context of all the other worrying signs, another minister asked me “do you have plans to leave?”
“Not yet,” I replied.
“I do.”
It’s the deconstructionist impulse. Deconstructionism is an excellent analytical tool, and at the same time it has not proved able to strengthen institutions. Nor is this seen as a bad thing to many of its liberal adherents: institutions are seen as now being superfluous.
Ironically, this is exactly the same intellectual impulse that drives what liberals like to call “Trumpism.” Ted Cruz put it best in a recent interview: “”President Trump is doing what he was elected to do: disrupt the status quo…. That scares the heck out of those who have controlled Washington for decades, but for millions of Americans, their confusion is great fun to watch.”