Collecting My UU-FAQ

Back in 2005-2006 I did a series of pieces I called the UU-FAQ. It was the beginning of some thinking that I'm trying to put into a book now.

But I got so involved in the book project that I never did what I intended: collect the UU-FAQ links together in one place. Anyway, here they are:

I: Creedless Religion
II: UU Principles
III: Covenants
IV: Hyphenated UUs
V: God, Miracles, and Prayer
VI: Death
VII: Right and Wrong
VIII: Politics.

There's a bunch of stuff I'd probably say differently now, but (in the interest of getting something done) I've decided not to tinker with it. Comments welcome.

Keeping Sol in Solstice

At this time of year I like to go back to a story I wrote in 1992. It's called Midwinter, and it's an imaginative reconstruction of how an ancient rural culture might have celebrated the winter solstice.

It's told from the point of view of the grand-daughter of the old wise woman. I wrote it to be read out loud, and it's suitable for children. Enjoy.

More Questions About Famous UUs: Dr. Seuss?

I continue to try to verify lists of famous UUs. Linus Pauling? Yes. He belonged to the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. The UUA web site has a biography.

Supreme Court Justice John Marshall? Sort of, but not really. Several references have him as an Episcopalian, and while he seems to have doubted a lot of the doctrine, there's not much to positively label him a Unitarian. This account by his daughter claims that "he was a Unitarian in opinion, though he never joined their society." That would almost do it for me, but the same account says that he changed his mind shortly before he died. If she's a reliable source for the one, then I guess she's a reliable source for the other. In any case, at best he was unitarian in the sense of belief, and not a member of a Unitarian congregation.

The one that's giving me fits today is Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel. UU minister Douglas Taylor starts a sermon "Theodore Geisel was a Unitarian Universalist author better known around the world as Dr. Seuss." But he doesn't say how he came to that conclusion. Now, of course, the Dr. Seuss books have all kinds of great UU ideas in them. A few biographical details point to him not being a church-goer: He was married by a justice of the peace. He was cremated without a funeral. I'm getting a humanist/agnostic vibe, which might fit with a CLF-type UU who never clicked with a UU congregation. Or maybe he just didn't connect with any religion at all, UU or otherwise. Anybody out there have a lead on this?

Another one I wonder about is Samuel Morse, the telegraph guy, who appears on a lot of Famous UU lists. His father was Jedidiah Morse, who was Channing's main opponent in the pamphlet wars that led to the Congregational/Unitarian split. Wikipedia says of Samuel "Although he respected his father's opinions, he sympathized with the Unitarians." Wish I knew what they mean by that. Sympathized could mean he joined, or it could mean, "Dad, why don't you lighten up on those Unitarians?"

Who's Not a Famous UU?

Lately I've been going through those "Famous UUs" lists and trying to figure out why we claim this person or that one: Do (or did) this person ever belong to a UU (or Unitarian or Universalist) congregation? (John Adams, for example, belonged to First Parish in Quincy, Massachusetts.) Did s/he ever claim the UU (or U or U) label in public or in writing? (Thomas Jefferson called himself a Unitarian -- or rather "an Unitarian" -- in some of his letters.) In the days before Unitarian or Universalist congregations got organized, did s/he hold one of the defining beliefs: universal salvation or non-trinitarianism? (Isaac Newton and John Locke seem to have been non-trinitarians. Ethan Allen believed in universal salvation.) Or are we just claiming this person for no reason other than because we want to identify with him/her?

The problem I'm having is that these Famous UU lists take on an urban legend quality. If I decide to add somebody ridiculous -- Confucius, say -- to my list of Famous UUs, then my list starts showing up on Google and people copy it. Before long there are twenty web sites claiming that Confucius was a UU, and it's impossible to track down who first made that claim or what they were thinking.

So anyway, I've been hacking through these lists trying to figure out what the basis for the claims are, and it occurred to me that we need to start putting negative results out there, so that a "Confucius was not a UU" article will show up when people google "confucius UU".

Let me start with Carl Sandburg. I know why people want to claim him: Not only was he the kind of guy who would fit in well in a UU congregation, but he went to Lombard College, which was started by the Universalists. In the 1961 biography by Harry Golden (the first one I pulled off the shelf at my local library) it says that Sandburg read a lot of Universalism at Lombard and "to this day he is perfect in all the arguments that God is good and will not send us to hell."

But Golden goes on to say: "Since his confirmation at age thirteen in the Lutheran Church of Galesburg, however, Sandburg has not been on the membership rolls of any established church or religious institution." Golden mentions that various denominations, including the Unitarians, sometimes claim Sandburg, and so he asked Sandburg "the direct question" of what religion he held. He got this answer:

I am a Christian, a Quaker, a Moslem, a Buddhist, a Shintoist, a Confucian, and maybe a Catholic pantheist or a Joan of Arc who hears voices. I am all of these and more. Definitely I have more religions than I have time or zeal to practice in true faith.

Now, that's a great answer for a UU to give. But given the chance to label his religion, Sandburg listed almost everything except Unitarian and Universalist. I think we've got to accept that.


Another name that shows up on a lot of lists is Alexander Graham Bell. Even the not-specifically-UU site adherents.com has him listed as a UU. (The fact that they have him as a UU and not a Unitarian or Universalist probably means that they just copied his name from one of our lists.) But I can't find any evidence to support that claim. On the contrary, the National Presbyterian Church lists Bell as one of the worshippers at its predecessor, the Covenant Presbyterian Church. That's a lot more specific than anything I can find connecting him to Unitarianism or Universalism.


I'll try to post more negative results as I get them. Feel free to add your own (positive or negative) research to the comments. Anybody have anything definite about Ray Bradbury or Paul Newman?

One more thing about the working class

The cover article of the Fall, 2007 UU World, "Not My Father's Religion" has netted me more mail than anything I've ever written. Almost all of it was very thoughtful and some people told me their personal stories of being working class UUs or of having working class parents who don't understand why they became UUs. I didn't manage to write back to everybody who deserved a response, but I tried.

I keep thinking I'm going to do a summing-up post of everything I learned from the responses I got, but that seems to be one of those projects that is too grand and wonderful to actually manifest in this world. Instead I'll just toss this out to acquire more comments. As I remember things, I'll add them to this thread as comments.

Pete Stark: Unbeliever in Congress

My latest UUworld.org column has been up for about a week now. It's about Congressman Pete Stark from California, who last March came out in public as "a Unitarian who who does not believe in a supreme being." In September I attended a talk he gave at Harvard, in which he accepted the Humanist of the Year award from the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy.

It was an interesting talk, because Stark's spiritual journey points out the difference between two kinds of non-theists: Those for whom unbelief is a major part of their identity, and those who just never get around to thinking too deeply about God, because they're living life just fine without a deity. (In the column I refer to the two types as tooth-fairy unbelievers and purple-cow unbelievers.) Stark is the second kind, a purple-cow unbeliever.

It's an interesting question, I think, whether purple-cow unbelievers can be pulled together into a movement, and if so, whether it could be the same movement as tooth-fairy unbelievers.

There's no comment feature on the UUWorld.org site, so you can post your responses here.

Jesus has annexed my town

"Nashua belongs to Jesus Christ."

That's the slogan on the bumper sticker of a car in the parking lot of my apartment complex in Nashua, New Hampshire. I've seen it several times over the last few weeks. It's either a campaign of some sort, or else I keep noticing the same two or three cars. I'd ask somebody, but the cars are always either empty or moving.

To me it sounds like a threat, like non-Christians should get out of town or something. Is that paranoid? Maybe the people who drive these cars are just clueless and don't realize that it sounds that way.

What do the rest of you think? Have you run into this in your town? What's it supposed to mean?