Apr 8, 2023·edited Apr 8, 2023Liked by Katie Herzog, TracingWoodgrains
I haven’t started listening yet but as a former board member of a UUA church who resigned in protest over all the bullshit, you’ve already made my dream come true with this episode. I will be a primo forever.
I had a creeping sense of dread listening to Katie list out the progressive bona fides of Kate Rohde, knowing it had to be leading to an inevitable meltdown of some kind. Like watching someone go into the creepy basement in a horror movie, "watch out, the cancellation is coming from inside the house!"
We joined a UU church in Southern California in 2011. We started leaving before the pandemic and now we are fully out. Nationally, the church has always had about 160,000 members. It hasn’t changed much since the merger of Unitarians and Universalists in the early 60s. So much for bringing in that group of “Spiritual, Not Religious”
The church is supposed to be guided by 7 principles and 6 sources. The sources draw from all spiritual teachings including eastern and western religions and secular humanism. The 7 principles were created by survey. “Hey Unitarians and Universalists, what do you want to emphasize?” It was basically SurveyMonkey on paper 60 years ago.
Our congregation always reminded me of a party where the host complains to the people that are there that none of the cool people came. You could see the thrill on people’s faces when someone of color walked in the door. However, I remember having a conversation with a Latino guy who said he found the church difficult because he was raised Catholic and the Unitarians in our congregation hd a hard time hiding their disdain for anyone who was a Christian.
I could go on and on, but the biggest issue I found with the church is that they don’t know who they are. They seem to define themselves as what they aren’t, not what they have to offer. It’s not surprising that they would embrace anti-racism as a religion because it’s what they’re missing. Something to be dogmatic about while insisting that, in this case, that trumps their survey principles.
That being said, we met a lot of wonderful people in our church who were also dumbfounded at the new direction the church had taken. Slowly those members died or left to be replaced by even more militant people who hollowed out the church.
John McWhorter has really hit hard on how this phenomenon is a religion. And it's funny now this quasi-religious group that did an amazing job of keeping religion out of it and being human-based has finally succumbed. Rejoice, they finally found religion!
I grew up UU and worked for the UUA in the early 2000's for about 6 years. After seeing how the sauce is made, I walked away and never looked back on the religion. The UUA leadership, including the UUMA, and staff are the most self-aggrandizing, white savor complex, power hungry, narcissists you can possibly imagine.
Most of the cancellation mentioned in the article was happening to dissenting voices even back then, but it was behind closed doors without wide spread recognition. Additionally they suffered from the same issues as any religious organization, e.g. financial misuse, moving problematic ministers to different congregations and covering up the allegations.
Wanted to add the UUA has always been a close minded organization, regardless of what they profess. From the first day there I was exposed to extreme anti Catholic bigotry. These people hated Catholics with the fire of a thousand suns.
They feel that they personally can save the world, but in reality it is a closed minded social club that is not tolerant to outsiders or new members (thus the historic declining membership), or dissenting voices.
I could go on for hours about the issues with that place.
UUism comes out of christianity. there is still a unitarian christian association. but today most UUs are not christian so they are not allowed in the national council of churches (it's xtian)
finally, there used to be republican UUs. bob packwood of oregon (senator) and nancy johnson of conn. (congress) were UU
Wow. I've never been so glad to have abandoned the UU church. The reason I lost my faith, so to speak, was that the church was no longer secular enough for me. The sermons had too much talk of "spirituality" instead of the cerebral lectures I remembered from my youth. Some ministers would even pray!
This was in the 1990s, when the whole anti-racism stuff was starting. I don't think it's a coincidence that people who see themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are caught up in the religions of the day: anti-racism, gender ideology, etc. I'm glad that some of the un-fellowshipped ministers are fighting back.
Would really love to send this episode to my almost-70yo formerly UU parents, but unfortunately they don't really get "skip to x timestamp to avoid a really weird intro about adult diaper fetishists" so I guess they'll never hear it
Sometimes my dad and I would go roof a church for no money and when I asked him why he would say “it feels like I’m going to do something fucked up soon.”
Why can people not understand that this is the one true religion?
It will never not piss me off to the highest heavens when white people say that ideas of logic and reason are a part of white supremacy. So Black people are naturally illogical and unreasonable? Is it too hard for them to understand? It reminds me of people saying that we should remove gifted and talented school programs because there aren't a lot of black students. Well, it's just a thought, but maybe we should expand education such that we can get those black students up to par with G&T programs instead of killing it entirely.
Also - this episode has peaked my boyfriend on white liberalism and he fully gets why I prefer to be around white conservatives instead of white liberals as a black woman. Thank you so much for this episode, it was fantastic.
As a member of a UU church who plans to try having lunch with the two super-woke ministers of our congregation soon to talk about gender issues, this episode hits close to home. I'm nervous about this upcoming attempt at communication; I'm not sure either of them will even agree to meet with me once they know what I want to talk about.
I love the "be nice to each other and sort of pray together but we don't really care what you believe about creation n stuff; just, again, be nice to each other" vibe of UU. I feel like the general sentiment is what any left-of-center person really wants out of a community; we want inclusiveness and respect and dignity for all people. I think the way our Albuquerque congregation has become an intellectually and politically homogenous group of wokesters is pretty emblematic of what's unfortunately happened in left of center spaces generally in recent years.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic I'll be able to have a positive influence. I've been doing some thinking and reading lately on how people change their minds, and I think the fact that I know and have rapport with a bunch of people in our local congregation puts me in the best position possible to have a decent chance of helping people see reason about gender issues in particular, perhaps what we might call woke social justice/cancel culture more broadly. Going to try doing it one conversation at a time. My biggest concern is being immediately cancelled and not allowed to state my case at all. I'm currently strategizing on that before I try approaching our ministers. Open to any suggestions y'all might have in that regard.
I think the adult baby diaper weirdos are a close 2nd to the stories on pedophiles (excuse me, “MAPs”) in Topics I Have No Interest In.
Maybe it’s from having a parent in a nursing home. It’s a source of shame for many people when they have problems with incontinence. Or because I used cloth diapers most of the time for my children because disposable diapers are hugely wasteful, & I’m supposed to respect some freaks who willingly add to solid waste in this country because they get off on it? (I don’t believe anyone who says it’s not a fetish.) The environment isn’t a concern for a lot of what we’re not supposed to question from Progressives these days. (Other one being the way the water will be affected by all of the trans people taking exogenous hormones, when just a decade ago there were national news pieces on the environmental effects of women using hormonal birth control pills & HRT for menopause symptoms.)
Kink can be dangerous. I once cared for a patient who had to have a q-tip and a straw surgically removed from his urethra (the straw was the patient’s attempt to remove the q-tip).
I am networked with all kinds of progressive ministers and privy to various kinds of intradenominational conflict, but the UUs have really taken it to the next level. The Methodists just split over gay marriage, Episcopalians did that a while ago, but when everyone is already ultra-progressive I guess you have to dive deep to find a reason for controversy.
I haven’t started listening yet but as a former board member of a UUA church who resigned in protest over all the bullshit, you’ve already made my dream come true with this episode. I will be a primo forever.
I had a creeping sense of dread listening to Katie list out the progressive bona fides of Kate Rohde, knowing it had to be leading to an inevitable meltdown of some kind. Like watching someone go into the creepy basement in a horror movie, "watch out, the cancellation is coming from inside the house!"
We joined a UU church in Southern California in 2011. We started leaving before the pandemic and now we are fully out. Nationally, the church has always had about 160,000 members. It hasn’t changed much since the merger of Unitarians and Universalists in the early 60s. So much for bringing in that group of “Spiritual, Not Religious”
The church is supposed to be guided by 7 principles and 6 sources. The sources draw from all spiritual teachings including eastern and western religions and secular humanism. The 7 principles were created by survey. “Hey Unitarians and Universalists, what do you want to emphasize?” It was basically SurveyMonkey on paper 60 years ago.
Our congregation always reminded me of a party where the host complains to the people that are there that none of the cool people came. You could see the thrill on people’s faces when someone of color walked in the door. However, I remember having a conversation with a Latino guy who said he found the church difficult because he was raised Catholic and the Unitarians in our congregation hd a hard time hiding their disdain for anyone who was a Christian.
I could go on and on, but the biggest issue I found with the church is that they don’t know who they are. They seem to define themselves as what they aren’t, not what they have to offer. It’s not surprising that they would embrace anti-racism as a religion because it’s what they’re missing. Something to be dogmatic about while insisting that, in this case, that trumps their survey principles.
That being said, we met a lot of wonderful people in our church who were also dumbfounded at the new direction the church had taken. Slowly those members died or left to be replaced by even more militant people who hollowed out the church.
John McWhorter has really hit hard on how this phenomenon is a religion. And it's funny now this quasi-religious group that did an amazing job of keeping religion out of it and being human-based has finally succumbed. Rejoice, they finally found religion!
OMG. The air horn. Just no.
I grew up UU and worked for the UUA in the early 2000's for about 6 years. After seeing how the sauce is made, I walked away and never looked back on the religion. The UUA leadership, including the UUMA, and staff are the most self-aggrandizing, white savor complex, power hungry, narcissists you can possibly imagine.
Most of the cancellation mentioned in the article was happening to dissenting voices even back then, but it was behind closed doors without wide spread recognition. Additionally they suffered from the same issues as any religious organization, e.g. financial misuse, moving problematic ministers to different congregations and covering up the allegations.
Wanted to add the UUA has always been a close minded organization, regardless of what they profess. From the first day there I was exposed to extreme anti Catholic bigotry. These people hated Catholics with the fire of a thousand suns.
They feel that they personally can save the world, but in reality it is a closed minded social club that is not tolerant to outsiders or new members (thus the historic declining membership), or dissenting voices.
I could go on for hours about the issues with that place.
UUism comes out of christianity. there is still a unitarian christian association. but today most UUs are not christian so they are not allowed in the national council of churches (it's xtian)
finally, there used to be republican UUs. bob packwood of oregon (senator) and nancy johnson of conn. (congress) were UU
Wow. I've never been so glad to have abandoned the UU church. The reason I lost my faith, so to speak, was that the church was no longer secular enough for me. The sermons had too much talk of "spirituality" instead of the cerebral lectures I remembered from my youth. Some ministers would even pray!
This was in the 1990s, when the whole anti-racism stuff was starting. I don't think it's a coincidence that people who see themselves as "spiritual but not religious" are caught up in the religions of the day: anti-racism, gender ideology, etc. I'm glad that some of the un-fellowshipped ministers are fighting back.
Would really love to send this episode to my almost-70yo formerly UU parents, but unfortunately they don't really get "skip to x timestamp to avoid a really weird intro about adult diaper fetishists" so I guess they'll never hear it
When you read “The Crucible” as an instruction manual.
Sometimes my dad and I would go roof a church for no money and when I asked him why he would say “it feels like I’m going to do something fucked up soon.”
Why can people not understand that this is the one true religion?
Alternate intro to the diaper segment:
Jesse: Do you wanna talk about diapers?
Katie: Depends.
Also, I reeeaaallly wish I hadn’t been eating during that discussion.
It will never not piss me off to the highest heavens when white people say that ideas of logic and reason are a part of white supremacy. So Black people are naturally illogical and unreasonable? Is it too hard for them to understand? It reminds me of people saying that we should remove gifted and talented school programs because there aren't a lot of black students. Well, it's just a thought, but maybe we should expand education such that we can get those black students up to par with G&T programs instead of killing it entirely.
Also - this episode has peaked my boyfriend on white liberalism and he fully gets why I prefer to be around white conservatives instead of white liberals as a black woman. Thank you so much for this episode, it was fantastic.
As a member of a UU church who plans to try having lunch with the two super-woke ministers of our congregation soon to talk about gender issues, this episode hits close to home. I'm nervous about this upcoming attempt at communication; I'm not sure either of them will even agree to meet with me once they know what I want to talk about.
I love the "be nice to each other and sort of pray together but we don't really care what you believe about creation n stuff; just, again, be nice to each other" vibe of UU. I feel like the general sentiment is what any left-of-center person really wants out of a community; we want inclusiveness and respect and dignity for all people. I think the way our Albuquerque congregation has become an intellectually and politically homogenous group of wokesters is pretty emblematic of what's unfortunately happened in left of center spaces generally in recent years.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic I'll be able to have a positive influence. I've been doing some thinking and reading lately on how people change their minds, and I think the fact that I know and have rapport with a bunch of people in our local congregation puts me in the best position possible to have a decent chance of helping people see reason about gender issues in particular, perhaps what we might call woke social justice/cancel culture more broadly. Going to try doing it one conversation at a time. My biggest concern is being immediately cancelled and not allowed to state my case at all. I'm currently strategizing on that before I try approaching our ministers. Open to any suggestions y'all might have in that regard.
I think the adult baby diaper weirdos are a close 2nd to the stories on pedophiles (excuse me, “MAPs”) in Topics I Have No Interest In.
Maybe it’s from having a parent in a nursing home. It’s a source of shame for many people when they have problems with incontinence. Or because I used cloth diapers most of the time for my children because disposable diapers are hugely wasteful, & I’m supposed to respect some freaks who willingly add to solid waste in this country because they get off on it? (I don’t believe anyone who says it’s not a fetish.) The environment isn’t a concern for a lot of what we’re not supposed to question from Progressives these days. (Other one being the way the water will be affected by all of the trans people taking exogenous hormones, when just a decade ago there were national news pieces on the environmental effects of women using hormonal birth control pills & HRT for menopause symptoms.)
Kink can be dangerous. I once cared for a patient who had to have a q-tip and a straw surgically removed from his urethra (the straw was the patient’s attempt to remove the q-tip).
I am networked with all kinds of progressive ministers and privy to various kinds of intradenominational conflict, but the UUs have really taken it to the next level. The Methodists just split over gay marriage, Episcopalians did that a while ago, but when everyone is already ultra-progressive I guess you have to dive deep to find a reason for controversy.