April 4, 2008...10:57 am
Unitarian-Universalist Republicans
The relationship between political liberalism and religious liberalism is a persistent issue in Unitarian-Universalism, and other liberal denominations as well. Some practitioners can’t distinguish between these two–their politics are their spirituality, and it seems unthinkable that someone holding liberal religious views could support anything other than far-left governmental policies. Others are put off by the seeming union of spirituality and politics (especially party favoritism) in many UU circles. And then there are the actual political conservatives, who not only persist quietly in many UU churches but have always been with us at every stage of UUism’s development.
The new blog UU Republican recently asked, are UU Republicans odd? Many UUs would automatically answer yes; in fact, for many the question itself is what would be odd. But it’s worth remembering the contributions that Republicans have made to UUism over the years. After all, the most recent Unitarian president of the United States was a Republican: William Howard Taft.
5 Comments
April 4, 2008 at 11:07 am
Related questions include: Does “Republican” necessarily mean “conservative”? How many varieties of conservatism are there, and are they all equally compatible with liberal theology and/or liberal religion? And are there varieties of left-of-center politics that are also incompatible with or in considerable tension with Unitarian Universalism?
I took a crack at some of these in my 2006 post, Two cheers for conservative liberals.
April 4, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Historically, of course, Republican hasn’t always meant conservative in the way we use it nowadays, as you’re probably aware. And many historic Democratic Unitarians were pro-slavery or segregation, of course.
Some varieties of vehemently anti-religious Communism (a type of far-left political ideology) are certainly incompatible with UUism–not because UUs would necessarily reject them, but because they’d want nothing to do with UUism.
April 6, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Dare I remind U*Us that Ralph Waldo Emerson was a member of the Republican Party?
Of course he did reject what he called “corpse-cold Unitarianism” and resigned as a Unitarian minister but that doesn’t stop U*Us from claiming him as a famous Unitarian. . .
April 8, 2008 at 10:54 am
I just now noticed you noted my blog. Thanks.
May 13, 2008 at 12:51 pm
For some reason, UURepublican’s blog is no longer. I had linked it to my site as I saw his voice as an important one to be heard in Mississippi. I periodically check on his blog to read his insights and today discovered it had been removed from blogspot. I am saddened that his voice is no longer at blogspot and hope this is only a temporary loss and not a permanent one. Anyone see another blog site for him??
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