It was said in another thread that "Spirituality is nothing but feel good nothingness and academic gooblygook unless it leads to impactful direct action." Therefore, it was argued, we as UUs should be focusing primarily on activism. This may feel like it makes even more sense due to how hard it is for us to all theologically agree on anything. It seems like this is the predominant UUA culture nowadays.
This is actually not a particularly new religious debate or one unique to UU, as it parallels the debate over the Catholic doctrine that one is saved by both "faith and works". This was called "justification by works". Protestants rejected this, saying it is only by faith we are saved from Hell, but that good works should/would naturally follow as a result of this faith. (For more, here's the Wiki page on this debate)
"That's great, but I'm not a Christian. So how does this Christian debate about salvation apply to our modern UU church which includes buckets of atheists?"
So let's substitute the idea of "faith" with "spirituality" or "personal development", and substitute "salvation from hell" with "becoming more grounded, centered, compassionate, inspired, nourished, and filled with love for the world". So now it would look something like this:
It is not by our activism we become more grounded, centered, compassionate, inspired, nourished, and filled with love for the world, it is by spiritual and personal development. Out of our development, activism will then arise.
Maybe this seems like an obvious or unimportant nitpick, or maybe you're saying the goal shouldn't be just becoming more compassionate and nourished. But I would argue when we operate from the subtle "salvation through activism" mindset that we have, it's very problematic not only for our personal development, but it doesn't actually lead to more effective activism either.
I would argue that our role as a religious institution is not to do activism first, second, and third, just because those are the things we all can agree on (which as we've seen isn't true anyway). Our role, our talent, our gift is to--forgive me for invoking a Principle--encourage spiritual development in our congregations. Our unique position in the greater religious landscape is that we are one of the few places that atheists, agnostics, and anti-dogmatists can go to church and be fully honest about what they believe.
These outcasts of other religions need nourishment. They need inspiration. They need teachings to get through the tough parts of their daily lives and reminders of what's important. "They"? We do. I sure as hell do.
There are many other needs out there, but there are also many other secular institutions doing all kinds of justice work, which many of us have dual-memberships in. They are designed from the ground up to that. But there are very, very few others that seek to serve both people of all kinds of belief and no beliefs whatsoever in their spiritual development. We excel in serving the world's need when we focus on spiritual development that somehow still manages to serve all of us outcasts.
Now from this focus on spiritual or personal development, we can fully expect activism to naturally arise, as it historically has. But the problem I see is that we are wanting to shortcut our spiritual development into doing just the direct action, and that this phrase includes the hidden subtext "direct action that I agree with". Justification by works.
Thus, we have put the activist cart before the spiritual horse. And when we do that, we get caught in the trap of dualistic thinking, which is the antithesis of good spirituality.
Dualism, or "black and white", "us vs. them", is the enemy to seeing the common humanity in one another, and a common trait in harmful religion throughout history (the Crusaders certainly had a dualistic, "good vs. evil" conviction about their "activism").
Conversely, seeing the non-dualistic humanity in one another is the foundation of effective activism. It's why it's our first principle points to the worth and dignity of every person, and not just "every person we like". For me personally, seeing the humanity in all is also the foundation of my progressivism, but that spiritual foundation reigns supreme over my progressive politics. In Buddhist terms, politics are "conventional truths" (or 'relative' truth) and non-dualism is "ultimate truth".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine
So, healthy spirituality really speaks to reminding us of these ultimate truths more than these relative truths, and therefore is non-sectarian and apolitical. This doesn't require you sacrificing your politics, but if your spiritual lessons and teachings are always centered in assuming progressive orthodoxies as truth a priori, you are going to reinforce dualistic, "our enemies are things to be defeated" thinking that is inherently anti-spiritual. By reinforcing this thinking, the enemies become not just conservatives, they become anyone who doesn't pass your own personal "purity" test.
This is best illustrated in the classic Emo Philips joke:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
In short, dualism always leads not only to a hostile relationship towards the outside world who isn't like us and "doesn't get it", but it leads to infighting and internal judgments that we see all across our denomination today. We UUs agree on so much in principle. But just as the Catholic problem of focusing on works, when you measure someone else's spiritual worthiness by their level of activism, you now have a new weapon of your judgment and a feeding ground for your ego. You have a tool to manipulate people into giving you their money as penance for their guilt. I would caution any of us against thinking our institutional leaders are immune from wielding this tool.
I also think it often doesn't lead to as much "direct action" as we think, because a lot of that action is centered on attempts to purify our denomination rather than helping people in concrete ways. The Catholics experienced this when their priests taught parishoners could be saved through the "good works" of enriching the church. So, then, should we be having more workshops than soup kitchens? Should our forums be on why we need more forums?
I firmly believe the way forward is for us to focus on our spiritual development. This focus will actually result in better, more unified activism; it will nourish that activism. It will inform that activism. Rather than leaving yet another UU interaction with anger, resentment, and judgment, it will allow us to leave our shared spaces with energy, hope, and joy. That is fuel for our activism, and that is what we need.
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