Aubergine, I agree with you that UUs need to wrestle with the language of the sacred, even though it will cause a great deal of contention. If you use a Buddhist analogy, whatever is important to us becomes sacred in a sense, and so even secular humanists need to grapple with what is “sacred” to them. It’s also important to our interfaith work with religions that only see themselves in terms of the sacred. And as I’ve said before, most UU congregations have pagan groups, so look up your local UU church and see if they can connect you with one.

Grant, I, too, believe that Earth-based, gender-inclusive religion is the religion we all need to embrace, since to do so would be implicitly to acknowledge our debt to the Earth and act to defend Her.

And January, my dictionary defines casuistry as
1. the application of general rules and principles to questions of ethics and morals in order to resolve them
2. the use of sophisticated and subtle argument and reasoning, especially on moral issues, in order to justify something or mislead somebody (disapproving).
I assume you refer to the second definition, since you end your first paragraph with “angels on the head of a pin.”

In general I shy away from linguistic debates, because they usually amount to a tempest in a teapot. But as I said in my post, protecting Planet Earth is an issue that I care about with every cell in my body. Our Unitarian Universalist principles and purposes are NOT STATEMENTS OF BELIEF — we have so many different faiths that we say if two UUs get together, they usually have three different opinions, and I wouldn’t be a UU if they were — and the language of our principles is non-binding, as you state. But these principles guide our action as a federation of congregations. And I want the language we use to guide us towards actively caring for the Earth before it’s too late. This is not casuistry or sophistry, but a passionate appeal at the 11th hour.

Fortunately the discussion is over a few paragraphs in the bylaws of a denominational organization where the next paragraph in those same bylaws states something to the effect that nothing here is binding on members. So how is it that something that is not binding on its membership deserves such passionate devotion?

William Ellery Channing resigned his pulpit when the governing board of his church established a requirement of affirmation to a statement of belief in order to become members of that congregation. One might think that the audaciousness of statements of belief among UUs was thereby dealt a death blow by history. Channing earned a statue in the Boston Common in honor of his eminence. I wonder if any member of that governing board is remembered by anyone except with scorn.

Statements of belief are like vampires; except the desire for them cannot be killed even with a bronze statue’s rebuke. Channing may have recognized, as we can see in Congress daily, that anything aspiring to inspiration written by a committee is destined for the ash bins of history. Not even political loyalty oaths survive in the U.S. today. That does not mean some people will stop trying.

On another note–WOW! I am so impressed (and a little jealous) that you are part of a UUA Wicca. I am in TN, where there is little opportunity for meaingful religious congregation outside the “standard” Christian religious sects. I wish so much I had access to a Wicca group. As a single mother of a 10-yr. old son, I so want him to have a broader, more inclusive, gender-neutral, earth-based perspective. I hope you enjoy being part of such a wonderful group! If you know about any such group around Chattanooga, TN, please let me know. Thanks! (aubergineaura@gmail.com)

In any case, I like the change from “respect” to “reverence.” I feel that it would do some UUs good to wrestle with a more challenging UU language, to confront a more apparently “religious” identity. One of my favorite contemporary UU ministers, Reverend Galen Guengerich, of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, often discusses the benefit of UUs doing just that. While “reverence” may put some UUs off, a little subservience can do the soul good…even if one is subservient to an amorphous Integrity, the beauty of Nature, or what have you. Simply put, G-d is awesome wonder, and that’s present in the Sphinx moth, the carbon cycle, your friend’s lit-up eyes. It’s everywhere and everything. Atheist, secular humanist, devout Christian, whatever…it’s difficult to see how one could have a problem with that notion.

I find your use of the word “post-theistic” odd, given the fact that you’re a UU Pagan. To me it implies that some people actually have gotten past “God/dess,” while the rest of us are still mired in a theology/theaology of divinity.