Ideological Takeover

When the UU clergy isn't liberal enough for you and you have to purge its ranks, I am assuming you have something wrong with you. The Ideological Takeover of the Church I Loved, by Dr. Kate Rohde, who was booted from the UU clergy after she retired.  

Things began to change dramatically six years ago, when a latina Sunday school director complained of discrimination after a white minister was chosen for a job that she wanted. The Unitarian Universalists’ first latino president resigned in the midst of an internet storm and accusations of racism against his administration. No concrete proof was offered for any of the accusations. In a closed-door meeting, the national Board of Trustees declared that Unitarian Universalism harbored “structures and patterns that foster racism, oppression, and white supremacy.” No evidence was given for this assertion. This was a surprising self-evaluation for a group with a strong civil rights record, including the highest percentage of clergy to participate in the Selma Civil Rights March.

The essay was written in 2024, so I don't think I am going to comment there.  I am sad for the woman, and as frustrating as I find Unitarian Universalist positions on many things, I sense that I would get along with her better than her opponents. Admittedly, I am not hearing their side of the story, and additional facts might cause me to see things another way. Yet this is a familiar pattern by now, isn't it? I am increasingly convinced that for this level of extremism, the issue is never the issue: the Revolution is the only issue.  The sub-causes can be exchanged - we can go to war with Oceania instead of Eastasia without missing a beat.

For the Revolution, Hamas will be discarded, as will Islamism in general (though who will discard whom is always an issue). They could not care less about trans rights or disability rights. Heck, even billionaires as a class may be rehabilitated, as long as they are the right sort of billionaire. Racial grievance is too fertile a ground to stop harvesting, though the pattern of deciding who is black enough or Hispanic enough will only increase from here. The Jews are gone and the Asians are going from the fold unless they renounce and recant. Remember that the issue in 1984 was not whether 2+2=4 or 2+2=5.  In the end, the correct answer was "whatever you say it is."

But it is a bit fascinating that the UU's should be subject to purity reviews this soon. I read this woman's story and wondered what they had done to invite the vampires over the threshold. Near the end she reveals it unwittingly.

I have fought for justice against those who denied women equal rights, denied rights for African Americans, denied rights to gays and lesbians, against those who led death squads in El Salvador, and against those who bled the poor in Mexico. I’m old. I’m tired. I am fighting one last time for my faith, liberalism... 

She has fought for justice she says. but all her examples are of fighting against people. Fighting for something often does required fighting against something else, and that is usually a personified human agent.  But fighting the enemy is supposed to be a tactic, a necessary evil, not the point of the whole enterprise. Yet it seems this is where she invited the vampires over so many years ago. Hating became the point. When that happens there can never be victory, only a change of hatred. They finally came for her.