Selling God

[cbayer]

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/05/27/unitarian-universalism-selling-god/

Once the church of intellectual rock stars and progressive New Englanders, Unitarian Universalism has struggled in recent times to convince people they need it. So the church did what any modern business would: It hired an ad team.

By Alyssa Giacobbe | Boston Magazine | June 2014


PHOTOGRAPH BY TOAN TRINH
David Ruffin, coordinator of the Sanctuary Boston, a “small group worship” aimed at attracting younger members to Unitarian Universalism.

At the beginning of 2012, in a manifesto of sorts that started as a personal journal entry, Reverend Peter Morales announced to his congregations that something needed to radically change. The Unitarian Universalist church was in crisis. In spite of being one of the most progressive churches, with a rich legacy of attracting the sorts of forward-thinking, open-minded intellectuals many of us like to think we are—Emerson was Unitarian, so was Thoreau—the UUs were veering toward extinction. People weren’t coming to services. Those who did come weren’t staying. Forget about growth; many people had never even heard of them.

Examining his small and rapidly diminishing numbers—since its heyday in the ’60s, the church had lost about half of its flock—Morales realized something many modern faiths had already grappled with head-on: People just didn’t think they needed religion anymore.

As president of the Boston-based Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), with its 1,000-plus member churches, Morales saw that the era of Unitarian Universalism as the thinking man’s alternative to mainstream religion had come to an end. Whereas in the past, the UU church might have had to compete with, say, Methodists or Episcopalians for people’s attention on a Sunday morning, these days prospective members spent the Lord’s Day practicing yoga, pacing the sidelines of their kids’ soccer fields, or brunching. People were fleeing traditional Christianity, but they no longer sought a replacement.

And yet, he thought, so many of the religion-wary were already UUs in practice and principle. Consider the Millennials, whose views on social issues like marriage and income inequality strongly echoed UU’s deeply humanistic message. The church had been built by progressive advocates just like them. Its proud legacy included towering New England intellectuals who’d led the charge for education and prison reform, helping the poor, and abolishing slavery. What’s more, its basic principles echoed Eastern tenets that life on Earth is the one that counts and all people go to heaven. They all clearly shared the same philosophy, so why wasn’t the new generation coming? His conclusion: “Church is becoming a bad brand for young people.”

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