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I think I know why the UU faith is declining

FreedomIsNatural

FreedomIsNatural

Member
i beilive the UU faith is declining becuase many other relgious organizations (Catholics, Wiccans and Baha'is, for example) now accept many of the doctrines found in the UU faith, while still providing a like mined cliche to fit into.
 
Fish and Bread

Fish and Bread

Member
It's worth noting that church attendance in general is declining in this country, to whatever extent one might consider the UU a church for the purposes of assessing trends (I realize it doesn't consider itself a church anymore, but it came out of the Christian tradition to some degree and involves sitting in a pew on Sunday morning).

One thing that I think churches in general are mostly failing to address is that, with churches now being a less focus point of people's lives, the old Sunday morning "time slot" probably isn't the best time for services. Some people are pretty much only going to wake up and get presentable that early in the morning on their day off if they feel like they'll go to hell if they don't- which obviously isn't a factor in the UU (To it's credit).

How about Saturday or Sunday evening? Put it on Saturday sometime between like 4pm and 7pm, and you can get people after they are up and ready to do something and maybe have run some errands or whatever, but before people might be going out for Saturday night type activities like dates or parties or whatever people do on Saturday nights. Put it on a Sunday afternoon or evening and, as long as it's not football season, people should be free to attend. ;)

Just a thought.

Also, purely Christian churches are sort of welded to some degree to Sundays or Saturday evenings (Going by the old Hebrew calendar, as Roman Catholics and the occasional Lutheran congregation does in order to be able to slot in a Saturday night mass or services and call it a Sunday), but the UU isn't. They could hold the central service for the week any day. I don't know if there is a better time than the weekend where more people per capita are off work than weekdays, but if there was, the UU has not theological reason not to hold services, say, Tuesday at 9pm. It might be worth looking into studying where they can place services day and time wise to draw the most people.
 
Fish and Bread

Fish and Bread

Member
Another idea I've always thought would be a good one for the UU is to add some liturgical flair. Just because the UU is very open and diverse theologically doesn't mean they can't have a liturgy like a Roman Catholic or Episcopalian parish would, but, in practice, they usually don't.

For example, many Christians churches have liturgical seasons that correspond to certain themes and colors. For example, for 40-45 days starting with Ash Wednesday and leading into Easter, there is a time period called Lent where all the clothes and decorations at the altar are purple, and the priests or ministers dress in purple robes. Then there's about 7 weeks of Easter, where everything is white and gold. Every day of the year is part of some liturgical season.

What if the UU did something similar, but taking themes from nature? From Memorial Day to Labor Day, the ministers could be dressed and the churches could be decorated in yellow for summer and the sun. After Labor Day through the end of November, brown for fall. December 1 through the end of February, white for winter. March 1-Memorial Day, green for spring. I'm giving traditional cultural and climatological dates for the season changes, but the equinoxes could be used as well.

There could even be general themes to the services during each season. Maybe environment and nature during spring with the green, etc..

Also, things like incense could be used. Young adults love incense these days.

Give the services more of a sense of timelessness and mystery, like the ancient pagan temples or the Catholic mass or whatever.

Have a set order of services that's consistent from week to week with set wording and call and response ala the Christian with some mysterious wording. Add some Latin, Hebrew, whatever. What's that universal language people tried to make up and implement a century or two ago? That could be used. Whatever.

It's just personal preference, but I like to have a little bit of a sense of mystery and timelessness and changing of the seasons and familiarity of liturgy with my religious-type stuff.
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
FreedomIsNatural said:
i beilive the UU faith is declining becuase many other relgious organizations (Catholics, Wiccans and Baha'is, for example) now accept many of the doctrines found in the UU faith, while still providing a like mined cliche to fit into.
Click to expand...

I see another side to the problem.
Not only are more substantial institutions becoming less dogmatic and more inclusive. The type of people, independent and free thinking, who might have joined in the past don't feel much need for a Sunday morning club. They get community elsewhere.
Tom
 
Quintessence

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
columbus said:
I see another side to the problem.
Not only are more substantial institutions becoming less dogmatic and more inclusive. The type of people, independent and free thinking, who might have joined in the past don't feel much need for a Sunday morning club. They get community elsewhere.
Tom
Click to expand...

Or they are just lazy, like me. :sweat:
I still consider myself UU, regardless of my pathetic attendance rate over the past few years.

In general, any religion that doesn't actively proselytize is going to trend towards smallness, unless there's some other factor like explosive population growth that forces otherwise. I also don't think that any alleged decline (can we see some facts and figures on that, please?) of UU attendance would be due to other religions becoming more pluralist and liberal. It'd be due to a whole host of complex factors, and given someone can be UU and a member of any of these more plural and liberal religions, that... well... it throws a big spanner in that hypothesis.
 
wintersolstice

wintersolstice

Member
FreedomIsNatural said:
i beilive the UU faith is declining becuase many other relgious organizations (Catholics, Wiccans and Baha'is, for example) now accept many of the doctrines found in the UU faith, while still providing a like mined cliche to fit into.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear the other traditions are enjoying an open-minded and affirming approach! Although I am not sure that most UU's would agree with the use of the word "doctrine." But your observation certainly highlights admirable progress!
 
FreedomIsNatural

FreedomIsNatural

Member
Quintessence said:
Or they are just lazy, like me. :sweat:
I still consider myself UU, regardless of my pathetic attendance rate over the past few years.

In general, any religion that doesn't actively proselytize is going to trend towards smallness, unless there's some other factor like explosive population growth that forces otherwise. I also don't think that any alleged decline (can we see some facts and figures on that, please?) of UU attendance would be due to other religions becoming more pluralist and liberal. It'd be due to a whole host of complex factors, and given someone can be UU and a member of any of these more plural and liberal religions, that... well... it throws a big spanner in that hypothesis.
Click to expand...

Wicca is the fastest growing relgion in the US and it is against prosetilazation.
 
Quintessence

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
FreedomIsNatural said:
Wicca is the fastest growing relgion in the US and it is against prosetilazation.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've seen that claimed. Saw it claimed ten years ago too. Still have yet to see the claim substantiated in any decade, and I'm especially skeptical of it now as growth of Wicca in particular within Neopaganism doesn't seem to be that dramatic anymore. Last actual census data I was able to look (it was from Helen Berger, I think... she's the only one heading up decent census work as far as I'm aware) at indicated a rather amazing drop in Neopagans self-identifying as Wiccan. It's sort of confirmed when you go and look at things like this: A Pagan Community Statement on the Environment

I do find text on "Wicca" and come up with 930 matches, plus 530 for wiccan, 9 for wica, totaling 1,469. Currently, it has about 6,500 signatures. In previous census data I've seen, Wiccans represented well over 50%. In this they're not quite catching 25%. If we're generous and add in search terms like 'witch' and 'witchcraft' we add another 540 to that number. That squeaks the tally to 30%, but still startlingly small compared to what I would have expected to see twenty years ago.

Regardless, it's doubtful Neopaganisms of any sort will be anything other than a small minority religion within my lifetime. Quirks of population growth will see to that if nothing else, as similarly to the UU demographic, the Neopagan demographic tends to be greater among affluent Westerners, who tend to have small family sizes or opt for no children at all. They'll be eclipsed easily by religions whose demographics are third-world and/or "poor" who tend to have very large family sizes. That's the major reason why Islam is forecasted to eclipse Christianity in terms of worldwide demographics.

But really, what's demographics? It's numbers. I'd like to think we know better than to view the value of a religion as related to the number of people affiliating with it. As far as I'm concerned, everyone is a religion of one - each expression is unique unto itself. :D
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
Quintessence said:
Or they are just lazy, like me. :sweat:
I still consider myself UU, regardless of my pathetic attendance rate over the past few years.
Click to expand...
How is that different from "feels little need for Sunday morning club"?
You sound like exactly the sort of person I'm refering to. You know about UU. You support the concepts. But you don't really support the community.
Tom
 
Quintessence

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
columbus said:
How is that different from "feels little need for Sunday morning club"?
You sound like exactly the sort of person I'm refering to. You know about UU. You support the concepts. But you don't really support the community.
Tom
Click to expand...

You and I have very different notions about what it means to support a community, apparently. Please keep the judgments to yourself.
 
FreedomIsNatural

FreedomIsNatural

Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
No, they cannot change doctrine but they can declare new doctrine or dogma that is inline with the Church's Traditions.

Can the Church change its doctrines? | Catholic Answers
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Actually YOU cannot change church doctorines becuase according to church doctorines the Pope is infallible. Therefore whatever policy changes he makes is cannon.

So what happens when you try to change doctorines in order to stop the change of doctorines?

Doctorines will change, therfore you cannot win.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
FreedomIsNatural said:
Actually YOU cannot change church doctorines becuase according to church doctorines the Pope is infallible. Therefore whatever policy changes he makes is cannon.

So what happens when you try to change doctorines in order to stop the change of doctorines?

Doctorines will change, therfore you cannot win.
Click to expand...
Please don't try to tell me about my own religion. What the link says is final about it. They're an orthodox Catholic site.
 
FreedomIsNatural

FreedomIsNatural

Member
columbus said:
How is that different from "feels little need for Sunday morning club"?
You sound like exactly the sort of person I'm refering to. You know about UU. You support the concepts. But you don't really support the community.
Tom
Click to expand...

You know what, some people have more to their lives than just a philosophy/relgion if I spent all of my time on my faith, they would be short handed at the homeless shelter, so take your inflated ego and give it to someone who will actually stroke it for you.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
FreedomIsNatural said:
1: Who said that there was to be a pope?
2: What has the Catholic Church said about people who question the pope's athourity the past?
Click to expand...
I'm not going to get into you on this here since it's a DIR. I just wanted to clear up your misconceptions and leave it at that, but apparently you don't want to listen. Bye-bye, now. If you want to argue about it, make a thread in the debate forums.
 
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