Let's Give Up... "Likeminded People"

Hello, fellow travelers on the journey!

Today is Ash Wednesday in the Christian liturgical calendar, which begins the season of Lent. For the non-Christians in the room, this is the seven weeks leading up to Easter, and it is thought to be a time of preparing for the death and resurrection of Jesus. Traditions differ, but many practices include giving up something, often a food item or vice, so that they can turn to more spiritual matters in preparation.

We here at Hold My Chalice are a motley bunch from a variety of religious faiths, but there’s something quite lovely about a season where we consider what no longer serves us and how we might prepare ourselves for what’s next. So this Lenten season, we are going consider seven things we say or do or believe in our congregations that no longer serve us, and maybe we can give them up.

First up: “Likeminded People.”

This phrase is common in liberal religious settings, and I get why. There are so many religious organizations that hold as truth things the rest of us find abhorrent, or at the very least antithetical to our values and ethics. It’s nice to find a community where we don’t have to worry about saying what we believe - that human-made climate change is real, that equal rights actually do belong to everyone, that science matters, that no one is illegal, that we don’t have to believe the same things to love our neighbor and do good for other humans, etc.

I am absolutely all for that - being seen and valued for who I am, being loved for just being - that saved me. I was utterly grateful for the ways in which the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Saratoga Springs, NY, caught me when I was sinking down, saw me as worthy, held me in love, and eventually helped me hear my call to ministry.

However.

There is a way in which the definition of “likeminded people” becomes a measure by which someone is welcome or not. Often, that definition - which varies from place to place - is formed subconsciously, maybe because of tacit acceptance of a more powerful person’s perspective, and soon it becomes the measure by which someone is actually welcomed and feels a sense of belonging.

“Likeminded people” is then often used as code for a common denominator that skews white, cis, college-educated, financially secure, liberal but not too liberal, and (particularly in UU circles) humanist or atheist.

“Likeminded” then comes out in who gets into leadership, who is included in community-building events, what those events are and how much they cost, and even what happens in worship - from the music to the forms to how many times the preacher can get away with saying certain words or preaching certain messages.

And if you don’t fit that mold, there can be a tone of suspicion, a lack of connection, and soon you’re balancing the desire to belong to a faith community that you need and the things you have to let go or hide of in order to fit in. That is neither the right or the loving choice.

Meanwhile, those who want to be surrounded by “likeminded people” don’t want to be challenged. They want to be comfortable.

But as the theologian Karl Barth said, we are here to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Let’s stop using the phrase “likeminded people” and let go of the comfort that implies for us. If we want to be at all effective in our call to draw the circle of love wide, to meet the moment and rise up for all, we have to welcome all into our buildings and widen that circle to include them too.

Into the trash it goes.

See ya next week.