Clergy-wear during protests

OK, I'm wandering into the territory of Beauty Tips for Ministers here, but a couple of recent conversations have brought up the issue of what clergy should wear for protests.

I know a number of Ministers who only wear clerical collars for protests. The logic is that it's important to identify as a Minister when you're supporting something society doesn't expect clergy to. So Ministers will wear a collar at gay prides or pro-choice rallies to make this point.

Now I could understand this if it you wore a collar going about your general business, and also did during a protest, but I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea of wearing clerical wear ONLY for protests.

The seems to be something worth exploring.

I have said before that I'm not in favour of special titles or clothing for religious leadership, mainly because Jesus explicitly said this was a lot of nonsense. Religious leaders should not need these articial crutches.

I have no problem with certain liturgical clothing during worship, although the ideal would be everyone wearing it, though that would probably freak out a visitor a bit. In leading worship a person takes on a temporary priestly role, and so in wearing a liturgical outfit they are becoming a symbol in themselves. Decorating the worship leader has the same meaning as decorating the altar. But it is temporary, and about the role, not permanent and about the person. A lay person could equally wear liturgical clothing. And the liturgical clothing comes off at the end of the worship.

I have never worn a clerical collar, but I did used to wear my stole for gay pride. As I relflected further I have decided not to anymore, as a stole is a symbol for worship and should not be used outside of worship.

So, back to protests: the argument goes that you make your point better by being identified as a Minister. Afterall (other than the MCC, an explictly queer denominiation) Unitarans are still the only Christian-derived denomination with openly gay Ministers. So people-who-look-like-Ministers in gay prides makes the point.

But let's look at the argument in detail. What are you actually saying in saying that it's more important for a Unitarian minister than a Unitarian layperson to be seen in a protest? What are saying in saying it's more important to see a Minister than a Quaker (who have no Ministers/or rather have no laity)? Implicit in this argument is the idea that a Minister's witness is more powerful than a layperson's. You see Quakers are witnessing to their pro-gay position by marching in Prides, but with none of them in clerical wear they are also witnessing to their deeper commitment to spiritual equality. There is a coherence and integrity to that witness.

Whereas wearing clerical collars only for protests seems to me to be a position that values pragmatism more than integrity. We're prepared to give up our integrity on one issue because we think it might "work" in achieving another. By the same logic you could use misleading statistics, misquotes, and half-truths to make your political point if you thought it would "work." The ends justifies the means.

Now if, for example, the press wanted to talk to someone to represent a position then it makes sense that a Minister might be the person who, because of their training and position, be best able to articulare the arguments. But in a purely visual way do we need to be carrying signs that say "I'm a Minister therefore you should pay more attention to my views"? That's what you're doing in wearing clerical garb in a protest.

I think it's unnecessary.

Do we welcome atheists?

Posts by a couple of my colleagues have got me thinking. Here Andy posts about the slogan of his church in London: "A church for atheists... and everyone else." And here Danny says "There is no such thing as atheism."

How interesting. So do Unitarian churches welcome atheists? To me this is not the significant question. I don't know of any church that would say it wouldn't welcome atheists. If I asked my Anglican neighbours "do you welcome atheists?" they would say, "Of course we do, but we welcome them to enter into a relationship with God."

So the question is not "who do you welcome?" but rather "what do you welcome people into?" The invitation goes out to all, but what is it an invitation to? This is the pressing question to Unitarianism. In many Unitarian circles there's a lot of talk about welcoming all people: people of different beliefs, different sexual orientations, different races, but what are we welcoming them into? What are we welcoming them to do?

Unitarianism is creedless. So the invitation is not to a particular set of stated beliefs. Then what? The response sometimes is something like "a loving, justice-seeking community." Which sounds great, but I don't think it is enough.

Speaking personally it's not enough for me. If I weren't a person of faith I would say to you. "I have enough friends, I have family and people in my life who love me. I already belong to communities that make the world a better place. I give to Amnesty International, I belong to a political party that reflects my values, I have no need for love, community or justice from church. It's great that you guys are into that stuff, but it's not going to make me get up on Sunday morning."

We cannot simply put ethics at the centre of a church and think that is enough. Or rather you can, but that is called Ethical Culture. By all means start an Ethical Culture Society, good luck to you, but it's not going to be an organisation I'll be investing myself in. And it's not Unitarianism. Unitarianism is a creedless religion. But it is a religion. And religion is more than ethics.

Religion invites people to go deeper. And here words begin to fail us, because all religions agree that there is something ultimately indescribable that we're wrestling with here. But we can say that religion invites us to encounter a deeper Reality. This Reality, some religions claim, is actually more real than what we encounter in everyday life, even though in many ways it seems considerably less real. It cannot be described in scientific ways. But it can be directly apprehended by people. But it can only be apprehended using parts of the self that are very undeveloped in most of us; Anthony de Mello calls those parts of the self "the mystical heart."

Beliefs are "scaffolding" that help many people reach this Reality. But oftentimes people mistake the scaffolding for the Reality itself. Many religious people worship the scaffolding, forgetting that it is only ever a means to an end. This is called idolatry.

Unitarians are often people who have found a particular set of beliefs/scaffolding unhelpful in reaching the Reality. In fact in climbing the scaffolding it has collapsed in on them, bruising them badly in the process.

Unitarianism says, "Use whatever scaffolding you want, make your own, or buy someone else's in. Or maybe you are a rare soul who needs no scaffolding at all and you can fly like a bird directly into the Reality. But whatever you do, never mistake the scaffolding for the Reality."

Unitarianism must remain true to it's prophetic role in challenging idolatries. We often idolise scaffolding, we even build scaffolding that goes in the entirely wrong direction. This is what Danny means when he talks about worshipping finite things that actually do more harm than good. Some "gods" are scaffolding that take us towards the Reality and some "gods" take us in the wrong direction entirely.

But we must always affirm that our purpose in Unitarian churches is to point towards this Reality. That is the invitation. We invite all people, but it is a religious invitation to apprehend a greater Reality, set aside any idolatries, and recognise that beliefs are only a means to an end.

Because this Reality is life-transforming. It transforms lives, brings peace, joy, love, inspires people to bold acts of service and justice. It is worth getting up for on a Sunday morning, it is "the pearl of great price."

It is the beating heart of every true religion. And it needs to be the beating heart of Unitarianism. If it is not then we are an empty shell, and deserve to be swept away as an irrelevance in the twenty-first century.

Live Adventurously