|
By Joyce Dowling
(a.k.a. Sister Broadsword of Reasoned
Discussion)
August 14, 2005
On April 8 of this year, Jon
Carroll’s column about the Unitarian Jihad came out. By April 10,
someone created a name generator for “Unitarian Jihads” (extensive
research suggests that there was no one identifying as “Unitarian
Jihads” before the article – it was a creation of Jon Carroll).
The
generator randomly selects a title which usually relates to a
gender, such as Sister or Brother, but also Sibling. Then it selects
a weapon followed by a UU-like characteristic. The original
generator gave me the name Sister Sword of Looking at All Sides of
the Question and shortly following an e-pal sent me “Sister
Broadsword of Reasoned Discussion” which is the name I’m going by
today – discussion will follow the sermon.
On April 11, I received 2 emails about it and the next day when I
was doing my weekly news search for the UUNews e-newsletter, I
found the article, so I decided to do a Google search to see if
any Unitarian Jihads really exist. The search came up with 902 web
pages with the term “unitarian jihad”. Besides the original name
generator, there was already a First Reformed Unitarian Jihad Name
Generator and a community blog (“blog” is short for “web log” and
they’re essentially journal-type web sites) had been started on Live
Journal (otherwise known as “LJ”), so I signed up. I wanted to see
where this was going to go.
I posted a reply to the message about it that had been sent to the
UUA PR email list to tell them what I found and that I thought it
was a PR opportunity for UUs. I suggested that they especially
spread it through their youth groups, because young people like to
blog and they’ll share it with their non-UU friends, too. Then
someone wrote back and said that even middle-aged bloggers were
enjoying it. One popular UU blog, Philocrites (pronounced like
Socrites), noted that a blog tracker which produces charts on
activities for keywords in blogs showed a significant blip for
“unitarian jihad” – much higher than the blip that occurred for
“United Church of Christ” during the controversy over its national
ad campaign.
Well, then the dissent started. How could we use the word “jihad” in
association with “Unitarian Universalism” because it’s “awfully
alarming to many in the general public”? Of course, there was an
ensuing debate. This just convinced those of us who thought it was a
good way to get the news out about UUism to seize the opportunity to
go for it.
Someone created an entry for it on Wikipedia (there are a lot of
UU editors of that free online encyclopedia, including me). Someone
else created an entry on the UUWiki and bought a Google Ad to
point to it. Almost simultaneously, I created a web page on the
church site about it plus a page on UU Humor to demonstrate that
we have a long history of being poked fun at and that we have a
sense of humor. And then I bought a local Google Ad hoping to
attract people to our church’s web site. On the web page I
explained briefly about the origins and then I wrote the following.:
Does the word jihad offend you? Here's a definition and a little
history from the Labor Law Talk Dictionary - originally it was about
"nonviolent and personal struggle." Also, read "Jihad : how a word
became a weapon".
And I gave them links to these resources. And then I wrote.:
"Unitarian" is the first part of the name of our religion and is the
religion that preceded Unitarian Universalism prior to the merger of
Unitarian and Universalism (learn more about our history here [and a
link, of course]). "Jihad" has been associated with terrorists, but
one of the definitions, according to Merriam Webster, is "a crusade
for a principle or belief." Unitarian Universalists have principles,
which we act upon. "Crusade" has a bad connotation when remembering
bloody crusades in our history, but one definition of the word is "a
remedial enterprise undertaken with zeal and enthusiasm." Many
Unitarian Universalists have great enthusiasm for our principles and
beliefs which can certainly be a remedy for many ills of our
society.
Learn more about the people who are enthusiastic for these
principles in the Prince George's County, Maryland area by browsing
this site - links above and to the right. And join us in person at
our events listed on the calendar and/or Sun. morning.
This web page has gotten an average of one hit per day, which is
well over 100 hits by now. The Google Ad is responsible for 18 of
those hits & has cost us less than $6, though UU-types tend not to
respond well to direct advertising and that’s why we thought this
indirect method of getting people to know about us through the
phenomena created after this humorous article would be another way
of getting people to know about us.
Have people come here as a result of this web page? I don’t know – I
haven’t heard any specific reference to it, though people come
almost every Sun. who say they found us on the internet. We don’t
ask how they found our web site. I’ll tell you if I found a place
like this through that kind of ad, I might not admit it. But even if
those who found our Unitarian Jihad web page never visit our church,
they have now heard of Unitarian Universalism and then next time
they hear about it or the time after that, they may decide to visit
a UU community somewhere. One of our active UUs said he received a
brochure in the mail and didn’t attend the church that sent it until
over a year later. We need to stop hiding in the woods. We need to
get our message out to people.
The LJ community, known as “The International Unofficial Unitarian
Jihad” now has well over 300 members and 6 local “cells” have been
formed, though no committees that I know of. Several of them had
never heard of Unitarian Universalism before. And some said they’d
be looking into their local congregation. Several others said that
they had no intention of ever joining any church, but that’s not so
different than the general public.
The American Religious Identification Survey of 2001 said the
weighed estimate based on their study of over 50,000 randomly
selected participants, shows that 629,000 people, .3% of the
population, identifies as UU, even though the UUA listed only about
230,000 members in 2001. The study said that the greatest increase
has been among those who do not subscribe to any religious belief.
So this online community bears that out.
So how does the Unitarian Jihad movement relate to our own? I think
I’ve already answered some of that in the description of the
phenomena. And what have I learned from it?
Well, besides seeing that a lot of people can really espouse our
UU principles and not join a church community just as the religion
survey shows, I “heard” (or “read”) many of the reasons why. Some
of them are unfamiliar or not yet interested in the benefits of a
lifespan caring community. Some of them think we’re like most
religious institutions. Some have been involved in UU churches and
were turned off by some individuals or the politics of the
community. It can be so much easier to not belong to a group than
help to work to make a group a comfortable & enjoyable
community. An online community is a little easier to participate in and come
and
go as they please. We are a supportive community in a similar way
to a live UU community as far as our friendly conversations, sharing of
frustrations with politics, and advice about every day life, such
as someone who recently asked about what to do about a forthcoming
mixed-religion wedding.
Of course, I can’t hold their babies & dedicate to help in the care
of their children. I can’t share music with them in the way that we
here are sharing today. I can’t visit them in the hospital when
they’re so ill or injured that they’re unable to use a computer. I
can’t attend memorial services of loved ones lost. I can’t even
actually share coffee or tea and cookies with them, even though we
humorously say that we are. Hopefully they have family, friends, and
neighbors for these things – those who are not participating in UU
congregations.
I am happy to report, though, that there are a lot of people who
believe in the same causes that we believe in and who want to take
action to make our country and the world a better place to live.
This, I think, is the most important thing. This is what I believe
attracted many of them to the LJ community after reading Jon
Carroll’s article. They wanted to network with people who are taking
action – doing something about it. They, like many of us here at
Davies, are primarily doing small things as individuals and
spreading the word to others about what they’re doing and why and
how they can get involved.
Some of the issues they’ve already addressed in the 5 mos. of their
existence in which some have taken action to do something about,
includes advocating for solutions to global warming, responsible sex
education taught in U.S. schools (many of the issues are U.S. only
though the participants are world-wide and, incidentally, many are
shocked to learn about how the fundamentalists have limited our
freedom in this area), saving federal funding for PBS (all of which
could be done through contacting our legislators & encouraging
others to do the same), feeding the hungry, funding mammograms to
help stop breast cancer, helping to provide basic health services
to children, giving books to children to increase literacy, saving
endangered land, providing food for animal shelters (which can be
done through a free-click service supported by ads), and helping
to reduce landfill usage by reusing items given away in the online
Freecycle™ network. There are many ways in which people can help
each other make the world a better place to live without actually
having face-to-face contact.
Before I let you have your say, I’d like to wrap up by saying that
the Unitarian Jihad movement still has momentum. At its height
Google was finding over 80,000 web pages with the term “unitarian
jihad” and today there are still well over 38,000 web pages with
that term. I’m also not the first one to do a sermon about it; a
fellow member of the LJ community who’s in Australia did one in
June. Also, just last week I received a chain letter with Jon
Carroll’s column. As many of you know, chain letters often never
die – they have a life of their own – being passed around endlessly. I’d
say this is a good thing for our own movement – for Unitarian
Universalism at large since it can and does generate curiosity and
lead them to us. I’ve heard people say that Unitarian Universalism
is the religion of the future, but in 1822, Thomas Jefferson said
of Unitarianism "That this will, ere long, be the religion of the
majority from North to South, I have no doubt." We have a long way
before we become the majority and we haven’t really a clue yet as to
how to do it. Some of us are working on it, though, and I really do
think the effort is growing.
More information at UUWiki |
