Correct. We DON’T want to endorse anybody running for any office, local, state, or national. To do so would go against inclusiveness, alienating anyone who had a different candidate or a different viewpoint in mind! For any church or congregation within it to endorse a candidate says, in my view, that their focus is on the political, not the religious or - more importantly - the humanitarian side of things. Personally, I will not be tricked into this trap for someone else’s gain. Thanks, Rev. Kimberley, for naming this and putting it in perspective.
And it's not like anyone is confused about who we're supporting when we're preaching or even chatting informally.
I keep going back to a story from a colleague (it's in some mediation manual from way back) in which a parishioner confronts him about his election sermon and says something like "may the best man win" and the parishioner says "clearly you don't mean Mr. Nixon!"
I totally agree. I also think that congregations more and more reflect our polarized society where folks gather among the like minded. My guess is that 90 percent or more of UUs identify and vote left of center, and that a similar percentage Southern Baptists vote right of center. In those environments endorsing a candidate, at least in a general election between a ideologically conventional Republican and Democrat, seems a bit pointless the votes of very few folks are in doubt. What might cause controversy within a UU congregation would be an endorsement from the pulpit in a primary -- say between Sanders and Clinton back in 2016. In that scenario, I think that a ministerial endorsement would create division, but again not necessarily change many minds.
One denomination, which in my own experience (as a former Catholic), contains a fair amount of diversity is the Catholic church (in 2020 Catholics were 50% Trump and 49% Biden). I see online a number priests advocating on both the left and the right. That said, I don't think that it would be beneficial for them or any other faith community to become expressly partisan.
Correct. We DON’T want to endorse anybody running for any office, local, state, or national. To do so would go against inclusiveness, alienating anyone who had a different candidate or a different viewpoint in mind! For any church or congregation within it to endorse a candidate says, in my view, that their focus is on the political, not the religious or - more importantly - the humanitarian side of things. Personally, I will not be tricked into this trap for someone else’s gain. Thanks, Rev. Kimberley, for naming this and putting it in perspective.
And it's not like anyone is confused about who we're supporting when we're preaching or even chatting informally.
I keep going back to a story from a colleague (it's in some mediation manual from way back) in which a parishioner confronts him about his election sermon and says something like "may the best man win" and the parishioner says "clearly you don't mean Mr. Nixon!"
I totally agree. I also think that congregations more and more reflect our polarized society where folks gather among the like minded. My guess is that 90 percent or more of UUs identify and vote left of center, and that a similar percentage Southern Baptists vote right of center. In those environments endorsing a candidate, at least in a general election between a ideologically conventional Republican and Democrat, seems a bit pointless the votes of very few folks are in doubt. What might cause controversy within a UU congregation would be an endorsement from the pulpit in a primary -- say between Sanders and Clinton back in 2016. In that scenario, I think that a ministerial endorsement would create division, but again not necessarily change many minds.
One denomination, which in my own experience (as a former Catholic), contains a fair amount of diversity is the Catholic church (in 2020 Catholics were 50% Trump and 49% Biden). I see online a number priests advocating on both the left and the right. That said, I don't think that it would be beneficial for them or any other faith community to become expressly partisan.