I know that many of our members were concerned when last week, when we saw the Tennessee House of Representatives vote to expel two of their members for “breaking decorum.”

Unitarian Universalist President, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray issued a press release, titled Tennessee Teaches Us We Cannot Normalize Authoritarianism. We Must Protect Democracy, writing,

I am seething. This action by the Tennessee House of Representatives is rooted in anti-Black racism, white supremacy, and the emboldened anti-democratic movement within the far-right. This is how fascism becomes normalized in a democracy. And it is not something that we – as Unitarian Universalists and as Americans – can let happen.

I don’t use the term of fascism lightly but with deliberation. The far-right ideology committed to authoritarianism, which uses the scapegoating and dehumanization of marginalized groups – like religious minorities, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people and trans kids – to suppress opposition, undermine democracy, and consolidate power is exactly what we saw take place in Tennessee this week.

I appreciate Rev. Frederick-Gray’s statement. And I also appreciate the UU voices who have pointed out that even though one of our current principles honors the “use of the democratic process,” we also need to examine what those processes are, and how even “democratic processes” can be misused. This was the case in Tennessee – elected representatives voted, per their rules, to expel other representatives. As UU lay leader Rob Spirko wrote in a Facebook post, “For democratic processes to really respect the worthiness and dignity of people, they have to be pursued under the guidance of justice as a more fundamental value. Democratic processes that do not seek justice will only serve to re-entrench the powers that be. We have just seen how this works in a very public way.”

This willingness to dig deep, to examine even our own values and how their impact is felt, is one of the reasons I love Unitarian Universalism. It is not always comfortable, but I believe it helps us to get closer to the solutions of the very real problems we are seeing in our world.

I love, too, the partnerships I am seeing so much of these days, as people from different religious faiths are working together to build the Beloved Community. This past Sunday, this was on display at the UU congregation “Church of the River” in Memphis, when their congregation joined with Community of Faith Christian Church, their renter and friend, for a combined Easter worship service, led by the son of Community of Faith’s pastor … who happened to be one of the “Tennessee Three,” Representative Justin J. Pearson. You can watch their service here.