Dr. Gregory Cuéllar writes about “trespassing on the archive” when studying history, because “master-narratives that wield power within a body politic often seek the authoritative status of universality.”
On Sunday, I lifted up the archive of Unitarian Universalism. We have over 200 years of theology, written thought, and historical activities of inspired Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists. We are not the blank slate of religion; we have resources that are still relevant today in our own spiritual journeying. We can interrogate that archive of ideas, just as we examine and question our own beliefs.
But we should also interrogate the archive itself. Unitarian Universalism (in all our pre-consolidation history) has often been ahead of its time, but we’ve never transcended time. We have always been a product of the times in which we lived, and I think it important to have the humility of knowing that goes for us, too.
When we look to our archive, we should ask, “Whose voices are missing? How would that change our theology?” And “what mistakes have we made, what are the opportunities we missed?”
Thanks to UU Historians like Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed, we are gaining access to those voices and those stories. Two books I especially recommend are his: Darkening the Doorways: Black Trailblazers and Missed Opportunities in Unitarian Universalism and Black Pioneers in a White Denomination.
Unitarian Universalist Resources