Episode 48: A Pseudo Conflict Between Intersectionality And Humanism With Michael Werner
Michael Werner, longtime member of the Unitarian Church and a past President of the American Humanist Association, believes an effort to finally update the church’s bylaws will extinguish the strong history of Humanism and leave the church open to the evils of post modernism. Werner also believes that the church is abandoning Enlightenment principles of reason, science, tolerance, affirming the inherent worth of all people, and replacing it with work on social and racial justice issues. Is that really true?
01:00 Interview with Michael Werner
37:18 The Black Empowerment Controversy
50:08 Social Justice Is Not Pie
Our Guest
Michael Werner is a cofounder of SMART Recovery, past president of the American Humanist Association, and currently a member of the AHA chapter Humanists and Freethinkers of Cape Fear. He is also a long time Unitarian church member.
He recently posted the following on his Facebook profile in regards to the proposed update of the UUA Bylaws:
“The UUA is in the process of changing its principles abandoning Enlightenment principles of reason, science, tolerance, affirming the inherent worth of all people, the free mind, and the law of polity where each congregation is autonomous. It will embrace censorship, control from the top, whatever one wants to believe theologically but not socially, and promote group identity over the common welfare in a Postmodern, dystopian political agenda of resentment. This is how the left has lost its mind along with the right.”
Extras:
Sources of democratic accountability for anti-racism and full inclusion (2022)
The UUA meets black power (03/17/2015)
Black Empowerment and Unitarian Universalism
The Black Humanist Fellowship
Turmoil over diversity strikes Unitarian Universalist Association (2017)
Wilderness Journey: The Struggle for Black Empowerment and Racial Justice within the UUA 1967-1970
Transcript:
Read full transcript here
Coming soon. Delayed due to length of episode
Transcript is machine generated, lightly edited, and approximate to what was recorded. If you would like perfect transcripts, please donate to the show.
Credits
Written, produced, and edited by Douglas Berger and he is entirely responsible for the content. Incidental voice overs by Shawn Meagley
The GCH theme is “Glass City Jam” composed using Ampify Studio
This episode by Glass City Humanist is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.