Rational, liberal religion: Dilemmatic positions? An analysis of Unitarian texts and talk on rationalism, liberalism and religion
Authors: Coyle Adrian 
Published: July 2023

In the contemporary Western cultural context, the place of religion in public life has been subjected to sustained and polarised debate and dispute. The best-selling 2006 book by Richard Dawkins, entitled ‘The God Delusion’, has been represented as providing a catalyst or focus for critique. The basic argument advanced by Dawkins and by others writing from related perspectives is that, in light of Darwin’s theory of evolution and contemporary scientific knowledge, belief in God is irrational. Additionally, this literature has sought to defend what Dawkins represents as the Western liberal ‘moral zeitgeist’ against what it constructs as the threat posed by (fundamentalist) religion. Given the positioning, questions arise about how members of religious traditions and groups which define themselves at least partially in terms of reason/rationalism and liberalism manage the discourses of rationalism, liberalism and religion in their constructions of their traditions and groups. Unitarianism is one such religious tradition. The study presented in this dissertation examines the ways in which these discourses are employed by Unitarians in constructing the nature and ethos of the religious tradition, versions of ‘the Other’ in contrast to which these constructions are built up, the construction of borders to rationalism and liberalism within Unitarianism, and orientations to any associated ideological dilemmas.The study involved the acquisition/generation of two qualitative data sets. One consisted of texts from a fortnightly British and Irish Unitarian publication entitled ‘The Inquirer’ and covering the period from January 12th 2008 until June 12th 2010 (62 issues). The other was generated from four focus group interviews with 26 members and regular attenders at three Unitarian congregations in England. Data were subjected to analysis using critical discursive psychology.Three major themes characterised the data: ‘Constructing Unitarianism and the religious “Other”’; ‘Unitarianism and liberalism: individualism, inclusivity and allied dilemmas’; and ‘Unitarianism and rationalism: qualified accord’. The themes relate mostly to the content patterns of the data; a discursive focus on rhetorical function is presented in the elaboration of constituent subthemes. The ideological dilemmas anticipated from a Dawkins perspective between rationalism and religion and between liberalism and religion were not worked up in ways that might have been expected. This was largely on account of the positioning of Unitarianism as peripheral to or outside the category of orthodox, mainstream religion and the crafting of Unitarianism in terms of spirituality, community and social action and as characterised by inclusivity and the promotion of free, open inquiry among agentic inquirers. The construction of this account permitted the framing of Unitarianism as according with but not being exclusively characterised by scientific rationalism. There was a dilemmatic element here, with scientific rationalism being constructed as providing too narrow a frame to encompass all that a diverse, inclusive Unitarianism enfolded. Dilemmas in relation to the construction of Unitarianism in terms of liberal individualism did not seem specific to the discursive work involved in trying to hold together liberalism and Unitarianism. Rather they were standard dilemmas associated with an inclusive liberalism and concerned questions about limits to liberal inclusivity and the implications of excessive diversity for forging commonalities. The scope for engagement and manoeuvre within discourses of rationalism and liberalism in the data was afforded largely by the construction of Unitarianism in ways other than as ‘religion’.