There are, of course, many religious communities in which there is no room whatever for autonomy. They have a clear hierarchical and traditional structure into which the individual is expected to fit. Acceptance, not exploration, is the norm. We, of course, are not members of any organized religion, we are Unitarian Universalists. In a very real sense, for us there is no authority greater than the individual.
Nonconformity is one of our highest virtues.
That is our strength and our weakness. This has always been relatively true of us, but as our society has moved further in the direction of individualism, we have continued to stay on the forefront. Five years ago, we engaged Dr. Carl Dudley as a consultant to help us explore how we might better deal with our community outreach. Dr. Dudley, a contributing editor to the Christian Century magazine wrote an article about his experience of our congregation. I sense the gap between their language and my mainline religious assumptions.