My chorus rehearses every Sunday evening, in a Unitarian church. Because of the time, we’re usually the only ones in the building. But occasionally some function of theirs is running late, and our presence overlaps with theirs (although in a different room).
Many of us have commented on the preponderance of these church-goers who have narrow shoulders and rather broad behinds. They all seem like very nice people, but nobody can figure out why so many of them are pear-shaped.
My wife and I belong to a UU church, in fact I will be going there in a little while.
I have never noticed a preponderance of that particular body type, at least no more than your typical cross section of mostly white middle and upper middle class exurbanites. If anything they tend towards the thin side, with a higher than normal percentage of vegans. I’ll try to do an informal survey for you though.
Mine always strike me as astoundingly willowy. Tall and thin seems to be the order of the day. Lots of people who seem to be much more physically fit than I am, few people who are truly overweight.
Course this is Minnesota where we do tall and willowy well, and “Unitarian” is code of “Granola Crunching Political Liberal who doesn’t consume process foods, goes to the coop and rides a bike to work - but is too mainstream to be Pagan.”
a) In some areas, at least, a good number of UUs came over from the Jewish faith.
b) Narrower shoulders/wider hips is a fairly common Ashkenazic body type, at least according to this Jewish girl I used to know.
c) Hi Melissa! (That was her name.)
This is more or les how it is in our area too. I know some members are Jewish but my guess is it is less than 10% or so.
FTR I counted about 10-12 people, male and female, out of approximately 120 who were there whom I might describe as pear shaped. So the OPs observation doesn’t seem to be a universal phenomenon.
BTW panache is this church truly Unitarian, or Unitarian Universalist? I know some people use the first term as an abbreviated version of the second.
Are there any strictly Unitarian or strictly Universalist congregations in the US anymore? Since the denominations merged in the 1960’s, I didn’t think any were left anymore.
I have noted a few congregations which have dropped the word “universalist” or “unitarian” from their particular church names, but they all seem to be members of the UUA.
Interesting, and I can see where they’re coming from. Not too many congregations on their list yet, though.
Likewise interesting. It does seem to reflect a return to the 19th century Universalist theology. I’d thought most such groups had been subsumed by the baptists.
From what I can tell just poking around today there were some historically Unitarian churches which never accepted the 1960s merger. It isn’t clear to me though if there is any historical continuity between the churches which today call themselves Universalist and the earlier Universalist Church of America.
(BTW the one and only Universalist church that second link has listed in New Mexico is called “The Church that Meets at Bobby’s House”! Not a huge religious movement, really.)
:dubious: No one will ever be calling this Quaker “dainty”. I’ll pay attention to it next time I go to Meeting, but I don’t ever remember noticing any body shape trends.
My experience with UUs is that, as a group, they tend to look “crunchier” than the general population. I’ve noticed a LOT more serious-looking women with short grey hair than at other places of worship.
