Given our theological diversity, perhaps it is natural. We want to understand our social environment, and if other people have different ideas, we try to put a name on the difference. So we label each other. Having labeled the other, we think we understand. He is a Buddhist, she is a Humanist, and her sister is a Christian! Thus we put each other into convenient categories, and we think we know all we need to know about what they stand for, and how they think. The preacher says, let us pray, and the preacher is labeled theist, he includes "blessed be" in his benediction and he's a pagan. We could go on.
Should we accept the labels given to us?
Phillip Hewlett writes:
"It's pretty hard sometimes to follow through consistently with a refusal to accept labels which assign you to one or another mutually exclusive camps, desiccating the richness of human response to the overall reality we experience into a few hard and fast categories.....I am not interested in trying to sort people out into categories. The categories I have in mind...coexist and interact within our tradition - and whether we care to admit it our not, they co-exist and interact within each and every one of us, in widely varying proportions and ways."
In our pluralistic faith tradition we interact with Christians, Pagans, Humanists, Buddhists and many other ways of being Unitarian Universalists. These my fellow Unitarian Universalists are not hyphenated UUs, they are Unitarian Universalists who have struggled to develop a spiritual practice and an interpretive framework that goes deeper than generic religious liberalism. Hewlett is not suggesting that we give up our individual spiritual identities in order to become Unitarian Universalists, he treasures our pluralism. Rather he is suggesting that in our interactions with the theologically and spiritually "other" we may discover how much we are coming to share with the "other." I found a good description of my theology on a website devoted to religious humanism last week. I am constantly finding myself in the writings of liberal Christians. I have read enough Buddhists and engaged the practice, so that I can follow their writings, and sometimes I find myself emphatically engaged and the "otherness" vanishes.
So beware! Unitarian Universalism might have a deep practice after all, subtle but deep. It may create conditions, and invite us into a discipline in which we engage the other and become ourselves transformed.
July 2005 Archives
Jeff Wilson over at Transient and Permanent writes:
I see a similiar dynamic in the conflicts that roll within contemporary UUism. In certain ways, some who hold to a particular truth (be it Christian or Neo-Pagan or Humanist or whatever) are trying to make their understanding central to UUism, for the benefit of all UUs , because they honestly think they've tapped into something of genuine value. It's like the salvation Universalists, who believed they had access to the real thing and that everyone would be better off if they got onboard: not because of malice toward anyone, but because they were so joyful at awakening to the fact that they AND their opponents were all one in receiving a gift of unestimatable value.
Jeff in his essay makes a distinction between salvation Universalists (who witness to Universal Salvation), and fellowship Universalists (who assert that is a common vision behind all world religions.) Jeff generously argues that fellowship Universalism evolved out of salvation Universalism. Its a good read, even if I am not convinced that latter day fellowship Universalists were that concerned with their own continuity toward the historic gospel of Universalism.
But I feel called to write about Jeff's statement above. In recent years, I have not observed UU Christians, or UU Humanists "trying to make their understanding central to UUism." I think that may have been true in the past, but I can't recall a time when either the Christians or the Humanists have broken out of their bunkers in decades. I agree with Jeff that both Christians and Humanist believe that they have discovered a good thing, both are devoted to the good and welfare of Unitarian Universalism but in my opinion both seem to have adopted a defensive posture.
And the pagans? If they are trying to speak for that elusive empty core of Unitarian Universalism, I have missed it. The pagans I have spoken to are still seeking acceptance.
But the idea is a provocative one. If each of these groups would even try to make their understanding central for UUism, a conversation would begin. Soon after the merger, the UUA committed itself to being officially distant from both the Christians and the Naturalistic Humanists. The leaders some who had ties with the Christians, and some who had ties with the Humanists let their affiliations lapse, and the Christian and Humanist organizations became alternative theological centers in a UUA that practiced "hands off" theology. The Commission on Appraisal is saying that we have not done "the hard work of finding common ground to build a strong, effective religious voice. What is at the center of our faith? What occupies the focus of our common loyalty?" Chapter one, Engaging Our Theological Diversity.
Is it time for a revisit the decision to avoid theology made over forty years ago? Perhaps Jeff's essays on Universalism are harbinger of things to come, and we join in the conversation to establish a common ground.
۬
Last year it was the hurricanes, and we have had a busy season this year and its still July.
And now I get this email. In 1910, Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers. Today, just 37 remain. At the current pace at which temperatures are rising, they will all be gone by 2030! You can read more about the dramatic destruction of Glacier National Park at http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/march/glacier.
You may have seen it in a film, but if we went back say two centuries it was common for a town would hire a crier to walk around the streets giving the news of the day. "Hear ye! Hear ye! The Ship has come in from London, with mail and tea and spices galore!"
This way of getting the news out, a loud voice yelling for all to hear has ancient roots. In the ancient Roman empire, the criers wouldn't say "hear ye" but rather would announce their tidings with the phrase "euangelion" (latinized version of Greek phrase) which roughly meant good news. I am sure that sometimes the good news turned out to be not so good news, for these were government employees, and they were spinning the news. In our imagination we can hear them now; "good news, Caesar has announced new taxes on incense. Good news, the fifth legion needs porters to carry their swords." Somethings never change.
Well the early Christians went announcing their message chose this culturally familiar idiom as the title for writings that told their version of the Jesus story. So we have Mark's good news, and Matthew's, and several others we know about from the Christian Bible, and some that were kept out.
So we have a concept, sharing our good news. And there have been several good posts on the weblogs of Unitarian Universalists recently sharing various versions of the good news of religious liberalism. And that in itself is good news, because our ideal of ourselves envisions us creating communities of caring people who enable each other to express their own theological understandings of what is good and meaningful with each other, for the mutual enrichment of all. And that is my good news statement for today. A good news statement might be more vision than a reflection of present practice, but without a vision the people perish, so let us hope for the best.
Trouble is the idea of sharing "good news" has bad connotations for many people, because of that original Christian way of using "euangelion", we know that announcing good news is to evangelize, and of course somewhere, at some coffee hours sometime it was decided that Unitarians don't evangelize. And that was that!
The word "evangelical" went down on list of Unitarian "do not does" long before the merger with the much more evangelical Universalists, but the Unitarians culture of self censorship prevailed and it was considered bad form to brag about the virtues of Unitarian Universalism. So we refrained from sharing our faith, a faith that for many people was a liberating, empowering religion, and a faith that "saved lives!"
Over the last ten years we experienced a change, people are no longer shunned at coffee hour for announcing their good news, for confessing that they are Unitarian Universalist evangelists. And that is good news. We can thank a born and raised Universalist and witnessing religious humanist, the Reverend Scott Alexander for carrying the ball on this. He edited and promoted Salted with Fire: Unitarian Universalist Strategies for Sharing Faith and Growing Congregations in 1994, and we haven't been the same since.
Unitarian Universalist being able to share our "good news" is part of the whole "vocabulary" of reverence discussion, and part of our Association wide renewal of theological thinking effort that the Commission on Appraisal is suggesting is so vital for our future. The idea isn't that by using Christian words we will attract Christians that ought to be pew sitters in a hipper UCC, rather that we free ourselves to express ideas by using the words that best express our ideas. For some of us, we might be alluding to an idea that we learned in Baptist Sunday School, and for others we might be saying 'Blessed Be."
It has been gently suggested that Unitarian Universalists who support the idea of being more open to religious language are perhaps longing for a "watered down" United Church of Christ. I think this is a misreading of the motives of many Unitarian Universalists. Speaking for myself, I have been a Unitarian Universalist for six decades. What I seek is a Unitarian Universalist religious community that has freed itself from its own self censorship, from its tendency to tolerate bad theology, and bad behavior, so that it can really be the liberal religion that it has the potential to become. I do not, nor have I ever longed for the church across the street. (In Massachusetts, where I came of age, the congregationalists are often just across the green, or down the street from the UUA congregation.)
In May of 2003, UUA President William Sinkford gave a sermon in which he said in part:
I would like to see us become better acquainted with the depths, both so that we are more grounded in our personal faith, and so that we can effectively communicate that faith-and what we believe it demands of us - to others. For this, I think we need to cultivate what UU minister David Bumbaugh calls a "vocabulary of reverence."
Now David is a Humanist. And he believes that Humanists, who "once offered a serious challenge to liberal religion, now find [themselves] increasingly engaged in a monologue," largely because of a vocabulary inadequate to engage other people of faith. "We have manned the ramparts of reason and are prepared to defend the citadel of the mind," Bumbaugh writes. "But in the process of defending, we have lost€¦the ability to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us, the language which would allow us to enter into critical dialogue with the religious community."
Our resistance to religious language gets reflected, I think, in the struggle that so many of us have in trying to find ways to say who we are, to define Unitarian Universalism.
The point of the sermon was to suggest that we could deepen our discourse with religious language. He sought to expand our toleration of the use of metaphor and symbol in personal communication. Sinkford was not seeking to impose a particular vocabulary on Unitarian Universalists. On the contrary, he is speaking about a problem that many of spoken about before him. We have choosen avoid the use of words that might upset a minority of members who express a negative reaction to religious language, especially to Jewish and Christian religious language. We have given a veto to a few over our ability to speak the words we feel are necessary to express our deepest spiritual longings, and religious aspirations. But giving myself permission to use religious language, in no way implies a requirement on others to a particular set of words, to say what for them would be inauthentic.
I know of no one supports "a language of reverence" is seeking to exchange our Unitarian Universalism with a watered down UUC, We have been and will continue to be a historically formed U.S. movement that listened to the enlightenment, to the transcendentalists, to the world religionists, that came to understand the earth based spiritualities, and now finds itself in a plurality of religious perspectives.
I will follow up this post with another, making a clear distinction between a future Unitarian Universalism which I pray will be come open to religious language, and the real (dry) United Church of Christ.
The Rev.Thomas Starr King who was raised and trained as a Universalist, yet served a Unitarian congreation was asked to explain the difference between the Unitarians and the Universalists. Starr King replied that the Universalists believed that God was too good to damn man, and the Unitarians believed they were too damn good to be damned. King was engaged in caricature, and caricature does not capture the depth and thoughtfulness of these two ways of understanding God's saving relationship to us. The Unitarian who held that each of us had a divine spark that needed to be nourished and cherished was saying that God created good humans, and it was a responsibility to realize that potential. Still all caricatures, if they are successful capture some essential characteristics of their subject.
I am no Starr King, but let me advance this tale.
Three preachers, a Calvinist, a Universalist and a Unitarian went to a meeting on some important community issue on night., but the meeting broke out into finger pointing and harranges. The Calvinist left muttering about the sin of humanity. The Universalist left thinking that these folks acted lovelessly. The Unitarian left indignant about the show of bad manners.
Now, looking at this parody we might say, ah the Universalists and Unitarians exhibit their weak understanding of sin and a just plain bad theology. But wait! On Sunday, the Calvinist preached about how the finger pointing and harranging indicated that we as sinners could do nothing about our sinful condition, and we must accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and the grace that would lead to our salvation, God willing. The Universalist preached that God's Love was there for all of us, and accepting God's love in our lifetime would nourish our souls and help us to love our nieghbor, even in the face of the finger pointing and harranging. The Unitarian preached that God had given each of us the divine potential to be like our elder brother Jesus, and that taking up his way would help us become less likely to finger point and harrange,and in the spirit that was in Jesus we could learn to love our nieghbor.
If I heard these three preachers, caricatures that they be, I wouldn't go back to hear the Calvinist again.
It is true what they say, our theology is optimistic, and weak on sin. It is good to know the weaknesses of our tradition, but I think God loves us despite our many pretensions, smiles at our weak theology, and has called us to witness the wisdom of Universalism and Unitarianism with conviction.
Love alone diminishes not
but shines with its own light,
makes an end to discord
softens the fires of hate
restores the peace of the world,
brings together the sundered,
redresses wrongs and injures none.
Nor can that endure which has not
its foundations upon love.
Treaty of Union at Horodlo, Poland, 1413
A defensive alliance against the Teutonic Knights of the Poles (Christians) and Lithuanians (Old Religion.) Words might be used for opening, closing, candle lighting, wedding, and even a funeral. The treaty writing warriors had no idea what latter generations might make of their work.
Thanks to it's all one thing forthe information that Whale Rider is playing tonight on PBS, it is playing here in Tampa, Florida as well. Here is some information for those who seek it, a short review and DVD sales info, and a New York Times review.
The Whale Rider €" New Edition
Witi Ihimaera
The whale rider was Kahutia Te Rangi. Ancestor of the people of Te Tai Rawhiti, he travelled from Hawaiki, the place of the Ancients, to the East Coat of New Zealand. Then there was Kahu. The first great-grandchild of the whanau, she was loved by all her relatives except the one whose love she needed most - her great-grandfather.
Moving effortlessly between mythology and realism, pathos and comedy, The Whale Rider will delight readers of all ages. Since its publication in 1987, The Whale Rider has been reprinted numerous times and has become one of Witi Ihimaera's best-loved books.
The movie of The Whale Rider is being released internationally throughout 2003. This large-budget production was filmed on the East Coast of New Zealand and has distribution deals around the world.
Winner: Toronto International Film Festival 2002, The People's Choice Award
Winner: 2003 San Francisco Film Festival VirginMega Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature
Winner: 2003 Film Festival Rotterdam Canal+ Audience Award
Winner: 2003 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Audience Award
Also available:
The Whale Rider €" Movie Edition
Te Kaieke Tohora (The Whale Rider €" Maori Edition)
Visit the movie site: www.whaleriderthemovie.com
Format: Paperback, 190 x 129mm, 144 pp
ISBN: 0 7900 0868 8
Price: $19.99
Publication Date: 25 November 2002
med on the East Coast of New Zealand and has distribution deals around the world.
Winner: Toronto International Film Festival 2002, The People's Choice Award
Winner: 2003 San Francisco Film Festival VirginMega Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature
Winner: 2003 Film Festival Rotterdam Canal+ Audience Award
Winner: 2003 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Audience Award
Also available:
The Whale Rider €" Movie Edition
Te Kaieke Tohora (The Whale Rider €" Maori Edition)
Visit the movie site: www.whaleriderthemovie.com
Format: Paperback, 190 x 129mm, 144 pp
ISBN: 0 7900 0868 8
Price: $19.99
Publication Date: 25 November 2002
Chutney writes:
I wouldn't necessarily limit the set of stories to liberation stories, which would ... tend to be perceived as "too Christian." (Or too political, depending on how it was done.) Going with the "sources of the living tradition" we could also have narratives of transcending wonder, spiritual wisdom, ethics, reason, and harmony with creation. This diverse set of narratives would make it a distinctly UU set of narratives.
Chutney in the quote above is developing a powerful and compelling point concerning the power of narrative in creating community. He is extending and deepening a comment that I had made on Thom Belote's post on Emergent Churches on the weblog Philocrites. I did comment to Chutney on her weblog myirony relative our substantial points of agreement.
Nevertheless his post stimulated my thinking in another direction. I thought I would devote some of my own "blog space"* to my understanding of the political in our faith community.
Gandhi once remarked
"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love
the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life.
That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means."
*(I'm too old to write jargon like that without quotes and laughing at the inner young man who once wrote like that as a matter of course.)
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Do all the world religions speak of the same summit,
or different summits entirely?
I have come to the conclusion
that is must be the climbing that does it,
and not the particular real estate.
Greg Sullivan, group product manager in the Windows client division, said in reference to Microsofts new operating system: "That's what Windows Vista is about, bringing clarity to the world so you can focus on what matters to you." Now, if Bill Gates could only bring out a product to figure out what really matters.
Below is a post that I submitted to Coffee House. There was some comment about New age thinking, the writer was trying to distance himself from rich consumers of religious insights.
Are you now, or have you ever been a new ager? Yes. I saw Hair. I sang the song. But then I was raised a Unitarian Universalist, and it was just Church Across the Street
Martin Gatheringwater raised the question in his essay "Tipping Points" about what kind of changes in the UUA would cause a person to leave. The discussion has gone on and on at the Coffee House group blog, and has developed as people continue to write about their own concept of what the core ideas of Unitarian Universalism might be. What I write below is my thoughts in the context of the debate, but it does raise some the questions I have been pondering relative to this debate. Do we have a problem with humanism, or do we have a problem with the American Humanist Associations attempt to define what humanism means?
As I see it we have been religious humanists since before Francis David discovered that he was a Unitarian and didn't know it. And there is nothing incompatible with a humanist saying "God is one."
We make promises, and we break the promises. It is community that we can learn to renew promises broken, again and again. The secret of covenant community isn't the promises made, it is the capacity of the community to sustain the covenant, and renew it in the face of adversity, diversity, and even the natural apathy bred by success.
Stories have power when they explain the origin of custom, or practice of a people. Here is the story of Corn Mother.
from ©Susun Weed -Wise Woman Center. Notice the attitude that is taught about the deer.€¨
Corn Mother herself.
I explore the question: couldn't we find a better word than racism to describe well intended, but power charged conflicts between "white" people and People of Color.
According to the Principles and Purposes the sources of Unitarian and Universalism include Jewish and Christian teachings that call on us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. I suppose for some saying that the source sof our living tradition include Jewish and Christian teachings is an act of courage, but I find this too anemic. Among the sources of our faith tradition is the Biblical vision of justice and restoration, and the radical gospel of inclusive love that breaks down conventional ideas of who is my neighbor.
I guess we could play with our Biblical heritage. But when the Principles and Purposes were written we were in a wholesale retreat from our history. Some more thoughts below, inspired by Alice Blair Wesley.
I wrote this in personal response to Tipping Point (see above.) I hope to write more on this topic.
This is from Coffee Hour; A Unitarian Universalist group blog. The article is by Matthew Gatheringwater, in which he raises some important questions relative to the changing nature of our movment. I will be commenting on this essay in the future, and so here it is as it appeared on Coffee Hour on July 16, 2005. How do we engage our theological diversity? Does Gatheringwater's use of Mason Olds definition of Religious Humanism necessarily limit the possibilities of humanism growing and developing to meet the needs of a new generation?
Beginning to think about controversy at Monday night closing ceremony, General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas.
Native Americans have a pan-en-theistic orientation to the divine, a perspective shared by many contemporary religious liberals, both Christian and non Christian. I think of Marcus Borg, and I think of George Tinker. Different approaches to God in whom we live and move and have our being, both sharing the understanding of the divine as immanent and transcendent, and incarnate in all creatures of this creative cosmos. This orientation is not some new theological idea, dreamed up by desperate theologians in the face of the crisis of theological theism, or the objections of materialism. We have here a prayer that witnesses a panentheist orientation from eleven century China.
I thought that I would provide several reading lists. But it looks like I will run out of room. Maybe I will rotate them. I have three lists up: Theology for Unitarian Universalists; Readings in "Whiteness" and "Race." and a list on Native American theology and cultural studies. Perhaps I will use another method.
I have been thinking about this public writing, publishing to a web log.
Sometimes one's mission is implicit, and writing one's mission statement is an attempt to make that mission explicit. That sound's like a good thing, but what does the statement mean? This is a essay on mission for this weblog.
I explore the "time of our lives" in this sermon. How is clock time different from the quality of time? What about the moments that we experience that transform our lives, those moments we do not forget.
This is an interesting web site that is mentioned by Phil's Little Blog On The Prairie. (He did a worship service with the folks from this Web Site. The site talks about Evolutionary Christianity which is based on "THE GREAT STORY (also known as the Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, or Evolutionary Epic) is humanity's common creation story. It is the 14 billion year science-based sacred story of cosmic genesis, from the formation of the galaxies and the origin of Earth life, to the development of self-reflective consciousness and human technology, to the emergence of comprehensive compassion and tools to assist humanity in being a blessing the larger body of life.
Writing a manuscript for preaching, for oral presentation, is rather different from writing a essay, or a paper for the readers eye. In the essay that follows, I complain about the difference.
I hear that a beloved magazine has gone out of existence. The Other Side was a great magazine, but I am not sure it ever found its niche. It was very good on ministry to the poor and support for communities of color. It worked to witness Christian approaches to peace and justice.
It will be missed.
People live lives divided from one another, sometimes a crisis brings people together. I remember my childhood in Dallas.
The experience had a profound influence on my theology.
I wrote this as my annual report for the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association's Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism
America has a civil religion. That religion includes belief in values and practices that transcend sectarian division. Perhaps Unitarian Universalists don't recognize this as a religion, and persist in the notion of a secular state, because the values that Jefferson, Adams and Franklin articulated are so close to their own.
Ecto is a weblog entry client that makes entering logs easy.
