Our theological diversity: August 2005 Archives

Scott Wells writes: "James Luther Adams's construction of "the prophethood of all believers" continues to strike me as a misplaced parallelism to the "priesthood of all believers." In what way does belief shape prophethood? I can't put my finger on it now, but something else should probably stand in its place." Scott is meditating on the missing priest part of this concept.  We pray for the healing of his wrists.

While Scott is preparing, I thought I would provide a little explanation of Adams' idea of the laity and its importance for Unitarian  Universalists.  James Luther Adams (1901-1994) had a profound influence on shaping Unitarian Universalist thinking and identity, especially his appreciation of what was foundational about the liberal tradition and what was transient, his idea of the congregation as a religious community united in covenant, and his reorientation of the mission of religious liberalism from enabling individual freedom from belief to championing a positive witness for liberal values in the public arena.  Who we are today we owe in no small part to the teaching of our smiling prophet.

Adams in his essay entitled "Our responsibility in society" (1953) states:
"The churches of the left wing of the Reformation held that the churches of the right wing had effected only half a reformation. ... They demanded a church in which every member, under the power of the Spirit, would have the privilege and the responsibility of interpreting the Gospel and also of assisting to determine the policy of the church. The new church was to make way for a radical laicism -- that is, for the priesthood and the prophethood of all believers."

Adams followed this up with an essay entitled "Radical laicism" (1984) in which he asserted:
"In the present discussion I want to stress the vocation of the laity, assuming according to tradition that everyone is a layperson, an idea expressed in the phrase "the priesthood of all believers."

Everyone is a layperson!  But in our common usage, we make a distinction between laity and clergy, and if one looks in a dictionary one will find the term laity defined as the people who are not clergy.  We have come to use the term as someone who has no professional training,  for example, "when it comes to the law, I am only a lay person."  What tradition is Adams speaking about?  The term laity comes from the Greek laos, which meant the whole people of God.  In the early church, the elders (priests)were set aside from the whole to lead the ritual, teach the gospel, and administer care for the flock.  In time the priests assumed the role of mediators between the people of God, and God: they became a spiritual aristocracy.  For Adams and the radical protestants, restoring the role of priest to the community was central to the continuing reformation of the church.  The Quakers, as radical protestants, took a different tack, they declared their goal was to abolish the laity.  By laity they meant the consumers of religion.  Different usages of the term laity, but the same idea of radical empowerment of the whole community gathered in covenant.

Adams was insisting that the priestly offices of mediation, healing, and ritualist belonged to the whole body of believers.  But he went further, he understood that the purpose of the church was to witness to a new vision, a new relation between that which we held to be Ultimate and humanity.  So he insisted that all believers were  called to the role of prophets.  Prophets called us back to our values, criticized the powerful and championed the oppressed.  All on the basis of a faith, not in metaphysical doctrines, but rather a faith based in enduring values.

Scott is right to asking the question, how does belief shape prophethood?  For Adams, belief was not simply one's individual credo.  By virtue of belonging to a community, one participated in the faith and values that created the community, and one was called to profess that faith and those values of that community in one's life and in the public arena.  For Adams, being a religious community was not simply a matter of applying to the Unitarian Universalist Association for a charter, and then doing one's own thing.  The congregation needed to engage in the hard work of articulating its covenant, and forging its vision.  Being a member of a congregation, for Adams, was decidedly not a do-it-yourself project.  The clergy could not do the work of articulating covenant for the congregation, it was a task of the whole congregation.  At a time when our self conception as religious liberals had become throughly secular and individual, Adams helped to bring us home.

Adams was a religious humanist who found deep meaning in the liberal Christian tradition.  He helped renew Unitarian Universalism by exegeting  the profound ideas of radical Protestantism, giving them social context and bringing them back into the center of our theological thinking. 

Once in a while, I go to church, just to go.  Most of the time, I doing something, leading a service, going to a meeting, preaching.  But sometimes I go, just to go.  On these occasions I have been able to observe.

I went to church Sunday, and I noticed the announcements.  The lay speaker was good, the music was good, the service was well put together, and well led. It was a good service, especially for August.  Unitarian Universalists are not always at their best in August. I noticed the announcements, I usually don't notice the announcements.  Someone announced that the goddesses would be getting together in the evening, it was a women's study group.  The next person announced that the Secular Humanists, and Agnostics Group (SHAG of course) would be meeting on Tuesday.  The next talked about Appreciative Inquiry discussions which were being held during the summer, all this would lead to a vision and mission process in the Autumn.  The next announced that the anti racism group would not be meeting that week, but rather would meet of last Sunday of the month.  And finally there was announcement that the choir was needing new singers, and the announcer suggested that that the choirs standards were not all that high, after all he was a choralist, and if he could do it, so could you.

Usually, I stand with other Unitarian Universalist ministers in opining that announcements are abomination.  The members should read the back of the bulletin where it is all printed out.  Only important events should be urged on the congregation as part of the worship service.  Announcements I proclaim are like doing business when we have company, they are too inner, and besides they make it hard to end the service on time. 

But I was observing Sunday, I was a guest of this congregation, and had no obligation to end the service on time, and no preconceived  notion about how I would like the service to flow.  What I noticed about the announcements on Sunday as how well  they illustrated the inclusive pluralism that Richard Grigg writes about in his To Re-Enchant the World;  A Philosophy of Unitarian Universalism.  Grigg asks "Why are we here.?"  And he answers "we are here to champion the dignity of the human person over against the dehumanizing forces of commodification.  We are here to celebrate the human being's ability to discern the sacred and to stand awestruck, before Mystery  But now we can add another answer to the question of why U.U.s are here to an answer that is perhaps not as immediately obvious as the first answer. Is it not our unique contribution to present to society the possibility of inclusive pluralism."

Jeff Wilson at Transient and Permanent wonders if there isn't something troubling about the distinction of "birthright" UUs as compared to UUs who have been converted from some other religion.  He describes the convert as being angry with Christianity and which he says is related to the "Diehard Secular Humanist Syndrome." 

This idea of the angry ex-Christian as rejectionist is an enduring image, and it may have been apt several decades ago.  But based who is joining us now,  I think it needs to be retired.  Converts or "come inners" may be Christians searching for more liberal Christianity, Christians who have decided that they wanted a more humanistic and more universalistic religious community but are not angry at Christianity, people from a non Christian religious community that find Unitarian Universalism attractive, and finally, we have many new UUs who have never been part of any  religious community at all.  I have found new Unitarian Universalists much more open to searching for a religious meaning and less interested in rejecting.  What all these groups have in common is the narrative of discovery, they found Unitarian Universalism.

On the other hand there are those who came to Unitarian Universalism through the agency of their parents, and who were supported by the religious education program for children of a liberal congregation, and shared the experience of Liberal Religious Youth, or Young Religious Unitarian Universalists.  The experience of coming of age within Unitarian Universalism is an intense experience, people who have had that experience seek out others to share their narratives, to tell each other their common stories.  I continue to experience solidarity with ex-LRYers after forty five years.

At the Convocation of Unitarian Universalist ministers held in Birmingham, Alabama held several years ago, a group of ministers who shared the experience of being brought up Unitarian Universalist got together.  We rejected the term "birth right" Unitarian Universalist.  Jeff is right that the term has elitist connotations. But there was another reason, if one was a child when one's parents discovered Unitarian Universalism, one has had a similar experience as someone whose family has been religious liberals for generations.  The narrative of being raised UU and the narrative of discovery are radically different.  When I am teaching a new members class,  I share my mothers story of discovering Unitarianism as a rebellious Catholic seeking freedom, and I share the story of my spouse and partner as a parent seeking religious education for her inquisitive child, because these stories resonate with the seekers.  When I want to talk to parents who are raising children within Unitarian Universalism, or to our own young people, I share the stories of my own Unitarian childhood, because these stories are closer to their experience than any "how I found Unitarian Universalism story."  It is the seeker story that dominates our community faith narratives.

I think we need to be able to share our raised up UU stories, we will continue to lose young Unitarian Universalists if they never have their story told and hear others with a similar narrative tell their story.  Perhaps the "elitism" that Jeff has experienced among some who use the term "birth right" UU, is a cry for recognition, recognition that could be granted without privileging their child dedication ceremonies over the new member classes by simply telling both stories.