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Civil War historian Bruce Catton once said that if people are going to agree on something, any words will do, but it is an infallible sign of a coming fight when people argue over the precise wording.

In Syracuse, in late October 1959, the UUA was very nearly an almost thing, simply because of a fight over the wording of the Statement of Principles. As Warren Ross explains in The Premise and the Promise: The story of the Unitarian Universalist Association, there were three factions: traditional theists, who wanted to include references to our Christian heritage; Universalists who wanted references to prophets and teachers from all traditions; and humanists who wanted no God language at all. The first draft from the Merger Commission included God, excluded Jesus, and sounded like a creed.

No one was happy.

And the argument over this one set of words nearly derailed the entire endeavor. Ross says that subsequent revisions were proposed and defeated during an unscheduled session that went late into the wee hours of the morning. Even in the middle of the night, delegates were knocking on each others’ doors with proposals and better wording – finally ending with a very particular, specifically-chosen pronoun: not “our Judeo-Christian heritage” but “the Judeo-Christian heritage.”

Because of a pronoun, the endeavor was saved and the consolidation went forward.

 

Is it any wonder there is still a great deal of contention within Unitarian Universalism over what seem to be key issues regarding theology? Is it any wonder one of the most painfully fitting jokes about us is that we’re terrible hymn singers, because we’re always reading ahead to see if we agree with the lyrics?

In some ways, Ross’s book points to the very truth Catton spoke of; we have spent the last 52 years quibbling over some pretty big ideas that we are trying to encompass within our expansive denomination… and those fights get expressed in semantics. I recall a floor fight on a motion during the 2005 UUMN conference that was all semantics and ultimately got shelved thanks to some fancy interpretations of parliamentary procedure. We see it all the time within our congregations (“sacred” is okay, but not “holy”).

So what are we really doing? Are we fulfilling Catton’s belief that we have more to fight about than agree upon? Or are we the example that proves the rule – that our constant and abiding fights over semantics make us stronger and more united? I’d like to think our quibbles over language reflect our deep care for expression and inclusion.

It’s not a bad reflection on us. Words matter; let us be masters of our words so we can nurture spirits and help heal the world.

 

 

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It seems that one of the debates we have in our denomination is between the theists and the humanists: theists long to express their various perspectives on God through worship, prayer, and praise – and stop with all the shrieking; while humanists want moral and ethical arguments without all the “God talk” that we came to UUism to get away from.

You would think that the theists and the humanists would have long parted ways; in fact, there are some who (if geography allows) choose one UU congregation over another because of its general theological mood. We know congregations that are ‘very humanist’ or ‘rather Christian’ or somewhere in-between. And this can cause some real struggle among parishioners, and even among ministers and seminarians. It seems that either your image of the divine is external, something bigger and greater than yourself, or it is internal, something exactly like yourself.

But what if it’s both? What if we recognize an external Divine that is not only bigger and greater than ourselves but is also made up of ourselves? What if God is, even in part, the collective unconscious, the best of ourselves, greater than the sum of us, intimately involved in our humanity and the entire interconnected web of all existence?

I think the “yes/and” answer is more common among us than we realize. Partly because humanism does not, as John Dietrich points out in “Unitarianism and Humanism,” exclude belief in God. Rather, one can believe in God and still “place faith in man, a knowledge of man, and our duties toward one another.” Yes, Dietrich suggests that humanism shifts religious emphasis from God to humans, but it doesn’t exclude God. Rather, it focuses our attention not just on God but onto the condition of human life “in order that by human effort human life may be improved.” He continues: “[Humanism] is really the same thing as faith in God; for, whatever God may be, it is quite clear that he can manifest himself only through man’s consciousness, and that we shall get more and more knowledge of him only by believing that our highest impulses are his manifestations, tempered by our capacity to receive them.”

Yes, we can be humanists AND theists. In fact, as Unitarian Universalists, even the most theistic among us are humanists.

Yes.

And.

 

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As a Unitarian Universalist, “Holy Week” doesn’t hold anywhere near the significance, meaning, or panic as it does for my Christian colleagues. In many of our congregations, a Seder may be held, but otherwise our only big event is an Easter service largely centered around the metaphor of resurrection and its placement during spring and fertility festivals. A few of our congregations are primarily Christian and do other services, but the majority are much more mixed, and thus much less focus is on the many stops along the way of Holy Week.

Normally – and even last year – Holy Week goes largely unnoticed. However, this year, I have watched from a distance the confluence of events. It began for me a few weeks ago when I preached at a Presbyterian church, using the text from John 12:1-8, where Mary washes Jesus’ feet with the expensive perfumes, presumably foreshadowing Jesus’ death. This text made me acutely aware of the ritual time of the season leading up to Easter, and that it’s carefully mapped out so that the entire story, including the Passion, is told in a particular pattern, in time that is both ritual time but aligned with ordinary/calendar time.

I then preached on Palm Sunday; while I didn’t preach anything about the Christian story (I spoke about grounding, using the spring equinox as my jumping-off point), I was aware too that the next night I would attend a Seder for the first night of Passover, knowing that it was a Passover meal that Christians call the “last supper”… and while Passover and Easter were originally separated for somewhat negative reasons, the consequence of ritual time lends itself to a deeper understanding of that part of the Easter story.

And now it’s the final weekend of Holy Week, this time out of time, but strangely in time. The commemoration of the events as told in the Gospels takes Christians out of time and into a long ritual time; from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, Christians essentially hold open sacred space. Yet the days described in the Gospels are the same length as our days, and thus it’s possible to mark the last 40 days of Jesus’ life in actual days, as opposed to a two-hour film.

I find myself in a space of curiosity; twice in my life I’ve held sacred space open for a long stretch of days when doing deep healing work, and it’s both amazing and difficult. It requires focus and intentional action. That Christians who are serious about this time hold this space open every year is remarkable; it inspires a sense of devotion to faith that I admire. And I think it’s something my tradition may be missing. For all its openness and expansiveness, I think we occasionally miss deepening in our eagerness to be spiritual squirrels. It makes me want to instill some sense of longer ritual time for deepening our faith practices. I don’t know what that looks like yet… I think some space was held open during the year I participated in a Wellspring group. But I think we have an opportunity to shape and develop our own “time out of time, in time” to commemorate, honor, and celebrate things that are important to Unitarian Universalists.

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Today, I read an essay by Aurelia Isabel Henry Reinhardt entitled “Worship: Its Fundamental Place in Liberal Religion.” Reinhardt explores briefly the history of worship with an eye to what we have inherited; that we have always sought public religion to unify us “in the common search for the Ultimate Good” and that we aren’t creators of something new, but simply reinterpreters of something ancient, “in the light of eternal truth and new knowledge.”

Reinhardt diagnoses some of the problems facing congregations – particularly in our denomination: that of a lack of beauty and significance. “Inquring as to the reason for monotony and threatened vacuity,” she writes, “one learns that it is the result of an effort to give a minority of the congregation due right. Criticism has eliminated the thing critized, but the creative processes have brought into being nothing to take the place of the rejected.”

Strong words – words we need to hear. I know that some congregations are doing innovative things in worship, exploring ways to get out of the “two hymns and a lecture” pattern found on many Sunday mornings. Reinhardt’s words are vital reminders of what we’re facing as we enter the next fifty years of our denomination, as we look at the shifting demographics, as we continue to wrestle with making our socially-responsible outsides look like our Sunday morning insides.

Reinhardt is on topic – and she offers a great deal of hope. She reminds us that we inherit not just the idea of worship but thousands of years of prayers, songs, stories that can be used/reimagined for today. She reminds us that “worship is one of the sources out of which new creations in the art of living arise.” She reminds us that “a service of worship is a poem written by the lover of God, a song sung by the lover of God.”

Fresh, amazing thoughts for this religion of ours in this time and place.

Of course, it was written in 1936, for the Commission on Appraisal, in a AUA report called “Unitarians Face a New Age.”

Yep.

So this new age we’re facing? It isn’t that far different from the new age our forbearers 75 year ago were facing. We have fixed some things, but we still have some of the same problems, the same concerns, the same pesky foibles.

Maybe… just maybe… we can do better this time around, so that the readers of essays in 2092 don’t identify so clearly. I know this is a huge part of my call; to Aurelia, I say “thank you for your eloquence” and “amen.”

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Among the more striking characteristics of generational theory is the particular personalities of the four generational types; as Strauss &Howe explain, the cycle of historical events, parenting styles, and cultural shifts lead to a cycle of general generational traits. Of course, each person is different, and each specific generation is different, but there are patterns that emerge fairly clearly when we look at large cohorts over time.

In my work in generational theory, I’ve concentrated primarily on the currently living generations – how people who are living relate to each other, particularly in UU congregational settings. But in reading the first couple of chapters of Gary Dorrien’s The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progresive Religion 1805-1900, I began to see what Strauss & Howe are really talking about.

Dorrien’s first few chapters concern primarily the founding of Unitarianism and the Transcendentalist movement – key of course to our denomination, but also key to American liberal religion in general. Among the players in these early years are 

  • William Ellery Channing – born 1780 – Compromise Generation (Adaptive)
  • Andrews Norton – born 1786 – Compromise Generation (Adaptive)
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson – born 1803 – Transcendental Generation (Idealist)
  • Theodore Parker – born 1810 – Transcendental Generation (Idealist)

Now what we know about Adaptives is they are very invested in process, considering all sides of an issue, and bringing people together.  Idealists tend to be invested in vision, big ideas, and persuasion.

Thus, when Emerson and Parker catch fire with their transcendentalist thought, they are willing (Parker moreso) to throw firebombs; Parker was so horrified at the rancor at a meeting of the Berry Street Conference that he remarked “I intend in the coming year to let out all the force of Transcendentalism that is in me. Come what will come; I will let off the Truth fast as it comes.”

Emerson seemed a little less eager to rush into controversy; however, his Divinity School Address was a bold statement against the Unitarians, and he should have expected the firestorm that ensued. Norton fanned that flame; while he was an Adaptive, Norton saw Emerson’s – and the other Transcendentalists’ – passion as an affront to what he saw as the open arms of Unitarianism. Consensus challenged led Norton to fight for what was most important, coming together.

Channing, on the other hand, didn’t engage the fight as much as he worked tirelessly to find common ground, to bring everyone together. As Dorrien notes, this factional fight was what Channing spent the latter part of his career mediating. As a result, he was claimed by both sides – another charge often leveled against Adaptives, who just want everyone to get along.

I think about the parallels today – Harry Reid, the Adaptive, against John Boehner, the Idealist. Harry, accused of playing both sides – and John, so stuck in his resolve he won’t budge. And in our congregations, we see it: the over 70s who won’t leave leadership for fear of what will happen to the congregation they so lovingly nutured, and the Boomers who usher in big sweeping changes with great vision and excitement.

What will be interesting in the subsequent reading of our Unitarian and Universalist history – as well as the next decades of our congregations – is how the next generation of Nomads, those pragmatic, just do it types, affect and shift who we are and can become.

 

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I learned this week that I am a radical Universalist.

I credit David Bumbaugh for this. In his book Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History, Bumbaugh spends 20 pages outlining the beginnings of the Universalist church in America, from deBenneville’s sermons preached across Pennsylvania; to the founding of the first Univeralist church by Murray in Gloucester, Massachusetts; to the founding on the New England Convention of Universalists; to Ballou’s Treatise on Atonement. It’s a rich history, and a reasonably short one: only 44 years passed between the first universalist sermons in 1741 and the first Convention in 1785 – just 44 years to go from idea to denomination.

I have always been fascinated by universalism, have always found it one of the most hopeful aspects of our faith. But it was in reading this treatment, seeing the varying theological differences within universalism, that I saw my place, standing with Caleb Rich and Hosea Ballou in believing that we pay for sins in this life – that “God doesn’t need to be reconciled to humanity; rather, human beings need to be reconciled to God.” I stand with them in understanding God as a loving deity and that Jesus’s ministry is largely about how to “grow into harmony with the Divine.” I stand with them – Ballou especially – in believing that “God would not endow humanity with reason and then present a revelation that was incompatible with that reason.” I also stand with Ballou in rejecting the Trinity and instead embracing the unity of God.

(I also, by the way, appreciate Benjamin Rush’s assertion that faithful Universalists must commit to social justice, which he calls “an unescapable consequence of Universalist faith.”)

Rich’s theology was called “Death and Glory”; unlike other Universalists who believed there is some punishment for sins after death but then eventual reconciliation with God, Rich said no – a loving God doesn’t want to see us suffer. In a world where a loving God exists, we have room to reconcile to each other, to work out our issues, to confront our sins, knowing that every step we take toward the good is another step toward the Divine. For me, it’s encouraging to think I don’t have to rely on some magical thinking to be saved from a mythical hell. Every mistake I make, every trauma I suffer, every sin I commit – everything I do to heal, reconcile, rectify, brings me closer to God and those around me.

Some find this theology too freeing – if there’s no eternal threat, why do good, they suggest. And I know it’s an issue people have long debated. But what I know is that it is human nature, for the most part, to do good – to act in altruistic ways, to nurture, to help, to want to improve the world. People want to be in right relations with other people. And when we do this, we create a more harmonious space. Universalism tells us that this isn’t an exclusive club, where only some go to heaven, and the only way you get in is by believing and/or doing exactly the right things. Univeralism tells us we’re all part of the club, and we have to do right by ourselves and each other in this world, while we can. And this is what I think the creator-creating God (see process theology) wants too.

So maybe I’m a radical process Universalist. Whatever the label, with this set of theological perspectives I feel loved, and compelled, and nurtured, and yes, in awe of the expansiveness of the Divine and of human potential.

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I’ve spent the better part of the last two days puzzling over Theodore Parker’s “The Transient and Permanent in Christianity”… and I honestly have no idea what to make of it.

I am with Parker when he talks about the permanent being truth, which he identifies as finding in God and Jesus. I see what he means when he argues that ritual, dogma, even biblical texts are transient, and we shouldn’t use them as our barometer for truth.

But what I am struggling with is the inevitable conclusion – that we don’t need ministers telling us what the scriptures mean, that we don’t even need scripture to know the truth of Jesus, that we only need our own experience. I want to ask Parker how we can know about Jesus if we discard the New Testament.. are we to only seek our particular, individual impressions? Rely on faulty oral tradition with a healthy dose of skepticism?

In my youth, I was highly attracted to the transcendentalists – I was all about the personal, individual experience of the transcendent God. And maybe I still am to some degree. But I find as I get older that we have rituals, stories, knowledge that we can share through the ages – traditions passed down through the collective conscious/unconscious – that are valid and crucial to being humans freely seeking.

I am willing to have my thoughts on Parker disproved – it may be that my interpretation is wrong. But I find myself in reading him, longing for something to hold on to.

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This week, in our UU polity/history course (taught by the marvelous Rosemary Bray McNatt), we looked at our history, in particular our European roots.

This stuff is important, because context matters. It matters that theologians, ministers, and other thinkers – in different times and places – questioned the validity of the doctrine of the trinity. It matters that they puzzled over the freedom to practice religion for themselves. It matters that no matter how hard people tried, these anti-trinitarian and free church thoughts kept cropping up… in Spain, in Switzerland, in Poland, in Transylvania, in England.

Why does it matter? Why should we care about context?

To me, if we don’t know where we came from, we can’t know what formed us and what we bring into the future. Sure, on a daily basis, it doesn’t matter that John Bidle wrote unitarian tracts that got volumes of argument in response. It doesn’t matter on a daily basis that beliefs we hold sacred were considered such heresies, people were actually put to death.

But we must remember our history; we must embrace the fact that we are heretics, daring to question the status quo, so that we have the strength to question the status quo in our modern world – the status quo who claims to be Christian but doesn’t act like Jesus, the status quo who turns a blind eye to the world’s woes in order to focus on the self, the status quo who fears being called out for the sin of certainty.

When we talk about exemplars and pioneers in our congregations, we are often talking about people like James Reeb, Harriet Tubman, Albert Schweitzer, and Dorothea Dix – people who stand out in our relatively modern American history. But we should also be talking about Michael Servetus, Farenc David, John Bidle, and others who dared to stand up even in the midst of major Christian reformation and call for more freedom and more reason.

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Today, on this national day of Thanksgiving, I am especially thankful for

  • My nephew Tom’s continuing recovery and his now home with the ‘rents.
  • The many hours in the kitchen with Mom learning her methods and recipes – they keep her with me.
  • A growing and focusing sense of purpose.
  • My crazy, devoted, outrageous, loving family – even when we’re separated by miles (or in this case, a terrible infection that has Sandy and I doing Thanksgiving dinner on our own today).
  • Antibiotics (see above).
  • Deep friendships – that hang on despite long gaps between conversations (and as an ancillary, thank God for Facebook, so that those friends are still connected somehow).
  • Pumpkin pie – well, all pie, really. I mean, who doesn’t like pie?
  • Room for the sorrows of the day too – both personal and national. I miss Mom and Dad, as well as friends who have passed… but I am also sad that our European ancestors had no regard for the cultures and peoples they encountered when they landed here.
  • My brilliant, shiny, compassionate, and earnest colleagues at Union Theological Seminary.
  • Laughter; especially at this (h/t Erik Wikstrom): http://youtu.be/lf3mgmEdfwg
  • Music. Always music.
  • The soft, snoring kitty next to me (and the one sacked out on my bed).
  • I and those I love are safe, warm, and dry. And sorrow that is it not so for everyone, when it is in our capacity to make it true for all.
  • My faith. And yours. Many beliefs enrich our world.
  • Challenges – physical, mental, spiritual, emotional.
  • The many teachers in my life – professional and unintentional
  • Memories – even the bad ones.
  • Books.
  • Middle age – I’m old enough to know better but still young enough to do something about it. (Although I’d like a little less of this aching and creaking, thanks.)
  • Opportunities, some of which I know I get because of my place of privilege (white, middle class, American), some of which I have fought tooth and nail for, some of which have been simply gifts of grace.
  • The inspiration of fellow Unitarian Universalists – you keep me focused and hopeful.
  • Peace.
  • Joy.
  • Love.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.

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It’s been a while since I’ve written a post – so much has happened with my health, getting moved onto campus for an easier second year, getting into my semester with amazing classes and new friends, presenting at the Joseph Priestly and St. Lawrence district-wide leadership conferences.  The semester’s half over.. and I thought I would share a little of what I’ve learned so far this semester:

  • There are a lot of widows in the Bible. And every time they show up, the lesson is: take care of those less fortunate.
  • Don’t discount the symbols in your life; you never know when one of them is going to speak a new message to you. How do you know a symbol is in your life? If you doodle it, wear jewelry with it, buy objects with it, dream it, look for it.
  • Fall in New York City isn’t as colorful as it is in Saratoga.
  • Planning a worship service with a Pentecostal woman from Jamaica and a gay Presbyterian man can bring more joy than you’d think to this white Unitarian Universalist.
  • One of the biggest gifts I and my fellow UUs are bringing to Union: our music. (They fell in love with “Blue Boat Home” and “For the Earth Forever Turning”)
  • Film crews love Union; look for us in upcoming episodes of Elementary, Blue Bloods, and the film, Kill Your Darlings, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg (early 2013 release date).
  • There is always more reading to do.
  • There is always time for a glass of wine.
  • Those last two are often directly related.
  • In a million years, I never thought that one of my memories would be standing with Cornel West’s arm around my shoulder and singing “Love Train” with him.
  • People have infinite capacity for kindness.