Eight Themes That Unite Us

Every once in a while I watch the first half hour or so of David Letterman’s late night show. The part of that segment I enjoy most is the top ten questions. I like to end my day with a good laugh and Dave usually pulls one out of me at some point during the rundown of the day’s top ten. Today, in honor of Dave and all the chuckles, giggles, and guffaws he’s added to my life, I’d like to offer the top ten questions for UUs. Feel free to join in if you know the answer-only one of these is an original.

#10 What symbol did the KKK burn on the Unitarian preacher’s lawn when she moved into the neighborhood? A question mark

#9 What did the UU dyslexic insomniac say to his wife when she asked him if he’s slept well? Heck no! I lay awake all night wondering about the existence of dog.

#8 What is the UU definition of hell?. At talk back time, everyone agrees with the minister’s sermon

#7 What does in mean if you see a UU kneeling in the sanctuary? His shoelace came untied!

#6 Why are UUs such bad hymn singers? Because they’re trying to read ahead to see if they agree with the words!

#5 What do you get when you cross a Mormon with a UU? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason?

#4 How is President Bush like a UU? They’re both double "U"s

#3 How can you tell when a UU is about to pray? She clears her throat and says, "To whom it may concern."

#2. What did the UU minister do that made him so beloved by the congregation? He always ended the sermon after 20 minutes

#1 Question asked about UUs? What do UUs believe?

What do UUs believe? What is it that we hold in common? What sets us apart from other groups, religious or secular? Binds us together? Gives us our center? Connects us today to the heritage of our past? Are we just some New Age cult that will vanish without a trace in a couple of decades? Or are we a viable approach to faith and religion that will serve a new society that is seeking a more expansive understanding of the meaning of life and the experience of the transcendent?

I know that some of you would argue that we do have a center, and that center is our Principles and Purposes. There are many statements in this document that speak clearly and boldly about who we are as a post-Christian, perhaps even a post-modern group. We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We think that there is value in all of the world’s great religions and we look to science, the arts, and our own experience for the truth and the guideposts by which we live. We believe in tolerance and we want our congregation, our ministers to support us in our own individual searches for truth. No creeds for us! No dogma! We seek the truth through the path that seems right to us. And what’s right for you may not be right for me. As one of our forefathers, Francis David said, "We do not have to think alike to love alike."

The freedom and tolerance UUs value is one of the attributes that sets us apart from other mainstream religious organizations. I know from talking to most of you that freedom to choose your own path, to forge a spiritual center that makes sense to you and enriches your life is an important reason for your own commitment to this fellowship. But we pay a price for this freedom, a dear price that has cost us respect, acceptance, and members through most of our history. You see, many people are most comfortable thinking in categories and giving labels to groups, and we’re a group that has shrugged off any attempt by outsiders or insiders to define us.

William Ellery Channing was the first insider to define who Unitarians were. He took a courageous stance in the face of the derision his Boston mainline colleagues flung at him and his congregation when they called them "Unitarians" This name was intended as a slander, but Channing turned it around. "You are right!: he responded. "We are Unitarians in that we find the doctine of the Trinity to be unfounded in scripture and, irrational. We revere Jesus above all other men, we seek to follow his teachings, and we are not ashamed." Channing created the box which seemed radical and very free at the time. But within a few decades, other Unitarian ministers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker were complaining that it was too small, that focusing on Christianity alone was too confining. They began an expansion project which continues to this day. In 1994, our General Assembly voted to accept earth-based spirituality as one of our sources of truth and inspiration.

One of the consequences of this endless expansion of our theological identity, is the troubling impression that "UUs can believe anything they want to." Many attempts have been made over to come to some agreement about our center and our parameters over the past two hundred years. Our Principles and Purposes are the most recent.

As some of you have heard me say, I’m not a huge fan of the Principles and Purposes. I think of them as a good example of "civil religion" and I’d like to think that a majority of liberal Americans would agree with them, no matter what their individual religious faith might be. I know that some of you are less that satisfied with this document too, as you are with your experience of the Sunday service. Your comments on the survey that we did last winter expressed your uncertainty, a longing for a sense of a deeper, shared commitment to commonly held beliefs. "Why do we always speak to the lowest common denominator?" someone asked.

I don’t see it quite that way, though I do understand and appreciate the question. What I hope to create here every Sunday, every time we gather, might be described as a large tent or a broad roof. I envision a community of diversity that is respectful, open, challenging, and above all, a place of loving acceptance. I attempt to build this roof by using the concerns, the experiences, the aspirations that we share as people who identify as religious liberals. But our liberalism requires a degree of sensitivity -- even constraint -- lest some of us feel that the welcome is not for all, that what is heard in our service’s language is not inclusive, that some are favored over others and that our tolerance of difference is grudging rather than embracing.

I would also say that we do have a center, we do hold tightly to a core set of eight values that have been our since the beginning of Unitarianism. Our Universalist forebearers also cherished many of these values from the very beginning of the movement at the turn of the century. It was these common values, more than a common theology, that allowed these two traditions to merge in the 1960s. As I think about this way of understanding our stance within the modern theological landscape, I find that these values provide us with a distinctive and powerful platform.

The Rev. Roy Phillips is the person who introduced these values, or themes as Roy prefers to call them, to me and about forty other ministers when he spoke to a gathering of the Southeast UU Minister's Spring gathering during April of 1999. He called his presentation " Our Way of the Spirit." We found his ideas exciting and invigorating. Even those of us who have been UUs for a fairly long time found that this new approach to the old questions of identity and a common center gave us a coherent and deeply meaningful way to connect our diverse and sometimes messy reality to our past, and to rightly claim our proud heritage. This morning I’ll give you a brief introduction to these themes. Over the next few months we’ll delve into each more deeply.’

The first theme is mystery. This seems odd for a group that claims to be grounded in the use of reason, rational thought, provable facts. But we also recognize that knowledge is like small floating islands in a vast uncharted sea. We acknowledge mystery when we say that no person, no disciple or method of knowing, and no one religion has all the truth. There are truths that reason and science cannot address, that theology and the arts can only point at. We've all had moments when we stand in utter amazement and humility at the fact that we exist, that love and beauty touch us. In these moments we feel a profoud gratitude and a deep connection to the Tremendous Mystery of existence. We confess our reverence for this mystery in our Principles and Purposes when we say " the living tradition we share draws from many sources. . .(including) direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life." I would also say that it is mystery that invites our life-long search for truth. We are not content with what we know, because we know that there is more truth that awaits and beckons.

This sense that truth is always out there leads to the second theme, that revelation continues, the truth was not sealed up in one book back in the fourth century CE. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote so eloquently about this idea of "new truth." He said that revelation was not dead, it did not belong to the past. Furthermore, we did not need tradition or scripture to guide us as we received revelation. In his great essay Nature he writes,

The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we through their eyes. Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not this history of theirs?

This is not just wishful thinking or a sweet sentiment on Emerson's part. With these words he lays an obligation upon us that we may not be so eager to take up. If we are to enjoy an original relation to the universe, we will need to give time to that relationship, to cultivate it. If we want a poetry and philosophy of insight rather than tradition, we must set aside regular times of meditation, reflection, and prayer. We must listen to the voice of our own souls and deepen the questioning of our own minds. UU is not for the spiritually passive.

The call to each of us to search for truth in our own way leads inevitably to the theme of variety "God is unity, but always works in variety,"" to quote Emerson again, and we would agree wholeheartedly. We cherish our differences, we thrive on change, we admire the unique. Our roof is very broad and we welcome many who would not be allowed in the fold of other mainline religious groups. This is not just a matter of good manners. It is our heritage as the spiritual descendents of heretics who believed that individual faith must be freely chosen, it could not be compelled by church or state. This love of variety gives heart to our commitment to tolerance and freedom.

We can look to William Ellery Channing as the best and most ardent champion for the fourth theme, that there is a divine seed in every person. Channing was appalled by the Calvinist doctrine of the total depravity of humankind. He preached the opposite, that every person had potential for great good, that we are "infinitely perfectible." He taught that salvation comes through the cultivation of one's character and one's soul according to the best example humanity has ever seen. For Channing that perfect example was Jesus. The role of the church is to encourage the individual unfolding of each person or "divine seed" which acts on our hearts and minds, luring us with a power found within ourselves, to attain our greatest potential for virtue and goodness.

As we come to recognize the "divine seed," the inherent worth and dignity within ourselves, we also recognize that same worth and dignity in others. Phillips says that another theme of UUism is mutuality. Mutuality is much more than being fair, being polite, and letting the other person have their say. One aspect of mutuality is ensuring right relations. We can see this in our modern claim that everyone has the right to a voice in his or her own future and the affairs that affect his or her life. But for us, mutuality is more than a civic duty or a way to get along with one another. The Unitarian philosopher, Henry Nelson Weiman, described mutuality as a way of relating where each individual is able to share the thoughts and feeling of the other and to know that his or her feelings and thoughts are regarded and valued by others. Such mutual awareness and responsiveness are essential, for out of them emerge real transformation of the individuals involved, raising each person to a higher level of human fulfillment. This means that we can’t reach our fullest potential entirely on our own. We need to share our ideas, conclusions, opinions, and thoughts with other people who will do the same. Together, as we explore our differences, as we affirm whatever we hold in common, we come to a deeper relationship. Again, this requires time, effort, patience, a willingness to take risks. Our way of the spirit is not an easy path.

Just as we would say that revelation is not sealed, that we humans are "infinitely perfectible" and open to transformation, so we would say that creation itself is not yet finished. The process of creation continues to this very day and so does the evolution of knowledge. Because we have always upheld the importance of human reason, we don’t fear scientific discovery or reject out-of-hand new theories of human development from the social sciences. We are willing to consider and embrace new ideas, new theories that help us understand the natural world. We’re willing to consider creative solutions to social problems. Many of us are supportive of changes in our political and economic systems that address the political and social systems that oppress and marginalize people.. Our interest in what is new in all areas of human endeavor give some outsiders the impression that we are a New Age group, but this willingness to embrace the new is a thread that can be traced back to such historic figures as Joseph Priestly, Clara Barton and Rev. Ralph Abernathy

I mention Barton and Abernathy because they are reminders of another theme that has run throughout the both our Universalist and our Unitarian roots, acknowledging the negative: standing against the evils and injustices we see in society. Unitarians and Universalists were among the earliest voices that spoke against slavery, the unjust laws that kept women from voting, owning property, retaining custody of their children after divorce. Our saints stood up for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, the immigrant, the prisoner, and even animals Unitarians and Universalists protested child labor and promoted public education for all.

And this drive to improve society and the conditions of the oppressed continues to this day. We have been among the leaders in the fight for civil rights, reproductive choice, human rights for women in countries like India and the Philippines as well as in our own country. Many of us support non-UU agencies like Habitat for Humanity, The Southern Poverty Law Center, and now PFLAG, and many others that continue to educate the public about the need for structural and institutional changes so that those who are shut out by our society can find their way in and have the opportunity to fulfill their potential, to live their lives in dignity. More recently, we’ve begun to confront the negative within our own congregations and the larger association through programs that help us confront and address racism, homophobia, classism, and environmental concerns.

Our seventh theme is engagement. I see this theme as the natural outcome of the six themes I've already discussed that is if we take these other themes seriously. Engagement means that we are present, actively present and involved with one another, with our own personal development, and with the needs of the world.

Phillips understands engagement as a fundamentally religious expression of our willingness to be involved the world and the potential in the world for transformation, creation, and healing. He points out that UUs are focused on this world and this life, not the "sweet bye and bye." In theological language, we are shaped by a strong tradition of the Immanence of God, God with us, not over us, or waiting for us in some future time. God is active with us in the world through the power of creative relationship. From this standpoint, variety, ongoing revelation, mutuality, recognizing the divine seed, the potential for growth and goodness in others are all signs of God's presence and God’s agency in the world

This ties us in to the eighth theme which Phillips calls our recognition of the sacred here and now. In our Sunday services, we gather to celebrate life and the potential for beauty and goodness that life offers. We value today and we believe that what we do each day matters. Even in times of great sadness and perhaps hopelessness, a sense of the sacred here and now can center us, and remind us that there is something true and good, something transcendent that, in the words of the poet, always, always sings. I find that sense of the sacred in those moments when human love overcomes fear and suffering, when a kindness transforms a situation of hostility and estrangement into an experience of connection and healing. I find that sense of the sacred here and now when I am pulled out of worry or anxiety by the beauty of the natural world: a lovely finch that darts across my path or a towering storm cloud that adds drama to a sunset. I find that sense of the sacred here and now as I watch children dance and play during a concert and Henderson lawn and when and elderly resident at Warm Hearth puts her hand in mine and greets me with a smile in spite of the difficulties of her own life. I am filled with the sacred here and now each time this community gathers as a people of a tradition that says yes to life, to love, to freedom of mind and spirit.

When I first hear Roy describe these eight themes, I felt that I had been introduced to a way of understanding our free faith in a way that I had never before been able to grasp in such a clear way. I feel a much deeper sense of what I love about UUism and why I have elected to give my life to this way of the spirit. There's a lot to chew on here. The connections between the themes are strong and they provide, at least for me, a sense of center that I've never quite had in the past. I’m eager to explore these themes more deeply with you over the coming weeks and months, and I hope that this exploration will deepen your understanding of our way of the spirit and expand your appreciation of the gift that is ours through our heritage and this beloved community.

May it be so.

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