Question Box sermon

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, VA), November 13, 2005, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

The questions submitted this year are a reflection of the number of new folks in our congregation. They asked about our roots, our practices — or lack of practices — and our history of social justice as we look at issues of race.

One question concerned how we explore diverse viewpoints. This question led me to some reflection on the potential richness of our beloved community — a richness we seldom take advantage of — and what we might do about that.

I’ll begin with the questions that inquired about our connection to Christianity and why we seem to speak so forcefully against the doctrines and beliefs of this way of the spirit.

Our Unitarian and our Universalist roots are firmly planted in the Christian faith, but not in the Christian beliefs and doctrines that most Americans accept. We trace our lineage through the heretical branch of that way of the spirit, and we are proud of our heretical history. Our Unitarian roots include Arias, who said that there was one God the Father, and that Jesus was divine but not of the same substance, or equivalent to the Father. We stand with those who disputed the existence of the Holy Spirit as a separate “person” or “entity” of the Trinity. Recall that Michael Servetus, whom we revere as a martyr, said that the Holy Spirit came from God and could not be separated from God. Our Universalist roots go back to Origen, who believed that Jesus’ death would save all human beings. Pelagius was another dissenter who taught that we were not saved by overpowering gift of grace. We had free will and we could chose to accept or decline this gift. Arminias said that our works, also made a difference. Right belief was not enough. Right actions were also required. The issue of salvation through the doctrine of atonement has been disavowed by both Unitarians and Universalists. Faustus Scocinus claimed that there was no original sin, that God did not demand satisfaction for our sins through the death of Jesus on the basis that these doctrines were unbiblical and unreasonable.

Looking again at our Unitarian history, the move away from Jesus as the focus of our faith was energized by the famous sermon The Transient and The Permanent delivered by the Rev. Theodore Parker in the mid 1800s. His primary point was that Christianity was not about the story and person of Jesus, but about the message that God had given to him: Love to God, Love to Neighbor and Love to Self. He said that while Jesus might be the best man who ever lived, there could be errors in his teachings and that he was only the messenger. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who left the Unitarian ministry over issues of doctrine, also emphasized the humanity of Jesus and called the miracles attributed to Jesus “monster” because they were unnatural.

As Emerson, Thoreau, Parker, and other Transcendentalists began to study Eastern religions, they became aware of shared teachings and new truths.. They began to doubt that Christianity was the only — or even the best — religion. Within a few years the Unitarian movement split into two groups: those who accepted only Christianity as the one true faith, and those who felt that while Christianity was a faith that while worthy of their attention, was not superior to Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism..

This conflict became more heated — at least among the intellectuals of the movement — with some holding fast to a super-naturalistic Christianity and others ready to move away from beliefs that science would not support. In 1894, there was a conference that came to accord due largely to an affirmation called “Things Commonly Believed Among Us,” crafted by William Channing Gannet. You can read it at URL <http://www.uuworld.org/2003/05/heritage.html>. I like it, but there are some who say that it reads like something composed by a committee and it is really just a cut and paste of ideas from various philosophers.

By 1885, as Unitarianism was growing more slowly, one minister identified the problem as the refusal of Unitarianism to state positively the basis for the movement and come to grips with the theological principles it stood for.

We have tried to make our movement so broad that it’s constant tendency has been to lose all cohesiveness or significance, or inspiration to be of value. If nothing else, we could still uphold “love to God and love to neighbor.”

But this didn’t seem sufficient to support the movement, and there was real concern that Unitarianism would die. It was clear that while Christianity was less and less important to Unitarians, the general population still believed in the teachings and practices of that faith.

As the increasing emphasis on the teachings of science and the scientific method began to affect our culture, many scholars began to question the teachings and stories of the Bible. Humanism, which firmly disavowed the existence of a personal deity who intervened in history, and the growing disillusionment with religions after the two world wars, also challenged traditional faiths. Unitarianism emphasized a human Jesus who was a prophet and a great teacher, but not divine. When the first Humanist Manifesto was published in 1933, many Unitarian ministers were among the signers of that document.

Humanism swept through the Unitarian movement and by the mid 1950s, Jesus was one of many teachers, God was the “Ultimate Concern” or something equally abstract. Universalism, which had also struggled with dwindling membership, was also impacted by Humanism. The Reverend Kenneth Patton reframed the word Universalist so that it became a faith that revered the teachings and wisdom of all religions.

Christianity has never disappeared completely, especially in old New England Unitarian congregations and Southern Universalist churches. In recent years the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, a national organization, has been growing. This organization, which is an independent affiliate of the Unitarian Universalist Association, holds an annual revival, offers events at General Assembly, and publishes a newsletter and an annual collection of writings. You can find this group on the Web, and I’d be happy to tell you about it since I’m a member. Someone asked if our congregation is Christian and I would say no, but there are members of our congregation who are.

One of you asked why we feel free to speak against doctrines of Christianity, but not of other religions. I critique Christian doctrines as a way of explaining our identity and heritage and to set forth our historic claims on issues like atonement, the nature of Jesus, and so on. It’s true that I have not disputed specific doctrines from other religions like Islam or Buddhism. One reason for this is that my sermons on other religions are didactic; I’ve limited myself to trying to describe the basics beliefs of a religion without much critical analysis. I do this because I don’t feel that I have enough knowledge to separate the issues around doctrine and culture. For example, when I’ve expressed concerns about the treatment of women in Islamic cultures, I’ve been told that these practices reflect tribal culture, not Islam. In one situation, someone told me that I was being “culturally insensitive.”

I’m glad to see that we are gradually moving away from our reactive attitude toward Jesus and his teachings. I suspect that we will always be critics of doctrines and certain Christian leaders that we feel do harm or are unreasonable. If someone in the Congregation told me that the doctrine of the Trinity or Jesus’ atonement for human sins on the cross was the centerpiece of her faith, I would not tell her that she was not a“real” UU or unwelcome in our congregation. I would also continue to speak from my own “truth” and expect that we would agree to disagree in respect and love.

What do UUs believe about sin: original or otherwise?

Unitarians have always taken issue with the idea of original sin, but they did not deny human wrong-doing. Both Unitarians and Universalists believed in sin, and some Universalists may have believed in original sin. Unitarians believed in the possibility of hell for bad actions and some Universalists thought that hell might be a place of reform and punishment, but souls would not be there of for eternity. Today most of us focus on this life, and most would claim that we create heaven and hell here on earth. We don’t practice infant baptism as a way of removing sin, and we don’t have many rituals because of our roots in the radical Reformation, which disavowed most rituals as Papist. The Flower Ceremony, which is usually held in the spring and the Mingling of the Waters, which is held at the beginning of fall, are common rituals as is child dedication and kindling the chalice. Individual congregations may have their own rituals and celebration, as we do with our Advent Garden.

Two people asked similar questions about prayer: Do UUs pray? Prayer is practiced in some congregations and I know of congregations that recite the Lord’s Prayer every week. Some congregations include a “prayer of the people” after joys and concerns. I invite us into a time of prayer and meditation during our services because I feel that this best fits our congregation’s culture and history. Our congregation began as a lay-led fellowship without a minister. This congregation was strongly Humanist and rejected practices that seemed too churchy. We are very fortunate to have among us some long-time members who worked hard and gave much to nurture this congregation. I feel honored to serve these folks, and, I’m sensitive to their desire not to engage in practices that feel meaningless to them. Prayer, especially prayer that petitions as supernatural god, would be such a practice.

And so, I invite individual prayer but not corporate prayer. I would guess that if our members have a spiritual practice, meditation would be more common than prayer. I suspect that hiking would come out at the top of the list.

I was asked about the UU history of dealing with issues of racism, ethnic bias, and the concept of white supremacy. In my opinion, not as well as we could or should. Both movements are proud of the anti-slavery stance of their leaders. Unitarian minister Theodore Parker was a radical abolitionist who helped fund John Brown’s ill-fated Harper’s Ferry attack, as did other Unitarians. Many Unitarians and Universalists were active abolitionists, and after the Civil War, many worked tirelessly to secure the right to vote for freed males slaves. This was distressing to the Universalist and Unitarian women who had been campaigning for women’s right to vote.

In the early 1900s a very few African American men attempted to become Unitarian ministers and were treated terribly by the AUA. You can read about this in a book titled Black Pioneers in a White Denomination by the Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed. Many Unitarians and Universalists supported the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties and took part in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and various marches. One of our ministers, the Rev. James Reeb was beaten and killed after the March on Selma.

In the mid-sixties, shortly after the merger of the two denominations there was a terribly divisive conflict over the Black Empowerment movement. Today there is much more institutional support for what is being called “Identity Based” ministry and congregational education on issues of race. You will find more on if you go to the UUA website. We still have a very small presence in so-called minority communities and I think this has more to do with class and culture than race or ethnicity.

In recent years we have begun to publish pamphlets in Spanish, but I have not been able to find anything about the impact on our congregations. Our RE Materials for children and adults attempt to be culturally sensitive while avoiding “appropriation” — celebrating holidays or taking up customs and practices that don’t belong to the dominant group within a congregation. We also have a number of “anti-oppression” curricula to use with all age groups. Our social justice committee is talking about undertaking anti-racism work, and I hope that we can launch something after the holidays.

I would share with you that I see our biggest problems in this areas as based in class and privilege.

Now we’ve come to my favorites question. This actually comes from a longer e-mail and I’ve attempted to paraphrase it. I hope I’ve preserved the primary issue for the person who sent it to me:

Why do you challenge people or disagree with them during the conversation time after the sermon? You say that your goal as a minister is to encourage us to think for ourselves and not to tell us what to think.

First I want to publicly thank the sender for this question. I sincerely appreciate his directness. He didn’t choose to carry this concern to others in the Congregation and refuse to bring his concern me. He’s right that during our time for conversation and reflection after the sermon, I will sometimes follow up someone’s remarks with a question or even a challenge. Sometimes I’m looking for clarification. Other times I’m trying to see how far a person is willing to go with an idea. Other times I want to restate my point because I suspect that I wasn’t clear enough during the sermon. In all cases, my intent is never to belittle or dismiss someone or their ideas and I hope that I never come across in this way.

The question came up as a result of an interchange during the reflections time after the sermon last week. My topic was Intelligent Design and I spoke against having this theory of creation taught in science classes. The questioner said that she thought Intelligent Design should be discussed in these classes, and I pushed a little on that idea. When the advocate for teaching about Intelligent Design held firmly to her position, I was satisfied and that was the end of our conversation. I felt that we were both OK, and I verified this with her later on.

I would guess that this might have been a difficult conversation for some of you to hear. But I was very pleased that it occurred and I hope that we can begin to have more of this kind of dialogue. (I picture our congregation as being seated at a large table, laden with dished full of inviting foods that we’ve brought with us. The diversity and richness of the meal is there, but most of us choose to consume only the food that we ourselves brought. We know what that dish tastes like. We’re not so sure that we’ll like the other dishes, and we don’t want to offend anyone.

Dialogue allows us to know our own thoughts and hearts and the thoughts and hearts of others. It often encourages us to a process of clarification of thought. When we have to explain and even defend what we believe, we have an opportunity to examine our own thoughts and test if we are really committed to our assumptions and comfortable ways of thought. Sharing our deeply held convictions with others, if offered and received with respect and honesty, builds bonds of intimacy and trust. I’m convinced that if we can’t engage in this kind of dialogue, we are missing out on the greatest, most important and life-giving benefit of our theological diversity. (After the service, someone told me that in her former UU congregation, sermon reflection was called “polylogue” and I really like that term.)

Unitarian author and theologian Henry Nelson Wieman said that God, or the sacred creative power, is found in what he called “creative interchange.” When two or more people are sharing their deepest thoughts and convictions, they may arrive at a moment when both experience the sense of something new arising out of their exchange. Each person is lifted to a higher understanding and truth. I think that such sacred moments are possible for each one of us if our discussion is carried out with respect and love in a spirit of true sharing. Imagine how this could transform each one of us, our congregation, and the larger world!

Thank you all for your questions! I hope that this sermon was as enjoyable and thought provoking for you as it was for me.

UUC Home Page

Reverend Brownlie Home Page