Sermons

Light a Candle, Curse the Dark

October 8, 2006

Douglas Taylor

There is an old Chinese proverb – “Don’t curse the darkness – light a candle.”  The proverb inspired Unitarian politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson, when he came to praise Eleanor Roosevelt in a 1962 address to the United Nations General Assembly: “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.”  The proverb also inspired the founder of Amnesty International who created the “candle wrapped in barb wire” logo – such a powerful and recognizable image.  Indeed, when faced with tragic, ugly, perverse manifestations of evil, it is better to light a candle than curse the dark.

During my first ministry, serving in a large church with two other ministers, I received many opportunities to explore my role and how we respond to life.  I remember one visit from an angry member of the congregation.  One of the other ministers sighed when he heard I’d be visiting with this member, and said, “This is someone who gets angry a lot.  His pattern is to get angry at someone or some thing and leave.  He’ll turn up then in one of the other nearby congregations for a while until he gets angry with something there and he’ll leave.”  So, I figured, what do we have to loose, either this angry member or me?  We meet; we talked about what was going on.  He aired his grievance and then began to develop a list of other grievances.  Eventually, I stopped him and said, “I don’t know if I’m out of place to say this, and if I am I trust you’ll tell me, but it seems like you’re angry a lot!”  He paused a moment and said, “Before my wife died, we were a great team.  I would curse the dark and she would light a candle.”  His wife had died recently.  So I asked, “Who’s lighting the candles now?”

Had I been aware then of the proverb he was playing with, I likely would have admonished him that it says the lighting of the candle is the greater task.  Indeed while the modern rendering of the proverb says it is better to light a candle than to curse the dark, implying that you could do either but the candle is better; the original says, “Don’t curse the dark – light a candle.”  And back when I was still fresh in the ministry, I did agree with the original proverb.  Don’t waste your time with the cursing, what does it accomplish, really?  Light the candle; let’s get to work blessing the world.  Now, however, I suspect we would be wise to do both.  I suspect that we as a denomination are not as good at naming evil, at cursing the darkness, as we perhaps should be.

The special edition of the UU World published immediately following September 11 focused on theology and evil.  It explored whether or not our liberal religious values were up to the task of confronting evil.  Lois Fahs Timmins, daughter of revered and renowned Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs, spoke of being shaped by the liberal religious education while growing up and becoming an adult.  She wrote,

We spent 95 percent of our time studying good people doing good things, and skipped very lightly over the bad parts of humanity … I was taught not to be judgmental, not to observe or report on the bad behavior of others.  Consequently, because of my education, I grew up ignorant about bad human behavior, incompetent to observe it accurately, unskilled in how to respond to it, and ashamed of talking about evil.

There was an op-ed piece two weeks ago in the Press & Sun Bulletin by Sam Harris that said a very similar thing.  Sam Harris is the author of the book “The End of Faith.”  The title of the article was “Left in the Dark.”  But the title is a play on words, it could mean someone is ‘left in the dark’ or it could mean, (and I think it was meant to mean,) that The Left is in the dark.  He was highly critical in the article of the religious left and our inability to recognize and name evil for what it is.  We are too optimistic about human nature.  We are too respectful and tolerant of other cultures.  We are blinded by our optimistic tolerance to genuine evil at our door.  I think there is something to this critique.  What is evil?  How do we as Unitarian Universalists define and understand evil?

Earlier this week a milk truck driver stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse, rounded up the girls in the class while releasing the boys and teachers.  He then barricaded himself in with the 10 girls, tied them up and shot them all before killing himself.  Three of the ten girls were declared dead on the scene, two more died later, while at least one of the other five girls remains on life-support.  The shock of this event has been staggering.  The newspaper accounts have been, naturally, quite sparse because the Amish will not engage the newspaper people.  People outside the Amish community want to reach out and help, which is awkward.  And so we light a candle.  The editorial page carried a piece about this story and after acknowledging the choice the Amish community made as to how they would deal with this, the editor wrote: “The rest of society blinks back tears and wonders how we got to this point – and also wonders if the next headline could somehow be even worse.”

That editorial gave me pause.  I take no issue with the tears being blinked back; tears are good, tears are a recognition that you empathize with the tragedy, they mean you are human.  I take no issue with the editor’s line, “society blinks back tears.”  But, the part about wondering how we got to this point stopped me in my tracks.  Has anyone been paying attention?  Do we as a society have perpetual amnesia between news reports?  Liberal religion is accused of being optimistically naïve of evil to the point of negligent and irrelevant, but secular liberal culture seems to be willfully oblivious to it.  Do you wonder how we got to this point – as if all of a sudden an atrocity takes place on a Monday but the preceding week was blissful and the newspaper had nothing of evil or violence to report?  I don’t wonder how we got to this point because we’ve been at this point for a long time.

Some people thing of violence as an interruption, like a flash of lightning breaking onto the landscape.  Suddenly the event takes place and, like an afterimage on the back of our eyeballs, slowly fades.  For people who think of violence this way, it may seem like we are suddenly seeing a new level of crime, violence of a harsher order.  But that is not the only way to see it.  It is perhaps more useful to recognize that violence in not an interruption, like a flash of lightning, rather it is like poison in the ground water, always present, a part of daily life for some, a part of what is going on in the world around us.

It is shocking for a man to barricade ten Amish girls into a one-room schoolhouse and then to shot each of them and himself.  This happened on Monday not too far from here.  Meanwhile this past week: a man was shot multiple times over on Chenango street, another man was jumped by several people and beaten badly enough to need hospitalization, the police blotter listed among the drug busts and burglaries a second degree rape involving an incident with a female less than 15 years of age.  And yesterday I read that an eighth-grade music teacher from the Vestal Schools has been charged with sexually abusing students.

Elsewhere in the world this past week, Hamas militiamen in Gaza City attempted to break up anti-government protests sparking gun battles across the Gaza Strip that killed seven people.  An Afghani suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy pedestrian alley next to Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry on Saturday, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens more. Another suicide bomber in Baghdad blew himself up in a fish market killing several dozen people.  A few days ago, four U.S. soldiers patrolling Baghdad were killed by gunmen, bringing the number of Americans killed in combat since last Saturday to 21.  Iraqi authorities Wednesday pulled a brigade of about 700 Iraqi policemen out of service in its biggest move to uproot troops linked to death squads.  Meanwhile the United States House and Senate both voted in favor of legislation allowing the president to detain, interrogate and try terrorist suspects according to the presidents own guidelines, a startling capitulation on the part of those who are elected to uphold democracy and the constitution.  Meanwhile North Korea plans to test a nuclear explosive today.  Meanwhile ten young girls were barricaded into their one-room schoolhouse, tied up, and summarily shot.   Meanwhile throughout this past week countless other acts of violence and violation were committed.  This is just one week’s worth of news, from our little local paper, to boot!  This evil, this violence is not an all of a sudden flash.  This is both much dark to curse and a great many candles to light.  When faced with tragic, ugly, perverse manifestations of evil, seeping up into our lives and our concern like poison in the ground water, they say it is better to light a candle than curse the dark.

Are all of these events ‘evil’?  What do we, as Unitarian Universalists, have to help us evaluate, judge, and recognize evil when we see it?  As Unitarian Universalists we do not subscribe to a belief that we as human beings are naturally depraved, evil and sinful until saved by grace from above.  Neither do we have the Devil to blame it on.  We also make a strong objection to the idea that the body or things corporeal are evil while only the abstract is real and truly good.  Some among us do say that good and evil are human moral constructs and the concepts holds no meaning beyond what any given culture allows it to hold.  But that is not in keeping with our heritage.  None of these definitions of evil offer an understanding that fits the theology and practice of Unitarian Universalism over time.

And it goes back to our understanding of human nature, our core theology as Unitarian Universalists.  Back in August when I preached on this I said, “Our theological cornerstone is our radical acceptance of every person as being of the same human family without segregating anyone out as saved or unsaved, clean or defiled, saint or sinner, worthy or unworthy; all we have are human beings: blessed, whole, capable of good and evil, fully part of the evolving nature of life.  Unitarian Universalism proudly insists that every person has inherent worth and dignity as a basic root element of their being.”  And tucked in there is the beginnings of our theology of evil.  As human beings we have the capacity for both good and evil.

The Holocaust was a great evil.  That is one of the easier agreements we find on the topic.  But how was it evil?  Was there an evil force outside of humanity that created the holocaust?  The Devil, the Great Satan?  No, it was humanity – humanity committed that evil.  We shy away from saying that each and every person who participated in making the holocaust happen was pure evil.  We don’t say that.  They were people, human beings capable of good and of evil.  They participated in committing evil. Even Hitler, according to our theological heritage, we do not see as pure evil, and isn’t that always the example that comes up.  Do we affirm and prompt the inherent worth and dignity of Hitler?  That doesn’t mean what Hitler did was of worth, only that he was acting as a human being – not as a demonic force.  Even Hitler was capable of doing good.  Saddam Hussein, Caligula, Stalin, Pol Pot, George W. Bush – they were or are all capable of doing good; there are no monsters. As Guinness said in the reading this morning, “To restrict evil to such men is to slip into the error of seeing it as an aberration, a rarity, an exception, as something well distanced from ourselves …  To think like that is to miss the real menace of evil here and now.”  We say no one is pure evil, instead everyone is purely human.  And to be human is to have the capacity for both good and evil.

But that doesn’t get us off the hook from Lois Fahs Timmins and Sam Harris.  Recognizing the capacity for evil in ourselves does not take care of the fact that our government is doing a terrible job building up Iraq after our immoral war against them.  It doesn’t take care of the Islamic fundamentalists who want to inflict great harm upon the United States.  It doesn’t take care of the nuclear bomb that will be tested soon in North Korea.  It doesn’t alleviate poverty, dismantle racism, insure civil liberties, or transform the culture so women are no longer seen as sex objects.  But it gives us a grounding from which we can start to deal with these structures of evil.

There is a systemic element to evil, a communal level always present.  The event was evil, 9/11 or the Holocaust – these were evil events.  But the individuals involved were human beings, and as such were not evil.  We don’t believe in evil people.  We believe that there are structures of evil that are built up, which we participate in or rebel against, or comply with out of necessity.  There is a communal level to evil, at least as it is seen through our Unitarian Universalist theology.  Rebecca Parker, president of the Starr King UU Seminary in California calls it transpersonal evil.  She cites Channing and Ballou as expressing these understandings early in our liberal religious heritage.  Evil is built; it is organized.  There are structures that perpetuate racism, war, environmental degradation, economic disparity.  These structures are evil.

Goodness also must be organized.  Goodness must be organized; I get by with a little help from my friends.  Think back on things you’ve done that you would consider ‘good’.  Chances are most of it was accomplished because you had support or a group of which you were a part.  Great evil and great good are done through organized structures.  You and I participate in both kinds.  But this is our work: weave the fabric, reweave the fabric of life rather than tear at it; to light the candle and curse the dark.  Adrienne Rich said, “My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed, I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, and with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”

So much has been destroyed; there is much to curse and much to cause us anger.  I recall that angry member of the congregation from several years ago.  He did end up leaving the congregation.  But the in the next congregation he went to he discovered a new love, and remarried.  I heard later that he had mellowed.  I don’t know, but I’d like to think that he learned to do both; that he learned to light the candles while still cursing the dark.  And we, who are accused of leaning to far the other way, we who are happily lighting candles and avoiding all mention of cursing, will we learn to balance?

Do the critics receive an answer when we say we do not believe in evil people but in evil deeds – and in structures that oppress, that tear the fabric of life?  I do hope so, for that is what we have to offer – an appreciation of the complexity, a love of humanity, and sleeves rolled up ready to rebuild.

Blessed are the peacemakers, it is written, for they shall be called the children of God, … and theirs will be the kingdom of God.  I say more blessed are those who gather in groups to make peace for they shall build the kingdom of God here on earth.  We, together, will build the land where peace is created, where justice flows, where were will see each other as brothers and sisters.  Our work, our religious task is to gradually dismantle the evil structures, to curse the dark; and then to raise up and restore the good and holy places through compassion, understanding, and righteousness: to curse the dark and light a candle.

In a world without end,

may it be so.

Forgiving Iniquity

10-1-06

Douglas Taylor

Over the years I have said that forgiveness is perhaps the ultimate religious activity.  Over time, every relationship is strained with imperfections.  How could it be otherwise?  How many times have it been mentioned that the epistemology of the word religion is ligare from which we also get the word ‘ligament.’  Ligare means to bind together; re-ligare means to bind together again, to reconnect.  Religion is about relationships: relationships among people, and between people and God.  Every relationship is strained; Love, Justice, and Forgiveness are the larger elements that ease the strain and keep a relationship alive and healthy.  Forgiveness is arguably the least understood of these three elements.   Both Love and Justice have been picked up by secular culture.  Through music, art, public education, periodicals, the legal system, Oprah, and Dr. Phil, all manner of venues: Love and Justice are explained to people.  Forgiveness has little of this kind of support outside of religion.  Forgiveness is perhaps the ultimate religious activity and few other disciplines care to address it.  As a critical, though difficult to explain, element of both Love and Justice, Forgiveness is referred to, but rarely is it the staple topic week after week.  Forgiveness lacks mass market appeal, probably because it is not easy.

Last year I mentioned in a sermon on forgiveness that there has been scientific research done on the effects of forgiveness.  One researcher concluded: “Learn to forgive because it is good for your health.” (Dr. Worthington)  Richard Fitzgibbons, who is one of the forgiveness researchers, compiled a list of benefits for people who forgive.  People who forgive have decreased levels of anger and hostility, and increased feelings of love; improved ability to control anger, and enhanced capacity to trust; People who forgive find freedom from the hold of events of the past, and they are better equipped to no longer repeat negative behaviors.  People who forgive demonstrate improved physical health and significant improvement in psychiatric disorders.  And I would add to the list, the person who forgives becomes a more loving and empathetic friend, spouse, parent, colleague, child, and overall person!

But all that is in the sermon I preached last year, which is on the web and maybe even still in print on the book cart.  Indeed, I have preached about forgiveness every year around the time of Yom Kippur.  When I was serving my internship during seminary my supervisor told me “Preach on Forgiveness at least once a year, it is always needed.”  But after three years in a row, with an especially well put together sermon last year, I thought it might be a good idea to give it a rest.  Then back in the spring during the Question Box sermon I received several questions that asked about Forgiveness.  This caused me to reconsider dropping the topic, and instead you now will experience with me our annual sermon on Forgiveness.

There were two questions from that Question Box service that were particularly cogent.  The first was from someone asking how to be forgiven: “How do you begin to atone for deeply hurting someone you love?” Repentance is the offenders work; forgiveness is the work of the one offended.  And then from the other side of the equation: “How do you close your mind to hurt, pain, or injustice and open your heart to forgiveness?”  Both of these questions forgo the questions ‘Why’ and ‘When,’ and go right for the ‘How.’  How do I do this, I understand that it is a good thing to do, but how do I do it.

The book, Wounds Not Healed by Time: the power of repentance and forgiveness by Solomon Schimmel, from which I found this mornings reading, has a chapter entitled “How to Forgive.” The book explores the concept of Forgiveness from the perspectives of the three major monotheistic traditions.  He writes primarily from within his own Jewish perspective, and the book is heavily weighted with examples from Jewish writings and traditions.  From there the author gives a fair rendering of the Christian perspectives as well, comparing and contrasting them with the Jewish perspectives with insight and proficiency.  I was less impressed with the presentation of the Islamic perspective; not because it was unfair, rather for the meagerness of the examples and evidenced research.

One exception to my complaint is in Schimmel’s comparison of repentance among the three traditions.  Most of the book compares Christianity with Judaism to explore the different aspects of the topic, but now and then Islam was lifted up for comparison as well.  For example, in the book I read that all three religious traditions say that your sin is not simply a sin against the victim, but also a sin against the heirs of the victim and against God.  Judaism goes further saying that your sin is also a sin against the community and against yourself!  If I steal something from you, you as the victim are not the only one to suffer.  Your children will also suffer that loss.  It also creates a rift between me and God, – even with my sometimes odd theology that does not a personal concept of God with whom I can have a relationship – there is still, arguably, a rift caused between my actions and my deepest principles.  And additionally, my theft contributes to the decline and break down of society because now I have become one more person working against the good of the whole.

To repent from my transgression is not simply to seek forgiveness from God, but to seek out the person or persons against whom I have committed my offence, and make amends or restitution.  Judaism, Islam, and most Christian traditions agree that this at least must be done, if not more, to atone for your transgression.  There are, Schimmel points out, certain Protestant denominations that are more focused on getting the sinner to confess the sin to Christ and trusting in Christ’s saving forgiveness without demanding the sinner to go through the work of making restitution, maligning such a requirement as “legalistic.”  “With this approach, God’s love can offer a detour around reparation and justice, enabling the sinner to avoid facing up to their difficult demands.”

A few months ago I wandered into the big Arrowhead Christian bookstore over by Airport road.  I do this every now and then, occasionally I’ll buy a book, but usually I’m just looking through to see what is occupying the attention of evangelicals at the moment.  Well, a few months ago I bought a small silver smooth stone inscribed with the word “forgiven.”  I had an odd feeling as I drove home from the store.  I was thinking about this stone resting in my pocket.  It said “forgiven.  Am I?  Forgiven of what?  Everything?  Even … I tried to imagine the various inequities and iniquities that I owned by myself, not even counting yet the cultural, national, and global sins in which I participate, just my own personal crop – and to have that little stone resting in my pocket with that word, “forgiven.”  What if it were true?  I dare you to try it.  It was a very powerful feeling.

There is that little saying that whenever you sin or make a transgression it is like you reach out with a pair of scissors and cut the string that binds you to God.  Then, with forgiveness, the string is retied, with the string being a little bit shorter because of the knot.  Re-ligare, to bind together again: each time we break faith with ourselves and with God we cut the string.  And each time we commit to the reconnection we are brought closer to God.  Here’s the thing though, I know God’s love encompasses everyone.  I’m a Universalist all the way to my toes and know that just because God loves me does not mean that anyone else does.  Likewise, just because God forgives me does not mean anyone else does.  While it can be powerfully healing to seek God’s forgiveness for my transgressions, to feel forgiven for even some terrible thing I have done, God’s forgiveness is but one step among several steps for me to take.  God’s love is not a detour around proper justice and reparation.

Schimmel writes

It is easier to preach glibly the virtues and pragmatic value of forgiveness and reconciliation than it is truly to understand why, when, whom, and how to forgive.  Forgiveness is a complex phenomenon.  It is affected, among other factors, by the nature and extent of the injury we have suffered, our relationship with the person who has hurt us, our sense of self, and whether or not the person whom we contemplate forgiving has expressed remorse for his [or her] deed or sought to repair the emotional, physical, or material damage wrought upon us.  Mature forgiveness entails difficult emotional and intellectual work.  (p42)

There a story of a boy who had a hard time controlling his anger. He would often lash out when he was angry.  Finally his father told him that every time he lashed out in anger he should go out to the back yard and pound a nail into the fence.  During the first few days, the boy was out in the back yard pounding nails several times a day.  Over time, the boy went to the fence less often. Then the boy went an entire day with out going out to the fence to pound in a nail.  The boy said this to his father who replied, “Now every time you control your anger and do not lash out I want you to go out and remove one of your nails from then fence.”  And this the boy did.  Sometimes he would still pound a nail in, but more often he removed nails.  Eventually there came a day when the boy had not pounded a new nail into the fence in weeks, and he had removed all the nails from his earlier visits.  His father then took him out to the fence and said, “I am proud of you, you have learned to control your anger.  I want you to remember, however, that although you have removed the nails you had pounded into the fence, the holes from those nails are still there.  You cannot take those away.  You can always remove a nail that you have pounded into the fence but you can never remove the hole that you make with the nail.  So it is when you lash out with your anger.  You can apologize and be forgiven, but the damage you cause will always remain in at least some fashion.  It is good to apologize, better to not need to.”

And, of course my first reaction to that ending is, “it is good to apologize and better to not need to, but you will need to.  No one can move through this life without creating a few nail holes.

In the reading this morning it said, “forgiveness is a social action that happens between people.  It is a step toward returning the relationship between them to the condition it had before the transgression.”  This, however, is not possible because the damage done in the past will never not be a part of the past.  But as Jack Kornfield once wrote:  “Forgiving means giving up all hope of a better past.”  Forgiveness is a way of getting unstuck, of loosening the bond that held you to the person or event.

So, you have been lied to, or robbed, betrayed, slandered, denied, devalued, hurt, beaten, violated or vandalized, or – God forbid (at least I wish He could) – something worse!  How do you move to a place of forgiveness?  How do you close your mind to hurt, pain, or injustice and open your heart to forgiveness?  That was the original question: “How do you close your mind to hurt, pain, or injustice and open your heart to forgiveness?”  Well, for starters, don’t close your mind to the hurt, pain, or injustice.  Forgiveness may very well mean giving up your anger, but it doesn’t mean you just accept pain and hurt and injustice!

Schimmel, in the beginning of his chapter “How to forgive,” acknowledges a whole host of benefits found in forgiving when the offender is repentant and then writes this:

Although forgiveness in the absence of the offender’s repentance might have some of [these] benefits as well, its emotional and moral costs may outweigh its benefits.

In the same way that some Protestant denominations will focus on securing Christ’s forgiveness without requiring the sinner to do the hard work of repentance, the companion assumption that to be a good Christian you must follow a commandment of radical forgiveness.  This vicarious repentance and required forgiveness at all costs is a grave injustice with significant moral consequences for all involved!  If someone is hurting you don’t forgive them while they are still hurting you.  If they stop hurting you but promise to come back and hurt you again later, don’t rush to forgive them!  Instead, rush to remove yourself from that situation!

I sometimes wonder when people say to me, “How can I forgive this or that?” if it really is time to forgive.  If the offender hasn’t offered apology or even acknowledged the offence, then you probably have no business forgiving this person.  What makes you think you must rush to forgiveness when there has been no repentance?  That just furthers the injustice!  There is likely other work you need to do at this point; perhaps to help bring the offender into a better understanding of the nature and extent of your injury.  But I think forgiveness is not yet a part of that work.  [At least for the ‘social’ side of forgiveness.  If you are plagued by this injury or offence to the point that it is really hindering your life, then we can talk about the ‘internal’ side of forgiveness as a way of letting go and moving on within yourself.

But let’s assume that in your life there is an opening where the offender has shown remorse, has apologized, has perhaps even offered to make amends.  Yet you still can not see your way to offer forgiveness to this person.  Your anger and your pain are too great.  How do you move from there?  One of the first phases is to develop an understanding of your offender’s context.  Have you ever heard anyone say, “I understand how someone could do that terrible thing; I don’t condone it, but I understand it”?  This is an exercise in walking in another person’s shoes, it broadens your perspective.  It doesn’t mean you give up your perspective, or agree with or condone that perspective.  It doesn’t mean your saying, that if the roles were reversed you would have done the same.  All it means is that you begin to understand the point of view of the one who hurt you.  But think on this, by withholding forgiveness, you continue to hold judgment of your offender.  If you are to serve as judge you’d best learn to see the full context of the one you would judge.  If you focus exclusively on the injury they have caused you cannot ever see your way through it to the other side of forgiveness.  The abusive parent, the disloyal spouse, the drunk driver, manipulative ex-friend, all have full lives beyond the offenses they have committed.  All of them have an inherent worth and dignity that can be uncovered if you are willing to see it.

From there, you can perhaps begin to empathize with the one who caused you pain.  You can begin to see their pain, fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, repression, trauma, abuse, stress, or any number of mitigating factors leading to the transgression.  As you stand in judgment, whether you acknowledge that this is what you are doing or not, – as you stand in judgment, taking into account the full context of the other person, you can empathize with their side of the situation.

And then you have a choice.  You can choose to accept your pain, hurt and injustice – not to close your mind to it, but to accept it.  To accept it rather than passing it back to the offender.  Rather than choosing to exact due justice, rather than choosing to pass it back to the offender with punitive words and actions, you can choose to forgive.  “Forgiving means giving up all hope of a better past;” forgiveness is a way of getting unstuck, of loosening the bond that held you to the person or event.  Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.

Forgiveness is perhaps the ultimate religious activity.  Religion is about relationships, and every relationship is imperfect and is strained; Love, Justice, and Forgiveness are the larger elements that ease the strain and keep a relationship alive and healthy.  Forgiveness is arguably the least understood and most critical of these three for restoring harmony to the fractures in our relationships.

Look Out! Holy Days Are Coming

Rev. Douglas Taylor

9-24-06

Unitarian Universalism is a living tradition that draws from many sources including the wisdom of the world’s religions which inspire us in our ethical and spiritual life.  This is an aspect of our way of faith that is both compelling and confusing to people who are not Unitarian Universalist.  “Why are you promoting your own competition?” they ask.  Simply put, this is a house of truth-seeking.  Just as we honor the truth we find in science and modern prophets; so too, we honor truth that has been captured for ages in the words of the ancient authors and sages.  Or, as Forest Church put it, “We draw inspiration from other religions as well as our own. … We celebrate a wide variety of festivals in an attempt to divine the essential meaning of each.

While I was growing up in the Unitarian Universalists Sunday School classes, I was taught the religions of the world in a respectful and engaging manner. I remember liking the Gods of the Hindus; they were so plentiful and seemed so full of color.  Many were depicted smiling, which was appealing to me.  I would like to believe in a smiling God.  I remember learning about Buddha and Lao Tzu and Confucius; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed.  All of this was offered to me as a young person in the religious education program of my Unitarian Universalist congregation.

And perhaps you know (or have guessed by what I have said so far,) the Binghamton Unitarian Universalist Congregation also offers this information about the world’s religions to our young people during Sunday School.  Our Sunday School program is designed in a four year rotation, each year focusing on either Unitarian Universalist identity, our Judeo-Christian heritage, World Religions, and Ethics and Social Justice.  This year our children are offered the focus of World Religions.  Each class approaches the topic in a way that developmentally appropriate for their age.  For example, the Junior High class is using a curriculum entitle “Neighboring Faiths” which includes opportunities for the class to visit other places of worship.  I remember doing this sort of thing one year, and anticipate the young people in our Junior High class finding this to be quite a unique experience.

In some ways it is too bad they can’t just jump in immediately.  They need to do preliminary steps of choosing which religions to study and then make contact with each faith community to schedule a visit and then have a session where they learn about the tradition before finally going to visit.  I certainly appreciate the careful necessity of these steps, but it’s too bad all the same because this weekend would have been a wonderful opportunity for our young people to experience the holiest days of both the Jewish faith and the Islamic faith.  Every thirty years, roughly, Rosh Hashanah and the first days of Ramadan occur on the same day or within a day of each other.  Most of the time, these two holidays are no where near each other in the regular calendar; but for this year they are.

Both the Islamic calendar and the Jewish calendar are based on the lunar cycle of months lasting 28 or 29 days each.  The result is a 354 day year, which is 11 days off from the solar calendar year.  The Islamic calendar makes no attempt to equalize the difference, thus Muslim holidays are about 11 days earlier on the solar calendar each year; over the years, Ramadan begins in the fall, in the summer, in the spring, and in the winter; and when it returns to fall the dates will, of course, not match up again with the dates from the last time Ramadan begin in the fall.  In other words: a given Islamic date, say the First of Ramadan, will coincide with a given Gregorian calendar date, say September 24th, once every 32 or 33 years (depending on leap years.)  The Jewish calendar, on the other hand, does make an effort to equalize the difference between the lunar and solar cycles.  Several of the Jewish holidays hold seasonal significance, so ever three years of so, the Jewish calendar adds a lunar month, a leap month if you will.  This means that for three years the holy days of Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of Ramadan coincide.  We are currently in the second year of this holy coincidence.  For the fourth year, however, the Jewish Calendar adds its extra month, pulling Rosh Hashanah back into what we call October, while Ramadan continues its trek into early September and then late August and on.  The two holy days will not coincide again like this until over thirty years from now.  And the most recent time when this had happened in the past was the early 1970’s.

Rosh Hashanah, year 5767, the anniversary of the creation of the world, begins at sundown of what the Gregorian calendar calls Friday, September 22, year 2006, and which Jews call the first of Tishri, being the seventh day of the Jewish lunar calendar.  The traditional greeting for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is “Shana Tova: (shah-NAH toh-VAH) Happy New Year!”

The holy month of Ramadan, the anniversary of when Allah started revealing the Qur’an to Muhammad, his prophet, begins on what the Gregorian calendar calls September 24, today; and which Muslims call the first of Ramadan, being the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar.  The traditional greeting during this month is “Ramadan Mubarak: (RAH-mah-dahn moo-BAR-ahk) May God give you a blessed month.”

The last day of the Ten Days of Awe on the Jewish calendar is called Yom Kippur.  It is a day of reflection and repentance.  One of the techniques used to enhance reflection and understanding of repentance is fasting.  Many people celebrate Yom Kippur by taking no food or water from sunset to sunset.  One author writes, “In ancient Jewish tradition fasting had two primary purposes.  The first was to express personal or national repentance for sin. …  The second purpose of a fast was to prepare oneself inwardly for receiving the necessary strength and grace to complete a mission of faithful service in God’s name.”

Muslims spend the entire month of Ramadan in daily fasts from sunrise to sunset.  Each morning before the sun rises the family will eat together, and when they return home in the evenings they beak their fast with a family meal.  They do this for the entire month of Ramadan.  While fasting is beneficial to physical health, the purpose for Muslims is self-purification and self-restraint.  One author writes, “By cutting oneself from the worldly comforts, even for a short time, a fasting person focuses on his or her purpose in life by constantly being aware of the presence of God.”

Fasting is a spiritual practice common to many religious groups.   Many who fast do so with moderation and find it to be a significant time of reflection on that which sustains us spiritually in the way that food sustains us physically.  Both Rosh Hashanah (with Yom Kippur) and Ramadan are times of fasting for the adherents of those faiths.  It is also a time for deepening ones connection with and understanding of the faith tradition through worship, study and service.  In particular, Muslims strive to be polite and respectful, and to put an end to past disputes during Ramadan.  It is a month for Muslims to purify their bodies and their minds.  So, too, with Rosh Hashanah, Jews are to repent of injuries they have caused, to seek forgiveness that they may begin the year with a clean slate, with their names inscribed in the Book of Life for another year.

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me these wars surrounding Israel, Palestine, and now Lebanon violate not only a few of the specific restrictions, but also the spirit of these two holidays.  I’m pretty sure putting an end to past disputes and repenting of injuries you have caused means not starting new disputes or causing new injuries!  I’m pretty sure it means not killing each other!

There was a rather logical letter to the editor a few days back in response to the Popes unfortunate, though probably intentional, choice of quotes concerning violence and the religion of Islam.  The pope’s use of the quote sparked a violent response among some Muslims in the Middle East.  The letter to the editor from a few days back said, “We have “peace-loving” Muslims burning churches and committing other violent acts to impress everyone that they’re non-violent.” (Marge Christenson; Press & Sun, Thursday, 9/21/06; A10)  And that is a cynical way of putting it, but it’s true.  In yesterday’s paper there was an article about Ramadan featuring Imam Kasim Kopuz of the Islamic Center of the Southern Tier.  Imam Kopuz’s comment about Pope Benedict XVI’s quote is that many Muslims found it offensive, but a proper Islamic reaction does not include violence.  He didn’t say a proper Islamic response during Ramadan does not include violence.  He said a proper Islamic response would never include violence.  So, in response to that letter to the editor, ‘No, we do not have “peace-loving” Muslims burning churches and committing other violent acts, obviously!   We have angry, aggressive groups using religion as an excuse to vent their anger and aggression in violent, destructive ways – undermining and perverting the fuller message of Islam.’  Oh, to be sure, the Qur’an and the Pentateuch, as well as the New Testament, each one of these holy books contains verses that can be lifted out of the fuller context and used to condone violence.  Any tradition can be manipulated this way.

Indeed there is a madness that has taken over may people in that area, a madness cloaking itself as righteousness – believing itself to be truly righteous.  Nations in the Middle East live in fear of each other and thrive on the anger and revenge the builds day by day as the violence continues.  And one of the great casualties is religion itself.  In too many situations the peaceful, forgiving, and repentant religions of Islam and Judaism are used as fuel for further violence.  Just as Christianity is used as a tool for hate at times by extreme fundamentalists who are more concerned with a political or social or just plain bigoted agenda; so too other religions are used by those who would do harm under the guise of being righteous.

Which is why the concurrence of these two holidays is an opportunity for hope.  With Jews and Muslims who are seemingly always at war with each other in the Middle East, we have now a moment when both religions call on the faithful to purify and cleanse themselves, to repent and seek forgiveness, to set aside old disputes and not to start new ones!  We have a moment when both sides are poised to engage in self-reflection.  What an opportunity, think of the possibilities if people of faith were to stand up and say “it is time for us to have peace.”

Well, it would be amazing if we were to read in the paper tomorrow that peace broke out in the Middle East over the weekend.  I am not going to hold me breath for it, though.  It’s not that I’ve given up, but I realize this work takes a long time.  I have been praying for peace and working for peace and striving with justice toward a world of peace since I could understand what that meant – and so have many of you.  It is hard to see opportunities such as this go by while hatred and greed and cruel apathy keep a grip on the reigns of power and the hearts of people.  It is particularly painful to see religion continually used to separate people; religion which is meant to bring people together, to provide hope, to help people reflect together and grow in understanding; religion which is meant to spread peace is used to fan the flames of war.

But I know that peace is built slowly, step by tentative step.  I know that the world is built up by little deed after little deed done every day by regular people like you and me. I know that even the simple acts of you and I reaching out to people in our own community can lead us to fuller understanding in the world.  While I see the world swept by greed and hate, the peaceful religions of the world co-opted into the structures of war, the hope for harmony among the nations lost and left behind; I also see possibilities that I know can serve to change a life.  I see possibilities that I know can lead people into deeper understanding.  When holy days appear together on a calendar and are honored; when children are taught about other faiths with respect; when people of goodwill gather, I continue to see possibilities that serve as the catalyst for new hope.  At this holy time, when many millions of people are called on to reflect, repent and seek peace in the name of their God; there is cause for hope.  May peace move through the people, allowing new life and renewed hope to again bloom within our hearts.  May it be for people around the world and may it be among us now.

In a world without end, may it be so.

Good Earth

The Epic of Evolution

A sermon by Douglas Taylor

UUCB

9-17-06

Each year in the spring, the 8th graders from our congregation have an opportunity to take the Coming of Age course which is designed to guide them through their search for understanding as they navigate the transition of becoming a youth.  Each spring there is a Coming of Age worship service presented by these youth and their mentors, and without fail it is one of the highlights of our church year.  The youth are encouraged to present a credo statement during the service, a statement of personal belief.  Every year I hear at least once if not several times in these credos the statement, “I believe in science.”

I imagine that in some other houses of worship such a statement would be seen as at best an odd non sequitur or misstatement in need of correcting, “One does not believe in science.  One believes in doctrines, in God, in love, but science? No.”  Quite likely such a statement would be met with a good deal of resistance and possibly open hostility.  I am afraid religion has largely continued to distrust and oppose science in general and evolutionary science in particular.  Religion still today feels threatened by science.  And, science has often returned the sentiment in kind!

Over the ages, there have been attempts to reconcile science and religion.  To appease one or the other, to grant victory of one over the other, to declare one obsolete or meaningless when compared to the other.  I wrote an article a year or two ago for the Press & Sun Bulletin advocating a view that is something of a compromise, but in effect sends each boxer back to his corner.

“Science and religion are natural allies,” I had written. “Science asking questions of what and how, religion asking questions of why and what for; together they lead us into deeper understanding of nature and human nature.  The challenge is to not confuse the two and to understand the real limits of each.  Science cannot explain suffering or hope or the mystery of existence.  Religion, on the other hand, is a poor guide to understanding how old the earth is or how to cure disease.  Science may someday find a way to explain it all, but don’t hold your breath waiting for science to explain what it all means!”

If I had it to do over again, I would offer something a little bolder and less mincing.  I see now how entwined religion and science are.  Sometimes I catch glimpses of very deep meaning from nature and science, rather than from what is traditionally considered ‘religion.’  I begin to see that the search for truth and meaning is the work of science, and therefore the work of science is religious work.  I think it may be possible to approach concepts such as suffering, hope, forgiveness, and what it all means through the scientific study and understanding of the universe.  The writings of Aldo Leopold and Annie Dillard; Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme, Loren Eiseley and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd; the work of these and so many others leads us into a deeper understanding of the sacredness of our scientifically observable world.

Unitarian Universalist minister Ken Patton wrote, “This house is for the ingathering of nature and human nature.  It is a house of truth-seeking, where scientists can encourage devotion to their quest, where mystics can abide in a community of searchers.”  Rather than separating science and religion, we should invite them both into the search for truth and meaning.  Unitarian Universalism is an evolving faith.  As new and better understandings of the world around us emerge, so our statements and beliefs adjust to match our new understandings of reality.  Consider this: when all the world’s major religious traditions began the basic understanding of cosmology was that the earth was flat and stationary at the center of everything.  There was a dome of the heaven where the sun and stars in an unchanging pattern moved around the earth.  Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, all began before microscopes and telescopes could enhance our sight enough to see in detail the fabric of life.  If the religions of the world can not adjust to the new understandings of the universe and our place in it they are doomed to fight a losing battle against reality.

The history that science tells about the origin of the universe and the origin of life has been seen as a cold recitation of fact and detail lacking beauty, awe, reverence: robbing nature of its awesome and inspiring beauty.  What is called the “Epic of Evolution” or ‘The Great Story” tells the history of the creation of the universe in a way that is simultaneously scientific and sacred.  The Great Story does reduce life down to details and simple facts, but it also lifts up the profoundly sacred elements of the story and the deeper meaning to be found in existence.

Ursula Goodenough, writes in her book The Sacred Depths of Nature about the trouble with reducing the Universe down to its base components: a series of chemical reactions encoded in DNA molecules.  For a long time many scientists insisted there was “something else”, some vital force also present within or beyond the basic building blocks of life.  “We are told that life is so many manifestations of chemistry and we shudder, a long existential shudder. … That does to life what astrophysics does to the night sky.  Life reduced down to the component molecules is life demeaned.”  But then she resolves that argument with what is called the Mozart metaphor.  “A Mozart sonata,” she writes, “is a wondrous thing, beauty beyond belief, sonorous, resonant, transporting.  But it is also about notes and piano keys.  Mozart’s magnificent brain composed the work, to be sure, and then he translated it into black specks on white paper to be translated into strings hit by tiny hammers.”  She says we can be deeply moved by a Mozart sonata without ever looking at sheet of music.  But we can pick up the score, follow along, and perhaps even learn to play it ourselves, without the sonata being demeaned or diminished.  So too, life can be reduced “to its most spare rendering.”  We can look at the chemical responses – the tiny hammers and strings – and the DNA encoding – the notes on the pages if you will.  We can look at the science within the natural world and still be drawn in reverence to its beauty.  Indeed, perhaps more fully drawn than otherwise.

In the beginning, about 14 billion years ago, there was a Great Radiance, or a Big Bang as some have called it; a rapid expanding of space and everything with it, which at that point was pretty much just hydrogen.  Hydrogen was present at the start it seems, and everything else grew from it, starting with stars.  Stars form from hydrogen.  As things heat up, the hydrogen is built up into helium, and over time, when the hydrogen is used up, the star of mostly helium explodes casting out stardust of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.  When a star goes super-nova it spews out dust comprised of heavier elements like iron and zinc and gold.  Brian Swimme sums up the Epic of Evolution like this: “Take a huge cloud of hydrogen gas and just leave it alone and it becomes rose bushes giraffes, and human beings.”  So as stars form, grow, decay, and explode, the stuff that eventually becomes “us” is created.  We exist only because stars die.  We are stardust.  We are stardust in a literally and scientifically accurate way; and also in a metaphorical and profoundly religious way.

To give an example of this, how many of you took your kids or grandkids to see the Lion King movie from Disney?  I’ve seen that movie dozens of times on the VCR with Brin and Keenan over and over again and now with Piran.  There is a scene during Simba’s exile, Simba is The Lion King.  He is lying back in the grass with his friends Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog.

Pumbaa asks Timon “Ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?”

Well, Timon says, “I don’t wonder.  I know.  They’re fireflies that got stuck up on that big, bluish-black thing.”

Pumbaa then says, “Oh.  Gee….  I always thought that they were balls of gas, burning billions of miles away.”

To which Timon says, “Pumbaa– with you, everything’s gas.”

            Then they turn and ask Simba what he thinks and at first he says, “Oh, I don’t know.”  But they press and finally he says, “Well… somebody once told me that the great kings of the past are up there, watching over us.”  If you know the story, you may remember that it was Simba’s father who had told him this.

And Timon says “You mean a bunch of royal dead guys are watching us?” and he and Pumbaa burst out laughing.  And Simba goes off thinking about his father, and then has an experience of his father in the stars which sets in action the rest of the movie with Simba going back to challenge his uncle and reclaim the throne.

Well, if you ask anyone which of the three had the correct answer, they will tell you the warthog had it right: stars are balls of gas burning billions of miles away.  How many think that’s right?  Yeah!  Well how many here think Simba was right?  Simba was right!  You and I have a common ancestor, and it is not just the ape, but back through the ages you and I and the oak tree and the meerkat and a gold band and little Pluto the ex-planet; we all have a common ancestor.  We are stardust; our bodies and our earth and everything are a result of generations of the birth – death cycle of stars.  The stars are our ancestors watching over us.  And they serve as our guides in more than just the obvious ways.  As we learn more about the life of stars and their place in the story of the universe, we learn more about ourselves and our place in the universe.

Sometimes we use metaphors to describe what is going on.  Sometimes we speak in scientific fact.  Stars are balls of gas burning billions of miles away and stars are our ancestors.  Both are important ways of passing on the information.  To say that God took dust from the earth and breathed life into it, as the account in Genesis reports, is a wonderfully dramatic metaphor to describe what really happened.  We grew out of the earth the way peaches grow out of a peach tree.  Carl Sagan wrote “We are the local embodiment of a cosmos grown to self-awareness.  We have begun to contemplate our origins: star stuff pondering the stars.”  When we first launched probes and people out into space and we took pictures of the Earth, the blue green ball floating in the vast dark of space, you could think of it as the earth sending forth a small bit of itself to look back and say, “Ahh, so that is what I look like.”  We are the universe becoming aware of itself.

The UU World magazine recently published a feature article on the work of Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd, two Unitarian Universalists who have a mission to bring the Great Story to the public, to raise the awareness of this sacred and scientific story of evolution.  Much of what I’ve offered this morning is based on their work.  I have a very nice DVD I’m thinking of using for an adult Religious Discussion course.  And I am trying to get Michael and Connie to visit Binghamton in the spring or next fall.  I think a key understanding of the mix of faith and fact, of the sacred and the scientific, is in the way they describe a new metaphor of the universe.  An old dominant metaphor is the mechanistic one, usually using a clock as an analogy.  The old bit about the pocket watch found in the field implies that there is a clock maker out there somewhere who created this complex thing of beauty we call a pocket watch.  Science refuted that theological proposition, but in many ways bought into the mechanistic concept and began taking the pocket watch apart to discover how all the complex pieces fit together.  The new metaphor sets the mechanistic idea aside and says the universe is organic.  Where the mechanistic metaphor rested on dualism, the organic metaphor is thoroughly monistic, which appeals to me.  The universe is a living dynamic whole made up not of many little parts, but of many sub-wholes.  Forget the pocket watch.

A better metaphor for the universe, Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow say, is a set of Russian nesting dolls, made up of levels of what they call nested creativity: subatomic particles within atoms, within molecules, within cells, within organisms, and so on. Each level is uniquely creative, that is, has the power to bring something new into existence. Stars create atoms; atoms create substances like the oxygen we breathe; human cultures create art, religions, and technology.

You, yourself, are a whole and complete creative entity.  You are made up of organs, cells, molecules, atoms, each of which is whole at each level.  And you as an organism are a part of organizations, nations, planets, galaxies, and more.  Each level, like Russian nesting dolls, is not simply a part of the next higher level, but a complete whole with creative capacity.  This sort of begs the question: how small do the nesting dolls get, and how large?  What do we call the largest nesting doll?  Michael Dowd offers this:

The largest nesting doll is God—or Allah, Adonai, Source of Life, Ultimate Reality, Nature, the Universe, whatever name describes the divine whole for you, the ultimate creative reality that includes and transcends all other levels of reality. God is not outside of creation. God is an integral part of it—in fact, is it.

Starhawk, in her book entitled The Earth Path, writes, “We are not separate from nature but in fact are nature.”  I absolutely love the theological implications of this line of thinking.  And the concept of ‘nested creativity’ is scientific fact.  No one refutes it.  Atoms form molecules; molecules form cells; DNA is encoded to create protein; peach trees form peaches; we’re on an orbiting planet among other planets in an intertwined solar system; the Sun creates helium from hydrogen.  Again and again, the creative whole at each level contains and is contained within a creative whole at another level – all the way down and all the way up.

So what does it all mean?  It means we are kindred with all of creation.  It means we are not the pinnacle of creation; rather we are one current expression.  We are not only for ourselves; we are here as a participants in a greater dance.  Annie Dillard says, “We are here to abet creation and to witness to it, to notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.”  We are nature uncovering its own nature.  We are the universe becoming aware of itself.  What is the meaning of life?  I think the Great Story, the Epic of Evolution tells us that we are one with the good earth and that we are here to take part in the creative process.  We are here to create.  We have a supporting role to play; to aid and abet creation – to ensure its furtherance.  Indeed, when I see science infused so with sacred meaning, how can I but testify: I believe in science.

In a world without end

May it be so.

Our Cornerstone

A sermon about our Unitarian Universalist theologies

August 27, 2006

Rev. Douglas Taylor

UUCB

I do believe one of these days I am going to get myself into trouble.  It is one of the longest and dearest-held principles among Unitarian Universalists that we are non-creedal.  We do not have a confession or statement of faith, no doctrine or creed that all must sign and adhere to before being considered a true Unitarian Universalist.  You don’t need to agree to or abide by a belief statement written hundreds or thousands of years ago to be here.  We are proudly non-creedal.  A point, I hasten to add, I personally have no wish to undermine.  But I do believe that one of these days I am going to get myself in trouble because I keep poking at that and saying things like, “Actually we do have a common belief that binds us as one faith.”

Last week, in preaching about our Common Story, I shared with you a reading from Unitarian Universalist minister and seminary professor, David Bumbaugh:  (from Unitarian Universalism a narrative history, 2000), which began with the sentence, “Unitarian Universalism is a peculiar religious tradition in that what binds it is not so much a shared theology, or even a shared response to the experience of the sacred, as it is a shared history.”  I then went on to agree with Bumbaugh saying that any rational onlooker would be flummoxed in trying to find the common element in the diverse list of theological stances taken in the name of Unitarian Universalism.  “Indeed” I had said last week, “it would seem we have, as Bumbaugh contends, a shared history rather than a shared theology as Unitarian Universalists.”

And now, please allow me to appear to contradict myself.  We actually do have a shared theology that binds us as one faith.  I know, I know!  We are non-creedal, we do not have a doctrine around which we all must adhere, we do not have a single belief that we are compelled to hold in common.  We’re all over the map, theologically speaking.  Even in this congregation today, there are folks among us who find the holy in nature and in rituals and call themselves Pagans.  There are others among us who believe in God and call themselves Theists and perhaps even call themselves Christian-UUs.  There are those here who do not believe in God and call themselves Atheists or Religious Humanists.  Then there are folks among us who don’t know how to define the holy from one day to the next if ever, and they call themselves Mystics or Agnostics or simply seekers.  And within each of these are nuances that spread us quite wide.  There are as many ways to approach the Holy as there are people to approach it.

And this we encourage.  We have a culture that encourages each person to have his or her own personal theology rather than one that asks anyone to bend to a corporate theology.  We have an adult curriculum called “Building Your Own Theology” in which participants are encouraged to craft a credo statement, an “I believe” statement.  Our “Coming of Age” program for youth is modeled in much the same way.  We recognize that faith is built not from doctrines, but from life.  Beliefs are borne from experience.  We certainly do not say, “You can believe anything you want,” rather we say, “You can believe as you must, as your conscience demands.”  It is a fierce commitment to the freedom of conscience.  This culture of personal theology, this loyalty to the freedom of the conscience is so strong as to make it almost a knee jerk reaction against any talk of a common theology or a shared belief among us.

But I assure you we do hold a shared belief.  The enduring theological cornerstone of our evolving Unitarian Universalist faith is our radical understanding of the human condition, our doctrine of human nature.  This theology of human nature is rooted in our Unitarian and Universalist forbearers from the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.  It is threaded through the evolving theological positions expressed throughout our history, and it is underpinning every theological perspective witnessed among us today.  Our theological cornerstone is our radical acceptance of every person as being of the same human family without segregating anyone out as saved or unsaved, clean or defiled, saint or sinner, worthy or unworthy; all we have are human beings: blessed, whole, capable of good and evil, fully part of the evolving nature of life.  Unitarian Universalism proudly insists that every person has inherent worth and dignity as a basic root element of their being.  Whether the source of this is due to a loving creator, freewill, evolutionary maturation, the Image of God, divine spark within, or simply the nature of all life, there is plenty of disagreement.  But the effect is the same: we believe that every person has an intrinsic dignity and worth.  And we have always said thus.

Roberta Finkelstein a colleague from Virginia, has said,

“We broke away from the liberal Protestant wing of American congregationalism, but the break wasn’t over what many people think. It wasn’t really over the doctrine of the trinity, though it is true that our first name, Unitarian, refers to the belief in the unity rather than the trinity of God.  And it wasn’t really over the question of salvation, although our second name, Universalism, refers to the belief that a benevolent God saves all.  It was really over the doctrine of human nature that we declared our independence.”

The Universalists believed in God as a loving father who will call all His children home.  To claim that there is a Hell, they said, where people are eternally punish for the single sin of the first man, Adam in the Garden of Eden, is to make of God a monster.  By reclaiming the goodness of God, the loving nature of the divine Creator, the Universalists also offered a profound shift in what it means to be a human being in relation to that God.  Instead of being sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are children in the arms of loving Parent.  Universalism rejected not only the eternal punishment of hell, but also the reason for such a punishment in the first place: the concept of original sin.  Hosea Ballou, an early leader in the Universalist denomination, said that the consequences of sin are manifest in this life alone; that “hell is not a place of punishment, but a state of rebellion against God and against the unity of humans and God.” (Robinson, David The Unitarians and the Universalists, p 65) The implication here for the doctrine of human nature is that we choose to make of life a heaven or hell.  This is not exactly free will as the Unitarians would see it, but it does leave in the hands of humanity the capacity to respond to the love of God by loving one another or by making of this life a hell.  We hold that power, and that responsibility!

Thomas Starr King, who held credentials from both Unitarianism and Universalism long before the two denominations merged into one said, “The difference between Unitarians and Universalists is that Universalists believe God is too good to damn them while Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned.”

William Ellery Channing, the father of American Unitarianism, indeed preached a radical theology of human nature.  This was a rebellion from the Calvinist theology of the day, a theology that spoke of humanity as being totally depraved and in need of God’s grace, of a humanity bound to sin and with now power by which to change the situation. Only though the grace of the all-powerful God above could a person be saved.  In his sermon, Likeness to God, Channing writes, “What, then, is religion?  I answer; it is not the adoration of a God with whom we share no common properties; of a distinct, foreign, separate being; but of an all-communicating parent.  It recognizes and adores God, as a being whom we know through our souls, who has made man in his image, who is the perfection of our own spiritual nature, who has sympathies with us as kindred beings …” He goes on to say, “Above all, adore his unutterable goodness.  But remember, that this attribute is particularly proposed to you as your model; that God calls you, both by nature and revelation, to a fellowship in his philanthropy; that he has placed you in social relations, for the very end of rendering you ministers and representatives of his benevolence…” Channing, here demonstrates how radical his Christianity was at that time, indeed it might still seem radical to most Christians today.  God is a model of goodness.  We are beings who do good because we have within us the image of God, who is “unutterable good.”  We are not disobedient sinners, flawed creatures, depraved souls bound to sin with no good in us.  We each have what Channing called the Devine Seed within.  He said, “I reverence human nature too much to do it violence.”

Channing didn’t claim we did only good deeds.  He saw in us the connection of God; he didn’t claim we were God.  That came later, through Emerson and others after him.  Channing and the other Unitarian Christians of that time were Arminians.  Arminianism is the doctrinal position that denies election and original sin, and supports the doctrine of free will.  It is basically anti-Calvinism, if you will.  Jacob Arminius was a Dutch reformed theologian from the 1500’s who said that people could respond to divine grace.  He basically said everyone could be saved.  John Calvin was saying, “No, only a select few could be saved, a pre-selected few in fact.”  My little dictionary of theological terms says “Many historians of doctrine see the significance of Arminianism to lie in its attempt to think through the relationship between God and humanity in personal terms.”

One could characterize it this way: Calvinists believed that every human being was born in original sin.  It is like saying you begin life on a train speeding toward hell totally depraved and unredeemable, and only a few have a chance of getting off.  Arminianism says you start your life on the platform and can choose which train you get on, and perhaps you can even change trains during the trip.  There is no limit to the number of folks who can get a ticket for the heaven bound train.

Unitarianism’s message of the innate dignity and goodness of human beings grew from the Channing Unitarians, through the extreme individualism of the transcendentalists, through the Free Religious Association and eventually into what became the Humanist movement.  In 1933 the Humanist Manifesto was written up, several of the signers were Unitarian clergy.  In a sense, Humanism is a direct inheritor of Channing’s vision.

Humanism’s scandalous claim that religion had outgrown the concept of God certainly grabs the attention of most people.  If, however, that were the whole story, that we would simply apply the label Atheist to this set of beliefs and leave it be; but that is not the whole story of Humanism.  Indeed Humanism says more about the human condition and human nature than it ever says about God or the lack thereof.  And not all Humanists are atheists, because the larger statement of Humanism says the primary focus of our attention is humanity.  It says, “We are born, we live, and we die. This much we know; this much we can talk about.” Curtis Reese, Unitarian minister from 1920’s and 30’s, wrote, “The Humanist regards the universe as the given and is not likely to speculate unduly on either the beginning or the end of things cosmic.”  Reese explained further “the primary concern of Humanism is human development.”

As an exemplar of Humanist thought within Unitarianism in the 1920’s Curtis Reese is one among several outstanding pioneers.  I particularly liked the way he articulated the human condition.

Reese viewed humans as an organic part of nature, a result of the evolutionary process.  But because humans possess self-consciousness and insight, they are not a fixed part of nature but highly plastic and flexible, with potential for development.  … Because humans have self-consciousness, they tend to separate themselves from the other forms of nature, even other animals.  Reese objected to such a tendency because it perpetuates a dualism of the spiritual versus the physical.  (Olds, Mason American religious Humanism, p113-4)

As Unitarian Universalism evolved and grew, we recognized another perspective among us that articulated the earth as holy, and humanity to be fully part of nature.  This perspective arose from the Native American spiritualities, from the environmentalists, from the feminists, and from the pagan communities.  An Earth-centered perspective’s understanding of the human condition begins with an understanding of the Sacred; from there we move into an understanding of our connection as human beings to that which is sacred and our place in the universe.  Starhawk says, “Earth mother, star mother, you who are called by a thousand names, May we all remember we are cells in your body and dance together.”  A statement which is not that far different from that of a Indian mystic, Rabindranath Tagore, who writes, “The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.”  Or the American Indian called Seattle who said, “This we know.  The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.  All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.”  Starhawk explores the connection of humanity with nature in the first chapter of a recent book entitled The Earth Path.  She writes,

One view sees human beings a separate from and above nature.  Nature exists as a resource bank that we are entitled to exploit for our own ends. …This philosophy is held by many religions, but also by both capitalists and classical Marxists.  It has resulted in unprecedented destruction of ecosystems and life-support systems all over the planet. … But there is a counterpoint to this view, one often held by environmentalists and even some Pagans, that is more subtly destructive.  That’s the view that human beings are somehow worse than nature, that we are a blight on the planet and she’d be better off without us.  …  A corrective view might arise from the understanding that we are not separate from nature but in fact are nature.  (p8-9)

Many of the Pagan and other people within Unitarian Universalism who identify with an Earth-centered spirituality find their beliefs well articulated by these voices like Starhawk’s from outside our particular tradition.  If I had been able to find my copy of Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon I could have offered a Pagan perspective from within Unitarian Universalism, but it was not to be.  The point, however, remains, that Paganism and other Earth-centered spiritualities hold a radical perspective of our human condition based on our place in the world.  When we human beings uncover our true nature we will find that we are neither a separate dominating power nor mere interloping destroyers of the good earth.  We are of the earth.  We are nature.  And this sounds quite similar to what the Humanist Curtis Reese was saying, don’t you think?

Ours is an evolving faith.  We grow as a people and who we are grows with us.  We do, however, have a cornerstone theological belief from which we build all that binds us together.  Is it a creed?  No.  Will every Unitarian Universalist agree with me that in general we have a theological cornerstone and specifically that it is our radical understanding of human dignity?  No.  And they need not because the cornerstone of Unitarian Universalism binds us by respect.  It is more than simply agreeing to disagree, or covenanting to walk together but on different paths.  Yes, there are many paths found among us.

You are probably sitting next to a Pagan, sharing a hymnal with an atheistic Humanist, entering silent meditation with a prayerful Theist, sipping coffee with Mystic, or sharing communion with Agnostic.  And so too, there are UU Buddhists, and UU Jews, Deists, Panentheists, and evolutionary transcendentalists; it is confounding and perhaps disconcerting to some onlookers to see us worship together as one.  Our unity is not found in a shared theology of God or the person of Jesus or Buddha, or the nature of enlightenment, salvation, or reincarnation.  Our unity is not found in a shared understanding of the source of human goodness.  We do, however, all hold to the general theological cornerstone of our tradition which is our theology of human nature: that all human beings have a basic worth, an essential and innate dignity. This is the ground of our trust by which we accept our significant differences. This is the foundation from which we build our covenants.  This is the root of all that we are together.

In a world without end,

May it be so.