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Special Speeches by Rev. Douglas Taylor
On October 14, 2007, Rev. Taylor deliveared the Jeanne Blank Memorial Address at Silver Bay UU Weekend. Silver Bay is a multi-congregational weekend full of workshops, activities, and fun. The Jeanne Blank Memorial Address is a major keynote address.
Unitarian Universalism
Our Cornerstone, Our Promise, and Our Radical Implications
Rev. Douglas Taylor
October 15, 2007
Silver Bay, NY
Today is Association Sunday. Across the United States Unitarian Universalist congregations are celebrating our faith and taking up a collection for the growth of our movement. This is an important and valuable endeavor for us. Someone pointed out recently that October 14th is the closest Sunday to National Coming Out day this year in honor of GLBT individuals and the difficulty still involved in being public about that issue in today’s culture. I doubt that was on purpose; connecting Association Sunday with national Coming Out day. But it does point to an interesting comparison, don’t you think? We usually talk about Unitarian Universalism being a fringe religion, but I have found us to be more of a cringe religion because that’s what we tend to do whenever we are asked to define ourselves. “Oh, you’re a Unitarian Universalist? What is that exactly?” (cringe) Maybe Unitarian Universalism will come out of the proverbial closet finally.
Statistics show that Unitarian Universalism is growing when compared with many mainline Christian denominations; although fundamentalist congregations are growing faster. Still the statistics can be heartening. They say we are growing. However the statistics show only part of the story. We are growing numerically over the past few dozen years and doing so amazingly according to the US census reports 630,000 people self-identified as UUs in 2001 which is over 100,000 more than the amount reported in the census of 1990. That’s the good news. The number of people actually belonging to a UU congregation according to our internal records in the year of that census, 2001, was 218,000. We’re missing over 400, 000 people! And this 218,000 is a decline from our peak in 1968 when we had a reported membership of 282,000. These numbers include children and youth. We are nowhere near where we once were forty years ago. We have shrunk by 7% according to our own real numbers from 1968 to 2001. But that’s not even the whole story. We are also shrinking in terms of percentage compared to the overall national population. While we lost 7% of our membership in real numbers, the US population increased by over 35% in that same period of time. Our numbers represent an increasingly smaller portion of the US population. Unitarian Universalism is shrinking. Some say we are dying.
So Association Sunday is an effort to build our movement, to grow our faith, to hopefully keep it from slipping into an interesting footnote in the history of religion in America. One problem I have noticed in this effort is a glaring lack of understanding of just what it is we are trying to attract more people into. David Bumbaugh, a colleague now serving as a professor at the Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago, had an article in the UU World magazine over ten years back in which he wrote that our denomination is
. . . much clearer about wanting to attract more people than we are about what we want to attract them to . . . [I]t is easier to embrace diversity than to define who we are and what we stand for. (World, March/April 1995, p.26)
It is my contention that along with this wonderful effort on the part of the Association to do more advertising to get our message out that we should also work to better define what exactly it is we are advertising.
Unitarian Universalism is a life affirming, transformative faith to which I have committed my life. I’ve grown up Unitarian Universalist; indeed I am a fourth generation Unitarian Universalist. I was raised in a Universalist home and a Humanist church in the cradle of our newly merged association. Over the handful of years during which I have been a minister I have ardently strived to hone a theological answer to the persistent question: “What is Unitarian Universalism?” I have particularly tried to articulate an answer that is concise. I have sought an answer which can be given while standing on one foot or in the brief duration of an elevator ride; a difficult task due to the complexity of the subject. This tradition with its fervent respect for the individual has a struggle defining itself as a group. But that is by no means a reason to assume such an answer does not exist.
I believe we have an enduring and clearly definable core theological identity: a core identity that will serve us well to share with the rest of the world. Now, some say there is not a particular shared core of that sort among us. We are non-creedal, we do not have a doctrine around which we all must adhere, we do not have a single belief which we are compelled to hold in common. We’re all over the map, theologically speaking. There are as many ways to approach the holy as there are people to approach it.
Our theological diversity has been referred to as “cafeteria-style” theology. “Take what you like, but believe what you take.” When I was in seminary, in Meadville Lombard, the Liberal Theology course was offered as a reflection of this idea. We studied UU Christianity one week, Humanism the next week, then Process Theology followed by Neo-paganism and so on. Our professor, when asked one time about the common thread through them all, turned the question back on us. What is the common thread through our cafeteria-style multiple-choice theology? I quickly and passionately responded saying there has to be one. We belong together, we fit together! OK, but how? Our professor suggested to me that many see Unitarian Universalism as the safe harbor for any soul disillusioned and/or abused by the mainstream religions, the catch-all alternative religion. If I saw a unifying thread through our cafeteria-style theologies, I would need to articulate what that might be. One colleague told me Unitarian Universalism is technically not even a religion; it is simply an interfaith group because it has no core theological identity of its own, according to that colleague. If, however, Unitarian Universalism does not have a common core theological identity, a unifying center, then perhaps our unity is on the surface. We do have a surface unity. We share a name: Unitarian Universalist, we meet together regularly for worship, we share a hymnal. But is that all there is – just a surface unity? Are we just a surface level faith? Or do we indeed have a defining theological unity deep at our core?
Rev. Galen Guengerich, in an article titled “The Heart of our Faith” (from the UU World, Vol. XXI, NO. 1, Spring 2007, p 42), struggled to help his daughter uncover a satisfying response when her Jewish and Catholic friends on the playground asked her about her religion.
Our prevailing – dare I say orthodox – view insists on our freedom to believe whatever we want. Indeed, I asked my very own daughter what Unitarian [Universalists] believe, and her answer was orthodox to a fault. Zoë replied, “We believe whatever we want to believe.” This answer is not good enough, and it certainly doesn’t work on the playground. It’s as if your daughter’s friend asked, “Where do you live?” and she responded, “I’m free to live wherever I want.”
This is part of pattern of problems in Unitarian Universalism today.
Colleague Gordon McKeeman suggested that many of the problems and issues we have encountered and struggled with in recent years may actually be symptoms of the underlying problem that was created at the inception of the UUA at consolidation. Faced with the messy possibility that identifying a core for the consolidated movement might be too contentious, we seem to have decided instead to leave a question mark at the center. Instead of finding common ground on our various theological perspectives, we agreed to heed the words of Unitarian Francis David who said, “We need not thing alike to love alike” and the words of Universalist Hosea Ballou who said, “If we agree in love there is no disagreement that can do us any injury.” Accordingly Unitarians and Universalists came together organizationally, but left theology out. We apparently agreed to disagree. Well, it has perhaps been long enough that we should bring theology back into our recognizable center.
There was recently an attempt to wrestle with the question of our core theology on the part of the Commission on Appraisal. They quoted Walter Herz who writes, “Theological diversity alone is an entirely inadequate basis for a strongly associated congregation of individuals, or for a truly functional association of congregations.” Not to take up this question risks being “reduced to an agglomeration of liberal religious boutiques, loosely associated and without any real organizing principle.” The Commission worked for four solid years, enlisting the input of numerous members of our faith, to articulate the theological core of our evolving faith. Their answer, published in 2005 under the title, Engaging Our Theological Diversity, was not satisfying. They did not state in a clear, final, two or three sentence answer of just what exactly they found. If they did name a theological core to our faith I missed it and suspect the majority of Unitarian Universalists did as well.
I suspect that a major reason we did not name a core in that report is because when we start talking about having a core and a center, the implication here is that we then have fringes and boundaries. We don’t like to talk about that implication! When I preached a sermon titled “The Core of Us”, and named the implication that there would be boundaries of us, one person responded rather tongue and cheek saying I had drawn a circle and shut him out. Circumstances did not allow us to really engage in a conversation around this, but I wanted to deny any such activity. What I did in that sermon and what I have been trying to do ever since is descriptive not prescriptive. A creed prescribes what you must believe to be allowed into the group. A core theological doctrine is not a creed if it does not prescribe. Granted it can be used as a creed. Our current Principles and Purposes statement has been used as a creed by some: you must abide by these if you want to fit in here. This is a perspective we need to challenge whenever we encounter it, but that does not mean we should not have a statement of Principles and Purpose. And it does not mean we should not be able to describe what it at our core.
We are still a non-creedal community. As there is a core, there will certainly be many who are closer to the center and some others who are further out. What is at our core as an organization will not necessarily be what is at the core of every individual’s personal belief structure. But it is better to recognize that we have a fringe than to continue to consider ourselves to be a fringe! And as much as we don’t like to talk about it, Unitarian Universalism has boundaries. They are fairly indistinct, but they do exist. In many ways, our theological boundaries are self-selected. I know I fit in here. You need to decide if you fit in here. To pretend we have no boundaries as a group is to deny one of the basic realities of group dynamics.
Life is tough. It is not something that can be managed well alone. From earliest times, religion has served the function of binding people together in groups, giving people a common bond of care and concern. Any group, any group, for it even be a group must establish a base of trust, the quickest and most powerful way to establish that trust is to gather the group around a shared identity. These are the people who are in the group and those are the people who are not. We are God’s chosen people, we are Girl Scouts of America, we are the Steam Pipe Fitters Guild, we are Alcoholics Anonymous, we are the Henderson extended family. These are the people who are in the group; those are the people who are not.
This is basic group dynamics. Life is tough; it is not something that can be managed well alone. We need groups like these to survive. We don’t need to be mean to the people who are not in our group. Just because you are not a member of the Henderson extended family does not mean you’re not the best friend of the Henderson kids. Most of the time, your groups don’t get in the way, they serve the greater good, the greater level of connection, the greater story of humanity. Sometimes, however, your group will say, ‘these are the people who are in the group and everyone else is therefore less than us, or everyone else is wrong, or everyone else is willfully evil.
Many religions work hard to combat this element of group dynamics, dare I call it, a “demonic” element of group dynamics. Many religions have scriptures that rail against negative and dehumanizing perceptions of people who are different or people who are not members of the group; many, but by no means all. Unitarian Universalism has boldly claimed we are all included; most assuredly those who are not in the room with us right now are nonetheless included. As one of our hymns proclaims: “God’s love embraces the whole human race.” Powerful. Of course the down side is the amount of work we need to pour into both keeping that real (because we’re just as prone to laziness and hypocrisy as the next group) and in articulating a group identity that can establish trust and allow real bonds of support to grow. But we still need to have a group identity! And if that identity is not something theological, then why are we calling ourselves a religion?
Something is holding us together. We do exist as a community of faith, and we have a wide range stances; therefore we must be very good at tolerating each other’s differing beliefs. We all agree to disagree respectfully: to encourage one another in our spiritual searching. Tolerance, then, becomes the glue that holds us together.
I think this is dangerous ground upon which to form a faith. I have no strong objection to tolerance. Tolerance is one of the bulwark values of liberal religion. We have ever upheld the freedom of every individual to discover for her-or-himself what is ultimately true and right. We have without fail fiercely advocated the importance of tolerance among people of good faith. My complaint, rather, stems from the way tolerance has become a quick and sloppy way to abdicate participation. Our tolerance means anything goes, and therefore I don’t need to do the hard work of really defining my beliefs, let alone listening and engaging with other people’s beliefs because, after all, all beliefs are valuable and equally good. And isn’t that another way of saying it doesn’t matter? If Tolerance is indeed the shining central value around which all our communities gather then we are in danger of being a vacuous institution with little or no real substance. Perhaps that is why it looks like we’re dying.
I mentioned earlier an article David Bumbaugh wrote back in that 1995 for the UU World in which he said we are “. . . much clearer about wanting to attract more people than we are about what we want to attract them to . . . [I]t is easier to embrace diversity than to define who we are and what we stand for.” He goes on to say,
I fear we are attempting to put diversity at the center of our religious life ... because we fear the consequences of defining too precisely the core . . . blind to the fact that diversity can only flourish with a strong, clearly defined faith. (World, March/April 1995, p.26)
I’m not here to knock tolerance or diversity! Indeed, I have really only been speaking of theological tolerance and diversity, but I fully support all our efforts to further our racial diversity, our economic diversity, our cultural diversity, and our theological diversity. I just don’t want to put that cart before the horse. I am not interested in diversity for diversity’s sake. I am in favor of diversity because it helps us arrive at that something deeper, that essential principle behind our Principles and Purposes, that core theological identity. Tolerance is not it.
Another popular answer to what is at our core is the concept of covenant. The concept of covenant is certainly a theological concept and it certainly is at our core. When the question is asked, “What holds us together,” the concept of covenant is clearly a workable answer. The central facet around which we Unitarian Universalists gather is the way in which we gather, the set of promises we’ve made as to how we will be together. That is “covenanting” and that is what is at our center. A few years ago the president of our association, William Sinkford, spoke in Ithaca for a growth conference. When asked the question, what is at the center of our faith, he responded along these lines: that we are covenanting communities. We the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to be a diverse and supportive religious community. What binds us together as a faith community is the way we do religion rather that any particular belief statement.
While this is true, I take issue with it. The concept of covenant describes how we are together, not what we are together. Covenant is the vessel, the container; I want to be able to describe what is in that container. The Commission on Appraisal’s report basically said there isn’t anything inside the container; every individual person fills the vessel with their own stuff. “There is no there there,” just empty space. But I don’t believe that’s true.
It is hard to articulate what is at our core, not because it vague or contrived or non-existent, but because it is complex. Ours is an evolving faith. We grow as a people and who we are grows with us. We do, however, have a core theological belief that binds us together. 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, but all of them, Pagan, Theist, Humanist, Agnostic, they all hold the core belief that human beings have a basic worth, an essential and innate capacity to choose what is good. The enduring theological core of our evolving Unitarian Universalist faith is our radical understanding of human nature.
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.”
It was true then and it is true now. We cast a resounding opposition of the old doctrine of Original Sin. Human beings are not born with some cosmic divinely ordained flaw. We don’t need to be fixed. Sure, we have flaws -- we’ve got problems. But we believe in the transformative power of love, and that by addressing flaws and failings we can learn from them and grow. That’s what it means to be human. I’m not saying all human beings are always displaying their innate worth and goodness: witness world events and we can all see how untrue that statement would be. Humanity has got problems, to be sure, but they are our problems. Unitarian Universalism has at its core a belief that every person has worth and value.
When early Unitarians and Universalists declared their understanding of human nature, it was radical. It is radical still today. This is basically a very Humanist message. Religious Humanism focuses on life as we know it while letting its mysteries be. Religious Humanism says the question of God’s existence is irrelevant. It says: We are born, we live, and we die. This much we know, this much we can talk about. There is a great deal of suffering and injustice in the world that will not be dealt with by a magical, wish-fulfilling deity. The only way there will be change is if we do something about it. Deep down, we Unitarian Universalists are all Religious Humanists. It’s just that some of us also believe in God or the Goddess or an Eternal Spirit.
At one point in the Commission on Appraisal’s report, Engaging our Theological Diversity, they offer a big, long list of theological “tensions” where they said for each general topic “here is where we agree and here is where we disagree” yet there were three spots where they did not list any disagreement! The first one they list is: Human Nature “We agree that all human beings have worth and dignity and must be respected. We are optimistic about the human capacity for goodness but recognize that every person is capable of evil.” And they also reported that in a survey on beliefs, around 90% of both ministers and lay respondents considered as ‘highly important” the statement: Humans are bornwith the potential to be good; we are committed to nurturing good throughlove and learning. 90% agreement seems fairly convincing to me!
In 2001 Unitarian Universalist religious educators gathered in Essex shared significant essays focuses around three questions of consequence for Religious Education. The first question was “As we enter the 21st century, what is the core of our evolving Unitarian Universalist Faith?” Various essayist responded this question, Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker began her essay saying, “The core of our evolving Unitarian Universalist faith is humanistic concern that every being have its chance at life.” Others mentioned the First Principle, affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Others wrote of our commitment to justice and right-relations, which is an elegant and perhaps necessary expansion of an overly individualistic emphasis. In the introduction of his wonderful workbook, Building Your Own Theology, Richard Gilbert says Man may not be the measure of all things, but humanity certainly is the measurer of all things. Rev. Marilyn Sewell, in an essay for Ed Frost’s book, With Purpose and Principle writes: “The first principle is our foundation.” I am far from the first to suggest this possibility. And I am not a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. I and others are describing what is easy to see for those who look.
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.
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. 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!
The old Universalist professions of faith, such as the 1935 “Bond of Fellowship” which affirmed and added to the 1803 Winchester Profession, said,
We avow our faith in God as Eternal and All-conquering Love, in the spiritual leadership of Jesus, in the supreme worth of every human personality, in the authority of truth known and to be known, and in the power of men of good-will and sacrificial spirit to overcome all evil and progressively establish the Kingdom of God.”
Now that is theology! The phrase I’ll pull on this morning is, “The supreme worth of every human personality.” That’s a phrase that carried into the 1961 statement of Principles and Purposes: “The supreme worth of every human personality.” The 1985 version we know have (and are now beginning to restate) shifted the language from “supreme” to “inherent”
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 no 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 Divine Seed within. He said, “I reverence human nature too much to do it violence.”
Channing didn’t claim we did only good deeds. “I shut my eyes on none of its weaknesses and crimes.” He wrote. “But injured, trampled on, and scorned as our nature is, I still turn to it with intense sympathy and strong hope.” Channing never claimed we only did good deeds; he still saw humanity as flawed. He saw in us the connection of God; he didn’t claim we were God. That came later, through Emerson and others after him.
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. As it says in the Humanist Manifesto, “Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams.” And in the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II, it says, “The preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central humanist value.”
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, then 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. Curtis Reese, Unitarian minister from 1920’s and 30’s and one of the signers of the original Humanist Manifesto, 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 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… 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. Margot Adler, a pagan Unitarian Universalist, writes of her faith saying,
As I read these writers [such as Thoreau, Loren Eiseley, and Rachel Carson], I was having what I can only describe now as religious feelings. I saw this literature was about our whole relationship to the universe; it showed that everything was interconnected. It helped me understand my place in the universe in a way I had never understood it before. (UU World, Vol. X, No. 6, Nov/Dec 1996, p 14)
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. Creeds are prescriptive, what I offer is descriptive. 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. But there are basic theological agreements among us as well.
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 capacity to choose the good. 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.
Now, this perspective I offer is by no means a foregone conclusion. There are ready critiques. Let me unpack a few of them for you. A few years ago, the minister of the First UU Church of Autsin, Tx, Dr. Davidson Loehr delivered an address at SUUSI entitled Why “Unitarian Universalism” is Dying. Loehr is a profound thinker among us and offers weighty theological observations about our way of faith – or the lack of it. In his address, among many other critiques, he leveled the complaint that we have no theological perspectives of our own. That Unitarian Universalism is not a religion, that when we consolidated Unitarianism and Universalism we created this new thing that turned out to be seriously wanting theologically. Does that sound familiar? At one point he dissects the First Principle, affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person; claiming that not only is this statement theologically vacuous, more poignantly he says we don’t even abide by it.
‘Inherent’ would mean it’s there from the moment of conception rather than being added later – after sixth grade, or when the college loans are repaid. But if we actually believe that all zygotes had inherent worth and dignity, wouldn’t this principle mean we must oppose abortion, as it destroys individuals of inherent worth and dignity? Yet we’re clear that abortion isn’t murder because the fetus isn’t a child and doesn’t have inherent worth and dignity that merits saving.
Think about this. That means this alleged worth and dignity are not inherent but – perhaps to coin a word – adherent: not there from conception but somehow added later. Well, when? And how? This principle dissolves as soon as it is examined.
I think part of the problem Loehr points out is accurate and is our problem, but I think part of it is also an overstatement that is Loehr’s problem. The first principle is a weak rendering of the core doctrine of human nature I have been talking about. While I have scattered several ways of saying it around, there is an important distinction between “we are all precious and have inherent worth” and “to be human is to have the capacity for both good and evil.” I agree with Loehr’s implication that our seven Principles are a pale reflection of deeper theological content that few seem to care much about these days. The part of his critique that I take issue with is the way in which he oversimplifies the principle to make his point, setting up a bit of a ‘straw man’ to knock down. But then, we do make it easy for him. We Unitarian Universalists have been oversimplifying the theology behind the principles for years.
A second critique also comes from outside of Unitarian Universalism. In 1998 we invited sociologist and author Robert Bellah to address the General Assembly and he took the opportunity to poke at our vaunted individualism. He’d been doing that all along to the American cultural love of the individual so I’m sure no one was surprise by his focus. The most telling remark in his essay is this, “We started from an ontological individualism, the idea that individuals are real, society is secondary.” This is found in our understanding that believers give rise to the church, rather than the church giving rise to believers. Think about that for a minute. The believers gather together and create the church – that’s what we say a church is! But doesn’t the church also give rise to believers? Have you been changed by your participation? Are you growing here? Are you deepening?
Bellah finally suggest,
Give up ontological individualism and affirm that human nature is fundamentally social. This would mean making “the interdependent web of all existence” the first of your principles and not the last.
But to do so would be historically hypocritical. Our first principle is the primary principle carried throughout our shared history. Certainly it was not always listed first or even at the forefront, but it is the one that has sailed through all the evolving stages of our identity. Lord Acton once said, “Every institution finally perishes by an excess of its own first principle.” I would suggest that a better use of Bellah’s observations (and Lord Acton’s) is to work hard to bring more relational and group work into our congregational living. The flourishing of Small Group Ministry and Covenant Groups is a fine step toward balancing our over-emphasized individualism. But I think we would cease to be Unitarian Universalists if we quit our commitment to the individual freedom of conscience with our doctrine of Human Nature at the core. Instead let us honor it and work hard to balance it.
A third critique comes from former president of the UUA and Director of Amnesty International, William Schulz. Schulz delivered the 2006 Berry Street Lecture to our colleagues. A later version of the essay was published in the UU World (Vol. XX, No 4, Winter 2006, p 30 – 36). He wrote:
Our doctrines about human nature, such as the Unitarian Universalist Association’s affirmation of “the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” rests uneasily in a world full of torturers. In what sense can we defend the notion that a torturer is a person of inherent worth and dignity?”
That is a daunting critique. Our seven principles distinctly lack any foothold to begin discussing evil, and I can think of no other word for what Schulz is referring to other than evil. While Loehr’s arguments centered on the hypocrisy of our use of the word “inherent,” Schulz zeros in instead on the how the “inherency” leaves out the capacity to commit evil. What I’m seeing is that our current articulation of our Principles and Purposes is being read as doctrine but it is shallow doctrine. Our Principles and Purposes are currently failing us. They offer us nothing in terms of dealing with evil beyond a call for justice. As a tangent, the theological concept of forgiveness has also been found lacking in our current Principles and Purposes statement. The youth have pointed this out to me.
And allow me one final critique. I sent several sermons to my colleague David Bumbaugh who, as I said earlier, is now serving as a professor at Meadville Lombard. I’d had a conversation with him earlier this year about this topic, mentioned that I would be delivering this address and asked him his opinion of it. I sent him a few sermons I had preached that raise these issues. He sent me back a most compelling question. “To whom are we responsible?” He articulated that Humanists and even Theists now “no longer see God as a partner to their commitments and obligations.” In the concept of covenant, a promise between two parties, God was a third party guarantor if you will that our promises would be kept. David asks,
What, in our time, functions as God once functioned to ensure that we are true to our commitments, keep our promises, and honor our larger obligations?
The concept of covenant rests on the premise that the parties involved in the covenant have the capacity to understand and morally follow through on the obligations entailed therein. This implies a basic affirmation of this doctrine of Human Nature found scattered throughout our history and contemporary documents. When we speak of being a covenantal faith we are working as if humanity has the authority to enter into covenants, as if we have the moral, intellectual, and spiritual capacity to do this work. Perhaps I am letting God off the hook by suggesting we focus on our doctrine of human nature to uncover the binding power of our covenanting communities. David’s question still remains, what in our theology calls us to abide by our promises? In what way does our faith call us to fulfill our commitments? I’m afraid all I can do is pass such a question on to you.
Our theology of human nature allows an amazing leeway in terms of free will, choice, and obligation to follow through. When compared with other such doctrines, we are radical. When we look at our shared doctrine of human nature saying that every one of us is precious and capable of good and evil we see the implications echo right down the line of all we do as a people. Our emphasis on social justice, our commitment to diversity, our love of the environment and our place in its intricate web, our dedication to the education of our children, our fondness for the democratic process, our loyalty to civil liberties and the freedom of belief, our appreciation of beautiful music and art; all these strong values arise from our core belief statement at the heart of our faith that each human being is of value; that every person matters.
We have a deep commitment to tolerance in our congregations. Your faith is your own, it will not be coerced. Our theological diversity covers a breadth that is frankly startling and confusing to others from more traditional, belief-based faith traditions. We tolerate a lot of variety among us. But that is not the last word on the subject. Tolerance won’t get us all the way there. There are limits to tolerance.
The last word is this: We are in this together. We are in this to make life better. We are in this to encourage and be encouraged in our deepening journeys because we recognize and honor the freedom of conscience: that each one of us has within us that holy spark, that divine seed, that basic and innate capacity for good. Ours is a message of blessing and acceptance, that every person has an innate value and worth, even the ones you disagree with or do not like. On Association Sunday as we gather to celebrate and fund our message for the growth and betterment of our movement – let us proclaim without cringing that we bring a message that each person has a capacity to choice between good and evil. It is a message that calls us through the hurt and the promise to treat one another with care and with justice.
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