JUUF

Rev. Sarah Schurr, November 7, 2010

Some of you may remember 1961.   A lot was going on that year.  The cold war was in full swing and construction had begun on the Berlin Wall.  A gallon of gas cost just 27 cents and you could get a nice new car for under $3000.  John F. Kennedy was inaugurated President of the United States and established the Peace Corps.  The Freedom Riders began their bus trips to the south.  Yuri Gagarian made history as the first earthling to travel in space.  “The Pony” was the newest dance craze.  Popular movies included Breakfast at Tiffany’s and West Side Story.  Mr. Ed, the talking horse, made his Television debut.  And a little boy named Barak Obama was born, in Hawaii.  It was quite a year.

Another important thing happened that year, though I doubt it got as much news coverage as the space race.  The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America officially consolidated and became the Unitarian Universalist Association. This merger had been a very long time in the making and was not without its controversy. But that year Unitarian Churches and Universalist Churches all over the country had a new affiliation, often a new name, and they began to build a new identity.  If you talk to older people who have been in our faith for more than 50 years they can tell you which one they had been – Unitarian or Universalist.  You see both the Unitarians and the Universalists have a very long and proud history going back many hundreds of years.  We come from two truly amazing religious traditions. They have much in common but also some unique qualities.  Today I want to talk a little bit about our two proud heritages, the Unitarians and the Universalists – who they were, where they came from, and what they believed.  And we will look at the product of their union – the Unitarian Universalists.  What fine traditions have we carried forward from our ancestors, and which group do we resemble most today, 50 years later?

First, let’s talk about the Unitarians.    We come from the Judeo-Christian tradition – those people in the Bible.  In the years just after Jesus died, his followers had a lot of trouble getting organized and figuring out who they were.  Were they Jews, were they something else?  Eventually a new religion emerged called Christianity, but it was pretty disorganized.  Emperor Constantine, being a smart man, knew he couldn’t control this new church if it was not unified, so in the year 325 he gathered all the leaders of groups who referred to themselves as Christian and asked them to come up with a joint statement of faith and some kind of organization.  This was the Council of Nicaea and anyone who grew up saying the Nicene Creed knows the words of the statement of faith that they came up with.  Many of the phrases in the Nicene Creed (like “begotten not made”) were put in to respond specifically to a particular group of early Christians that was seen as annoyingly heretical – the followers of Arius.  I and many others think of these folks as the earliest Unitarians.  They read their Bible carefully and this lead them to believe there was one God who created everything in the universe, including Jesus.  A majority of the early Christian leaders at the meeting believed that Jesus was as much a God as the creator and so must have also existed since the beginning of time and was not the creation of anything.  The majority won and the new Christian Church grew up with the idea of the trinity, three equal aspects of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They were Trinitarians.   Those who lost, the followers of Arius, were called Unitarians because they believed in only one God.  They became very active in Eastern Europe and spread their form of Christian teachings around the far edges of the Roman Empire.   This rare brand of Unitarian Christianity, outside the Orthodoxy of the Roman or the Greek Churches, tended to be relatively tolerant of difference.  King Sigismund of Transylvania was a Unitarian King in the 1500’s.  He declared that his subjects could use their own conscience in choosing their form of worship and not necessarily follow the King’s faith. If you go on a pilgrimage to Eastern Europe today, you can still find Unitarian Churches that are over 800 years old.  A historic form of Unitarianism is still practiced in Transylvania. These Unitarians read the Bible, pray ancient prayers, and they believe in one loving God.  Our sisters and brothers in Transylvania faced great oppression during the communist era in Romania but held on to their strong faith. Many UU congregations in the US are in partner church relationships with Unitarian congregations in Transylvania, offering a chance for mutual support and cultural exchange.

Back to our history - the writings of the early Unitarians and followers of Arius were picked up by religious philosophers in England after the reformation – folks like Biddle, Lindsey and Joseph Priestley (who was a famous chemist as well as a minister). Like their ancestors who followed Arius, they honored the use of reason as well as Biblical study in finding religious truth.  These ideas came to America with the pilgrims and American Unitarian Church we know and love grew out of a liberal movement within the New England Congregationalists. It had been brewing for a long time and in 1819 Rev. William Ellery Channing “came out” as a Unitarian and called on his like minded friends to do the same.  He preached about one loving God who made humans in his own image of goodness, not depravity, and how the man Jesus, in his wisdom and compassion, was the best example to us of how a person should live.  This was a stark contrast to the popular Calvinists with their sermons on humans as a depraved creatures who could only be saved by the death of God’s only Son.  Channing, often called the father of American Unitarianism, preached that the words of Jesus that you read in the Bible are good and true.  But they are not true because Jesus said them; Jesus said them because they were true.  Unitarianism was popular among American philosophers like Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson and was popular with many of the power-elite of Boston.   Unitarians had a profound influence on the US constitution, on American literature, and our members funded many, many important social programs.  In the 20th century, the blossoming of humanism became closely linked with many Unitarian societies.  Our emphasis on reason as a source of truth and the nobility of human kind made this a natural relationship that is still honored in our congregations today.

Now let’s shift to the Universalists.  The other side of our family tree.   For these roots we go way, way back – earlier than the roots of the Unitarians, to an early Christian scholar named Origen of Alexandria.  He began his writings around the year 200.  Given the time and place in which he lived he was very strongly influenced by the classic Greek philosophers.  Origen was an early supporter of the Trinity, though he believed that Jesus was a lesser God than the Father Creator.  What was unique about Origen’s doctrine is that he believed that, after death, all souls would eventually be redeemed.  No one experience eternal damnation, no matter who they were.  All would be united with God in the end. I think it is interesting that our most previous Roman Catholic Pope, John Paul II, picked up this idea and Universal Salvation was on it’s way to becoming part of modern Catholic doctrine before he died.  Sadly, that plan died with him – for now.

This idea that everyone was saved no one would suffer eternal damnation, was referred to as Universal Salvation, thus the name Universalist. This idea was popular with many of the liberal groups that emerged at the time of the Protestant Reformation.  These include the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, the liberal Methodists, and the Quakers.   Again, this was in stark contrast to the Calvinists who believed in the select elect, where God would save some people and damn others and no one knew for sure which list they were on.

Universalism came to America through the story we heard with the children at our congregation retreat last year. It is a story of the farmer, Thomas Potter, who dreamed a Universalist Minister would come to his church and Rev. John Murray who’s ship was stuck outside Potter’s town when the wind stopped blowing.  John Murray brought this doctrine of Universal salvation to the pulpits of American Churches when he said, “Give them not Hell, but hope and courage.  Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”  In the early 1800’s Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou took up the charge and became a loud voice for the Universalists Gospel of a loving God who would save all his children. At one point it is estimated that Universalist Christianity was the 9th largest religious group in America. Not bad for a denomination no one has ever heard of these days. It was a very popular church with social reformers like abolitionists and suffragists.  It was also popular among some who enjoyed Spiritualism – those in the 1800’s who preformed séances in order to speak with the dead.

Remember I said that merger between the Unitarians and the Universalists took place in 1961, but it was a long time coming.  The first commission on merger was in 1899.  Heck, the Universalists and the Unitarians only got organized enough to have formal denominations themselves in the early to mid 1800’s and within a few decades they were already talking about merger.   But they didn’t merge until 1961. What took them so long?  What was stopping them.  By the time merger was being discussed, it wasn’t polity and church hierarchy.   Both groups used Congregation Polity, the leadership system where each congregation was a self sustaining unit that made decisions on their own, with no bossing from the bishop or the main office. Both groups believed in a person’s right to their own conscience and free association within a church.  No church power structure could hand down edicts to the people.  I don’t think it was even theology that kept the Unitarians and the Universalists apart.  That is what brought them together in the 1800s.  Both groups were considered to be on the liberal fringe of Christianity.   They both believed that people were born with good clean souls and that people were capable of making the world a better place.  They both believed that the Bible was an important source of religious teachings but that it should be read with an open mind, not a literal reading of the Bible.  Neither group was afraid of eternal damnation or a wrathful God.

No, many have said that the thing that kept them apart was their culture.  There is an old joke that says the difference between the Unitarians and the Universalists is that the Universalists believed God was too good to damn them to hell and the Unitarians believed they were too good to be damned.  Yes, Unitarian theology has always emphasized the nobility of the human spirit but it this joke also points at another quality. The Unitarians in were often the Blue Blooded Harvard graduates living in or near Boston.  They prided themselves on their impeccably well educated members as well as clergy.  Even though Harvard Divinity School is not officially a UU seminary, it has always been one of the more common places for our Unitarian ministers to be educated.  Until right before the merger, nearly all Unitarians lived in large cities, and mostly on the east coast.   The Unitarian Universalist Association is divided into districts.  Our Pacific Northwest District is made up of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.   The Mass Bay district is made up of the Boston Metropolitan Area.  You can take a subway from one end of the district to another.  In the 1950’s, the American Unitarian Association worked to plant many lay led congregations in communities outside of large metropolitan areas, and they grew the denomination a great deal. That was the Fellowship Movement and our congregation is part of this great project.  But almost all these groups were planted in college towns and they drew heavily on the professors as founding members of these new small town congregations.

Universalism, the other hand, was very popular in the Midwest.  They were often farmers or teachers. In fact the Universalists were very big on starting schools next to their churches.  But, with a few exceptions, these were not prestigious Universities but schools to help working class and poor students improve their lives.  Universalists were very community oriented.  The saying was that since we were all going to be together in heaven we might as well get along here on earth.  The Universalists were doers.  One of most famous is Clara Barton, who tended the sick during the Civil War and began the American Red Cross.

Universalist clergy tended to be less educated and more moved by passion in their preaching style than the formal Unitarians.   This resulted in the Unitarian ministers not wanting to be associated with their Universalist colleagues who would speak in tents with an animated style and imperfect grammar.  There were problems when the lay leaders met as well.  Unitarians liked to debate everything – in a style similar to the Jewish scholars in debate of religious issues. It was their way and they took great pleasure in these intellectual exchanges. Universalists were turned off by this kind of thing and thought the Unitarians were mean and argumentative.  Where was God’s love demonstrated in these people who argued all the time?

What finally got the merger going was the kids.  The Unitarian and Universalist youth groups met together for years before the merger. First the youth, then with women who ran the Sunday Schools (yes, it was pretty much all women) – they began to work on projects together and so, but 1961, the youth, women and children were already together.  It just took the leadership to catch up.

So we modern Unitarian Universalists, who are we?  Which of our parents do we look like, the Unitarian side or the Universalist side?  I think the answer is something like when you look at a child and say, “they have their mother’s eyes but their father’s smile”.  We are a mix of both.  In terms of demographics, we pretty closely resemble our Unitarian side of the family.   We are most likely to be urban folks with higher education. Not all, but this is the majority.  It is not uncommon to read a UU church newsletter where they introduce new members by telling us what degrees they have. Even our more remote congregation tend to be in college towns.  The academic standards for clergy are rigorous –which is not a bad thing.  We are not so big in the Midwest these days. There are only about 100 in UUs in all of South Dakota, yet there are 3 large UU churches in downtown Boston alone. Though we strive for diversity I think we are often more comfortable with black lawyers than we are with white truck drivers. I have to say that this congregation is better than most of our congregations about truly welcoming people of all walks of life.  Our association’s name is also more likely to be shortened from Unitarian Universalists to just Unitarian.  The jokes on Prairie Home Companion and the Simpsons usually shorten it that way.  I know that if I tell people I am a Unitarian Universalist minister they often say, “you mean Unity?” or “was that Unification?  If I say I am a Unitarian minister, they are more likely to get it.  Yes, what to name this new church was going to be was a huge issue at the time of merger and when they chose to call us Unitarian Universalists, the Universalist fears did come true.  They do often have their name left out.  We are often just called, “Unitarian”.

I have heard many people say that Universalism is dead, I really disagree. Theologically, I think we look more and more like our Universalist side of the family all the time.  Look at our first principle. “We respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person”.  All of us are important and wonderful in our own way. That sounds pretty Universalist to me. That harkens back to the idea of Universal salvation – we all get to go to whatever heaven their might or might not be. No one is left behind. It is reflected in the  hymns we adopted in the newer hymnals, like the one where we sing about how we’re all going to sit at the welcome table.  I also believe that our burgeoning renewal of spirituality comes from our Universalist side of the family.  I don’t mean that we hold séances.  I  mean how we sing things like  “Spirit of Life – come unto me” and more and more UU congregations are making use of prayer in the services, even if they don’t say who they are praying to.   We are moving past debate as our major form of spiritual practice and embracing some holy experiences, be they meditation or reading Sufi poets or taking part in Taize worship.  We haven’t abandoned our Harvard roots, but we are becoming slowly more and more open to instinct and insight as wisdom and the sacredness of everyday life. And when we act on our beliefs in area of social justice, we still fund service projects and write essays, like our Unitarian ancestors.  This good work and it is part of how we make the world a better place. But we also hit the streets and get our hands dirty, like the Universalists. We take progressive and sometimes unpopular stands on important issues in society. Just this summer a number of UU leaders, including our President the Rev. Peter Morales, were arrested for their efforts protesting the immigration laws in Arizona. This looks to me like our Universalist side of the family showing.

So why does any of this matter.  I matters because where we have been contributes to where we are going.  Where we as Unitarian Universalists are going as a people of faith and what will we be able to accomplish in our next 50 years.  Maybe our efforts with the “standing on the side of love” campaign will make marriage equality a reality so all loving couples have the right to be married.  Maybe our ongoing efforts with youth and young adults will open up new doors to more and more young people who want to be spiritually in touch and religiously genuine and yet who don’t want to check their minds at the door.

As an association, we are looking seriously at issues of diversity.  I know you celebrated association Sunday a few weeks ago and this move toward diversity was the theme for this year’s asocial Sunday celebrations. Maybe in our future we can look like the classic Universalists and the Unitarian roots and also welcome some folks we would not have had in our pews in the past.  Here is what UUA President Peter Morales has to say. “We want congregations that are spiritually deep places where strong and enduring relationships can flourish, and that are engaged in their communities as sources of moral vision and effective action. We want our religious homes to be truly multi-generational and reflect the racial and cultural diversity of the wider world. And, we want professional religious leaders who are visionary, spiritual, innovative, and diverse.”  To me, this seems like a great place to be heading.  I look forward to a future where we can be multicultural and multigenerational.  I look forward to our congregations being even more engaged in our communities as a leading source of justice making work. In the year 2061, I will be too old to preach.  But some other minister will get up here and reflect on our Unitarian Universalist faith, where we came from and what the UUA has done in it’s 100 years in this country.   Who knows, maybe it will be one of the kids from our religious education program.  I hope it is great sermon.  I hope we can all work together to give that minister something really amazing to talk about.  I hope they can preach how we became a church where all kinds of people were exposed to the fact that we can be liberal and religious and spiritual and intellectual all at the same time.  That we really became a faith recognized in this country by our how we live our values to make a better world.   Our religion should not be a spectator sport. We are the Unitarian Universalists and we have a bright future to build together. May it be so.