The Faith Which Is In Us
The Faith Which Is In Us
by Derek Lee Parker
In a previous professional incarnation, I worked as a paleontologist and curator at a small
research museum in Ohio. Part of my training for that work had been done at Chicago’s Field
Museum of Natural History where I took classes on genetic taxonomy, paleobotany, and the
evolution of mammals. I remember a zoology exam where I was given what turned out to be the
skull of a platypus, which I wrongly identified as the skull of a goose.
There are some things which we encounter in life, which force us to reconsider how we classify
things. If it has a bill like a goose, has webbed feet like a goose, and lays eggs like a goose, is it
a goose? When it comes to the platypus, what about all that troublesome hair and those milk
glands?
When I began attending Unitarian Universalist churches, I was told that Humanism meant certain
things largely defined by a 1933 document called “The Humanist Manifesto”. Humanism meant
finding truth through the scientific method. Humanism meant that all religious systems involving
God were obsolete. Humanism meant the triumph of reason over all things that could not be
rationally proved. The first part intrigued this young scientist. Growing up in the Lutheran Church
of the Missouri Synod, religious openness to science was a fabled gem that I could not find in my
home church. The other reputed aspects of Humanism bothered me. It reminded me of the way
my childhood church argued that Christianity made Judaism obsolete. That kind of supremacism
felt presumptuous to me, no matter if it came from a Humanist or a Lutheran. Additionally I knew
that not everything in the human experience was subject to rational proof. The beauty I find in
Salvador Dali’s artwork is hardly a mathematical theorem or scientific proof. I may love his work,
but somebody somewhere probably finds his paintings ugly.
When I was new to Unitarianism and Universalism I decided that I did not like the way Humanism
sliced the liberal religious pie. What had been presented to me could not fit with integrity into my
human experience. I have always loved science, and the discovery of Nature’s order. But I also
did not want to arrogantly dismiss the human experiences of billions of people who had
encountered divinity in some form. Nor did I want to neglect the less rational glories of being
human: poetry, artwork, drama, as well as my emotions. Of these issues, the God issue became
increasingly problematic. In my 33 years I’ve had three mystical experiences that I have come to
best understand as being encounters with the presence of God. Should I deny these things,
because like the bill on a platypus, they do not cleanly fit into the traditional definitions?
Our Unitarian prophet Theodore Parker, once asked questions about what was permanent and
what was transient in Christianity. Are the rituals and the creeds permanent or transient? Are the
ethics of Jesus permanent or transient? In recent years I’ve found myself I asking questions
about what is permanent and transient about Humanism.
One of the pleasant surprises in my search for answers came in the form of a theologian named
Giovanni Pico della Mirandolla, who in 1486 wrote Oration On the Dignity of Man. Considered by
many to be a founding document for Humanistic religious thought, in it Pico argued from a
Christian context that humanity is defined by its quest for knowledge grounded in human
experience. From this point forward I found a long lineage of thinkers including Erasmus of
Rotterdam (1466-1536), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), and Don Cupitt
(born 1934); for whom Humanism was and continues to be a Christian school of theology. Here
was a theological platypus that forced me to rethink my classifications.
I believe that for far too long some Universalists and Unitarians have accepted definitions of
Christianity and Humanism that are narrow and mutually exclusive. I feel called to move beyond
this divide towards a more convergent spirituality. What is permanent about Humanism? Being
anti-Christian? Believing that the only things worth knowing are those things which can be
scientifically proven? Thinking that other religions are obsolete? I no longer think that these are
the permanent and defining characteristics of Humanism.
Humanistic religion, whether Christian or not, whether theistic or non-theistic, is a faith which is in
us. It is the faith in us, in so far as it makes the throne of religious meaning-making both human
experience and human reason. This faith is broadly within humanity’s science and mysticism,
objective reason and subjective creativity, and within both our experiences of God and our
experiences of “no-God”. And if there are any people capable of advocating both Humanism
and Christianity in broad and inclusive terms, it should be those of us who call ourselves
Universalist. Anything less might make a goose out of a platypus.
The Rev. Derek Lee Parker holds joint standing with both the UUA and the Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers). He presently serves as Education Minister at the Friends Meeting of
Irvington, Indiana.
by Derek Lee Parker
In a previous professional incarnation, I worked as a paleontologist and curator at a small
research museum in Ohio. Part of my training for that work had been done at Chicago’s Field
Museum of Natural History where I took classes on genetic taxonomy, paleobotany, and the
evolution of mammals. I remember a zoology exam where I was given what turned out to be the
skull of a platypus, which I wrongly identified as the skull of a goose.
There are some things which we encounter in life, which force us to reconsider how we classify
things. If it has a bill like a goose, has webbed feet like a goose, and lays eggs like a goose, is it
a goose? When it comes to the platypus, what about all that troublesome hair and those milk
glands?
When I began attending Unitarian Universalist churches, I was told that Humanism meant certain
things largely defined by a 1933 document called “The Humanist Manifesto”. Humanism meant
finding truth through the scientific method. Humanism meant that all religious systems involving
God were obsolete. Humanism meant the triumph of reason over all things that could not be
rationally proved. The first part intrigued this young scientist. Growing up in the Lutheran Church
of the Missouri Synod, religious openness to science was a fabled gem that I could not find in my
home church. The other reputed aspects of Humanism bothered me. It reminded me of the way
my childhood church argued that Christianity made Judaism obsolete. That kind of supremacism
felt presumptuous to me, no matter if it came from a Humanist or a Lutheran. Additionally I knew
that not everything in the human experience was subject to rational proof. The beauty I find in
Salvador Dali’s artwork is hardly a mathematical theorem or scientific proof. I may love his work,
but somebody somewhere probably finds his paintings ugly.
When I was new to Unitarianism and Universalism I decided that I did not like the way Humanism
sliced the liberal religious pie. What had been presented to me could not fit with integrity into my
human experience. I have always loved science, and the discovery of Nature’s order. But I also
did not want to arrogantly dismiss the human experiences of billions of people who had
encountered divinity in some form. Nor did I want to neglect the less rational glories of being
human: poetry, artwork, drama, as well as my emotions. Of these issues, the God issue became
increasingly problematic. In my 33 years I’ve had three mystical experiences that I have come to
best understand as being encounters with the presence of God. Should I deny these things,
because like the bill on a platypus, they do not cleanly fit into the traditional definitions?
Our Unitarian prophet Theodore Parker, once asked questions about what was permanent and
what was transient in Christianity. Are the rituals and the creeds permanent or transient? Are the
ethics of Jesus permanent or transient? In recent years I’ve found myself I asking questions
about what is permanent and transient about Humanism.
One of the pleasant surprises in my search for answers came in the form of a theologian named
Giovanni Pico della Mirandolla, who in 1486 wrote Oration On the Dignity of Man. Considered by
many to be a founding document for Humanistic religious thought, in it Pico argued from a
Christian context that humanity is defined by its quest for knowledge grounded in human
experience. From this point forward I found a long lineage of thinkers including Erasmus of
Rotterdam (1466-1536), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), and Don Cupitt
(born 1934); for whom Humanism was and continues to be a Christian school of theology. Here
was a theological platypus that forced me to rethink my classifications.
I believe that for far too long some Universalists and Unitarians have accepted definitions of
Christianity and Humanism that are narrow and mutually exclusive. I feel called to move beyond
this divide towards a more convergent spirituality. What is permanent about Humanism? Being
anti-Christian? Believing that the only things worth knowing are those things which can be
scientifically proven? Thinking that other religions are obsolete? I no longer think that these are
the permanent and defining characteristics of Humanism.
Humanistic religion, whether Christian or not, whether theistic or non-theistic, is a faith which is in
us. It is the faith in us, in so far as it makes the throne of religious meaning-making both human
experience and human reason. This faith is broadly within humanity’s science and mysticism,
objective reason and subjective creativity, and within both our experiences of God and our
experiences of “no-God”. And if there are any people capable of advocating both Humanism
and Christianity in broad and inclusive terms, it should be those of us who call ourselves
Universalist. Anything less might make a goose out of a platypus.
The Rev. Derek Lee Parker holds joint standing with both the UUA and the Religious Society of
Friends (Quakers). He presently serves as Education Minister at the Friends Meeting of
Irvington, Indiana.
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