UNIVERSALISM: MAKING THE SOUL SMILE
UNIVERSALISM: MAKING THE SOUL SMILE
by Patrick Murfin
At its core universalism is simply the stubborn refusal to believe that the universe is malevolent.
It has been dressed up and silk and satin, coarse homespun, saffron robes, the quaint attire of
countless clans and folk cultures, but that is the one absolute that unites them all whether they
would recognize the label “universalist” or not. It dwells within us today not because of historic
connections, although those connections are undeniable, not because of the bonds of
denomination, though bonds are strong, but because we generally share that simple affirmation.
In the earliest days of The Church, before there even was really any Church at all, when the
very breath of Joshua Bin Josef, called Jesus the Nazarene still seemed to rustle the palm fronds
and whisper through the olive groves, many of his fumble followers believed his word had
changed everything. Yahweh, the fierce and jealous Sky God, who demanded sacrifice,
punished those who would not shower Him with unremitting flattery, and tormented those
tempted by the charms of neighboring gods was transformed. By Jesus, through Jesus, for
Jesus, it made no real difference. Jesus, part and parcel with God himself, Jesus the Son, Jesus
the Spirit, Jesus the Man Messenger, it made no difference. What did matter was that Jesus was
somehow mixed up with this new God, a God of forgiveness, of love, of a righteousness that
transformed lives rather than adhering with blind obedience to lifeless ritual, a God of Jews and
Gentiles a like yearning for reconciliation with all of his people.
The God that Jesus brought to these people wanted to gather them all to him, to elevate them
somehow after earthly death to a place by his side in Paradise. The people were happy in this
thought. Of course a Bishop here and a Bishop there might, in brotherly correspondence differ
as to the details of the arrangements. Some Jews still clove to Jesus as their particular Messiah.
Up in the Hellenic world some obsessed with ways to fit the message into the systems of the
Greek Philosophers. For a long time, despite Roman persecutions most of these new Christians,
as they had come to call themselves, were united in this cheerful universalism.
For others the gods were the Old Wise Ones who chuckled at humanity’s foolishness while
forgiving its folly. There were trickster gods ever ready to teach a gentle lesson. There were the
enveloping arms and nurturing breasts of Mother Goddesses. Life for these folks was a
blessing, not a curse which must be endured. Every tree and stone manifested the goodness of
creation which was inseparable from the holy. These people, too, were universalists.
In the East Lao Tse taught his followers about the light and the dark, the light in the dark, the yin
and the yang. Some would read his teachings and believe that they were about enduring without
complaint the evils and trials that the world rained down upon them. Placid acceptance was seen
to be the key. Resistance or any measure to change one’s lot or station was considered a
shameful arrogance and a disruption of a cosmic unity—another bleak hope for the oppressed
and a comfort for the oppressors. Yet otherd would read the same teachings and always find the
yin buried deeply in the yang, the hope in the depths of despair. These were universalists.
The subtlety of the Hindu system, which so entranced Ralph Waldo Emerson, acknowledged the
essential unity of one great, unifying divinity which we in the West might call God. But such a god
was so great, so powerful, so vast, and so unfathomable that he/she/it could only be
comprehended by humans in diverse and particular manifestations. In the Hindu tradition the
three main faces of God, were Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the
Destroyer. In addition each of these had a female mate/counterpart with similar properties and
powers. And all had further incarnations, forms and avatars each with special powers and
characteristics. Below this trinity were literally thousands of other names of God with a
bewildering array of human and non-human faces each representing a subtle but unique
attribute of the essentially infinite. In such a system devotees couldn pick and choose which face
of God, which incarnation to worship. Thus one religious tradition birthed a thousand cults.
Those who see the world as corrupt and evil could choose to worship Shiva and his feminine
counterpart Kali, the wrathful angel of destruction bent on scourging humanity of its sins. Others
could select from the Avatars of Lord Vishnu including Krisha the Divine Lover, Balaran or
Buddha the Sage, or Kalki the completer and savior. These celebrated the light and the
goodness of creation, the infinite perfectibility of humanity. And these were universalists.
The followers of the Buddha would have little truck with Christian notions of salvation, bodily
resurrection, and eternal life in the dazzling company of the Almighty. God or gods were
unimportant to them, trifles if they existed, meaningless in their absence. Instead they believed
that a well lived life--reverent, kind and generous—which also cultivated inner peace, serenity
and openness to a greater, non-personal holiness which united the universe, was the essential
religion. But some Buddhists would come to view the world as its own kind of Hell and the
endless rounds of re-incarnation of the soul in various states of degradation a just punishment
until enlightenment can be achieved and escape from all travail made possible by the blissful
nothingness of union with the greater. It was a bleak world and forlorn hope nearly impossible to
achieve. Yet others, professing on the surface the same beliefs, managed to find bliss in each
drawn breath, each moment lived with perfect awareness of the marvelous now, each connection
with another soul, its own echo of the vastness of the universal One. They were universalists
Back in the West, the Church ossified into a powerful monolith with vast temporal as well a
celestial authority. But always, somewhere, some heedless soul would pop up and wonder at the
fragility of the imposing edifice. On reading scripture for themselves, which be came possible
after the invention of the printing press, they found that doctrines of original sin, damnation, and
the identity of Jesus with the substance of God were no where to found in his teachings as
recorded in the Gospels. The Protestant Reformation was off and running as men and women
relied on their own reason to parse out the meaning of scripture. The Reformation shot off in
different and contradictory directions. In many places, as among the German Anabaptists, some
English Quakers, and other, the joyous insights of universalism were rediscovered
On the other hand John Calvin in Geneva, John Knox in Edinburgh and others went in an
entirely different direction. Central to the dispute between Luther and the Church which had
started the Reformation was the concept of Salvation by Good Works—the idea that an
exemplary life filled with charity and beneficence (especially to needy clergy or church coffers)
could win salvation. All of the Reformers maintained that salvation was solely a gift of grace by
God and could not be earned except by utter faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God and the only
Savior. All others, the vast majority, were condemned to eternal damnation and nothing they
could do, say, or profess would change the outcome.
This was the religion of the Pilgrim Fathers, of the Puritans, and even the dissenters like the
Methodists and Baptists. But on New England stone farms and in Pennsylvania taverns the
notion grew that this Calvinism of predestination and election was so much poppycock. Thus was
universalism born in this country. The Good News went out that God was both loving and
forgiving, unwilling to cast any of his children into torments. Spread by the likes of George de
Bennville, Elhanan Winchester, John Murray, Caleb Rich and Hosea Ballou universalism grew
into Universalism, one of America’s leading denominations.
Universalism’s pious adherents were mostly simple folk—farmers and artisans, laborers and
petty merchants, the slat of the earth types from country side to rural village to industrializing
town. They were happy in the sure joy that they were destined to sit with God. And not just
themselves alone as a reward for placing the correct bet on the winning theology, they knew
they would share Glory with all of humanity. They wanted to manifest their gratitude to God by
living exemplary lives deserving of His gracious Gift. They also treasured reason and the ability
of human beings to be agents for change in their own lives and communities. They saw it as
their job to make a heaven on earth reflecting the Paradise to come. In such a world justice
would “flow down like water in never ending streams.” So they fought against slavery and for the
rights of women, condemned capital punishment and sought prison reform, demanded humane
care of the insane, justice for Native Americans, and a fair shake for workers then under the
oppressive heal of unapologetic capital. What became known as the Social Gospel flowed
naturally out of their Universalist vision.
American Universalism remained essentially a Christian sect with an abnormally sunny
disposition. Then the wide world came knocking at its provincial doors and when those doors
were thrown open something entirely new was made possible.
In 1893 the World Parliament of Religion was held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition. For the first time Americans could hear directly from the great religions of Asia—
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zorastorism—as well as from the
practitioners of local native cults the world over and a variety of other Christians, Jews, and
Muslims. It was a stunning development. Some Universalists recognized a certain kinship in the
practical teachings of all religions and observed how each functioned in the context of its
traditional culture. Perhaps, they began to surmise, Jesus Christ was no an essential agent after
all, just one of many messengers of God’s greater truth. And if all humanity was indeed
reconciled to God upon death, the forms of worship practiced on Earth were not critical.
By the early Twentieth Century Clarence Skinner and others were re-inventing Universalism in a
post Christian context. They wanted it to become a truly universal religion capable of embracing
and understanding the breadth of religious express over the wide world. They emphasized the
essential kinship of all humanity, expressing a universal love that defied the deadly divisions of
nationalism, creed and class which were then turning the new century into the most blood
soaked in history. They joined with emerging Humanists in placing the fate of the species in the
hands of its members, who had the ultimate power to transform the world.
As a church and religious body, Universalism ebbed and withered. By the time of its merger with
the Unitarians in 1961 it was a feeble shell of its former self. But though the body was weak, the
essential idea was strong. Many thought Universalism would be swamped by larger and better
organized Unitarianism and its oh-so-rational and cerebral brand of religion. But almost
unnoticed Universalism became the flame in the UU Chalice, the burning light of hope.
Today when our movement welcomes and cherishes the voices of a thousand temples, we are
Universalist. When the cries of the wounded and oppressed can not be ignored, we are
Universalist. When we stand before the mob and declare the essential worth and dignity of every
person, including gays and lesbians yearning to build families, we are Universalist. When in the
face of despair, we refuse to cede hope, we are Universalist. When we search for language to
express our longing for union with the Greater, we are Universalist.
Universalism is Faith and Hope—the Hope that makes the soul smile.
Partrick Murfin can be e-mailed at: pmurfin@sbcglobal.net
by Patrick Murfin
At its core universalism is simply the stubborn refusal to believe that the universe is malevolent.
It has been dressed up and silk and satin, coarse homespun, saffron robes, the quaint attire of
countless clans and folk cultures, but that is the one absolute that unites them all whether they
would recognize the label “universalist” or not. It dwells within us today not because of historic
connections, although those connections are undeniable, not because of the bonds of
denomination, though bonds are strong, but because we generally share that simple affirmation.
In the earliest days of The Church, before there even was really any Church at all, when the
very breath of Joshua Bin Josef, called Jesus the Nazarene still seemed to rustle the palm fronds
and whisper through the olive groves, many of his fumble followers believed his word had
changed everything. Yahweh, the fierce and jealous Sky God, who demanded sacrifice,
punished those who would not shower Him with unremitting flattery, and tormented those
tempted by the charms of neighboring gods was transformed. By Jesus, through Jesus, for
Jesus, it made no real difference. Jesus, part and parcel with God himself, Jesus the Son, Jesus
the Spirit, Jesus the Man Messenger, it made no difference. What did matter was that Jesus was
somehow mixed up with this new God, a God of forgiveness, of love, of a righteousness that
transformed lives rather than adhering with blind obedience to lifeless ritual, a God of Jews and
Gentiles a like yearning for reconciliation with all of his people.
The God that Jesus brought to these people wanted to gather them all to him, to elevate them
somehow after earthly death to a place by his side in Paradise. The people were happy in this
thought. Of course a Bishop here and a Bishop there might, in brotherly correspondence differ
as to the details of the arrangements. Some Jews still clove to Jesus as their particular Messiah.
Up in the Hellenic world some obsessed with ways to fit the message into the systems of the
Greek Philosophers. For a long time, despite Roman persecutions most of these new Christians,
as they had come to call themselves, were united in this cheerful universalism.
For others the gods were the Old Wise Ones who chuckled at humanity’s foolishness while
forgiving its folly. There were trickster gods ever ready to teach a gentle lesson. There were the
enveloping arms and nurturing breasts of Mother Goddesses. Life for these folks was a
blessing, not a curse which must be endured. Every tree and stone manifested the goodness of
creation which was inseparable from the holy. These people, too, were universalists.
In the East Lao Tse taught his followers about the light and the dark, the light in the dark, the yin
and the yang. Some would read his teachings and believe that they were about enduring without
complaint the evils and trials that the world rained down upon them. Placid acceptance was seen
to be the key. Resistance or any measure to change one’s lot or station was considered a
shameful arrogance and a disruption of a cosmic unity—another bleak hope for the oppressed
and a comfort for the oppressors. Yet otherd would read the same teachings and always find the
yin buried deeply in the yang, the hope in the depths of despair. These were universalists.
The subtlety of the Hindu system, which so entranced Ralph Waldo Emerson, acknowledged the
essential unity of one great, unifying divinity which we in the West might call God. But such a god
was so great, so powerful, so vast, and so unfathomable that he/she/it could only be
comprehended by humans in diverse and particular manifestations. In the Hindu tradition the
three main faces of God, were Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the
Destroyer. In addition each of these had a female mate/counterpart with similar properties and
powers. And all had further incarnations, forms and avatars each with special powers and
characteristics. Below this trinity were literally thousands of other names of God with a
bewildering array of human and non-human faces each representing a subtle but unique
attribute of the essentially infinite. In such a system devotees couldn pick and choose which face
of God, which incarnation to worship. Thus one religious tradition birthed a thousand cults.
Those who see the world as corrupt and evil could choose to worship Shiva and his feminine
counterpart Kali, the wrathful angel of destruction bent on scourging humanity of its sins. Others
could select from the Avatars of Lord Vishnu including Krisha the Divine Lover, Balaran or
Buddha the Sage, or Kalki the completer and savior. These celebrated the light and the
goodness of creation, the infinite perfectibility of humanity. And these were universalists.
The followers of the Buddha would have little truck with Christian notions of salvation, bodily
resurrection, and eternal life in the dazzling company of the Almighty. God or gods were
unimportant to them, trifles if they existed, meaningless in their absence. Instead they believed
that a well lived life--reverent, kind and generous—which also cultivated inner peace, serenity
and openness to a greater, non-personal holiness which united the universe, was the essential
religion. But some Buddhists would come to view the world as its own kind of Hell and the
endless rounds of re-incarnation of the soul in various states of degradation a just punishment
until enlightenment can be achieved and escape from all travail made possible by the blissful
nothingness of union with the greater. It was a bleak world and forlorn hope nearly impossible to
achieve. Yet others, professing on the surface the same beliefs, managed to find bliss in each
drawn breath, each moment lived with perfect awareness of the marvelous now, each connection
with another soul, its own echo of the vastness of the universal One. They were universalists
Back in the West, the Church ossified into a powerful monolith with vast temporal as well a
celestial authority. But always, somewhere, some heedless soul would pop up and wonder at the
fragility of the imposing edifice. On reading scripture for themselves, which be came possible
after the invention of the printing press, they found that doctrines of original sin, damnation, and
the identity of Jesus with the substance of God were no where to found in his teachings as
recorded in the Gospels. The Protestant Reformation was off and running as men and women
relied on their own reason to parse out the meaning of scripture. The Reformation shot off in
different and contradictory directions. In many places, as among the German Anabaptists, some
English Quakers, and other, the joyous insights of universalism were rediscovered
On the other hand John Calvin in Geneva, John Knox in Edinburgh and others went in an
entirely different direction. Central to the dispute between Luther and the Church which had
started the Reformation was the concept of Salvation by Good Works—the idea that an
exemplary life filled with charity and beneficence (especially to needy clergy or church coffers)
could win salvation. All of the Reformers maintained that salvation was solely a gift of grace by
God and could not be earned except by utter faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God and the only
Savior. All others, the vast majority, were condemned to eternal damnation and nothing they
could do, say, or profess would change the outcome.
This was the religion of the Pilgrim Fathers, of the Puritans, and even the dissenters like the
Methodists and Baptists. But on New England stone farms and in Pennsylvania taverns the
notion grew that this Calvinism of predestination and election was so much poppycock. Thus was
universalism born in this country. The Good News went out that God was both loving and
forgiving, unwilling to cast any of his children into torments. Spread by the likes of George de
Bennville, Elhanan Winchester, John Murray, Caleb Rich and Hosea Ballou universalism grew
into Universalism, one of America’s leading denominations.
Universalism’s pious adherents were mostly simple folk—farmers and artisans, laborers and
petty merchants, the slat of the earth types from country side to rural village to industrializing
town. They were happy in the sure joy that they were destined to sit with God. And not just
themselves alone as a reward for placing the correct bet on the winning theology, they knew
they would share Glory with all of humanity. They wanted to manifest their gratitude to God by
living exemplary lives deserving of His gracious Gift. They also treasured reason and the ability
of human beings to be agents for change in their own lives and communities. They saw it as
their job to make a heaven on earth reflecting the Paradise to come. In such a world justice
would “flow down like water in never ending streams.” So they fought against slavery and for the
rights of women, condemned capital punishment and sought prison reform, demanded humane
care of the insane, justice for Native Americans, and a fair shake for workers then under the
oppressive heal of unapologetic capital. What became known as the Social Gospel flowed
naturally out of their Universalist vision.
American Universalism remained essentially a Christian sect with an abnormally sunny
disposition. Then the wide world came knocking at its provincial doors and when those doors
were thrown open something entirely new was made possible.
In 1893 the World Parliament of Religion was held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian
Exposition. For the first time Americans could hear directly from the great religions of Asia—
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zorastorism—as well as from the
practitioners of local native cults the world over and a variety of other Christians, Jews, and
Muslims. It was a stunning development. Some Universalists recognized a certain kinship in the
practical teachings of all religions and observed how each functioned in the context of its
traditional culture. Perhaps, they began to surmise, Jesus Christ was no an essential agent after
all, just one of many messengers of God’s greater truth. And if all humanity was indeed
reconciled to God upon death, the forms of worship practiced on Earth were not critical.
By the early Twentieth Century Clarence Skinner and others were re-inventing Universalism in a
post Christian context. They wanted it to become a truly universal religion capable of embracing
and understanding the breadth of religious express over the wide world. They emphasized the
essential kinship of all humanity, expressing a universal love that defied the deadly divisions of
nationalism, creed and class which were then turning the new century into the most blood
soaked in history. They joined with emerging Humanists in placing the fate of the species in the
hands of its members, who had the ultimate power to transform the world.
As a church and religious body, Universalism ebbed and withered. By the time of its merger with
the Unitarians in 1961 it was a feeble shell of its former self. But though the body was weak, the
essential idea was strong. Many thought Universalism would be swamped by larger and better
organized Unitarianism and its oh-so-rational and cerebral brand of religion. But almost
unnoticed Universalism became the flame in the UU Chalice, the burning light of hope.
Today when our movement welcomes and cherishes the voices of a thousand temples, we are
Universalist. When the cries of the wounded and oppressed can not be ignored, we are
Universalist. When we stand before the mob and declare the essential worth and dignity of every
person, including gays and lesbians yearning to build families, we are Universalist. When in the
face of despair, we refuse to cede hope, we are Universalist. When we search for language to
express our longing for union with the Greater, we are Universalist.
Universalism is Faith and Hope—the Hope that makes the soul smile.
Partrick Murfin can be e-mailed at: pmurfin@sbcglobal.net
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