Page Contents:
THE SALVATION CONSPIRACY: How Hell Became Eternal
by Ken R. Vincent (This article appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of the
UNIVERSALIST HERALD)
Additional Page Contents:
Developmental Revelation
by Ken R. Vincent
“Without Being Left Behind”
by Derek Lee Parker
WHAT’S GONE WRONG WITH OUR FAITH?
by John C. Morgan
Destiny is Calling
by Jeremy Elliott
Immanuel: “God with us.”
by John Morgan
The Buddhist on a Bicycle or How I Became a Universalist Without Knowing It
by John L. Saxon
“Intelligent Design”
by John C. Morgan
Christian Universalism “Endorsed” by Jesus Seminar
by Ken R. Vincent
"In His Name"
by John C. Morgan
_________________________________________________________
Developmental Revelation
by Ken R. Vincent
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child, but
when I became a man I put away childish ways.” (I Cor. 13:11) This familiar passage of
St. Paul describes normal human development.
My thesis is that there is a parallel between the development of the individual and the
progress of whole cultures throughout history and that evidence for this maturation
process can be found in the stories of the world’s religions. Because the Bible
documents a 2000-year period of human development, it is particularly rich with
examples of developmental revelation.
There are many approaches to studying human development and religion, and these
are reflected in the research of developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget, Erik
Erikson, Jane Loevinger, and others. James Fowler, who is both a psychologist and
theologian, devised a compelling list called, “Seven Stages of Faith Development”.
The theory of human development with the most cross-cultural and comparative
religious research to its credit (and my personal favorite) is that of Larry Kholberg. It is
the one I have selected to explore with you in greater detail. To date, the consensus of
his research shows that, when education and socioeconomic status are controlled for,
human beings around the world from all faiths and cultures vary widely among
themselves and that no faith or culture is clearly superior.
According to Kholberg, there are three levels of moral development, each of which has
two stages:
1) Pre-conventional
2) Conventional, and
3) Post-conventional.
It is important to realize that not all people reach all stages of development, neither in
the past nor today.
1) Pre-conventional
The “pre-conventional” level is the most remedial, and its first stage is called the
“punishment and obedience orientation”. This is the stage of pre-schoolers. The child
at this stage lacks the mental structure to understand the rules but does understand
rewards and punishment. Children at this age are not educable, but they are
trainable. This is also the moral level of your dog or cat.
Consider this example: At about age 3 or 4 years, your daughter has figured out that
pushing the chair up to the kitchen counter will allow her to get to the cookie jar. Later,
you come into the kitchen, see the chair and the empty cookie jar with its lid off, and
you see the child with crumbs all over her face. When you ask,, “Did you take the
cookies?”, your child gives the “right” answer—“No, I didn’t take the cookies!” The
parent is often devastated, assuming that his child is not only STEALING but LYING!
The parent fails to realize that the child does not yet make the connection between
cause and effect. Thankfully, very few adults remain stuck at this moral level.
In the Bible, the best-known example of this is the second Creation Story (Gen 2:4-3:
24) in which you might substitute the “forbidden fruit” for the cookie jar. Adam takes
no personal responsibility but blames Eve for giving him the fruit, and Eve blames the
snake for her misbehavior!
In the same story in Genesis, we are introduced to the oldest form of punishment – the
banishment of Adam and Eve from Paradise. As demonstrated in the work of Jane
Goodall, this links us with the behavior of baboons who banish members of their clan
for “crimes” of dominance, sex, and murder.
In the 5,000-year-old Egyptian Book of the Dead, this stage of morality is reflected in
the behavior of the deceased who is expected to lie to the god Osiris in the Afterlife by
reciting a magic formula known as the Negative Confession in which he denies all
wrong-doing. We see this same magic formula in the Christian theology of “Jesus
Saves.” All one needs to know is John 3:16 and/or John 14:6. This is a gross distortion
of the teachings of Jesus. Another Christian theology at this level is Predestination. In
predestination, individuals cannot influence their own salvation and like the small child
have no understanding of the reason for the rules. Before we leave the level of
“magic” in human development, it is important to note that in times of distress, any of
us may want a little magic! In Hinduism, it is said that if you die with the name of the
god Vishnu or one of his incarnations like Rama or Krishna on your lips, all your sins
will be taken away. Gandhi, who achieved the highest level of spiritual development,
died with the name of Rama on his lips!
The second stage of “pre-conventional morality” is that of reciprocity. This is the stage
most of us reached in elementary school and is adopted to satisfy personal needs. At
this stage, the rules exist to be manipulated. Children will give favors in order to get
similar rewards in return. They discover that they can make “deals”, i.e., “if you
scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”. A child will say, “I don’t want to play that game.
That is YOUR game, and we played that yesterday. Today is MY turn.” Even in
modern times, some adults get stuck at this stage.
Obviously, this level includes primitive religions in which an animal or human is
sacrificed as a bribe to the gods with the understanding that the gods will do (or not
do) something for the worshipers. Also, the idea in the Hebrew Bible that the righteous
will always prosper, and that if something bad happens to you, it’s because you have
sinned belongs at this level. Some years ago, a student told me of working at an
affluent church school that did not admit handicapped students; because it was
evidence that their parents had sinned. In the Book of Job, Job’s friends express this
view. The Prayer of Jabez is a “give me” prayer and at this level.
In the Bible, this level of morality is also represented in the law of “an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24). Getting stuck with this mentality can lead to
barbarism and reminds us of the relentless retaliatory strikes we hear about on the
evening news between the Israelis and Palestinians. Unless people are encouraged to
higher levels of thinking, in the words of Martin Luther King, we are all at risk of
becoming “blind and toothless”. The only good thing about this rule is that you are
only allowed to take one eye for one eye and one tooth for one tooth.
Many of those to whom Moses preached were no doubt at either the first or second
stage of “pre-conventional” morality – largely equivalent to that of today’s small
children. It also appears that the people addressed by Mohammed 2000 years later
were at this level.
2) Conventional
The next level of moral reasoning is the “conventional” level which is reached by most
people in adolescence; most adults never progress beyond one of its two stages. The
first of these stages is the “good boy/nice girl” phase in which “right” behaviors are the
ones that please the person’s reference groups, including family, friends, and peers.
This is the first stage that goes beyond the manipulation of others for personal
gratification and includes a genuine consideration for others. It is the first level at
which the Golden Rule can be understood, if not practiced.
In the Bible, the beautiful story of Ruth reflects this level of development when she
declares, “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall
be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16) Although this love passage is
sometimes used for modern weddings, Ruth is not saying this to her husband – she is
addressing her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth wants to remain with her mother-in-law
because she loves her --- not because she thinks Naomi’s God is superior!
This is the stage where the need for a personal god is strongest. In Hinduism this is the
devotional path exemplified by the worshipers of Lord Krishna. “Krishna, Krishna, Hari,
Hari”: Krishna, Krishna, Redeemer, Redeemer. In Christianity, we see this manifested
in those kind and loving people that model their lives on Jesus. One is reminded of the
words of the beautiful old hymn, In the Garden: “and he walks with me and he talks with
me and he tells me I am his own…”
The second stage of the “conventional” level of morality is compatible with the view of
“law and order”. At this stage, morality is defined as “doing one’s duty” and “obeying
the rules”. At this stage, rules are “right” because they have been formulated by one’s
superiors – a prophet, king, judge, president, or priest. This represents a step upward
because, for the first time, the values of society as a whole are placed above the
needs of the individual, his close family, or his friends. This is the mentality of “my
country right or wrong”.
In the Bible, this is the mentality of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17) and
represents the stern but fair God of Moses and Mohammed.
Returning to ancient Egyptian religion, the concept of the justice of weighing of the
departed good deeds is reinstated. As in Christianity, it co-exists with magic (e.g., The
Book of the Dead’’s magic formula of Salvation and Christianity’s “Jesus Saves”). The
story appears of a grandson of Rameses II named Sa-Osiris, who is a seer, and his
father. They were watching a funeral procession in which a rich man was being carried
with his elaborate belongings to a princely tomb. Shortly after this, they observed the
funeral of a poor man wrapped only in a cloth who was being taken for burial in the
desert sand.
The Egyptian prince remarks to his son that he hopes for a good funeral in preparation
for a glorious afterlife, but his seer son remarks that all things are not as they appear
to be. He puts his father into a trance, and the two are transported to the land of the
dead where the evil rich man is suffering a hellish fate and the righteous poor man is
being comforted by Osiris, Isis, and the Egyptian gods, and is living afterlife in regal
splendor.
This shows the development of morality and justice in the Egyptian religion, and some
Christian scholars think this is the origin of the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the
Gospel of Luke (Lk 16:19-31). The main point here is to underscore the great
antiquity of the belief that salvation is by works. The idea that your good deeds must
outweigh your bad deeds is found in all the worlds’ major religions. In ancient Egypt it is
Anubis, the jackal headed god, who holds the scales of justice, in Christianity it is the
Archangel Michael, in Islam it is the Archangel Gabriel, in Zoroastrianism it is the angel
Rashnu, and in both Hinduism and Buddhism it is the yamadoots of the god of death
Yama. In the Eastern Religions, Yama presides over both your fate in the intermediate
state between death and rebirth, and your reincarnation. It is worth noting that
salvation by works is the predominant message in the New Testament with 389 of the
551 verses supporting it on the lips of Jesus himself. The Unitarian William Ellery
Channing called it “salvation by character”.
According to Kholberg, MOST of humanity will remain at this “conventional” stage of
moral development.
3) Post-conventional
Only one-third of humanity will reach the “post-conventional” level of morality. The first
of its two stages is called, “the democratic social contract”, and one-fourth of modern
adults achieve this level. To these people, rules are obeyed because there is a
consensus of the electorate. Also, the rules can be CHANGED whenever the majority
of people agree to change them. The government of the United States is based on
this level of morality, as were (to some extent) the governance of the early Christian
church which, among other things, ordained women (Rom 16:1). While God’s laws are
unchangeable, the ways religions operate can and do change. Also, Process Theology
fits here (i.e., the idea that God has endowed the Universe with free will and that we
are co-creators with God). While Process Theology is a hot topic in today’s divinity
schools, the idea that we are co-creators with God in helping bring about the perfection
of the world is as old as Zoroaster. In the New Testament, you find this idea in Acts 3:
20-21 and II Peter 3:11-13.
The final stage of “post-conventional” moral development is that of the “universal
ethical principle”, and only about 10% of humanity functions at this level. It recognizes
a universal connection to nature, to each other, and to God. At this stage, the rights of
each individual are as important as the rights of the majority, and the individual follows
the dictates of his or her conscience while at the same time being aware of the rights of
others. This person is aware that what is “right” and what is “legal” may not be the
same and that the dictates of conscience must be followed.
This stage is epitomized by the Golden Rule, often associated with Christianity but
present in virtually all of modern mainstream religions. Zoroaster does not need to give
his followers a commandment that prohibits murder --- he does tell them that their good
thoughts, words, and deeds are required to help God defeat evil in this world. Lao Tzu
says, “Respond to anger with virtue”, and the Buddha tells us to, “Overcome anger by
love; overcome evil by good.” Within Islam, the sect called Sufis strives to reach a
sublime level of mystic union with God. A Sufi motto is, “It’s not the letter, it’s the
spirit”. In Judaism, this highest level is epitomized by the Book of Isaiah. Gandhi’s
tactics of civil disobedience were a good example of “post-conventional” thinking
leading to action, making the world better.
In the Bible, the whole of Jesus’ message of love and kindness speaks to this highest
level. Think of the difficulty of his simple-sounding formula: “Do unto others as you
would have them do to you…Judge not… Forgive and you will be forgiven.. Blessed
are the peacemakers… Turn the other cheek… Let him who is without sin cast the first
stone … Love your enemies…It is not what goes into your mouth but what comes out
that is important”. You may recall from stories in the New Testament that Jesus himself
encounters people who clearly could not comprehend his message. More than once
he simply refers them back to the Ten Commandments (Matt 19:16-20, Mk 10:17-20,
Lk 18:18-20) or to the two Great Commandments, i.e., to love God and to love your
neighbor (Matt 22:37-40, Mk 12:28-34, Lk 10:25-28). At the highest level: forgiveness
is yours for the asking (Matt 6:12;7:7-11) and salvation is Universal (Matt 18:14,Lk 3:6;
I Tim 4:10; Heb 10:15-17). Every mystic knows that we will all be reconciled with God,
and Universal Restoration is a minority theme in all the world’s religions. Zoroaster,
Jesus, and Bahaullah mention universalism directly; the Rabbis of the Midrash tell us
that one cannot stay in Hell over one year! In the Hadith, Muhammad predicts that
there will be a time when Hell is empty of humans. In Eastern religions, reincarnation
offers the hope for universal redemption.
When we look at religions in modern times, it is clear that some have a broad appeal
and others have a more narrow appeal. I think that the greatest risk for individual
believers is to get “stuck” in a religious community that does not value personal
growth. I have personally met people (including some ministers) whose intellect and
spiritual experience have awakened them to a higher level of morality but whose
congregations have discouraged or prohibited them from their pursuit.
In her analysis of the behavior of believers, the historian Laina Farhat-Holzman
contends that some religious movements are accepting of persons at all levels of
development and consciously make room for 1) those who base their belief on the
“magic” of holy relics, 2) those whose religion is confined to ritual, and 3) those who
struggle to understand the teachings of their prophets. Two excellent examples of
religions that span the range of moral development from the lowest to highest levels
are Roman Catholic Christianity and Hinduism.
In scholarly literature, the results of objective studies are mixed when analyzing the
differences between denominations or religions. The most consistent finding has been
that fundamentalists have a lower level of moral development than liberals.
Interestingly, this appears to be true for those liberals professing no religion, as well as
for those who practice Christianity or another religion. Some fundamentalist Christians
have charged that these attempts at objective measurements have been biased;
however, I believe that there is an alternate explanation.
Developmental psychologists have known for some time that people can truly
understand only the moral stages just above and just below their own. Moses was
above the masses of Jews of his time but NOT so far ahead that they could not
understand him. Jesus was speaking to a more sophisticated group morally, one that
had already been socialized by the “conventional” rules of Moses. In other words,
Moses HAD to happen BEFORE Jesus could happen. If Jesus had confronted the
people of the Exodus with, “Love thy neighbor…”, his message would not have been
understood by them.
Often we religious liberals are hard on fundamentalists whom we accuse of being
literal, concrete, and rule-bound. However, I must come to their defense with regard to
this fact: these “conventional” people with specific messages are the ones most able to
appeal to those at the level of “pre-conventional” morality and help raise them up.
Although we reject their religious message and viewpoints, it is good to remember that
humanity must crawl before it can walk. Years ago, an optimistic friend of mine
questioned a fundamentalist who explained that, “We are fundamentalists because we
NEED the tight controls of a ‘Thou Shalt Not’ morality; otherwise, we would go wild!”
Another important truism for religious liberals to remember is that ALL children must
pass through ALL stages of morality. No matter how intelligent your child may be, her
moral maturity cannot be inherited at birth! All children need to experience structure
and kindness so that they can develop to the stage where the Golden Rule can be
understood and, ultimately, to the level where it can be lived. Research into how to
accomplish this is mixed, but activities which require reasoning and exploration of moral
issues appear to foster a progression toward the “post-conventional” level. Adults who
have had an opportunity in college to explore moral issues must continue to find
forums for discussion, reasoning, and moral growth. I think that this is an excellent
challenge for Sunday Schools and Adult Education programs in our churches!
In closing, I’d like to express my own opinion about developmental revelation expressed
in the Biblical stories. Although the stories of the Old Testament are part of our literary
culture, Christianity has wallowed too long in their primitive “pre-conventional”
morality. And although there is nothing more beautiful than the declaration of St. Paul
that “love is patient and kind”, many churches have allowed themselves to stagnate in
his largely “conventional” message.
In the recent past, a movement has been gradually growing which takes seriously the
“post-conventional” morality of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. In my view, this
should be the predominant message heard in our churches, inspiring people to “climb
up” to the next rung on the moral ladder. But it’s easier to worship Jesus than to follow
his teachings. The “post-conventional” morality of Jesus demands that we live in the
Kingdom of God RIGHT NOW – that it is possible to be ONE with the Father. In the
Gospel of Luke (17:21), Jesus proclaims that, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” We
need to call it forth for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of all humanity, and for the
sake of our whole planet.
Ken R. Vincent, Ed.D. is the Webmaster for the UNIVERSALIST HERALD.
“Without Being Left Behind”
by Derek Lee Parker
Readings: From Esther 4:13-14
At the Universalist Church of Eldorado, Ohio, where I served for three years as their
pastor, there is a seldom noticed stained glass window behind the choir seats. If you’ve
ever visited our church in Eldorado (and many of you were there for last year’s
Convocation), you probably paid attention to other windows in the church. Perhaps the
window depicting the all seeing eye of God? Or maybe the Parable of the Sower
window? The choir window had no spectacular pictures. It only has names written on a
pane of green grass. Our choir director proudly pointed them out to me. She said,
“You need to notice these. They are our ancestors. They sacrificed to found this
church back in 1849. You need to know where we’ve come from.”
It is good to know where we’ve come from. Much of the Unitarian Universalist
Association has forgotten where we’ve come. They think we are a brand new religion,
perhaps invented in Berkeley, California, in 1969. At Eldorado many of our younger
visitors from other UU churches thought we had bought our chapel from the
Methodists, perhaps in the 1970s. Little do many of our newcomers know, but we are
heirs to a time-tested, centuries olf heritage of open-minded and inclusive spirituality.
So it is good to know where we Universalists have come from, we are not a mere
invention of the 60s but a living stream of spirit. But knowing the past is not enough if
we are to be a living church.
All too often our Universalist faith is treated by both others and ourselves as an artifact
of the past. Our faith becomes a quaint elderly aunt whom we love, but who lives in the
shadow of her eloquent and lordly husband – perhaps some have called Universalism
by the name Mrs. Unitarian. In other words, ignoring her name and treating her as a
mere extension of her partner.
It isn’t hard to understand why our faith is treated like a religious artifact. I can drive
across Indiana and Ohio and see the artifacts of Universalism scattered far and wide.
There are two lovely churches in Champaigne County, Ohio. One in New Westerville is
now an art studio. The other in Woodstock is now used by an odd congregation called
the Church of the Oversoul, which I hear is a strange fusion of Christian
fundamentalism and new age religion. There is also a lovely plaque on Rural Route 2,
outside of Aurora, Indiana; at the site of the Universalist meeting-house, where the
frontier preacher Prudence LeClerk spoke to crowds at a time when women preachers
were often rejected by the masses. There are Universalist cemeteries in places like
Versailles, Indiana, and Twin Forks, West Virginia (just downstream on the Ohio from
Steubenville, Ohio). And shopping across the Mid-West, I’ve acquired gobs of antique
books by Universalist visionaries and theologians. I have a rare 1866 edition of the
Gloria Patri Prayerbook, a collection of essays by Clarence Russell Skinner, and a
copy of The Life of Edwin Chappin. And if you are curious, I am still seeking a copy of
Clinton Lee Scott’s Religion Can Make Sense. And as books go, these are all good for
doing theology, philosophy, and church history.
But is historical scholarship, antique collecting, and nostalgia enough for our faith? It is
good to know where we’ve come from, but I don’t this will be enough.
Now in the story of Esther, a great heroine of Jewish folklore, we have the tale of
Jewish faith in Persia on the verge of becoming a thing of the past. Esther is the bride
of the Persian kink, but her people are in danger of genocide at the hands of an evil
politician named Haman. At a key point in the plot, Esther’s Uncle Mordecai comes to
her and warns her that life in the palace will not be enough to save her from the coming
anti-Jewish massacres. He urges her to speak up, and speak out, because perhaps
she is in the palace for such a time as this.
Now we do not face persecution on the scale experienced by Jews in ancient Persia –
even if some of our neighbors disdain the liberal generosity of our faith. But we do face
possible extinction. Our numbers as avowed Universalists have grown fewer and fewer
almost every decade since 1930. A colleague of mine estimates that there are a mere
25,000 of us left in the churches rooted in the old Universalist Church of America. And
so we sit in our ivory towers of books, and historic buildings, and stained glass, and
hope we will be spared from the final wave of extinction. But perhaps we are a
Universalist remnant, in this time of growing global fundamentalism, for the purpose of
being prophets in such a time as this?
My brothers and sisters, we are people who are rooted deep in the unbroken line that
extends back in time to Judith Sargent Murray, and her conviction that universal
salvation is both true and must be proclaimed. She knew that God loved both men and
women, and so she became the Grand-mother of feminist Biblical scholarship. She
knew that God was present with people of all races, and so she advocated for the
abolition of slavery. And it wasn’t antique collecting that made her ministry possible.
Nor was it a love for historic architecture. Her power grew from her faith in the ability of
God’s Spirit to reconcile all the people of the world, despite our human idolatries about
gender and race.
We have the advantage of knowing the history. We have the roots. But are we more
than just a spiritual tree stump? Do we have the branches? Have we opened ourselves
to the mystical experience of tasting universal salvation – that Divine reality of universal
peace which is being slowly built even as we speak? And are we willing to go into the
highways and byways to open the eyes of a humanity blinded with theological despair?
By sharing the experience of universal salvation we can give hope to those who live in
fear of hellfire! By sharing the experience of universal salvation, we can expose the
illusions of fundamentalism and religious violence! By sharing the experience of
universal salvation, we can proclaim the integrity of our gay and lesbian brothers and
sisters, who many bigots in the world would prefer to live lives where they lie about who
they were born to be.
History is not enough for a living faith. It never was enough for a living faith. In rooting
ourselves in the historical tradition of Universalism, we must also have a present day of
mystical experience and spirituality. This is what will move us forward, so that we are
not left behind among the religious artifacts. And so I conclude my spoken ministry to
you, with words of prayer, that are akin to Judith’s prayer written in that letter to her
parents.
Gracious Spirit of Divine Love,
I give thanks for the faith given to me by my elder brothers and sisters of the Church
Universal,
They express to me the coming transformation of humanity . . . the universal salvation
of all people, from all religions, and all times.
And I do trust that such a Peaceable Kingdom will come to pass.
And if spiritual weather should continue to bear fine –
I suppose that we shall soon find ourselves on that Promised Day.
God who is both Mother Spirit and Father Spiritis on the wing.
May the Spirit forever bless us, with the knowledge and wisdom that
Nobody is left behind. Amen.
Reverend Derek Lee Parker is currently serving as Education Minister at the Irving
Friends Meeting and as Administrator of Programs for the National Episcopal Health
Ministries.
WHAT’S GONE WRONG WITH OUR FAITH?
Part I: Lacking a Theological Focus
By John C. Morgan
Contributing Editor
Many of us wonder why Unitarian Universalism seems to have stalled in terms of
membership growth. You would think that it would have expanded, given the fact that it
usually does after a spurt in the growth of the religious right. In spite of our insistence
that we are progressives, when it comes to growth, we are reactionaries, growing in
response to the surge of more conservative religions.
The rate of denominational growth in the last few decades has been very small. When I
hear officials today softening our situation with words like “modest growth of one-two
percent annually,” I am reminded of Frederick May Eliot, then president of the
American Unitarian Association in the mid-Twentieth Century, chiding Unitarians about
their slow rate of growth--about eight percent annually. I’m also reminded that in the
late Nineteenth Century Universalists were among the ten largest denominations.
Today, the remaining Universalist presence seems more like a groundhog gone inside
because of winter, coming out only during years when the past of Universalism is
celebrated (e.g., 1993 during the 200th anniversary).
When I wrote a denominational report on the growth of the movement from l937-1984, I
made an attempt to isolate some of the reasons for the decline which began during the
l980’s. Some of it was demographic, often populations moving South or West. Some of
the growth we hailed was really people who had been members who moved elsewhere
and started new congregations. A more tragic loss was in numbers of children in
religious education programs—an omen of things to come.
It wasn’t until I read some of the reports of leaders from dying congregations that I
began to get a sense of what was happening. “We simply lost our reason for being,”
was the way one board president described his congregation’s decline. Another leader
said his church “failed to be clear about our vision and theology and to promote and
defend it with our very lives.” In almost every case, leaders cited a breakdown not only
in internal dynamics but far more critically in theological focus: “Our identity got fuzzy,
our reason for being resolved mainly around fellowship with people of like minds.
Consequently people went elsewhere to be fed.” Another leader of a defunct
congregation wrote a note to denominational headquarters which contained these last,
sad words: “We are no more.”
In my report, I noted that while we were becoming more pluralistic (e.g., read that
“less Christian.”), we ran the risk of becoming so generic that we would either end with
bland generalities about our values or without enough theological content to attract
those seeking spiritual homes. Twenty years after that report was written, I conclude
today that theologically we still are trying to please all the various parts of our network
and ending up with covenants that don’t feed the spirit, mind, or heart of those
newcomers we should be attracting. Generic religion, like generic drug prescriptions,
costs less but in the case of religion is less likely to provide a cure. In any case, like
heresies of the past, our current principles and purposes were as much politically
motivated as theologically articulated, the attempt to identify the constituents in the
denomination.
When I became the Joseph Priestley District’s Extension Minister for three years in
Northeast Pennsylvania, I remember how it felt to discover that in an area where there
had once been eleven Unitarian Universalist congregations, one remained. In fact, a
short walk from my house I happened to come upon the building once occupied by the
First Universalist Church of Wilkes Barre, Pa., which closed in the l920’s. It was now a
Lutheran parish. Another old Universalist church further north became a gas station.
It was one of the few stations I have encountered where when you drove in over the
hoses on the ground, the church bell rang a greeting. The early site of Unitarianism in
the Middle Atlantic States, Northumberland, Pa., still had a small Priestley Chapel but
only one Unitarian left in town. When I asked who paid the electric bills, no one knew.
And one the truly remarkable Universalist building in Scranton, Pa. had been sold for
$50,000 to the University of Scranton. The Tiffany windows in that building were worth
more than that.
Why isn’t Unitarian Universalism growing deeper and wider into the Twenty First
Century?
Our past offers some clues: We are not putting enough resources into new church
starts. We are not promoting ourselves in new communities of people. We have
adopted a generic approach to spirituality, thinking if we offer a little of everything (e.g.,
Humanism, Buddhism, Paganism, etc.) we will have something for everyone. The
problem is that newcomers are seldom attracted to a generic religion; they desire
depth and purpose and rituals, not a “do-it-yourself religion,” a term we think describes
our chief drawing card. While individuals don’t want to be told what to believe, they do
want at least some guidance. I have often thought it would be far better and more
spiritually rewarding to plan and organize congregations around one or two specific
traditions than a splattering of all. For example, I find some deep connections between
earth centered traditions and the life and teachings of Jesus. If you doubt this, check
out how often he used stories from nature about birds or sheep or even plants.
My conclusion is that people desire deeper and more authentic spirituality, not less of
it. They certainly don’t want the confusion of what seems to be competing truth and
religious claims, one a week, and sometimes many contained in a single worship
service.
I would argue that there are more potential recruits to our cause among mainline
Christians and the unchurched. But to attract the seekers and newcomers, we need to
offer more depth and community and our theological responses to the issues they
bring.
After nearly thirty years of ministry in our midst, most of it spent on the “frontiers” of
starting new congregations or helping to revitalize old ones, I am not sure we really
want to understand a strong suspicion I have about our lack of growth. We don’t want
to grow because we are not really sure what we hold to be true as a people. Our
situation is not dire because we don’t have gifted leaders or growth techniques. Our
situation is that we are confused. It’s one thing to talk about the need for a “language
of reverence,” but it’s quite sometime else to fill in the blanks as to what that really
means. It’s always struck me that when one of our spiritual ancestors, Dr. George de
Benneville, reported going to an afterlife, he saw hell as “eternal confusion,” an apt
modern metaphor as well.
We claim diversity and pluralism as one of our major values today, but the fact is that
we are not very diverse when it comes to race, economics or even spiritual points of
view. We like who we are and don’t want to risk it. My experience has been that we are
more alike than we want to admit: Confused.
Robert Tapp, who studied us in the last century, had an unusual metaphor to describe
us:“stepchildren in our father’s house,” not quite sure of where we stood collectively on
the religious scene. Our confusion has kept are numbers small. I once figured there
were more Lutherans in Southeast Pennsylvania than Unitarian Universalists around
the world. Recently I learned a more ominous trend: There are now as many Mormons
in the “heart of Unitarianism,” Massachusetts, as there are Unitarian Universalists.
I used to think it was that we didn’t know how to evangelize or share our good news.
I don’t believe that any longer. I think we do know how to evangelize—it’s just we’re not
quite sure what it is we are supposed to share. We don’t know or feel deeply our good
news. We have become our own worst joke: “How are Unitarian Universalists like
Jehovah’s Witnesses? We still go door to door; we just don’t know why any longer.”
It is true that mainline Christian traditions are losing their share of the “religious
market.” The ones I see which are growing—have intentionally committed time and
money to growing their presence among communities which do not necessarily fit their
past demographics. And they have stated what they hold to be true in ways that
connect with the deepest spiritual needs of newcomers.
What do we hold to be true? What demands our commitment? To what or who are we
dedicated? Can we witness with our lives to what we hold to be true, even if it costs
more than a pledge? Are we willing to change our behavior to make way for the future?
Can we stop arguing within long enough to decide what it is we can say with one clear
and united voice to those who don’t even know we exist?
I suspect we will simply sit on the franchises of being either the “only Unitarian
Universalist church in town,” or an “uncommon denomination,” while all around us are
folks who might join if only they could find us or finding us, find more than spiritual
confusion.
There’s an old rule about change: If you are in a hole and you want to get out, stop
digging.
Part II: Strategies for Revitalization
Since retiring and leaving parish ministry, I have been seeking a spiritual home where I
can bring both my mind and heart. Ironically, the Unitarian Universalist congregations I
might attend are at least an hour away (so much for our l980’s goal to put a Unitarian
Universalist congregation within a half hour of every American). And to be quite honest,
the ones I have attended feel spiritually confused, offering a motley array of consumer
goods and services to feed the supposed diverse membership. There’s an old joke
told about us that we ought to put on our Wayside Pulpits: “Worship the God of your
choice this week,” meaning we have a motley array of spiritual dishes served at our
Sunday smorgasbords.
My exile has given me a different understanding of what seekers and newcomers are
looking for in a new spiritual community, because now I am one of “them.” So
let me be clear about what I, and many others, are looking for in a spiritual home.
We want a spiritual community that is:
1. High in relationships (not necessarily high in numbers or money).
2. Low in institutional maintenance (not spending most of its time raising money).
3. Deep in theology and service to others (not serving just ourselves or spending
out time arguing or avoiding theological dialog).
We want a spiritual home that puts its focus on people, on their real needs and desires.
We want to connect with others and vice versa. We want to connect with God or
whatever name we choose to describe the Holy. We also don’t want to spend the better
part of our limited time and energy raising money for a new roof or staff. We are willing
to give our time, energy and money if we see it going to what matters to us—people.
And we desire to grow in spiritual depth whether in study, worship, or small groups. And
we are willing to serve others if we do so together and in direct and caring ways and
not just with public pronouncements.
If you are among those seeking a spiritual home or if you want to look at your own,
here are a few simple questions you can ask, based on the three-point model cited:
Do people count more than budgets?
Does much of the energy go into raising funds or nurturing the spiritual needs of
people?
Do people really share ministry or is ministry another product on the market provided
by a professional for consumers?
Do people seem clear what it is they hold as true collectively, and, if so, do these truths
make a difference among themselves and in the world around them?
What can be done?
I see three possibilities for me, though there may be other options for others:
l. Revitalize the theology of Unitarian Universalism, especially Universalist theology,
within the current movement.
Revitalize the Universalist spirit within other Christian traditions.
Begin to organize new communities of people where there is a clear spiritual
identity and mission.
As I enter the later years of life, I already have given a few decades to the first
suggestion above, seeking to bring the spirit and theology of Universalism to the
movement. Quite frankly, I haven’t done very well. In the last year, I have sought to
become part of those somewhat progressive Christian communities where Universalism
still remains an option for some people; I’ve also discovered resistance to seekers and
newcomers. I have found new meaning in Jesus’ warning about putting “new wine into
old wineskins.”
I don’t have a lot of time to waste spinning wheels or sitting in meetings. When it
comes time for my memorial service, I’d don’t want it said of me that I helped to put a
new roof on a building or served for twenty years on the finance committee.
I have discerned where I believe I am being called: To help start a new community of
progressive Christians and seekers, probably in a house church setting, and, in the
beginning, with no denominational affiliation. The image of a larger circle within which
there are many smaller cells or circles makes the most sense to me. This is an organic
vision, not unlike that which propelled the early Universalist Pietists into a flowering
movement—or the Unitarian fellowship movement of the last century, for that matter.
The true spirit of Univeralism has never been about a denomination anyway; nor are
newcomers coming to congregations because of their denominational affiliations.
People desire a place to find community and a place to find shared meaning. It seems
to me that in small group settings such bonding and meaning are best found. It is this
small group process which is evident among the earliest Christians, in the Unitarian
fellowship movement, in the conventicles or small groups of early Pietistic Universalism,
and in the covenant group process in our midst today. Even the largest churches know
that their key to growth is not adopting individuals one by one, but rather growth
through subtraction—that is, spinning off circles and cells and small groups, giving the
spirit away in others words (interesting, that the older use of the word “liberal” comes
from the Latin word which means “generous”).
The simple truth is that two of the largest “congregations” in America are among those
who don’t go to any religious group or those who are involved in house churches or
small groups. And yet, we travel down the highway to the future looking in the rear view
mirror, thinking that having more professionals, more large buildings, more of
everything will lead to more growth. All it has led to is staying the stay, contrary to the
very power of the generosity we claim.
If I had a magic wand to wave, I’d suggest we should put our resources into creating an
international network of house congregations, supporting them where needed while
staying out of the way of their creativity. I’d also focus on creating a new generation of
leaders who can support the kind of transformation required. If you doubt this might
work, read the Book of Acts in the Christian story because this is precisely what fueled
the remarkable growth pattern: A clear sense of purpose, house churches, and
transformative leaders.
The fuel of Universalism has been about some good news the world needs to hear. In
traditional terms that good news was that God wants to love us and has given us a
person whose life and teachings can guide us. God has many names, of course, and
has not left any person or culture without witnesses.
Stay tuned. As I move to start one new house church, I will let you know what happens,
though I probably won’t live long enough to see the results. Like the prophet Jeremiah
before the fall of the Jewish Kingdom who bought land to plant a garden for future
generations, there is something to be said for those of us in exile who plant new
gardens in the ashes of the old. There’s a Greek word in the Christian scriptures
“kainos,” used in the Book of Revelation, that translated means “new life arising out of
the ashes of the old.” It’s a word worth its weight in spiritual depth.
(John C. Morgan has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for nearly thirty years,
serving the UUA, two districts, and five congregations. Along the way he helped to start
four new churches.)
Destiny is Calling
by Jeremy Elliott
This sermon considers the so-called "intelligent design" debate, in light of the
traditional Universalist position on single predestination for salvation. In it, I attempt to
explore what "intelligent design" might mean to modern Unitarian Universalists. This
sermon was written and offered at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley,
California.
May we observe a moment of silence, to sense the Holy Spirit of perfect openness,
trust, and reciprocity that fills this sanctuary. In this most holy presence of community,
let us renew our covenant to approach each other with a reverence for the webs-of-
existence that we each bring here—to weave together—this night.
I believe in intelligent design. I believe this whole-heartedly not because of the
supposed gaps in evolutionary history or because of the micro-cellular complexity of
the human eye, but because I live an existence that is held in a complicated
interdependent and intra-dependent web-of-relationality, and co-dependant
meaningfulness, that is neither entirely lineal nor random. And I believe in intelligent
design because I am a Universalist, and I have placed faith in “the Kingdom to come”—
to borrow a phrase from the Christian tradition—because I see it taking shape in this
world.
I don’t believe that the headline debate about intelligent design is really all about the
nuts and bolts of evolutionary process. It has more to do with whether we believe, or
even fear, that our existence is a random occurrence of chance, or that it is grounded
in a reality of almost infinite depth and meaning. It is from this perspective that I
approach the debate, as an advocate of my own Universalist understanding of the
intelligent, spiraling, and seemingly infinitely growing webs-of-meaning, in which I find
myself.
Let us take a few moments to consider the complex and intricate patterns, histories,
and wombs of time and place, from which we arose. Sense what holds you in this
particular place, right now, in this moment—the almost incomprehensible matrix of
people, and care, and resources that ensure that this institution exists and thrives:
crucial staples that are not bound by time, but still feed us in this very moment; notice
the portrait of Earl Morse Wilbur—the founder of the “Pacific Unitarian School”—that
hangs in this room, a symbol of a presence that still lives in the people, in the walls, in
the philosophies, and in the lifeblood of Starr King; recall Thomas Starr King himself,
the visionary leader of decades past who even today still sculpts this school and
impacts all who pass through its door. Call to mind even the anonymous figures who
laid each of the bricks that line our walls, poured the cement that rests far beneath our
feet, and built the automobiles and bikes that brought us here this evening. We can
feel this intricate web-of-all-existence, wrapping all around us, holding us, in this
place—its tender care.
Find the strands of these webs in your own life. Sense how they have tempered you.
Feel the presence of your parents or guardians inside of you. Sense how you could
not be who you are right now without the influence of such people. Go beyond your
parents or guardians, see how your siblings or friends, relatives distant or near, have
forged the person who now sits in this room. Sense the movement and migration of
your ancestors—biological and spiritual—across vast seas, through storm and sleet,
enduring incomprehensible oppressions of body and mind, spirit and soul—perusing a
vision, and Mystery beyond themselves, a Mystery that ultimately included you. See
these people, in their greatness, and see there mistakes, feeding your soul with the
substance that makes it what it is today. See beyond humanity, sensing all of nature
and the gradual progression of it, in relationship, over millions of years, growing
together in all of its diversity and splendor.
Feel the first molten energy that formed our sun, and then our beautiful mother earth
and sister moon, coursing through your veins. The primordial substances that gave
rise to the air we breathe and the waters that rim the earth. Feel the star dust from the
first moments of creation, of the cosmic expansion, of the gentle cracking of the holy
egg of creation, glowing in your fingertips.
As I look around the room at the faces of all those gathered here this evening, many of
whom have crossed the country to be here; each coming from different backgrounds,
different cultures, different identities; I ask myself, do I really believe that this beloved
community came to being out of total, uncalculated randomness?
Is it possible to even claim that our voyage here was anything but destined—a part of a
grand “intelligent” scheme? The movement of a Holy Wisdom as it courses through
generations, across time and space. Are we not standing upon the shoulders of our
ancestors, were we not in their visions, are we not living out many of the hopes and
dreams of religious radicals, of nations, of our families and friends and loved ones, and
are we not called by some yearning in our soul to be here together, to boldly move
forward into the world? To fulfill our place in the vision of our ancestors and carry that
bright torch, fueled now by our own lives, into the mysterious future.
Remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, reflecting upon his own life, and sense
their relevance to our own existences here: “I believe in this life. I believe it continues.
As long as I am here, I plainly read my duties as writ with pencil of fire, they speaks not
of death, for they are woven of immoral thread.” Are we not also woven of this same
immortal thread?
So we have looked over our shoulders and seen the histories leading to this moment.
Do we have some sense of the world we look forward to, the world possibly
“predestined before the beginning of time,” the beloved community, or a “Kingdom to
come?”
Haven’t we touched it… as we have held hands in worship, and in celebration, and
when we have stood in solidarity for humanity and for just causes, for righteousness;
haven’t we tasted it in the sweetness of life, in the bounty of nature’s goodness; haven’
t we smelled it in the sweat of our labor, in the perfume of our lovemaking and in the
streams of incense that carry our prayers for a safer, more just world, to the heavens?
Do not we hear its call, off somewhere in the distance—perhaps days or years or even
decades, calling us to this place… calling us to place trust in the voice of our souls, the
“still-small voice within,” urging us to create the living womb—here and now—from
which the beloved community, the Kingdom or Queendom of God, the enlightened
world, can blossom?
We just may be destined by some eternal Holy Wisdom to make our visions living
realities. Emerson warned, “The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only
serve to lead us into it.” Can we separate our “intelligent” dreams for the future from
the first sparks that gave life to universe and led to those dreams? Is there only a
random association between our dreams today and the aspirations of the generations
before and the whole course of evolution? Does the Holy Eternal lure us to some final
predestined infinite perfection, to some ultimate universal salvation?
Unitarian founder William Ellery Channing wrote, “I call that mind free which is not
passively framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental
impulse: Which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in
them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.” Are we looking for the “radiant
signatures of the infinite spirit” in our own lives? Where might we find these lighthouses
beyond the evening sea?
Father Karl Rahner, the eminent Jesuit theologian of this past century, named God the
“ever receding horizon” of existence, the “ever-receding horizon” of the human
experience, which is always calling forth the full blossoming of our souls, and the total
transformation of the world. For Rahner, encounter with God is unavoidable, for God is
the context of everything that exists, and the bright future of possibilities beyond
everything that exists. God is the Holy Mystery behind and beyond our experience of
reality; the “not yet known” and the mysterious destination of this voyage.
The Sufis believe that God flashes like lightening in reality. Each of our unique
experiences of the transcendent, those which we can touch, taste, smell, hear, and
see, are God’s being shining through reality, in an especially powerful way to guide us
carefully into the future. They are signposts on the journey.
We should look then for the transcendent Spirit in all things. It may be there, shining in
the eyes of your beloved, growing in the bonds of this community, standing side-by-
side, shoulder-to-shoulder with you, struggling against oppressions—in all its many
mutating forms, urging transformation, liberating the oppressed, and binding-up the
broken, that we may find our salvation. To navigate in this world, we must place our
ever-deepening faith in this sacred transcendence that saves us—the love we sense in
the presence of our heart-friends, in our families, in the depths of own mysterious
beings, and in our ideals and visions of a better world. It is there that real freedom lies.
It is there that the mind will be unleashed. It is there that we are freed from the potential
bondage of the past and are able to continue our voyage, sailing nearer and nearer to
the shores of the Holy.
We must not walk the path of this world; we must know ourselves to be of a
transcendent source that is being woven into this existence. We cannot afford to be led
astray by the temptations of the world, the temptations of decadence, materialism and
ego-glorification, because we likely have tread those trails and we know, all to well, that
they are ultimately dead ends. We must look forward on this voyage, opening
ourselves to the brilliant effulgences of the Light of Life, however it may come to us,
and we must swiftly follow that call, in faith, and in hope, and with perfect trust.
In the Christian Gospels, Jesus describes the transcendent world that is to come as
follows: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he
found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
The “pearl of great value” is the transcendent moments of life, “the radiant signatures
of the infinite spirit.” We must sell everything we have to be guided by it—all of our
limiting worldly assumptions and illusions, because it is what is beyond all of these. We
must not allow them to become the permanent, unmovable rocks of our journey. The
transcendent is the Spirit; God can be thought of as totality of everything that we sense
truly matters in life, it is the substance from which the new world, the beloved
community, must be built. It is from whence we came and it may just be our destiny.
Our great Universalist ancestors believed in destiny. They believed in a destiny ripe
with all the riches of the human spirit. They had faith that everything that has been, is,
or will be, are integral parts of God’s salvific plan for humanity. They had hope that
regardless of how creative we are at constructing our own prisons of the human spirit,
God—in God’s almost infinite possibilities and compassion—would always offer us
freedom from our own self-imposed captivity.
Last year, I studied systematic theology at a Roman Catholic school and—as you might
imagine—I frequently engaged my beloved professor in some rather… charged
debates. In one instance that stands out in my mind, we were debating the likelihood of
universal salvation. She felt that it was probable… and… I felt that it was certain. She
insisted that humans have free will and, therefore, could eternally choose to turn away
from God if they wished. I argued against the supposed reality of an isolated “free will”
that is independent from the rest of existence, from its contexts and living webs of
influence. I argued instead for a cocreative will that is relational, and, therefore, never
entirely free. It is participatory, not insular, and, therefore, unable to even fully resist
the freedom of possibilities gracefully offered by the divinity of existence.
At this point she lost all control and yelled, and I mean yelled, “What!? God is so
wonderful and loving and adorable that in the end he will find a way and we wouldn’t
even be capable of resisting him.” I hesitantly replied, “Exactly,” and she sat in
contemplation. (Pause)
Universal salvation, intelligent design and destiny are possibilities that we all fear
because they require that we be dethroned, and that we admit that, maybe—just
maybe—our intelligence isn’t the only intelligence at work in the world. They require
that we admit that we are not the locus-of-control of all reality, or even of our own
destiny. They demand that we place trust in that which is outside of ourselves, in the
“other,” and in the good Spirit of life itself. We may steer the boat, but still the currents
will move us.
The wisdom, intellect, creativity, and imagination, that each of us brings into the world
is only a strand in a larger web of relationship, possibility and mystery. There is other
transcendent wisdom in this world, lucidly incarnate in loved ones and those who we
absolutely despise; in those who we have never met or even considered, and in all of
history, that is not our own, and from which we can never remove our being.
Looking back as far as I can see, I bear witness to a linage that leads all the way to my
presence here tonight. Looking forward, I place my faith only in those transcendent
moments, which descend like raindrops from heaven, and reveal to me something of
the eternal destination of all things.
Let us live, placing faith in the signatures of the infinite Spirit we sense in our own lives,
and let us write our own immortal page in this great drama, with the pencil of fire.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Jeremy Elliott is a student at Starr King.
Immanuel: “God with us
by John Morgan, Contributing Editor
The most amazing mystery of all is that God drew as close to the human scene as the
birth of a small, poor child in the midst of a war ravaged landscape.
After all my theological training, I am reduced to a very outwardly simple proposition:
Immanuel, “God with us.” I don’t know of any more powerful symbol of hope than this
one: We are not alone but parts of a deep mystery that some give the name
“God.” Others refuse any name, understanding that any word we choose points to a
great mystery to which our language only offers directional signals. Never mistake the
finger pointing to what it points to—a very wise Buddhist aphorism.
Some may feel closest to the Holy when they serve others or when they hear majestic
music or when they gaze into the eyes of a loved one. I know these deep feelings, too,
but the older I have become the more tangible and human my needs have grown when
it comes to discovering places where the human and divine meet.
The Celtic Christians have a wonderful way of describing those regions where the veil
between the temporal and the eternal touch; they call such encounters “thin places.” I
experienced such a “thin place” this summer as the daylight broke over the ruins of the
Tintern Abbey in Wales. It was a clear to me then as the morning light that I was
standing in a thin place where the eternal and the temporal touched. This was
obviously a wasted abbey from medieval times. But if I stood quiet and listened and
watched I could feel the presence of the Holy as the light from the heavens chased
darkness away.
I think if Jesus had walked up to me that morning, I would have not been surprised. In a
way, maybe he did and still is.
As a universalist, I do not believe that the divine is finally captured in any tradition. The
Spirit blows where it will, sometimes in the disguises only the Holy takes, and
sometimes which we only know when the Spirit has gone--and try as we may we cannot
recreate it with our hymns or words. God has many names—but one Spirit, the spirit of
love, which has many forms.
As a disciple of Jesus, however, I have come to find a tangible and human _expression
of the Divine in the teachings and life of this wandering teacher and prophet, a son of
God and of humanity. When I hear the stories about him I am always brought to the
thin places of the heart where the divine and the human touch. When I read or listen to
his parables I am brought face to face with a decision about my own life and to what or
whom I am committed.
I cannot rest with the cold abstractions of a dying rationality that dominated the early
part of my life journey. Now I need the touch of a hand, the sharing of a friendship, the
words of comfort from a teacher—each of which I find in Jesus.
But, of course, it’s more than a dead book or prophet. A dynamic faith needs a living
presence, and in a way I would not have expected years ago, I have found this in a
small group with whom I worship on a weekly basis. There we pray for one another, for
others, for the world. There we read scripture and speak about what it means. There
we raise the great issues of living and dying. We then share communion in a simple
and direct way, serving one another the bread and wine of the supper. I am not asked
about my theology or past deeds. At this welcome table I am simply invited in as an
equal participant. I am brought into God’s presence in a way I have long sought.
I am not sure how the Holy and the human connect for any person. I suppose that is
part of each journey. I only know as the night draws near that I take comfort in the Light
I have discovered and hold it close for warmth and illumination. At this season, I can
say wholeheartedly and without reservation or insincerity: Immanuel--“God with us.”
(John is also a member of the Herald Board and of the Unitarian Universalist Christian
Association. He is seeking affiliation with the Disciples of Christ as well)
The Buddhist on a Bicycle or How I Became a Universalist Without Knowing It
by John L. Saxon
Once upon a time, long, long ago … well, about forty years ago … there was a
teenaged boy named John who lived with his mother and father, his two younger
brothers, and his two younger sisters in a small town in south Alabama. John’s family
was Methodist, so John was a Methodist, too.
John attended Sunday School every Sunday (or almost every Sunday), stopped by the
church on Friday afternoon to fold the order of service, participated in the Methodist
Youth Fellowship, and sang in the youth choir at the Sunday night worship service. He
earned the God and Country medal as a Boy Scout. He believed in God, Jesus,
heaven, and hell. His grandmother told him that she hoped he’d be a Methodist
minister when he grew up.
One summer evening when John was fourteen or fifteen years old, his father told the
family that a young Japanese man named Hiro was going to eat dinner and spend the
night with them the next day. Hiro was a nineteen or twenty-year-old student at a
university in Japan and was riding his bicycle across the United States during his
summer vacation. He had just ridden from New Orleans to Mobile, where he stayed
overnight with a friend of John’s father. The friend called John’s father and asked if
Hiro could stay with John’s family when Hiro rode his bike from Mobile to Greenville.
John’s father said “sure.”
Hiro was a nice young man. He smiled and was very polite. He spoke English well
enough to tell us about his bike ride across the United States, his studies at the
university, his family, and life in Japan. When Hiro left the next morning on the next leg
of his cycling journey, he thanked John’s mother and father for their hospitality and
gave them a small present—two tiny statues of the Buddha and Kuan Yen, the
Bodhisatva of Compassion.
Shortly after Hiro left, John’s mother told John that she was concerned that she had not
told Hiro about Jesus. The problem, of course, was that Hiro was a Buddhist, not a
Christian, and because Hiro was a Buddhist, and not a Christian, he was not saved and
would not go to heaven when he died.
John was concerned, too, but he didn’t say anything to his mother. John understood
that God sent bad people to hell when they died, but Hiro didn’t seem like a bad
person. He seemed to be very nice, polite, kind, smart, strong, and funny. And it wasn’t
Hiro’s fault that he was a Buddhist or that John’s mother didn’t tell him about Jesus so
he could accept Jesus as his savior. How could a loving God send Hiro to hell? It just
didn’t make sense.
John remained a member of the Methodist Church until he went away to college, but
his views of God and religion became more and more unlike those of his parents, his
family, and his friends.
Twenty years later, having moved from Christianity, to agnosticism, existentialism,
secularism, and humanism, John joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation and
finally realized that he had become a Universalist without knowing it twenty years earlier
after a Buddhist on a bicycle spent the night in his family’s home.
As a young boy in rural, south Alabama who had never even heard of Universalism,
John had understood that a loving God could not condemn a nice, polite Japanese
student to hell just because he was a Buddhist and did not believe that Jesus was the
Son of God.
So John never became a Methodist minister as his grandmother hoped he would. But
he is studying to become a Unitarian Universalist minister and is standing here in front
of you today holding the small statues of the Buddha and Kuan Yen that Hiro gave to
his parents—to my parents—forty years ago.
II
I understand now that my “conversion” from orthodox Christianity to Universalism as a
fourteen-year old boy was not that different from the conversion experiences of the first
Universalists in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a matter of both the head and the
heart—a feeling that a good and loving God simply would not condemn Hiro simply
because he was a Buddhist and an inability to comprehend how anything as arbitrary
as religious belief could have such eternal consequences.
I have to confess, though, that my Universalism is not at all the same as that professed
by George de Benneville, John Murray, Hosea Ballou, or the American Universalists of
the 19th and early 20th centuries—and I suspect that your Universalism isn’t, either.
In 1793, Universalism was virtually unknown in America. But over the next fifty years,
Universalism spread like wild fire among Christians who simply could not accept
orthodox Calvinism’s doctrines of predestination, election, and limited salvation. By
1845, Universalists claimed in 1845 to have 853 churches, 512 ministers, and 600,000
members (though they were probably exaggerating a bit with respect to church
membership).
1845, however, was, at least in terms of numbers, the “high water” mark for
Universalism. Universalism continued to grow in absolute numbers during the mid- and
late-1800s, but its growth didn’t keep pace with that of the U.S. population or other
religious denominations. The numbers tell a grim story: in 1896 there were 811
Universalist churches and a total membership of about 65,000. By 1917, membership
had declined to just over 50,000 (and, again, the figure may be exaggerated). And by
the time of the merger with the Unitarians in 1961, there were fewer than 300
Universalist churches with a total membership of less than 37,000.
III
So what happened to Universalism? Why aren’t there Universalist churches all over
eastern North Carolina? Why do Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, and
Buddhists outnumber Universalists (and Unitarians) in North Carolina and the United
States?
In his book, The Larger Faith, UU minister and historian Charles Howe suggests that
Universalism’s decline “was caused by three factors, one sociological, one
organizational, and one theological. Sociologically, the migration of Americans to the
cities and to the West left many of the rural or village churches without the critical mass
to sustain them. Organizationally, the denomination remained crippled by its distrust of
centralized power and the resulting difficulty in mounting unified action.” Most
importantly, though, Universalism’s decline seems to be related most closely with the
loss (or theft) of its essential message and its struggle to articulate a new identity.
Calvinism, with its doctrines of inherent human depravity, salvation for the chosen or
true believers, and eternal damnation for most of humanity, is still alive and well in
many parts of rural North Carolina. But even the Presbyterians don’t talk too much
about predestination anymore. In fact, by the last half of the 19th century, most of the
mainline Protestant churches had abandoned the most extreme doctrines of Calvinism
and held out the possibility that salvation was not limited and predetermined but freely
available to anyone who possessed her faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. That took
the hard edge off of Calvinism for most Americans and undoubtedly stole much of the
appeal of Universalism’s doctrine of universal salvation, even though the salvation
offered by orthodox Christianity was not truly universal.
Perhaps more importantly, though, by 1900 the focus of many, if not most, Americans
and much of American religion had shifted from the hereafter to the here and now.
Salvation, universal or otherwise, and life after death took a back seat to life before
death.
IV
In the fall of 1976, my wife and I took a trip to New England. One day, when we were
riding bicycles on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, I noticed a small, old, gray-shingled
church. The message posted in the church’s wayside pulpit caught my eye and I took a
picture of it with my Instamatic camera—not noticing or appreciating at the time that the
church was the home of a UU congregation. The sign said: “In religion, as in everything
else, survival is ensured only by change.”
Change, in religion as in everything else, is necessary, but it isn’t always easy or
embraced with open arms. And the trick to change, evolution, and growth is to change,
evolve, and grow in ways that retain and build upon what is essential and fundamental
while discarding or reshaping that which is obsolete, unnecessary, tangential, and
superficial.
So the history of Universalism over the past 100 years—throughout the history of your
church at Outlaw’s Bridge—has been the history of change, of resistance to change,
and of the search for a new identity that retains and reshapes that which is the true
essence of Universalism.
Universalist minister and theologian Clarence Russell Skinner was one of the first to
propose a new Universalist theology and identity in the 20th century. Skinner’s
theology went far beyond the limits of traditional Christianity but retained the essential
elements of the Protestant Social Gospel: the immanence of God, the ethical teachings
of Jesus, and the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. By 1933, the influence of
Skinner’s theology could be seen in the revised Universalist Statement of Faith, which
avowed a 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 or to be known, and in the power of men of good will … to overcome all evil and
progressively establish the Kingdom of God” on earth, but, unlike prior statements of
faith, did not assert the Bible’s authority as the word of God, did not identify Jesus as
Christ or the savior of humankind, and did not expressly mention the doctrine of
universal salvation.
Although Universalism retained much of its liberal Christian identity during the first half
of the 20th century, it moved closer and closer to the outer limits of mainstream
Christianity. By 1950, some Universalist ministers, including Robert Cummins, Clinton
Lee Scott, and Ken Patton, were articulating a new and radically different definition of
Universalism that went well beyond the boundaries of traditional Christianity (and
resulted in the rejection of the Universalists’ application for membership in the National
Council of Churches).
“A circumscribed Universalism,” Cummins said, “is unthinkable. Any Universalism
worthy of its name cannot recognize divisions between people on the basis of race or
class or religion or nationality … . All are welcome … unitarian or trinitarian, white or
colored, theist or humanist. Universalism cannot be limited either to Protestantism or to
Christianity, not without denying its very name. Ours is a world fellowship, not just a
Christian sect.”
V
So what does Universalism mean today—for Universalists like you all, for Unitarian
Universalists like me, and for others in this community, state, and nation?
First, I believe that, within Unitarian Universalism, Universalism’s “heart-centered
message” of love offers, in the words of UU minister Mark Ward, a much-needed
“corrective to the often head-centered Unitarian approach to religious faith” and
reminds us of the Christian roots of our denomination and of the value of the Christian
message of love and community.
Second, despite the fact that Universalism has evolved beyond Christianity, its
message of universal salvation remains attractive, I believe, to many liberal Christians.
Universalism offered, and still offers, a kinder, gentler Christianity, a more loving and
inclusive Christianity, a more rational Christianity, a more liberal Christianity. In my
studies at Earlham School of Religion, I’ve met Quakers, Brethren, and Christians who
call themselves universalist (with a small “u”) but have never set foot inside a
Universalist Church. And I know Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists whose beliefs
about God, Jesus, sin, salvation, heaven, and hell are probably not too very different
from yours. So I don’t think it is too far-fetched to believe that Universalism could
appeal to many liberal Christians here in rural North Carolina—Christians who
understand that the love of God embraces all human beings without exception.
But, most importantly, I believe that a new and expanded Universalism offers an
inclusive and expansive vision of religious faith for the world—the gospel of a “larger
hope” that, in the words of Rev. Tom Owen-Toole, embraces all living things, engages
every area of existence, and enjoys the resources of the entire universe.
“From its birth,” he writes, “Universalism has been a religious philosophy whose
governing metaphor denotes breadth, size, expansiveness. At its truest, Universalism
has been inclusive rather than restrictive in both spirit and structure.” Universalism
holds that “our humanity is judged by the size of our devotions and the stretch of our
involvements. Consequently, the only hope large enough to heal the globe’s
brokenness will be one that pays homage to the gifts of women as well as men,
children in addition to adults, and the marginalized alongside those in seats of privilege
and power. A faith of the larger hope welcomes persons of diverse colors and classes,
theologies and sexual orientations, ages and capacities. It aspires to be authentically,
not artificially, inclusive. Once we are grasped by the Universalist worldview, by its
concept of a larger hope, it proves unbearable to rest satisfied with diminishing
emotions, petty prejudices, and small-minded commitments. One cannot pursue the
path of Universalism and long remain void of hope, riddled with cowardice, and stingy
with love.”
Recalling his conversion to Universalism, George de Benneville wrote: “And I took it so
to heart that I believed that my happiness would be incomplete while one creature
remained miserable.” Universalism reminds us, according to Tom Owen-Toole, that the
“only salvation worth having is communal, extended to everyone.”
The early Universalists, according to Christopher Raible, didn’t preach that there was
no hell; they were merely arguing over its location. Raible writes: “If human beings
abandon their responsibilities for each other, they make the world more hellish.” It is
therefore our duty, according to Universalist minister Richard Gilbert, to be the agents
of an earthly salvation—a salvation that is truly universal and communal and not
merely personal. Universalism, in the words of Dorothy Spoerl, requires that we “not
just talk about compassion and love and understanding” but place them at the center
of what guides our words and deeds.
UU minister Mark Ward writes: “As with the early Universalists, we see many around us
who live, consciously or unconsciously, under an ethic of fear. At some times it walls us
off from others, and at other times it fuels a clutching, grasping mistrust and self-
centeredness. Universalism teaches that we are better than that. There is better nature
calling to us, one that would draw us in if we would but give it free play. It is that center
that we act from when our hearts are open, and it gives us not only compassion but
courage: courage to turn from the suspicion, cynicism and despair that separate us
and act on the love that unites us.”
VI
The gospel of Universalism, I believe, is still alive today even if it is not the same as the
Universalism preached by John Murray and Hosea Ballou. But the gospel of
Universalism, I believe, will survive and thrive only if it continues to evolve and grow
and we share its light with the world—or at least our neighbors in eastern North
Carolina.
VII
In closing, I’d like to share with you a meditation written by Elizabeth M. Strong:
“Where the heart stirs,
there moves Universalism.
The center holds us
within its transformative power of love.
We know with a wholeness of spirit
that God is love,
that life is good,
that people are created for goodness out of love,
that in the final reckoning
all shall be one.
When we hurt, when we are broken, when we become separated:
Let us seek the center which holds.
Let us remember the goodness for which we were created.
Let us be open to the transformative power of love
that moves within the heart of life
and be whole once again.
John L. Saxon is a part-time student at Meadville Theological School in Chicago, and a
UU campus minister at Duke University.
“Intelligent Design”
by John C. Morgan
(Editor’s note: John has two new books on the way and also writes a regular
newspaper column. He sees writing as his ministry. Many 19th Century Universalists
were proponents of the Universalist good news in books, newspaper articles, and
pamphlets,which may explain part of the phenomenal growth. They took the
Universalist gospel into the public arena. This is one of John’s recent newspaper
articles which brought him many reactions, some taking him to task for suggesting
common ground between science and religion.)
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” –Genesis 1:1
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive…but the one most
responsive to change.” --Charles Darwin, “Origin of the Species”
We are beginning to understand what it may have been like at the first second of
creation—what was needed to create life. But we really can’t answer why. To make
matters more confusing, some theorists argue that ours is only one of many universes.
Right now I’ve having enough trouble understanding just one.
Not being clear about the truth claims made by science on one hand and religion on
the may lead to disputes. Arguments heat up around whether “intelligent design” (the
view that was an organizing, purposeful energy at the beginning which some call
“God”) ought to be taught along side evolution as a theory of how life evolved over
time.
Evolution is a theory first postulated by Charles Darwin (who wanted to be a minister,
interestingly enough) about how species adapt to change over time. This theory itself
has evolved as scientists learn more. For example, some scientists argue that
evolution does not mean slow and steady change over time; at some points there can
be evolutionary leaps that are not explainable as a steady and predicable progression.
On the other hand, the theory of intelligent design is also just that—a theory, but one
which comes out of a religious understanding that in the beginning there was a
purpose.
Since I don’t know anyone who was around to ask God why the universe was formed, it’
s a little difficult for anyone other than God to be clear unless one assumes God wrote
the opening chapters of Genesis, and then one is faced with two accounts in the same
book.
I don’t believe there is so great a conflict between science and religion over how the
universe began. I see nothing contradictory about believing the universe was shaped
by intelligence far greater than our own, with evolution becoming the means by which
life shaped itself over time.
Conflicts arise when people debate whether the theory of intelligent design should be
taught as part of a science class. Some would argue that you should not teach
religious truths as part of a science class; others would say that intelligent design is
another theory that needs to be taught alongside evolution.
I see a deeper issue at stake in whether intelligent design should be taught as part of a
science course: Which story of intelligent design should we teach, or should all be
offered: Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist? These religions do not always point to
the same conclusion—a Hindu understanding of how things began is quite different
from our prevailing Western model, drawn mainly from the creation stories of the
Jewish scriptures. In fact, there are some traditions which don’t even believe in
creation--the universe never had a beginning. So to argue that all religions teach the
same truth about our origins is simply wrong.
And, contrary to what you hear, there is not one prevailing scientific view of how the
universe began either, though there now appears at least to be a consensus that there
was something like a “big bang” at the beginning. But what was before the big bang is
still under study. Was there anything at all? Or was there some kind of primordial
chaos to which order was brought?
I believe in “intelligent design,” though I sometimes find it difficult to believe it took
much hold on the human race when I hear opponents arguing. I am not sure I want
intelligent design taught in a biology class. If you want to teach this theory in the public
schools, let it be taught in a world cultures class where creation stories from many
world traditions can be presented.
Private schools can teach whatever version of how the world began they wish. In fact, if
religious institutions were really doing the work they were supposed to be doing—
teaching the fundamentals of their particular religion—there might not be such a furor
over whether or not to teach “intelligent design” in public schools.
I suspect one motive of some intelligent proponents is to promote only one version of
creation—their own. I doubt they would find comfort if a public school said it would offer
intelligent design as part of a world cultures class and include many religions. So it is
not just intelligent design advocates want, but only their version, which, of course, they
argue is the only true one.
What we really need is a little humility, both on the part of some religious people and
some scientists. There is great meaning to be found in how religions describe creation
in myth and story. There also is much to be learned from scientists who want to
understand how the universe began.
John Morgan is also a member of the Herald Board and of the Unitarian Universalist
Christian Association.
Christian Universalism “Endorsed” by Jesus Seminar
by Ken R. Vincent
Validating the doctrine of Christian Universalism was not one of the Jesus Seminar’s
stated objectives. Nevertheless, in their efforts to determine the genuine words and
deeds of the historical Jesus, the Seminar has confirmed that Jesus’ message of
Universal Salvation is authentic to him. Christian Universalism is the belief that God is
too good to condemn anyone to eternal hell and that ALL people will be eventually
reconciled with God. It is a position strongly supported in Bible and advocated by
Christians from the 2nd Century to the present. Unfortunately, it is a message often
overlooked or ignored in many Christian pulpits, despite its particular relevance for our
modern, pluralistic world.
As many Christians already know, the Jesus Seminar undertook a unique experiment in
tapping the knowledge of over 200 academicians and theologians from various
backgrounds to separate the authentic words and deeds of the historical Jesus from
later editing. As a religious writer, I am extremely grateful for the time and expertise
devoted to this project. As a social scientist, I have particular respect for their attempts
to find an objective method for their research. Unfortunately, I believe that the color-
coding method chosen has fostered some unfortunate distortions and
misunderstandings of their conclusions.
Briefly, the Jesus Seminar scholars coded red the words they deemed unique to Jesus;
those words of Jesus with less consensus were colored pink. I had read through their
first major work, The Five Gospels, for a third time before it dawned on me that the red
and pink words did not represent words spoken by Jesus but those utterances that
were ABSOLUTELY NEW and original to him – the stuff that separated the Messiah
from the earlier prophets.
When I talk about this in Sunday school, I challenge people in an exercise to help them
understand how rare “red” words occur in life. I ask them to think about the thoughts
they express which are entirely fresh --- not borrowed from their parents, relatives,
teachers, preachers, books, or media. Once they concentrate on this, they realize how
little is truly “unique”!
Those words deemed “in the spirit” of Jesus or “similar” to Jesus were coded gray.
Those that did not represent Jesus’ unique message were coded black. The black
words fall into three categories: 1) Statements in which Jesus quotes the Hebrew Bible,
2) Statements from common lore, and 3) Propaganda added by the early
churches/writers.
Unfortunately, the words colored gray or black are often interpreted by many to mean
that “Jesus never said that” when, in fact, those words may have been uttered by
Jesus but were not considered by the Jesus Seminar scholars to be original to him.
Like virtually every preacher, prophet, sage, and saint who has ever lived, Jesus surely
quoted from Scripture; we can also be certain that he referred to common lore (i.e.,
common sense, the type of wisdom found in Proverbs), as well as statements
compatible with wisdom from other religions in the ancient world. The question then
becomes: Are the quotes from the Bible and common lore consistent with the authentic
teachings of Jesus? In my opinion, the Jesus Seminar needed several more colors!
Christian Universalism, also known as Universal Restoration or Universal Salvation, is
the idea expressed in the Bible that God’s love is so great that, after “rehabilitation”
/purification in Hell for those who don’t measure up, ALL will be saved. There are a
substantial number of Bible verses cited by Universalist theologians from ancient times
to the present to make the case for Christian Universalism, especially when the verses
supporting Salvation by Good Works are included to make the case for Universal
Restoration.
Except for the Bible itself, the first theologian to write about Universalism was Clement
of Alexandria (150-215 CE). His pupil, Origen (185-254 CE), further developed the
understanding of Universalism and is considered the major ancient authority on the
subject. After Universalism was declared a heresy by the Roman Catholic Church in
the Sixth Century, it continued to be advocated by some theologians in the East and
mystics in the West.
With the Reformation, there was a re-birth of Universalist thought, and for a time the
Universalist Church of America was the sixth largest denomination in the United States.
Its demise is often attributed to its success, as other churches began to de-emphasize
predestination and fire and brimstone in favor of the more loving message of God’s
love for ALL. The Universalist church merged with the Unitarian church in 1961, and
the movement has become an interfaith church in which Universalist Christians have
become an ever decreasing minority. Most people today who endorse Universalist
theology can be found in virtually all Christian denominations; it represents a change of
heart rather than a change of denomination. Examples of prominent Universalists
include William Barclay (Presbyterian), Jan Bonda (Dutch Reformed), Philip Gulley and
James Mulholland (Quakers), Tom Harpur (Anglican), John Hick (United Reformed),
Randy Klassen (Mennonite), Dennis, Sheila, and Matthew Linn (Roman Catholics),
John A. T. Robinson (Anglican), Thomas Talbott (Independent), and Hans von
Balthasar (Roman Catholic).
Now let us look at how various theological positions found in the Gospels fared with the
Jesus Seminar. The verses are somewhat vexing to analyze, as the scholars often
assign three different colors to a single verse! Significantly, all of the verses relating
to the JESUS SAVES theology were rejected as original to Jesus. John Calvin’s
PREDESTINATION fared only slightly better with only two verses seen as original to
Jesus (Matt 6:10, 10:29). Some classic sayings of Jesus on GOOD WORKS were
deemed authentic, although two of the mainstay examples of good works were
rejected, i.e., The Judgment of the Nations (Parable of the Sheep and the Goats) (Matt
25:31-46) and The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The former
was seen as early church propaganda, and the latter thought suspect, as it was similar
to stories from other religions in the ancient world. A few verses relating to good works
(Parable of the Good Samaritan) (Luke 10:30-35), Jesus on forgiveness (Matt 6:12),
and the Parable of the Sower (Mk 4:3-8; Matt 13:3-8; Lk 8:5-8) were voted authentic.
By far, passages advocating UNIVERSAL SALVATION received the most endorsement
from the Jesus Seminar. While they rejected some of the “zingers” (e.g., Jn 12:32),
virtually all Jesus’ classic parables interpreted as Universalist were judged by the Jesus
Seminar to be authentic to Jesus, including The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matt 18:12-
13; Lk 15:4-6), The Workers in the Vineyard (Matt 20:1-15), The Parable of the Lost
Coin (Lk 15:8-9), and the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32). Also, the verses
relating to the fact that hell is not permanent and used only for
rehabilitation/purification were determined authentic by the Jesus Seminar. They are:
Settle with Your Opponent (Matt 5:25-26; Lk 12:58-59) and the Parable of the Wicked
Servant (Matt 18:23-34). Finally, although it was mutilated in part by the Jesus
Seminar, Jesus’ teaching to be like God and love our enemies as God is good to the
just and the unjust (Matt 5:44-46) was voted genuine to Jesus.
In spite of the controversy surrounding the minimalist approach to the Gospels used by
the Jesus Seminar, Christian Universalists can take some satisfaction that the theology
that emerges is an unwitting endorsement of the teachings of Jesus that have been
used by Universalists from the Second Century forward as expressing God’s Universal
Love for ALL people and, after a “time of trial” for some (Matt 6:13 NRSV), the promise
of Salvation for ALL people.
Ken R. Vincent’s books include: THE MAGI: From Zoroaster to the “Three Wise Men”,
and VISIONS OF GOD FROM THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE. This article, Christian
Universalism "Endorsed" by the Jesus Seminar, is an appendix in his latest book : The
GOLDEN THREAD, GOD'S PROMISE OF UNIVERSAL SALVATION.
"In His Name"
A sermon preached February 9, 2003 by the Reverend John Morgan at the First
Unitarian Universalist Church, Reading, Pa
The "In His Name" is intentional. The communion table in the church I serve has these
words carved along one side. It's this side which has turned away from the
congregation. Ironically, the wood in the table is from Dr. George De Benneville's
home, Thomas Potter's chapel in New Jersey and the Ephrata Cloisters from which
Universalist missionaries set out to share the good news.
This is a very personal sermon. In truth, I wrote it for myself, to be clear about where
my life journey has brought me. I hope I do not sound like the person who talked about
himself for a long time before saying to a friend: "Okay, that's enough about me; let's
talk about you. What do you think of me?"
I want to talk about the fact that I am back to dealing with that Zen-like, Mediterranean
peasant who wandered around the villages talking about the kingdom of God and
turning the notion of being a messiah upside down preaching about nonviolence,
questioning religious authorities, speaking in parables, and otherwise making a
nuisance of himself not only to his family and friends, but finally to the political powers.
He was crucified, died, and, according to a few friends, came back to prove his point
about love being stronger than death.
On the night before he died, Jesus met with his disciples at Gethsemane, The earliest
Gospel writer, Mark, says Jesus was fearful and distressed.
He asked his disciples to stay awake with him, but they fell asleep. And Jesus prayed
for the strength to bear whatever came his way, "Thy will, not mine, "was always his
deepest prayer.
On the night of September 29, 1770, the Reverend John Murray, having fled from
England because he had lost his finances, wife and son, also spent the night praying,
because he had been asked by an illiterate Quaker Universalist, Thomas Potter, to
give a sermon in a rustic New Jersey meetinghouse the next day, Murray didn't want
anything to do with it. But he, too, found the strength to go on, being assured that, as
the scripture says, what he needed to say would be given to him when he needed it.
I may have the same initials as John Murray, but that's about all. However, I do
understand his resistance to God's will for his life, Like John Murray, I have prayed the
prayer of weakness: "0 God, go away and leave me alone,"
But the Hound of Heaven has a persistent way of getting your attention. It usually takes
a two-by-four for me to wake up. But I have awoken, And the most amazing thing of all-I
feel myself being led by a power greater than my own to places I would rather not go,
"He leadeth me, He leadeth me, by His own hand, He leadeth me." Now I finally
understand the words of old hymn,
I am not that far from retirement. I could sit quietly and say nothing and collect
whatever meager pension I have. But what kind of a person would I be then? And what
kind of people would I be serving if I believed I had to hide?
"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" My prayer
all week has been simple:
"0 God, you have brought me this far. I do not believe my work is over. I ask that you
bless and keep me according to your will, and lead me into new life, so that I might be
faithful to what light you have shone me. Amen."
I do not come to argue, I do not come to suggest that you agree with me. I do come
only asking that you hear where I am on my life's journey, If you really know and care
for me at all, you will be glad for me, that after such a long sojourn in the wilderness, I
feel at peace.
For most of its journey, our movement has been Christian. Whether Unitarian or
Universalist, our affirmations or covenants were overtly Christian.
The earliest covenant we claim is congregational in polity-the 17th Century Cambridge
Platform. It affirmed our Christian roots. And the earliest Univer-salist covenant, 1790,
also affirmed the same roots. And the last Universalist covenant before merger with the
Unitarans in 1961, stated this:
"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 or 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."
That's who we have been for most of our history: Liberal Christians. Yet that Is not our
common, collective identify any longer. Isn't it most telling that one of the publications
of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship is entitled: "So You Want To Be a
Christian, But Your Church Isn't?" That about says it all. But I don't think it states it as
clearly as someone said to me recently: "You can be anything here except a Christian."
What is it about being a Christian that irks so many of us? Is it because we were
wounded by our own Christian roots? Is it because we think all Christians preach a
distorted, rightwing gospel of disdain toward anyone who does not take the Bible
literally or adopt their pet theology? Have we forgotten our own roots? Can't we marvel
at the Sermon on the Mount or the wonderful parables and stories he told?
A few weeks ago, I sat with a minister of another tradition. He was gay; his
congregation was not. He wasn't telling them about himself because he was afraid of
what they might think. "Coming out" for him was so risky that he had to hide his
deepest self. He had to bear the off hand remarks others made about "queers" and
"fags." He and I cried together. A day later, I realized that I was not only crying for him,
but for myself and for this movement. I cried for his pain. I cried because I realized that I
felt the same pain but for a different reason: I, and others like me, some who have left
our movement, felt sad because the Jesus rebuked was not the Jesus we had found...
Jesus, the teacher and healer and activist who taught about the nearness of God in
the holiness of the ordinary-a band of disciples eating together, water and air and fire
and nature and the presence of the Holy in even the most lowly of people.
There is a story told by Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement. She
refused to move to the back of the bus and take a seat there because of the color of
her skin. Years later, when asked why she reused to move to the back of the bus,
Rosa Parks said: "Because I was tired. "
I don't think she meant "tired" physically. I think she meant "tired" emotionally and
spiritually. She was tired of being forced to sit at the back of a bus. She was tired of
being a second class citizen. In a very real way, I'm "tired," too.
I have always been involved in struggling with the life and teachings of Jesus, only
recently have I opened the closet door to say openly: I am a follower of Jesus.. ..
reluctant and hesitant, but clear that he is calling me by name.
Life is too short to stay hidden or fearful. I owe myself and I owe you and I owe God,
more than my fears and weaknesses. The words my father put in the first Bible he gave
me have challenged me anew:
"In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. "
So let me clear and unequivocal. I am trying with all my heart and soul to be a disciple
of Jesus. Heaven knows, I've been everything else.
I am the son in one of Jesus' parables who takes his inheritance and gambles it away in
a far-off country. I am so grateful for a second and third and, maybe last chance. I feel
claimed by a Presence deeper and more loving than I have ever known. If you really
knew my life story, you would rejoice with me now as the father in the parable. You
would run out to welcome me home.
I also am one of the workers in the vineyard described in another of Jesus' parables.
You remember the story: A vineyard owner hires workers in three hour shifts. At the
end of the day, everyone is paid the same-no matter how many hours they have
worked. The point of the story is not when you answer the call to ministry, but if you
answer it at all. I'm one of the late workers.
But in that upside down kingdom, where the poor in spirit and the meek reign, "the first
shall be last, and the first, last." Jesus had a delightful, ironic, revolutionary ethic.
Francis Thompson, a poet and recovering alcoholic, could have been writing about me
in one of his most loved poems, The Hound of Heaven:
I fled Him down the nights and down the days,
I fled Him down the arches
of the years,
the labyrinthine ways
of my own mind;
and in the midst of tears,
I hid from Him. . . .
I am hiding no longer. I am out of the closet.
I am at peace. I am not afraid.
Amen!
John Morgan is a former Editor, Associate Editor, and Writer for the Herald, currently
serving as the minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church In Reading,
Pennsylvania.
THE SALVATION CONSPIRACY: How Hell Became Eternal
by Ken R. Vincent (This article appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of the
UNIVERSALIST HERALD)
Additional Page Contents:
Developmental Revelation
by Ken R. Vincent
“Without Being Left Behind”
by Derek Lee Parker
WHAT’S GONE WRONG WITH OUR FAITH?
by John C. Morgan
Destiny is Calling
by Jeremy Elliott
Immanuel: “God with us.”
by John Morgan
The Buddhist on a Bicycle or How I Became a Universalist Without Knowing It
by John L. Saxon
“Intelligent Design”
by John C. Morgan
Christian Universalism “Endorsed” by Jesus Seminar
by Ken R. Vincent
"In His Name"
by John C. Morgan
_________________________________________________________
Developmental Revelation
by Ken R. Vincent
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child, but
when I became a man I put away childish ways.” (I Cor. 13:11) This familiar passage of
St. Paul describes normal human development.
My thesis is that there is a parallel between the development of the individual and the
progress of whole cultures throughout history and that evidence for this maturation
process can be found in the stories of the world’s religions. Because the Bible
documents a 2000-year period of human development, it is particularly rich with
examples of developmental revelation.
There are many approaches to studying human development and religion, and these
are reflected in the research of developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget, Erik
Erikson, Jane Loevinger, and others. James Fowler, who is both a psychologist and
theologian, devised a compelling list called, “Seven Stages of Faith Development”.
The theory of human development with the most cross-cultural and comparative
religious research to its credit (and my personal favorite) is that of Larry Kholberg. It is
the one I have selected to explore with you in greater detail. To date, the consensus of
his research shows that, when education and socioeconomic status are controlled for,
human beings around the world from all faiths and cultures vary widely among
themselves and that no faith or culture is clearly superior.
According to Kholberg, there are three levels of moral development, each of which has
two stages:
1) Pre-conventional
2) Conventional, and
3) Post-conventional.
It is important to realize that not all people reach all stages of development, neither in
the past nor today.
1) Pre-conventional
The “pre-conventional” level is the most remedial, and its first stage is called the
“punishment and obedience orientation”. This is the stage of pre-schoolers. The child
at this stage lacks the mental structure to understand the rules but does understand
rewards and punishment. Children at this age are not educable, but they are
trainable. This is also the moral level of your dog or cat.
Consider this example: At about age 3 or 4 years, your daughter has figured out that
pushing the chair up to the kitchen counter will allow her to get to the cookie jar. Later,
you come into the kitchen, see the chair and the empty cookie jar with its lid off, and
you see the child with crumbs all over her face. When you ask,, “Did you take the
cookies?”, your child gives the “right” answer—“No, I didn’t take the cookies!” The
parent is often devastated, assuming that his child is not only STEALING but LYING!
The parent fails to realize that the child does not yet make the connection between
cause and effect. Thankfully, very few adults remain stuck at this moral level.
In the Bible, the best-known example of this is the second Creation Story (Gen 2:4-3:
24) in which you might substitute the “forbidden fruit” for the cookie jar. Adam takes
no personal responsibility but blames Eve for giving him the fruit, and Eve blames the
snake for her misbehavior!
In the same story in Genesis, we are introduced to the oldest form of punishment – the
banishment of Adam and Eve from Paradise. As demonstrated in the work of Jane
Goodall, this links us with the behavior of baboons who banish members of their clan
for “crimes” of dominance, sex, and murder.
In the 5,000-year-old Egyptian Book of the Dead, this stage of morality is reflected in
the behavior of the deceased who is expected to lie to the god Osiris in the Afterlife by
reciting a magic formula known as the Negative Confession in which he denies all
wrong-doing. We see this same magic formula in the Christian theology of “Jesus
Saves.” All one needs to know is John 3:16 and/or John 14:6. This is a gross distortion
of the teachings of Jesus. Another Christian theology at this level is Predestination. In
predestination, individuals cannot influence their own salvation and like the small child
have no understanding of the reason for the rules. Before we leave the level of
“magic” in human development, it is important to note that in times of distress, any of
us may want a little magic! In Hinduism, it is said that if you die with the name of the
god Vishnu or one of his incarnations like Rama or Krishna on your lips, all your sins
will be taken away. Gandhi, who achieved the highest level of spiritual development,
died with the name of Rama on his lips!
The second stage of “pre-conventional morality” is that of reciprocity. This is the stage
most of us reached in elementary school and is adopted to satisfy personal needs. At
this stage, the rules exist to be manipulated. Children will give favors in order to get
similar rewards in return. They discover that they can make “deals”, i.e., “if you
scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”. A child will say, “I don’t want to play that game.
That is YOUR game, and we played that yesterday. Today is MY turn.” Even in
modern times, some adults get stuck at this stage.
Obviously, this level includes primitive religions in which an animal or human is
sacrificed as a bribe to the gods with the understanding that the gods will do (or not
do) something for the worshipers. Also, the idea in the Hebrew Bible that the righteous
will always prosper, and that if something bad happens to you, it’s because you have
sinned belongs at this level. Some years ago, a student told me of working at an
affluent church school that did not admit handicapped students; because it was
evidence that their parents had sinned. In the Book of Job, Job’s friends express this
view. The Prayer of Jabez is a “give me” prayer and at this level.
In the Bible, this level of morality is also represented in the law of “an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24). Getting stuck with this mentality can lead to
barbarism and reminds us of the relentless retaliatory strikes we hear about on the
evening news between the Israelis and Palestinians. Unless people are encouraged to
higher levels of thinking, in the words of Martin Luther King, we are all at risk of
becoming “blind and toothless”. The only good thing about this rule is that you are
only allowed to take one eye for one eye and one tooth for one tooth.
Many of those to whom Moses preached were no doubt at either the first or second
stage of “pre-conventional” morality – largely equivalent to that of today’s small
children. It also appears that the people addressed by Mohammed 2000 years later
were at this level.
2) Conventional
The next level of moral reasoning is the “conventional” level which is reached by most
people in adolescence; most adults never progress beyond one of its two stages. The
first of these stages is the “good boy/nice girl” phase in which “right” behaviors are the
ones that please the person’s reference groups, including family, friends, and peers.
This is the first stage that goes beyond the manipulation of others for personal
gratification and includes a genuine consideration for others. It is the first level at
which the Golden Rule can be understood, if not practiced.
In the Bible, the beautiful story of Ruth reflects this level of development when she
declares, “Where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall
be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16) Although this love passage is
sometimes used for modern weddings, Ruth is not saying this to her husband – she is
addressing her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth wants to remain with her mother-in-law
because she loves her --- not because she thinks Naomi’s God is superior!
This is the stage where the need for a personal god is strongest. In Hinduism this is the
devotional path exemplified by the worshipers of Lord Krishna. “Krishna, Krishna, Hari,
Hari”: Krishna, Krishna, Redeemer, Redeemer. In Christianity, we see this manifested
in those kind and loving people that model their lives on Jesus. One is reminded of the
words of the beautiful old hymn, In the Garden: “and he walks with me and he talks with
me and he tells me I am his own…”
The second stage of the “conventional” level of morality is compatible with the view of
“law and order”. At this stage, morality is defined as “doing one’s duty” and “obeying
the rules”. At this stage, rules are “right” because they have been formulated by one’s
superiors – a prophet, king, judge, president, or priest. This represents a step upward
because, for the first time, the values of society as a whole are placed above the
needs of the individual, his close family, or his friends. This is the mentality of “my
country right or wrong”.
In the Bible, this is the mentality of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:1-17) and
represents the stern but fair God of Moses and Mohammed.
Returning to ancient Egyptian religion, the concept of the justice of weighing of the
departed good deeds is reinstated. As in Christianity, it co-exists with magic (e.g., The
Book of the Dead’’s magic formula of Salvation and Christianity’s “Jesus Saves”). The
story appears of a grandson of Rameses II named Sa-Osiris, who is a seer, and his
father. They were watching a funeral procession in which a rich man was being carried
with his elaborate belongings to a princely tomb. Shortly after this, they observed the
funeral of a poor man wrapped only in a cloth who was being taken for burial in the
desert sand.
The Egyptian prince remarks to his son that he hopes for a good funeral in preparation
for a glorious afterlife, but his seer son remarks that all things are not as they appear
to be. He puts his father into a trance, and the two are transported to the land of the
dead where the evil rich man is suffering a hellish fate and the righteous poor man is
being comforted by Osiris, Isis, and the Egyptian gods, and is living afterlife in regal
splendor.
This shows the development of morality and justice in the Egyptian religion, and some
Christian scholars think this is the origin of the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the
Gospel of Luke (Lk 16:19-31). The main point here is to underscore the great
antiquity of the belief that salvation is by works. The idea that your good deeds must
outweigh your bad deeds is found in all the worlds’ major religions. In ancient Egypt it is
Anubis, the jackal headed god, who holds the scales of justice, in Christianity it is the
Archangel Michael, in Islam it is the Archangel Gabriel, in Zoroastrianism it is the angel
Rashnu, and in both Hinduism and Buddhism it is the yamadoots of the god of death
Yama. In the Eastern Religions, Yama presides over both your fate in the intermediate
state between death and rebirth, and your reincarnation. It is worth noting that
salvation by works is the predominant message in the New Testament with 389 of the
551 verses supporting it on the lips of Jesus himself. The Unitarian William Ellery
Channing called it “salvation by character”.
According to Kholberg, MOST of humanity will remain at this “conventional” stage of
moral development.
3) Post-conventional
Only one-third of humanity will reach the “post-conventional” level of morality. The first
of its two stages is called, “the democratic social contract”, and one-fourth of modern
adults achieve this level. To these people, rules are obeyed because there is a
consensus of the electorate. Also, the rules can be CHANGED whenever the majority
of people agree to change them. The government of the United States is based on
this level of morality, as were (to some extent) the governance of the early Christian
church which, among other things, ordained women (Rom 16:1). While God’s laws are
unchangeable, the ways religions operate can and do change. Also, Process Theology
fits here (i.e., the idea that God has endowed the Universe with free will and that we
are co-creators with God). While Process Theology is a hot topic in today’s divinity
schools, the idea that we are co-creators with God in helping bring about the perfection
of the world is as old as Zoroaster. In the New Testament, you find this idea in Acts 3:
20-21 and II Peter 3:11-13.
The final stage of “post-conventional” moral development is that of the “universal
ethical principle”, and only about 10% of humanity functions at this level. It recognizes
a universal connection to nature, to each other, and to God. At this stage, the rights of
each individual are as important as the rights of the majority, and the individual follows
the dictates of his or her conscience while at the same time being aware of the rights of
others. This person is aware that what is “right” and what is “legal” may not be the
same and that the dictates of conscience must be followed.
This stage is epitomized by the Golden Rule, often associated with Christianity but
present in virtually all of modern mainstream religions. Zoroaster does not need to give
his followers a commandment that prohibits murder --- he does tell them that their good
thoughts, words, and deeds are required to help God defeat evil in this world. Lao Tzu
says, “Respond to anger with virtue”, and the Buddha tells us to, “Overcome anger by
love; overcome evil by good.” Within Islam, the sect called Sufis strives to reach a
sublime level of mystic union with God. A Sufi motto is, “It’s not the letter, it’s the
spirit”. In Judaism, this highest level is epitomized by the Book of Isaiah. Gandhi’s
tactics of civil disobedience were a good example of “post-conventional” thinking
leading to action, making the world better.
In the Bible, the whole of Jesus’ message of love and kindness speaks to this highest
level. Think of the difficulty of his simple-sounding formula: “Do unto others as you
would have them do to you…Judge not… Forgive and you will be forgiven.. Blessed
are the peacemakers… Turn the other cheek… Let him who is without sin cast the first
stone … Love your enemies…It is not what goes into your mouth but what comes out
that is important”. You may recall from stories in the New Testament that Jesus himself
encounters people who clearly could not comprehend his message. More than once
he simply refers them back to the Ten Commandments (Matt 19:16-20, Mk 10:17-20,
Lk 18:18-20) or to the two Great Commandments, i.e., to love God and to love your
neighbor (Matt 22:37-40, Mk 12:28-34, Lk 10:25-28). At the highest level: forgiveness
is yours for the asking (Matt 6:12;7:7-11) and salvation is Universal (Matt 18:14,Lk 3:6;
I Tim 4:10; Heb 10:15-17). Every mystic knows that we will all be reconciled with God,
and Universal Restoration is a minority theme in all the world’s religions. Zoroaster,
Jesus, and Bahaullah mention universalism directly; the Rabbis of the Midrash tell us
that one cannot stay in Hell over one year! In the Hadith, Muhammad predicts that
there will be a time when Hell is empty of humans. In Eastern religions, reincarnation
offers the hope for universal redemption.
When we look at religions in modern times, it is clear that some have a broad appeal
and others have a more narrow appeal. I think that the greatest risk for individual
believers is to get “stuck” in a religious community that does not value personal
growth. I have personally met people (including some ministers) whose intellect and
spiritual experience have awakened them to a higher level of morality but whose
congregations have discouraged or prohibited them from their pursuit.
In her analysis of the behavior of believers, the historian Laina Farhat-Holzman
contends that some religious movements are accepting of persons at all levels of
development and consciously make room for 1) those who base their belief on the
“magic” of holy relics, 2) those whose religion is confined to ritual, and 3) those who
struggle to understand the teachings of their prophets. Two excellent examples of
religions that span the range of moral development from the lowest to highest levels
are Roman Catholic Christianity and Hinduism.
In scholarly literature, the results of objective studies are mixed when analyzing the
differences between denominations or religions. The most consistent finding has been
that fundamentalists have a lower level of moral development than liberals.
Interestingly, this appears to be true for those liberals professing no religion, as well as
for those who practice Christianity or another religion. Some fundamentalist Christians
have charged that these attempts at objective measurements have been biased;
however, I believe that there is an alternate explanation.
Developmental psychologists have known for some time that people can truly
understand only the moral stages just above and just below their own. Moses was
above the masses of Jews of his time but NOT so far ahead that they could not
understand him. Jesus was speaking to a more sophisticated group morally, one that
had already been socialized by the “conventional” rules of Moses. In other words,
Moses HAD to happen BEFORE Jesus could happen. If Jesus had confronted the
people of the Exodus with, “Love thy neighbor…”, his message would not have been
understood by them.
Often we religious liberals are hard on fundamentalists whom we accuse of being
literal, concrete, and rule-bound. However, I must come to their defense with regard to
this fact: these “conventional” people with specific messages are the ones most able to
appeal to those at the level of “pre-conventional” morality and help raise them up.
Although we reject their religious message and viewpoints, it is good to remember that
humanity must crawl before it can walk. Years ago, an optimistic friend of mine
questioned a fundamentalist who explained that, “We are fundamentalists because we
NEED the tight controls of a ‘Thou Shalt Not’ morality; otherwise, we would go wild!”
Another important truism for religious liberals to remember is that ALL children must
pass through ALL stages of morality. No matter how intelligent your child may be, her
moral maturity cannot be inherited at birth! All children need to experience structure
and kindness so that they can develop to the stage where the Golden Rule can be
understood and, ultimately, to the level where it can be lived. Research into how to
accomplish this is mixed, but activities which require reasoning and exploration of moral
issues appear to foster a progression toward the “post-conventional” level. Adults who
have had an opportunity in college to explore moral issues must continue to find
forums for discussion, reasoning, and moral growth. I think that this is an excellent
challenge for Sunday Schools and Adult Education programs in our churches!
In closing, I’d like to express my own opinion about developmental revelation expressed
in the Biblical stories. Although the stories of the Old Testament are part of our literary
culture, Christianity has wallowed too long in their primitive “pre-conventional”
morality. And although there is nothing more beautiful than the declaration of St. Paul
that “love is patient and kind”, many churches have allowed themselves to stagnate in
his largely “conventional” message.
In the recent past, a movement has been gradually growing which takes seriously the
“post-conventional” morality of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. In my view, this
should be the predominant message heard in our churches, inspiring people to “climb
up” to the next rung on the moral ladder. But it’s easier to worship Jesus than to follow
his teachings. The “post-conventional” morality of Jesus demands that we live in the
Kingdom of God RIGHT NOW – that it is possible to be ONE with the Father. In the
Gospel of Luke (17:21), Jesus proclaims that, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” We
need to call it forth for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of all humanity, and for the
sake of our whole planet.
Ken R. Vincent, Ed.D. is the Webmaster for the UNIVERSALIST HERALD.
“Without Being Left Behind”
by Derek Lee Parker
Readings: From Esther 4:13-14
At the Universalist Church of Eldorado, Ohio, where I served for three years as their
pastor, there is a seldom noticed stained glass window behind the choir seats. If you’ve
ever visited our church in Eldorado (and many of you were there for last year’s
Convocation), you probably paid attention to other windows in the church. Perhaps the
window depicting the all seeing eye of God? Or maybe the Parable of the Sower
window? The choir window had no spectacular pictures. It only has names written on a
pane of green grass. Our choir director proudly pointed them out to me. She said,
“You need to notice these. They are our ancestors. They sacrificed to found this
church back in 1849. You need to know where we’ve come from.”
It is good to know where we’ve come from. Much of the Unitarian Universalist
Association has forgotten where we’ve come. They think we are a brand new religion,
perhaps invented in Berkeley, California, in 1969. At Eldorado many of our younger
visitors from other UU churches thought we had bought our chapel from the
Methodists, perhaps in the 1970s. Little do many of our newcomers know, but we are
heirs to a time-tested, centuries olf heritage of open-minded and inclusive spirituality.
So it is good to know where we Universalists have come from, we are not a mere
invention of the 60s but a living stream of spirit. But knowing the past is not enough if
we are to be a living church.
All too often our Universalist faith is treated by both others and ourselves as an artifact
of the past. Our faith becomes a quaint elderly aunt whom we love, but who lives in the
shadow of her eloquent and lordly husband – perhaps some have called Universalism
by the name Mrs. Unitarian. In other words, ignoring her name and treating her as a
mere extension of her partner.
It isn’t hard to understand why our faith is treated like a religious artifact. I can drive
across Indiana and Ohio and see the artifacts of Universalism scattered far and wide.
There are two lovely churches in Champaigne County, Ohio. One in New Westerville is
now an art studio. The other in Woodstock is now used by an odd congregation called
the Church of the Oversoul, which I hear is a strange fusion of Christian
fundamentalism and new age religion. There is also a lovely plaque on Rural Route 2,
outside of Aurora, Indiana; at the site of the Universalist meeting-house, where the
frontier preacher Prudence LeClerk spoke to crowds at a time when women preachers
were often rejected by the masses. There are Universalist cemeteries in places like
Versailles, Indiana, and Twin Forks, West Virginia (just downstream on the Ohio from
Steubenville, Ohio). And shopping across the Mid-West, I’ve acquired gobs of antique
books by Universalist visionaries and theologians. I have a rare 1866 edition of the
Gloria Patri Prayerbook, a collection of essays by Clarence Russell Skinner, and a
copy of The Life of Edwin Chappin. And if you are curious, I am still seeking a copy of
Clinton Lee Scott’s Religion Can Make Sense. And as books go, these are all good for
doing theology, philosophy, and church history.
But is historical scholarship, antique collecting, and nostalgia enough for our faith? It is
good to know where we’ve come from, but I don’t this will be enough.
Now in the story of Esther, a great heroine of Jewish folklore, we have the tale of
Jewish faith in Persia on the verge of becoming a thing of the past. Esther is the bride
of the Persian kink, but her people are in danger of genocide at the hands of an evil
politician named Haman. At a key point in the plot, Esther’s Uncle Mordecai comes to
her and warns her that life in the palace will not be enough to save her from the coming
anti-Jewish massacres. He urges her to speak up, and speak out, because perhaps
she is in the palace for such a time as this.
Now we do not face persecution on the scale experienced by Jews in ancient Persia –
even if some of our neighbors disdain the liberal generosity of our faith. But we do face
possible extinction. Our numbers as avowed Universalists have grown fewer and fewer
almost every decade since 1930. A colleague of mine estimates that there are a mere
25,000 of us left in the churches rooted in the old Universalist Church of America. And
so we sit in our ivory towers of books, and historic buildings, and stained glass, and
hope we will be spared from the final wave of extinction. But perhaps we are a
Universalist remnant, in this time of growing global fundamentalism, for the purpose of
being prophets in such a time as this?
My brothers and sisters, we are people who are rooted deep in the unbroken line that
extends back in time to Judith Sargent Murray, and her conviction that universal
salvation is both true and must be proclaimed. She knew that God loved both men and
women, and so she became the Grand-mother of feminist Biblical scholarship. She
knew that God was present with people of all races, and so she advocated for the
abolition of slavery. And it wasn’t antique collecting that made her ministry possible.
Nor was it a love for historic architecture. Her power grew from her faith in the ability of
God’s Spirit to reconcile all the people of the world, despite our human idolatries about
gender and race.
We have the advantage of knowing the history. We have the roots. But are we more
than just a spiritual tree stump? Do we have the branches? Have we opened ourselves
to the mystical experience of tasting universal salvation – that Divine reality of universal
peace which is being slowly built even as we speak? And are we willing to go into the
highways and byways to open the eyes of a humanity blinded with theological despair?
By sharing the experience of universal salvation we can give hope to those who live in
fear of hellfire! By sharing the experience of universal salvation, we can expose the
illusions of fundamentalism and religious violence! By sharing the experience of
universal salvation, we can proclaim the integrity of our gay and lesbian brothers and
sisters, who many bigots in the world would prefer to live lives where they lie about who
they were born to be.
History is not enough for a living faith. It never was enough for a living faith. In rooting
ourselves in the historical tradition of Universalism, we must also have a present day of
mystical experience and spirituality. This is what will move us forward, so that we are
not left behind among the religious artifacts. And so I conclude my spoken ministry to
you, with words of prayer, that are akin to Judith’s prayer written in that letter to her
parents.
Gracious Spirit of Divine Love,
I give thanks for the faith given to me by my elder brothers and sisters of the Church
Universal,
They express to me the coming transformation of humanity . . . the universal salvation
of all people, from all religions, and all times.
And I do trust that such a Peaceable Kingdom will come to pass.
And if spiritual weather should continue to bear fine –
I suppose that we shall soon find ourselves on that Promised Day.
God who is both Mother Spirit and Father Spiritis on the wing.
May the Spirit forever bless us, with the knowledge and wisdom that
Nobody is left behind. Amen.
Reverend Derek Lee Parker is currently serving as Education Minister at the Irving
Friends Meeting and as Administrator of Programs for the National Episcopal Health
Ministries.
WHAT’S GONE WRONG WITH OUR FAITH?
Part I: Lacking a Theological Focus
By John C. Morgan
Contributing Editor
Many of us wonder why Unitarian Universalism seems to have stalled in terms of
membership growth. You would think that it would have expanded, given the fact that it
usually does after a spurt in the growth of the religious right. In spite of our insistence
that we are progressives, when it comes to growth, we are reactionaries, growing in
response to the surge of more conservative religions.
The rate of denominational growth in the last few decades has been very small. When I
hear officials today softening our situation with words like “modest growth of one-two
percent annually,” I am reminded of Frederick May Eliot, then president of the
American Unitarian Association in the mid-Twentieth Century, chiding Unitarians about
their slow rate of growth--about eight percent annually. I’m also reminded that in the
late Nineteenth Century Universalists were among the ten largest denominations.
Today, the remaining Universalist presence seems more like a groundhog gone inside
because of winter, coming out only during years when the past of Universalism is
celebrated (e.g., 1993 during the 200th anniversary).
When I wrote a denominational report on the growth of the movement from l937-1984, I
made an attempt to isolate some of the reasons for the decline which began during the
l980’s. Some of it was demographic, often populations moving South or West. Some of
the growth we hailed was really people who had been members who moved elsewhere
and started new congregations. A more tragic loss was in numbers of children in
religious education programs—an omen of things to come.
It wasn’t until I read some of the reports of leaders from dying congregations that I
began to get a sense of what was happening. “We simply lost our reason for being,”
was the way one board president described his congregation’s decline. Another leader
said his church “failed to be clear about our vision and theology and to promote and
defend it with our very lives.” In almost every case, leaders cited a breakdown not only
in internal dynamics but far more critically in theological focus: “Our identity got fuzzy,
our reason for being resolved mainly around fellowship with people of like minds.
Consequently people went elsewhere to be fed.” Another leader of a defunct
congregation wrote a note to denominational headquarters which contained these last,
sad words: “We are no more.”
In my report, I noted that while we were becoming more pluralistic (e.g., read that
“less Christian.”), we ran the risk of becoming so generic that we would either end with
bland generalities about our values or without enough theological content to attract
those seeking spiritual homes. Twenty years after that report was written, I conclude
today that theologically we still are trying to please all the various parts of our network
and ending up with covenants that don’t feed the spirit, mind, or heart of those
newcomers we should be attracting. Generic religion, like generic drug prescriptions,
costs less but in the case of religion is less likely to provide a cure. In any case, like
heresies of the past, our current principles and purposes were as much politically
motivated as theologically articulated, the attempt to identify the constituents in the
denomination.
When I became the Joseph Priestley District’s Extension Minister for three years in
Northeast Pennsylvania, I remember how it felt to discover that in an area where there
had once been eleven Unitarian Universalist congregations, one remained. In fact, a
short walk from my house I happened to come upon the building once occupied by the
First Universalist Church of Wilkes Barre, Pa., which closed in the l920’s. It was now a
Lutheran parish. Another old Universalist church further north became a gas station.
It was one of the few stations I have encountered where when you drove in over the
hoses on the ground, the church bell rang a greeting. The early site of Unitarianism in
the Middle Atlantic States, Northumberland, Pa., still had a small Priestley Chapel but
only one Unitarian left in town. When I asked who paid the electric bills, no one knew.
And one the truly remarkable Universalist building in Scranton, Pa. had been sold for
$50,000 to the University of Scranton. The Tiffany windows in that building were worth
more than that.
Why isn’t Unitarian Universalism growing deeper and wider into the Twenty First
Century?
Our past offers some clues: We are not putting enough resources into new church
starts. We are not promoting ourselves in new communities of people. We have
adopted a generic approach to spirituality, thinking if we offer a little of everything (e.g.,
Humanism, Buddhism, Paganism, etc.) we will have something for everyone. The
problem is that newcomers are seldom attracted to a generic religion; they desire
depth and purpose and rituals, not a “do-it-yourself religion,” a term we think describes
our chief drawing card. While individuals don’t want to be told what to believe, they do
want at least some guidance. I have often thought it would be far better and more
spiritually rewarding to plan and organize congregations around one or two specific
traditions than a splattering of all. For example, I find some deep connections between
earth centered traditions and the life and teachings of Jesus. If you doubt this, check
out how often he used stories from nature about birds or sheep or even plants.
My conclusion is that people desire deeper and more authentic spirituality, not less of
it. They certainly don’t want the confusion of what seems to be competing truth and
religious claims, one a week, and sometimes many contained in a single worship
service.
I would argue that there are more potential recruits to our cause among mainline
Christians and the unchurched. But to attract the seekers and newcomers, we need to
offer more depth and community and our theological responses to the issues they
bring.
After nearly thirty years of ministry in our midst, most of it spent on the “frontiers” of
starting new congregations or helping to revitalize old ones, I am not sure we really
want to understand a strong suspicion I have about our lack of growth. We don’t want
to grow because we are not really sure what we hold to be true as a people. Our
situation is not dire because we don’t have gifted leaders or growth techniques. Our
situation is that we are confused. It’s one thing to talk about the need for a “language
of reverence,” but it’s quite sometime else to fill in the blanks as to what that really
means. It’s always struck me that when one of our spiritual ancestors, Dr. George de
Benneville, reported going to an afterlife, he saw hell as “eternal confusion,” an apt
modern metaphor as well.
We claim diversity and pluralism as one of our major values today, but the fact is that
we are not very diverse when it comes to race, economics or even spiritual points of
view. We like who we are and don’t want to risk it. My experience has been that we are
more alike than we want to admit: Confused.
Robert Tapp, who studied us in the last century, had an unusual metaphor to describe
us:“stepchildren in our father’s house,” not quite sure of where we stood collectively on
the religious scene. Our confusion has kept are numbers small. I once figured there
were more Lutherans in Southeast Pennsylvania than Unitarian Universalists around
the world. Recently I learned a more ominous trend: There are now as many Mormons
in the “heart of Unitarianism,” Massachusetts, as there are Unitarian Universalists.
I used to think it was that we didn’t know how to evangelize or share our good news.
I don’t believe that any longer. I think we do know how to evangelize—it’s just we’re not
quite sure what it is we are supposed to share. We don’t know or feel deeply our good
news. We have become our own worst joke: “How are Unitarian Universalists like
Jehovah’s Witnesses? We still go door to door; we just don’t know why any longer.”
It is true that mainline Christian traditions are losing their share of the “religious
market.” The ones I see which are growing—have intentionally committed time and
money to growing their presence among communities which do not necessarily fit their
past demographics. And they have stated what they hold to be true in ways that
connect with the deepest spiritual needs of newcomers.
What do we hold to be true? What demands our commitment? To what or who are we
dedicated? Can we witness with our lives to what we hold to be true, even if it costs
more than a pledge? Are we willing to change our behavior to make way for the future?
Can we stop arguing within long enough to decide what it is we can say with one clear
and united voice to those who don’t even know we exist?
I suspect we will simply sit on the franchises of being either the “only Unitarian
Universalist church in town,” or an “uncommon denomination,” while all around us are
folks who might join if only they could find us or finding us, find more than spiritual
confusion.
There’s an old rule about change: If you are in a hole and you want to get out, stop
digging.
Part II: Strategies for Revitalization
Since retiring and leaving parish ministry, I have been seeking a spiritual home where I
can bring both my mind and heart. Ironically, the Unitarian Universalist congregations I
might attend are at least an hour away (so much for our l980’s goal to put a Unitarian
Universalist congregation within a half hour of every American). And to be quite honest,
the ones I have attended feel spiritually confused, offering a motley array of consumer
goods and services to feed the supposed diverse membership. There’s an old joke
told about us that we ought to put on our Wayside Pulpits: “Worship the God of your
choice this week,” meaning we have a motley array of spiritual dishes served at our
Sunday smorgasbords.
My exile has given me a different understanding of what seekers and newcomers are
looking for in a new spiritual community, because now I am one of “them.” So
let me be clear about what I, and many others, are looking for in a spiritual home.
We want a spiritual community that is:
1. High in relationships (not necessarily high in numbers or money).
2. Low in institutional maintenance (not spending most of its time raising money).
3. Deep in theology and service to others (not serving just ourselves or spending
out time arguing or avoiding theological dialog).
We want a spiritual home that puts its focus on people, on their real needs and desires.
We want to connect with others and vice versa. We want to connect with God or
whatever name we choose to describe the Holy. We also don’t want to spend the better
part of our limited time and energy raising money for a new roof or staff. We are willing
to give our time, energy and money if we see it going to what matters to us—people.
And we desire to grow in spiritual depth whether in study, worship, or small groups. And
we are willing to serve others if we do so together and in direct and caring ways and
not just with public pronouncements.
If you are among those seeking a spiritual home or if you want to look at your own,
here are a few simple questions you can ask, based on the three-point model cited:
Do people count more than budgets?
Does much of the energy go into raising funds or nurturing the spiritual needs of
people?
Do people really share ministry or is ministry another product on the market provided
by a professional for consumers?
Do people seem clear what it is they hold as true collectively, and, if so, do these truths
make a difference among themselves and in the world around them?
What can be done?
I see three possibilities for me, though there may be other options for others:
l. Revitalize the theology of Unitarian Universalism, especially Universalist theology,
within the current movement.
Revitalize the Universalist spirit within other Christian traditions.
Begin to organize new communities of people where there is a clear spiritual
identity and mission.
As I enter the later years of life, I already have given a few decades to the first
suggestion above, seeking to bring the spirit and theology of Universalism to the
movement. Quite frankly, I haven’t done very well. In the last year, I have sought to
become part of those somewhat progressive Christian communities where Universalism
still remains an option for some people; I’ve also discovered resistance to seekers and
newcomers. I have found new meaning in Jesus’ warning about putting “new wine into
old wineskins.”
I don’t have a lot of time to waste spinning wheels or sitting in meetings. When it
comes time for my memorial service, I’d don’t want it said of me that I helped to put a
new roof on a building or served for twenty years on the finance committee.
I have discerned where I believe I am being called: To help start a new community of
progressive Christians and seekers, probably in a house church setting, and, in the
beginning, with no denominational affiliation. The image of a larger circle within which
there are many smaller cells or circles makes the most sense to me. This is an organic
vision, not unlike that which propelled the early Universalist Pietists into a flowering
movement—or the Unitarian fellowship movement of the last century, for that matter.
The true spirit of Univeralism has never been about a denomination anyway; nor are
newcomers coming to congregations because of their denominational affiliations.
People desire a place to find community and a place to find shared meaning. It seems
to me that in small group settings such bonding and meaning are best found. It is this
small group process which is evident among the earliest Christians, in the Unitarian
fellowship movement, in the conventicles or small groups of early Pietistic Universalism,
and in the covenant group process in our midst today. Even the largest churches know
that their key to growth is not adopting individuals one by one, but rather growth
through subtraction—that is, spinning off circles and cells and small groups, giving the
spirit away in others words (interesting, that the older use of the word “liberal” comes
from the Latin word which means “generous”).
The simple truth is that two of the largest “congregations” in America are among those
who don’t go to any religious group or those who are involved in house churches or
small groups. And yet, we travel down the highway to the future looking in the rear view
mirror, thinking that having more professionals, more large buildings, more of
everything will lead to more growth. All it has led to is staying the stay, contrary to the
very power of the generosity we claim.
If I had a magic wand to wave, I’d suggest we should put our resources into creating an
international network of house congregations, supporting them where needed while
staying out of the way of their creativity. I’d also focus on creating a new generation of
leaders who can support the kind of transformation required. If you doubt this might
work, read the Book of Acts in the Christian story because this is precisely what fueled
the remarkable growth pattern: A clear sense of purpose, house churches, and
transformative leaders.
The fuel of Universalism has been about some good news the world needs to hear. In
traditional terms that good news was that God wants to love us and has given us a
person whose life and teachings can guide us. God has many names, of course, and
has not left any person or culture without witnesses.
Stay tuned. As I move to start one new house church, I will let you know what happens,
though I probably won’t live long enough to see the results. Like the prophet Jeremiah
before the fall of the Jewish Kingdom who bought land to plant a garden for future
generations, there is something to be said for those of us in exile who plant new
gardens in the ashes of the old. There’s a Greek word in the Christian scriptures
“kainos,” used in the Book of Revelation, that translated means “new life arising out of
the ashes of the old.” It’s a word worth its weight in spiritual depth.
(John C. Morgan has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for nearly thirty years,
serving the UUA, two districts, and five congregations. Along the way he helped to start
four new churches.)
Destiny is Calling
by Jeremy Elliott
This sermon considers the so-called "intelligent design" debate, in light of the
traditional Universalist position on single predestination for salvation. In it, I attempt to
explore what "intelligent design" might mean to modern Unitarian Universalists. This
sermon was written and offered at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley,
California.
May we observe a moment of silence, to sense the Holy Spirit of perfect openness,
trust, and reciprocity that fills this sanctuary. In this most holy presence of community,
let us renew our covenant to approach each other with a reverence for the webs-of-
existence that we each bring here—to weave together—this night.
I believe in intelligent design. I believe this whole-heartedly not because of the
supposed gaps in evolutionary history or because of the micro-cellular complexity of
the human eye, but because I live an existence that is held in a complicated
interdependent and intra-dependent web-of-relationality, and co-dependant
meaningfulness, that is neither entirely lineal nor random. And I believe in intelligent
design because I am a Universalist, and I have placed faith in “the Kingdom to come”—
to borrow a phrase from the Christian tradition—because I see it taking shape in this
world.
I don’t believe that the headline debate about intelligent design is really all about the
nuts and bolts of evolutionary process. It has more to do with whether we believe, or
even fear, that our existence is a random occurrence of chance, or that it is grounded
in a reality of almost infinite depth and meaning. It is from this perspective that I
approach the debate, as an advocate of my own Universalist understanding of the
intelligent, spiraling, and seemingly infinitely growing webs-of-meaning, in which I find
myself.
Let us take a few moments to consider the complex and intricate patterns, histories,
and wombs of time and place, from which we arose. Sense what holds you in this
particular place, right now, in this moment—the almost incomprehensible matrix of
people, and care, and resources that ensure that this institution exists and thrives:
crucial staples that are not bound by time, but still feed us in this very moment; notice
the portrait of Earl Morse Wilbur—the founder of the “Pacific Unitarian School”—that
hangs in this room, a symbol of a presence that still lives in the people, in the walls, in
the philosophies, and in the lifeblood of Starr King; recall Thomas Starr King himself,
the visionary leader of decades past who even today still sculpts this school and
impacts all who pass through its door. Call to mind even the anonymous figures who
laid each of the bricks that line our walls, poured the cement that rests far beneath our
feet, and built the automobiles and bikes that brought us here this evening. We can
feel this intricate web-of-all-existence, wrapping all around us, holding us, in this
place—its tender care.
Find the strands of these webs in your own life. Sense how they have tempered you.
Feel the presence of your parents or guardians inside of you. Sense how you could
not be who you are right now without the influence of such people. Go beyond your
parents or guardians, see how your siblings or friends, relatives distant or near, have
forged the person who now sits in this room. Sense the movement and migration of
your ancestors—biological and spiritual—across vast seas, through storm and sleet,
enduring incomprehensible oppressions of body and mind, spirit and soul—perusing a
vision, and Mystery beyond themselves, a Mystery that ultimately included you. See
these people, in their greatness, and see there mistakes, feeding your soul with the
substance that makes it what it is today. See beyond humanity, sensing all of nature
and the gradual progression of it, in relationship, over millions of years, growing
together in all of its diversity and splendor.
Feel the first molten energy that formed our sun, and then our beautiful mother earth
and sister moon, coursing through your veins. The primordial substances that gave
rise to the air we breathe and the waters that rim the earth. Feel the star dust from the
first moments of creation, of the cosmic expansion, of the gentle cracking of the holy
egg of creation, glowing in your fingertips.
As I look around the room at the faces of all those gathered here this evening, many of
whom have crossed the country to be here; each coming from different backgrounds,
different cultures, different identities; I ask myself, do I really believe that this beloved
community came to being out of total, uncalculated randomness?
Is it possible to even claim that our voyage here was anything but destined—a part of a
grand “intelligent” scheme? The movement of a Holy Wisdom as it courses through
generations, across time and space. Are we not standing upon the shoulders of our
ancestors, were we not in their visions, are we not living out many of the hopes and
dreams of religious radicals, of nations, of our families and friends and loved ones, and
are we not called by some yearning in our soul to be here together, to boldly move
forward into the world? To fulfill our place in the vision of our ancestors and carry that
bright torch, fueled now by our own lives, into the mysterious future.
Remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, reflecting upon his own life, and sense
their relevance to our own existences here: “I believe in this life. I believe it continues.
As long as I am here, I plainly read my duties as writ with pencil of fire, they speaks not
of death, for they are woven of immoral thread.” Are we not also woven of this same
immortal thread?
So we have looked over our shoulders and seen the histories leading to this moment.
Do we have some sense of the world we look forward to, the world possibly
“predestined before the beginning of time,” the beloved community, or a “Kingdom to
come?”
Haven’t we touched it… as we have held hands in worship, and in celebration, and
when we have stood in solidarity for humanity and for just causes, for righteousness;
haven’t we tasted it in the sweetness of life, in the bounty of nature’s goodness; haven’
t we smelled it in the sweat of our labor, in the perfume of our lovemaking and in the
streams of incense that carry our prayers for a safer, more just world, to the heavens?
Do not we hear its call, off somewhere in the distance—perhaps days or years or even
decades, calling us to this place… calling us to place trust in the voice of our souls, the
“still-small voice within,” urging us to create the living womb—here and now—from
which the beloved community, the Kingdom or Queendom of God, the enlightened
world, can blossom?
We just may be destined by some eternal Holy Wisdom to make our visions living
realities. Emerson warned, “The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only
serve to lead us into it.” Can we separate our “intelligent” dreams for the future from
the first sparks that gave life to universe and led to those dreams? Is there only a
random association between our dreams today and the aspirations of the generations
before and the whole course of evolution? Does the Holy Eternal lure us to some final
predestined infinite perfection, to some ultimate universal salvation?
Unitarian founder William Ellery Channing wrote, “I call that mind free which is not
passively framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental
impulse: Which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in
them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.” Are we looking for the “radiant
signatures of the infinite spirit” in our own lives? Where might we find these lighthouses
beyond the evening sea?
Father Karl Rahner, the eminent Jesuit theologian of this past century, named God the
“ever receding horizon” of existence, the “ever-receding horizon” of the human
experience, which is always calling forth the full blossoming of our souls, and the total
transformation of the world. For Rahner, encounter with God is unavoidable, for God is
the context of everything that exists, and the bright future of possibilities beyond
everything that exists. God is the Holy Mystery behind and beyond our experience of
reality; the “not yet known” and the mysterious destination of this voyage.
The Sufis believe that God flashes like lightening in reality. Each of our unique
experiences of the transcendent, those which we can touch, taste, smell, hear, and
see, are God’s being shining through reality, in an especially powerful way to guide us
carefully into the future. They are signposts on the journey.
We should look then for the transcendent Spirit in all things. It may be there, shining in
the eyes of your beloved, growing in the bonds of this community, standing side-by-
side, shoulder-to-shoulder with you, struggling against oppressions—in all its many
mutating forms, urging transformation, liberating the oppressed, and binding-up the
broken, that we may find our salvation. To navigate in this world, we must place our
ever-deepening faith in this sacred transcendence that saves us—the love we sense in
the presence of our heart-friends, in our families, in the depths of own mysterious
beings, and in our ideals and visions of a better world. It is there that real freedom lies.
It is there that the mind will be unleashed. It is there that we are freed from the potential
bondage of the past and are able to continue our voyage, sailing nearer and nearer to
the shores of the Holy.
We must not walk the path of this world; we must know ourselves to be of a
transcendent source that is being woven into this existence. We cannot afford to be led
astray by the temptations of the world, the temptations of decadence, materialism and
ego-glorification, because we likely have tread those trails and we know, all to well, that
they are ultimately dead ends. We must look forward on this voyage, opening
ourselves to the brilliant effulgences of the Light of Life, however it may come to us,
and we must swiftly follow that call, in faith, and in hope, and with perfect trust.
In the Christian Gospels, Jesus describes the transcendent world that is to come as
follows: “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he
found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
The “pearl of great value” is the transcendent moments of life, “the radiant signatures
of the infinite spirit.” We must sell everything we have to be guided by it—all of our
limiting worldly assumptions and illusions, because it is what is beyond all of these. We
must not allow them to become the permanent, unmovable rocks of our journey. The
transcendent is the Spirit; God can be thought of as totality of everything that we sense
truly matters in life, it is the substance from which the new world, the beloved
community, must be built. It is from whence we came and it may just be our destiny.
Our great Universalist ancestors believed in destiny. They believed in a destiny ripe
with all the riches of the human spirit. They had faith that everything that has been, is,
or will be, are integral parts of God’s salvific plan for humanity. They had hope that
regardless of how creative we are at constructing our own prisons of the human spirit,
God—in God’s almost infinite possibilities and compassion—would always offer us
freedom from our own self-imposed captivity.
Last year, I studied systematic theology at a Roman Catholic school and—as you might
imagine—I frequently engaged my beloved professor in some rather… charged
debates. In one instance that stands out in my mind, we were debating the likelihood of
universal salvation. She felt that it was probable… and… I felt that it was certain. She
insisted that humans have free will and, therefore, could eternally choose to turn away
from God if they wished. I argued against the supposed reality of an isolated “free will”
that is independent from the rest of existence, from its contexts and living webs of
influence. I argued instead for a cocreative will that is relational, and, therefore, never
entirely free. It is participatory, not insular, and, therefore, unable to even fully resist
the freedom of possibilities gracefully offered by the divinity of existence.
At this point she lost all control and yelled, and I mean yelled, “What!? God is so
wonderful and loving and adorable that in the end he will find a way and we wouldn’t
even be capable of resisting him.” I hesitantly replied, “Exactly,” and she sat in
contemplation. (Pause)
Universal salvation, intelligent design and destiny are possibilities that we all fear
because they require that we be dethroned, and that we admit that, maybe—just
maybe—our intelligence isn’t the only intelligence at work in the world. They require
that we admit that we are not the locus-of-control of all reality, or even of our own
destiny. They demand that we place trust in that which is outside of ourselves, in the
“other,” and in the good Spirit of life itself. We may steer the boat, but still the currents
will move us.
The wisdom, intellect, creativity, and imagination, that each of us brings into the world
is only a strand in a larger web of relationship, possibility and mystery. There is other
transcendent wisdom in this world, lucidly incarnate in loved ones and those who we
absolutely despise; in those who we have never met or even considered, and in all of
history, that is not our own, and from which we can never remove our being.
Looking back as far as I can see, I bear witness to a linage that leads all the way to my
presence here tonight. Looking forward, I place my faith only in those transcendent
moments, which descend like raindrops from heaven, and reveal to me something of
the eternal destination of all things.
Let us live, placing faith in the signatures of the infinite Spirit we sense in our own lives,
and let us write our own immortal page in this great drama, with the pencil of fire.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Jeremy Elliott is a student at Starr King.
Immanuel: “God with us
by John Morgan, Contributing Editor
The most amazing mystery of all is that God drew as close to the human scene as the
birth of a small, poor child in the midst of a war ravaged landscape.
After all my theological training, I am reduced to a very outwardly simple proposition:
Immanuel, “God with us.” I don’t know of any more powerful symbol of hope than this
one: We are not alone but parts of a deep mystery that some give the name
“God.” Others refuse any name, understanding that any word we choose points to a
great mystery to which our language only offers directional signals. Never mistake the
finger pointing to what it points to—a very wise Buddhist aphorism.
Some may feel closest to the Holy when they serve others or when they hear majestic
music or when they gaze into the eyes of a loved one. I know these deep feelings, too,
but the older I have become the more tangible and human my needs have grown when
it comes to discovering places where the human and divine meet.
The Celtic Christians have a wonderful way of describing those regions where the veil
between the temporal and the eternal touch; they call such encounters “thin places.” I
experienced such a “thin place” this summer as the daylight broke over the ruins of the
Tintern Abbey in Wales. It was a clear to me then as the morning light that I was
standing in a thin place where the eternal and the temporal touched. This was
obviously a wasted abbey from medieval times. But if I stood quiet and listened and
watched I could feel the presence of the Holy as the light from the heavens chased
darkness away.
I think if Jesus had walked up to me that morning, I would have not been surprised. In a
way, maybe he did and still is.
As a universalist, I do not believe that the divine is finally captured in any tradition. The
Spirit blows where it will, sometimes in the disguises only the Holy takes, and
sometimes which we only know when the Spirit has gone--and try as we may we cannot
recreate it with our hymns or words. God has many names—but one Spirit, the spirit of
love, which has many forms.
As a disciple of Jesus, however, I have come to find a tangible and human _expression
of the Divine in the teachings and life of this wandering teacher and prophet, a son of
God and of humanity. When I hear the stories about him I am always brought to the
thin places of the heart where the divine and the human touch. When I read or listen to
his parables I am brought face to face with a decision about my own life and to what or
whom I am committed.
I cannot rest with the cold abstractions of a dying rationality that dominated the early
part of my life journey. Now I need the touch of a hand, the sharing of a friendship, the
words of comfort from a teacher—each of which I find in Jesus.
But, of course, it’s more than a dead book or prophet. A dynamic faith needs a living
presence, and in a way I would not have expected years ago, I have found this in a
small group with whom I worship on a weekly basis. There we pray for one another, for
others, for the world. There we read scripture and speak about what it means. There
we raise the great issues of living and dying. We then share communion in a simple
and direct way, serving one another the bread and wine of the supper. I am not asked
about my theology or past deeds. At this welcome table I am simply invited in as an
equal participant. I am brought into God’s presence in a way I have long sought.
I am not sure how the Holy and the human connect for any person. I suppose that is
part of each journey. I only know as the night draws near that I take comfort in the Light
I have discovered and hold it close for warmth and illumination. At this season, I can
say wholeheartedly and without reservation or insincerity: Immanuel--“God with us.”
(John is also a member of the Herald Board and of the Unitarian Universalist Christian
Association. He is seeking affiliation with the Disciples of Christ as well)
The Buddhist on a Bicycle or How I Became a Universalist Without Knowing It
by John L. Saxon
Once upon a time, long, long ago … well, about forty years ago … there was a
teenaged boy named John who lived with his mother and father, his two younger
brothers, and his two younger sisters in a small town in south Alabama. John’s family
was Methodist, so John was a Methodist, too.
John attended Sunday School every Sunday (or almost every Sunday), stopped by the
church on Friday afternoon to fold the order of service, participated in the Methodist
Youth Fellowship, and sang in the youth choir at the Sunday night worship service. He
earned the God and Country medal as a Boy Scout. He believed in God, Jesus,
heaven, and hell. His grandmother told him that she hoped he’d be a Methodist
minister when he grew up.
One summer evening when John was fourteen or fifteen years old, his father told the
family that a young Japanese man named Hiro was going to eat dinner and spend the
night with them the next day. Hiro was a nineteen or twenty-year-old student at a
university in Japan and was riding his bicycle across the United States during his
summer vacation. He had just ridden from New Orleans to Mobile, where he stayed
overnight with a friend of John’s father. The friend called John’s father and asked if
Hiro could stay with John’s family when Hiro rode his bike from Mobile to Greenville.
John’s father said “sure.”
Hiro was a nice young man. He smiled and was very polite. He spoke English well
enough to tell us about his bike ride across the United States, his studies at the
university, his family, and life in Japan. When Hiro left the next morning on the next leg
of his cycling journey, he thanked John’s mother and father for their hospitality and
gave them a small present—two tiny statues of the Buddha and Kuan Yen, the
Bodhisatva of Compassion.
Shortly after Hiro left, John’s mother told John that she was concerned that she had not
told Hiro about Jesus. The problem, of course, was that Hiro was a Buddhist, not a
Christian, and because Hiro was a Buddhist, and not a Christian, he was not saved and
would not go to heaven when he died.
John was concerned, too, but he didn’t say anything to his mother. John understood
that God sent bad people to hell when they died, but Hiro didn’t seem like a bad
person. He seemed to be very nice, polite, kind, smart, strong, and funny. And it wasn’t
Hiro’s fault that he was a Buddhist or that John’s mother didn’t tell him about Jesus so
he could accept Jesus as his savior. How could a loving God send Hiro to hell? It just
didn’t make sense.
John remained a member of the Methodist Church until he went away to college, but
his views of God and religion became more and more unlike those of his parents, his
family, and his friends.
Twenty years later, having moved from Christianity, to agnosticism, existentialism,
secularism, and humanism, John joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation and
finally realized that he had become a Universalist without knowing it twenty years earlier
after a Buddhist on a bicycle spent the night in his family’s home.
As a young boy in rural, south Alabama who had never even heard of Universalism,
John had understood that a loving God could not condemn a nice, polite Japanese
student to hell just because he was a Buddhist and did not believe that Jesus was the
Son of God.
So John never became a Methodist minister as his grandmother hoped he would. But
he is studying to become a Unitarian Universalist minister and is standing here in front
of you today holding the small statues of the Buddha and Kuan Yen that Hiro gave to
his parents—to my parents—forty years ago.
II
I understand now that my “conversion” from orthodox Christianity to Universalism as a
fourteen-year old boy was not that different from the conversion experiences of the first
Universalists in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a matter of both the head and the
heart—a feeling that a good and loving God simply would not condemn Hiro simply
because he was a Buddhist and an inability to comprehend how anything as arbitrary
as religious belief could have such eternal consequences.
I have to confess, though, that my Universalism is not at all the same as that professed
by George de Benneville, John Murray, Hosea Ballou, or the American Universalists of
the 19th and early 20th centuries—and I suspect that your Universalism isn’t, either.
In 1793, Universalism was virtually unknown in America. But over the next fifty years,
Universalism spread like wild fire among Christians who simply could not accept
orthodox Calvinism’s doctrines of predestination, election, and limited salvation. By
1845, Universalists claimed in 1845 to have 853 churches, 512 ministers, and 600,000
members (though they were probably exaggerating a bit with respect to church
membership).
1845, however, was, at least in terms of numbers, the “high water” mark for
Universalism. Universalism continued to grow in absolute numbers during the mid- and
late-1800s, but its growth didn’t keep pace with that of the U.S. population or other
religious denominations. The numbers tell a grim story: in 1896 there were 811
Universalist churches and a total membership of about 65,000. By 1917, membership
had declined to just over 50,000 (and, again, the figure may be exaggerated). And by
the time of the merger with the Unitarians in 1961, there were fewer than 300
Universalist churches with a total membership of less than 37,000.
III
So what happened to Universalism? Why aren’t there Universalist churches all over
eastern North Carolina? Why do Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, and
Buddhists outnumber Universalists (and Unitarians) in North Carolina and the United
States?
In his book, The Larger Faith, UU minister and historian Charles Howe suggests that
Universalism’s decline “was caused by three factors, one sociological, one
organizational, and one theological. Sociologically, the migration of Americans to the
cities and to the West left many of the rural or village churches without the critical mass
to sustain them. Organizationally, the denomination remained crippled by its distrust of
centralized power and the resulting difficulty in mounting unified action.” Most
importantly, though, Universalism’s decline seems to be related most closely with the
loss (or theft) of its essential message and its struggle to articulate a new identity.
Calvinism, with its doctrines of inherent human depravity, salvation for the chosen or
true believers, and eternal damnation for most of humanity, is still alive and well in
many parts of rural North Carolina. But even the Presbyterians don’t talk too much
about predestination anymore. In fact, by the last half of the 19th century, most of the
mainline Protestant churches had abandoned the most extreme doctrines of Calvinism
and held out the possibility that salvation was not limited and predetermined but freely
available to anyone who possessed her faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. That took
the hard edge off of Calvinism for most Americans and undoubtedly stole much of the
appeal of Universalism’s doctrine of universal salvation, even though the salvation
offered by orthodox Christianity was not truly universal.
Perhaps more importantly, though, by 1900 the focus of many, if not most, Americans
and much of American religion had shifted from the hereafter to the here and now.
Salvation, universal or otherwise, and life after death took a back seat to life before
death.
IV
In the fall of 1976, my wife and I took a trip to New England. One day, when we were
riding bicycles on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, I noticed a small, old, gray-shingled
church. The message posted in the church’s wayside pulpit caught my eye and I took a
picture of it with my Instamatic camera—not noticing or appreciating at the time that the
church was the home of a UU congregation. The sign said: “In religion, as in everything
else, survival is ensured only by change.”
Change, in religion as in everything else, is necessary, but it isn’t always easy or
embraced with open arms. And the trick to change, evolution, and growth is to change,
evolve, and grow in ways that retain and build upon what is essential and fundamental
while discarding or reshaping that which is obsolete, unnecessary, tangential, and
superficial.
So the history of Universalism over the past 100 years—throughout the history of your
church at Outlaw’s Bridge—has been the history of change, of resistance to change,
and of the search for a new identity that retains and reshapes that which is the true
essence of Universalism.
Universalist minister and theologian Clarence Russell Skinner was one of the first to
propose a new Universalist theology and identity in the 20th century. Skinner’s
theology went far beyond the limits of traditional Christianity but retained the essential
elements of the Protestant Social Gospel: the immanence of God, the ethical teachings
of Jesus, and the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. By 1933, the influence of
Skinner’s theology could be seen in the revised Universalist Statement of Faith, which
avowed a 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 or to be known, and in the power of men of good will … to overcome all evil and
progressively establish the Kingdom of God” on earth, but, unlike prior statements of
faith, did not assert the Bible’s authority as the word of God, did not identify Jesus as
Christ or the savior of humankind, and did not expressly mention the doctrine of
universal salvation.
Although Universalism retained much of its liberal Christian identity during the first half
of the 20th century, it moved closer and closer to the outer limits of mainstream
Christianity. By 1950, some Universalist ministers, including Robert Cummins, Clinton
Lee Scott, and Ken Patton, were articulating a new and radically different definition of
Universalism that went well beyond the boundaries of traditional Christianity (and
resulted in the rejection of the Universalists’ application for membership in the National
Council of Churches).
“A circumscribed Universalism,” Cummins said, “is unthinkable. Any Universalism
worthy of its name cannot recognize divisions between people on the basis of race or
class or religion or nationality … . All are welcome … unitarian or trinitarian, white or
colored, theist or humanist. Universalism cannot be limited either to Protestantism or to
Christianity, not without denying its very name. Ours is a world fellowship, not just a
Christian sect.”
V
So what does Universalism mean today—for Universalists like you all, for Unitarian
Universalists like me, and for others in this community, state, and nation?
First, I believe that, within Unitarian Universalism, Universalism’s “heart-centered
message” of love offers, in the words of UU minister Mark Ward, a much-needed
“corrective to the often head-centered Unitarian approach to religious faith” and
reminds us of the Christian roots of our denomination and of the value of the Christian
message of love and community.
Second, despite the fact that Universalism has evolved beyond Christianity, its
message of universal salvation remains attractive, I believe, to many liberal Christians.
Universalism offered, and still offers, a kinder, gentler Christianity, a more loving and
inclusive Christianity, a more rational Christianity, a more liberal Christianity. In my
studies at Earlham School of Religion, I’ve met Quakers, Brethren, and Christians who
call themselves universalist (with a small “u”) but have never set foot inside a
Universalist Church. And I know Episcopalians, Methodists, and Baptists whose beliefs
about God, Jesus, sin, salvation, heaven, and hell are probably not too very different
from yours. So I don’t think it is too far-fetched to believe that Universalism could
appeal to many liberal Christians here in rural North Carolina—Christians who
understand that the love of God embraces all human beings without exception.
But, most importantly, I believe that a new and expanded Universalism offers an
inclusive and expansive vision of religious faith for the world—the gospel of a “larger
hope” that, in the words of Rev. Tom Owen-Toole, embraces all living things, engages
every area of existence, and enjoys the resources of the entire universe.
“From its birth,” he writes, “Universalism has been a religious philosophy whose
governing metaphor denotes breadth, size, expansiveness. At its truest, Universalism
has been inclusive rather than restrictive in both spirit and structure.” Universalism
holds that “our humanity is judged by the size of our devotions and the stretch of our
involvements. Consequently, the only hope large enough to heal the globe’s
brokenness will be one that pays homage to the gifts of women as well as men,
children in addition to adults, and the marginalized alongside those in seats of privilege
and power. A faith of the larger hope welcomes persons of diverse colors and classes,
theologies and sexual orientations, ages and capacities. It aspires to be authentically,
not artificially, inclusive. Once we are grasped by the Universalist worldview, by its
concept of a larger hope, it proves unbearable to rest satisfied with diminishing
emotions, petty prejudices, and small-minded commitments. One cannot pursue the
path of Universalism and long remain void of hope, riddled with cowardice, and stingy
with love.”
Recalling his conversion to Universalism, George de Benneville wrote: “And I took it so
to heart that I believed that my happiness would be incomplete while one creature
remained miserable.” Universalism reminds us, according to Tom Owen-Toole, that the
“only salvation worth having is communal, extended to everyone.”
The early Universalists, according to Christopher Raible, didn’t preach that there was
no hell; they were merely arguing over its location. Raible writes: “If human beings
abandon their responsibilities for each other, they make the world more hellish.” It is
therefore our duty, according to Universalist minister Richard Gilbert, to be the agents
of an earthly salvation—a salvation that is truly universal and communal and not
merely personal. Universalism, in the words of Dorothy Spoerl, requires that we “not
just talk about compassion and love and understanding” but place them at the center
of what guides our words and deeds.
UU minister Mark Ward writes: “As with the early Universalists, we see many around us
who live, consciously or unconsciously, under an ethic of fear. At some times it walls us
off from others, and at other times it fuels a clutching, grasping mistrust and self-
centeredness. Universalism teaches that we are better than that. There is better nature
calling to us, one that would draw us in if we would but give it free play. It is that center
that we act from when our hearts are open, and it gives us not only compassion but
courage: courage to turn from the suspicion, cynicism and despair that separate us
and act on the love that unites us.”
VI
The gospel of Universalism, I believe, is still alive today even if it is not the same as the
Universalism preached by John Murray and Hosea Ballou. But the gospel of
Universalism, I believe, will survive and thrive only if it continues to evolve and grow
and we share its light with the world—or at least our neighbors in eastern North
Carolina.
VII
In closing, I’d like to share with you a meditation written by Elizabeth M. Strong:
“Where the heart stirs,
there moves Universalism.
The center holds us
within its transformative power of love.
We know with a wholeness of spirit
that God is love,
that life is good,
that people are created for goodness out of love,
that in the final reckoning
all shall be one.
When we hurt, when we are broken, when we become separated:
Let us seek the center which holds.
Let us remember the goodness for which we were created.
Let us be open to the transformative power of love
that moves within the heart of life
and be whole once again.
John L. Saxon is a part-time student at Meadville Theological School in Chicago, and a
UU campus minister at Duke University.
“Intelligent Design”
by John C. Morgan
(Editor’s note: John has two new books on the way and also writes a regular
newspaper column. He sees writing as his ministry. Many 19th Century Universalists
were proponents of the Universalist good news in books, newspaper articles, and
pamphlets,which may explain part of the phenomenal growth. They took the
Universalist gospel into the public arena. This is one of John’s recent newspaper
articles which brought him many reactions, some taking him to task for suggesting
common ground between science and religion.)
“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” –Genesis 1:1
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive…but the one most
responsive to change.” --Charles Darwin, “Origin of the Species”
We are beginning to understand what it may have been like at the first second of
creation—what was needed to create life. But we really can’t answer why. To make
matters more confusing, some theorists argue that ours is only one of many universes.
Right now I’ve having enough trouble understanding just one.
Not being clear about the truth claims made by science on one hand and religion on
the may lead to disputes. Arguments heat up around whether “intelligent design” (the
view that was an organizing, purposeful energy at the beginning which some call
“God”) ought to be taught along side evolution as a theory of how life evolved over
time.
Evolution is a theory first postulated by Charles Darwin (who wanted to be a minister,
interestingly enough) about how species adapt to change over time. This theory itself
has evolved as scientists learn more. For example, some scientists argue that
evolution does not mean slow and steady change over time; at some points there can
be evolutionary leaps that are not explainable as a steady and predicable progression.
On the other hand, the theory of intelligent design is also just that—a theory, but one
which comes out of a religious understanding that in the beginning there was a
purpose.
Since I don’t know anyone who was around to ask God why the universe was formed, it’
s a little difficult for anyone other than God to be clear unless one assumes God wrote
the opening chapters of Genesis, and then one is faced with two accounts in the same
book.
I don’t believe there is so great a conflict between science and religion over how the
universe began. I see nothing contradictory about believing the universe was shaped
by intelligence far greater than our own, with evolution becoming the means by which
life shaped itself over time.
Conflicts arise when people debate whether the theory of intelligent design should be
taught as part of a science class. Some would argue that you should not teach
religious truths as part of a science class; others would say that intelligent design is
another theory that needs to be taught alongside evolution.
I see a deeper issue at stake in whether intelligent design should be taught as part of a
science course: Which story of intelligent design should we teach, or should all be
offered: Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist? These religions do not always point to
the same conclusion—a Hindu understanding of how things began is quite different
from our prevailing Western model, drawn mainly from the creation stories of the
Jewish scriptures. In fact, there are some traditions which don’t even believe in
creation--the universe never had a beginning. So to argue that all religions teach the
same truth about our origins is simply wrong.
And, contrary to what you hear, there is not one prevailing scientific view of how the
universe began either, though there now appears at least to be a consensus that there
was something like a “big bang” at the beginning. But what was before the big bang is
still under study. Was there anything at all? Or was there some kind of primordial
chaos to which order was brought?
I believe in “intelligent design,” though I sometimes find it difficult to believe it took
much hold on the human race when I hear opponents arguing. I am not sure I want
intelligent design taught in a biology class. If you want to teach this theory in the public
schools, let it be taught in a world cultures class where creation stories from many
world traditions can be presented.
Private schools can teach whatever version of how the world began they wish. In fact, if
religious institutions were really doing the work they were supposed to be doing—
teaching the fundamentals of their particular religion—there might not be such a furor
over whether or not to teach “intelligent design” in public schools.
I suspect one motive of some intelligent proponents is to promote only one version of
creation—their own. I doubt they would find comfort if a public school said it would offer
intelligent design as part of a world cultures class and include many religions. So it is
not just intelligent design advocates want, but only their version, which, of course, they
argue is the only true one.
What we really need is a little humility, both on the part of some religious people and
some scientists. There is great meaning to be found in how religions describe creation
in myth and story. There also is much to be learned from scientists who want to
understand how the universe began.
John Morgan is also a member of the Herald Board and of the Unitarian Universalist
Christian Association.
Christian Universalism “Endorsed” by Jesus Seminar
by Ken R. Vincent
Validating the doctrine of Christian Universalism was not one of the Jesus Seminar’s
stated objectives. Nevertheless, in their efforts to determine the genuine words and
deeds of the historical Jesus, the Seminar has confirmed that Jesus’ message of
Universal Salvation is authentic to him. Christian Universalism is the belief that God is
too good to condemn anyone to eternal hell and that ALL people will be eventually
reconciled with God. It is a position strongly supported in Bible and advocated by
Christians from the 2nd Century to the present. Unfortunately, it is a message often
overlooked or ignored in many Christian pulpits, despite its particular relevance for our
modern, pluralistic world.
As many Christians already know, the Jesus Seminar undertook a unique experiment in
tapping the knowledge of over 200 academicians and theologians from various
backgrounds to separate the authentic words and deeds of the historical Jesus from
later editing. As a religious writer, I am extremely grateful for the time and expertise
devoted to this project. As a social scientist, I have particular respect for their attempts
to find an objective method for their research. Unfortunately, I believe that the color-
coding method chosen has fostered some unfortunate distortions and
misunderstandings of their conclusions.
Briefly, the Jesus Seminar scholars coded red the words they deemed unique to Jesus;
those words of Jesus with less consensus were colored pink. I had read through their
first major work, The Five Gospels, for a third time before it dawned on me that the red
and pink words did not represent words spoken by Jesus but those utterances that
were ABSOLUTELY NEW and original to him – the stuff that separated the Messiah
from the earlier prophets.
When I talk about this in Sunday school, I challenge people in an exercise to help them
understand how rare “red” words occur in life. I ask them to think about the thoughts
they express which are entirely fresh --- not borrowed from their parents, relatives,
teachers, preachers, books, or media. Once they concentrate on this, they realize how
little is truly “unique”!
Those words deemed “in the spirit” of Jesus or “similar” to Jesus were coded gray.
Those that did not represent Jesus’ unique message were coded black. The black
words fall into three categories: 1) Statements in which Jesus quotes the Hebrew Bible,
2) Statements from common lore, and 3) Propaganda added by the early
churches/writers.
Unfortunately, the words colored gray or black are often interpreted by many to mean
that “Jesus never said that” when, in fact, those words may have been uttered by
Jesus but were not considered by the Jesus Seminar scholars to be original to him.
Like virtually every preacher, prophet, sage, and saint who has ever lived, Jesus surely
quoted from Scripture; we can also be certain that he referred to common lore (i.e.,
common sense, the type of wisdom found in Proverbs), as well as statements
compatible with wisdom from other religions in the ancient world. The question then
becomes: Are the quotes from the Bible and common lore consistent with the authentic
teachings of Jesus? In my opinion, the Jesus Seminar needed several more colors!
Christian Universalism, also known as Universal Restoration or Universal Salvation, is
the idea expressed in the Bible that God’s love is so great that, after “rehabilitation”
/purification in Hell for those who don’t measure up, ALL will be saved. There are a
substantial number of Bible verses cited by Universalist theologians from ancient times
to the present to make the case for Christian Universalism, especially when the verses
supporting Salvation by Good Works are included to make the case for Universal
Restoration.
Except for the Bible itself, the first theologian to write about Universalism was Clement
of Alexandria (150-215 CE). His pupil, Origen (185-254 CE), further developed the
understanding of Universalism and is considered the major ancient authority on the
subject. After Universalism was declared a heresy by the Roman Catholic Church in
the Sixth Century, it continued to be advocated by some theologians in the East and
mystics in the West.
With the Reformation, there was a re-birth of Universalist thought, and for a time the
Universalist Church of America was the sixth largest denomination in the United States.
Its demise is often attributed to its success, as other churches began to de-emphasize
predestination and fire and brimstone in favor of the more loving message of God’s
love for ALL. The Universalist church merged with the Unitarian church in 1961, and
the movement has become an interfaith church in which Universalist Christians have
become an ever decreasing minority. Most people today who endorse Universalist
theology can be found in virtually all Christian denominations; it represents a change of
heart rather than a change of denomination. Examples of prominent Universalists
include William Barclay (Presbyterian), Jan Bonda (Dutch Reformed), Philip Gulley and
James Mulholland (Quakers), Tom Harpur (Anglican), John Hick (United Reformed),
Randy Klassen (Mennonite), Dennis, Sheila, and Matthew Linn (Roman Catholics),
John A. T. Robinson (Anglican), Thomas Talbott (Independent), and Hans von
Balthasar (Roman Catholic).
Now let us look at how various theological positions found in the Gospels fared with the
Jesus Seminar. The verses are somewhat vexing to analyze, as the scholars often
assign three different colors to a single verse! Significantly, all of the verses relating
to the JESUS SAVES theology were rejected as original to Jesus. John Calvin’s
PREDESTINATION fared only slightly better with only two verses seen as original to
Jesus (Matt 6:10, 10:29). Some classic sayings of Jesus on GOOD WORKS were
deemed authentic, although two of the mainstay examples of good works were
rejected, i.e., The Judgment of the Nations (Parable of the Sheep and the Goats) (Matt
25:31-46) and The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The former
was seen as early church propaganda, and the latter thought suspect, as it was similar
to stories from other religions in the ancient world. A few verses relating to good works
(Parable of the Good Samaritan) (Luke 10:30-35), Jesus on forgiveness (Matt 6:12),
and the Parable of the Sower (Mk 4:3-8; Matt 13:3-8; Lk 8:5-8) were voted authentic.
By far, passages advocating UNIVERSAL SALVATION received the most endorsement
from the Jesus Seminar. While they rejected some of the “zingers” (e.g., Jn 12:32),
virtually all Jesus’ classic parables interpreted as Universalist were judged by the Jesus
Seminar to be authentic to Jesus, including The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Matt 18:12-
13; Lk 15:4-6), The Workers in the Vineyard (Matt 20:1-15), The Parable of the Lost
Coin (Lk 15:8-9), and the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32). Also, the verses
relating to the fact that hell is not permanent and used only for
rehabilitation/purification were determined authentic by the Jesus Seminar. They are:
Settle with Your Opponent (Matt 5:25-26; Lk 12:58-59) and the Parable of the Wicked
Servant (Matt 18:23-34). Finally, although it was mutilated in part by the Jesus
Seminar, Jesus’ teaching to be like God and love our enemies as God is good to the
just and the unjust (Matt 5:44-46) was voted genuine to Jesus.
In spite of the controversy surrounding the minimalist approach to the Gospels used by
the Jesus Seminar, Christian Universalists can take some satisfaction that the theology
that emerges is an unwitting endorsement of the teachings of Jesus that have been
used by Universalists from the Second Century forward as expressing God’s Universal
Love for ALL people and, after a “time of trial” for some (Matt 6:13 NRSV), the promise
of Salvation for ALL people.
Ken R. Vincent’s books include: THE MAGI: From Zoroaster to the “Three Wise Men”,
and VISIONS OF GOD FROM THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE. This article, Christian
Universalism "Endorsed" by the Jesus Seminar, is an appendix in his latest book : The
GOLDEN THREAD, GOD'S PROMISE OF UNIVERSAL SALVATION.
"In His Name"
A sermon preached February 9, 2003 by the Reverend John Morgan at the First
Unitarian Universalist Church, Reading, Pa
The "In His Name" is intentional. The communion table in the church I serve has these
words carved along one side. It's this side which has turned away from the
congregation. Ironically, the wood in the table is from Dr. George De Benneville's
home, Thomas Potter's chapel in New Jersey and the Ephrata Cloisters from which
Universalist missionaries set out to share the good news.
This is a very personal sermon. In truth, I wrote it for myself, to be clear about where
my life journey has brought me. I hope I do not sound like the person who talked about
himself for a long time before saying to a friend: "Okay, that's enough about me; let's
talk about you. What do you think of me?"
I want to talk about the fact that I am back to dealing with that Zen-like, Mediterranean
peasant who wandered around the villages talking about the kingdom of God and
turning the notion of being a messiah upside down preaching about nonviolence,
questioning religious authorities, speaking in parables, and otherwise making a
nuisance of himself not only to his family and friends, but finally to the political powers.
He was crucified, died, and, according to a few friends, came back to prove his point
about love being stronger than death.
On the night before he died, Jesus met with his disciples at Gethsemane, The earliest
Gospel writer, Mark, says Jesus was fearful and distressed.
He asked his disciples to stay awake with him, but they fell asleep. And Jesus prayed
for the strength to bear whatever came his way, "Thy will, not mine, "was always his
deepest prayer.
On the night of September 29, 1770, the Reverend John Murray, having fled from
England because he had lost his finances, wife and son, also spent the night praying,
because he had been asked by an illiterate Quaker Universalist, Thomas Potter, to
give a sermon in a rustic New Jersey meetinghouse the next day, Murray didn't want
anything to do with it. But he, too, found the strength to go on, being assured that, as
the scripture says, what he needed to say would be given to him when he needed it.
I may have the same initials as John Murray, but that's about all. However, I do
understand his resistance to God's will for his life, Like John Murray, I have prayed the
prayer of weakness: "0 God, go away and leave me alone,"
But the Hound of Heaven has a persistent way of getting your attention. It usually takes
a two-by-four for me to wake up. But I have awoken, And the most amazing thing of all-I
feel myself being led by a power greater than my own to places I would rather not go,
"He leadeth me, He leadeth me, by His own hand, He leadeth me." Now I finally
understand the words of old hymn,
I am not that far from retirement. I could sit quietly and say nothing and collect
whatever meager pension I have. But what kind of a person would I be then? And what
kind of people would I be serving if I believed I had to hide?
"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" My prayer
all week has been simple:
"0 God, you have brought me this far. I do not believe my work is over. I ask that you
bless and keep me according to your will, and lead me into new life, so that I might be
faithful to what light you have shone me. Amen."
I do not come to argue, I do not come to suggest that you agree with me. I do come
only asking that you hear where I am on my life's journey, If you really know and care
for me at all, you will be glad for me, that after such a long sojourn in the wilderness, I
feel at peace.
For most of its journey, our movement has been Christian. Whether Unitarian or
Universalist, our affirmations or covenants were overtly Christian.
The earliest covenant we claim is congregational in polity-the 17th Century Cambridge
Platform. It affirmed our Christian roots. And the earliest Univer-salist covenant, 1790,
also affirmed the same roots. And the last Universalist covenant before merger with the
Unitarans in 1961, stated this:
"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 or 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."
That's who we have been for most of our history: Liberal Christians. Yet that Is not our
common, collective identify any longer. Isn't it most telling that one of the publications
of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship is entitled: "So You Want To Be a
Christian, But Your Church Isn't?" That about says it all. But I don't think it states it as
clearly as someone said to me recently: "You can be anything here except a Christian."
What is it about being a Christian that irks so many of us? Is it because we were
wounded by our own Christian roots? Is it because we think all Christians preach a
distorted, rightwing gospel of disdain toward anyone who does not take the Bible
literally or adopt their pet theology? Have we forgotten our own roots? Can't we marvel
at the Sermon on the Mount or the wonderful parables and stories he told?
A few weeks ago, I sat with a minister of another tradition. He was gay; his
congregation was not. He wasn't telling them about himself because he was afraid of
what they might think. "Coming out" for him was so risky that he had to hide his
deepest self. He had to bear the off hand remarks others made about "queers" and
"fags." He and I cried together. A day later, I realized that I was not only crying for him,
but for myself and for this movement. I cried for his pain. I cried because I realized that I
felt the same pain but for a different reason: I, and others like me, some who have left
our movement, felt sad because the Jesus rebuked was not the Jesus we had found...
Jesus, the teacher and healer and activist who taught about the nearness of God in
the holiness of the ordinary-a band of disciples eating together, water and air and fire
and nature and the presence of the Holy in even the most lowly of people.
There is a story told by Rosa Parks, the mother of the civil rights movement. She
refused to move to the back of the bus and take a seat there because of the color of
her skin. Years later, when asked why she reused to move to the back of the bus,
Rosa Parks said: "Because I was tired. "
I don't think she meant "tired" physically. I think she meant "tired" emotionally and
spiritually. She was tired of being forced to sit at the back of a bus. She was tired of
being a second class citizen. In a very real way, I'm "tired," too.
I have always been involved in struggling with the life and teachings of Jesus, only
recently have I opened the closet door to say openly: I am a follower of Jesus.. ..
reluctant and hesitant, but clear that he is calling me by name.
Life is too short to stay hidden or fearful. I owe myself and I owe you and I owe God,
more than my fears and weaknesses. The words my father put in the first Bible he gave
me have challenged me anew:
"In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. "
So let me clear and unequivocal. I am trying with all my heart and soul to be a disciple
of Jesus. Heaven knows, I've been everything else.
I am the son in one of Jesus' parables who takes his inheritance and gambles it away in
a far-off country. I am so grateful for a second and third and, maybe last chance. I feel
claimed by a Presence deeper and more loving than I have ever known. If you really
knew my life story, you would rejoice with me now as the father in the parable. You
would run out to welcome me home.
I also am one of the workers in the vineyard described in another of Jesus' parables.
You remember the story: A vineyard owner hires workers in three hour shifts. At the
end of the day, everyone is paid the same-no matter how many hours they have
worked. The point of the story is not when you answer the call to ministry, but if you
answer it at all. I'm one of the late workers.
But in that upside down kingdom, where the poor in spirit and the meek reign, "the first
shall be last, and the first, last." Jesus had a delightful, ironic, revolutionary ethic.
Francis Thompson, a poet and recovering alcoholic, could have been writing about me
in one of his most loved poems, The Hound of Heaven:
I fled Him down the nights and down the days,
I fled Him down the arches
of the years,
the labyrinthine ways
of my own mind;
and in the midst of tears,
I hid from Him. . . .
I am hiding no longer. I am out of the closet.
I am at peace. I am not afraid.
Amen!
John Morgan is a former Editor, Associate Editor, and Writer for the Herald, currently
serving as the minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church In Reading,
Pennsylvania.
Theology
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