First Parish Unitarian UniversalistOur Heritage, Part Two: We’re Too Good
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
September 25, 2005
Five years ago this Thanksgiving weekend, I preached from the pulpit where William Ellery Channing gave the sermon that is regarded as the “first manifesto” of American Unitarianism, from which I took our Reading this morning. When Channing spoke at First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, in 1819, the building was brand new and was called by some local ministers a “Synagogue of Satan,” because of its Unitarian views.
When I preached there in 2000 the text for my sermon was by Karl Marx, another manifesto-producing Satan in the eyes of some folks. I didn’t mean to be provocative, honestly! In fact, my sermon that day was one I’d preached for you a few weeks earlier.
I don’t know what made me most nervous about preaching there: that it felt like such an honor to stand where Channing stood, or the fact that my father-in-law would be in the pews… The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore being his church, and he being one of its pillars, and someone whom I respect.
That I was nervous about the occasion was proven, beyond a doubt, by the fact that I left the garment bag containing my preaching clothes hanging on our bedroom door at home.
This necessitated a shopping trip upon my arrival in Baltimore. The resulting new dress drew an approving comment from my father-in-law afterwards… as did the sermon, to my great relief. Plus, he approved of the fact that it had not gone longer than twenty minutes, as shown by his stop watch notations on the index card he carries in his pocket.
In my sermon last Sunday on Universalism and this one today on Unitarianism, I hope to offer glimpses of what was unique, what was held in common, and what we’ve gained and maybe lost in the more than forty years since the consolidation of the two branches of our family tree.
I won’t repeat now much of last week’s sermon (copies are available on the First Parish website and from the literature display in the Parish Hall facing you as you enter), but I will tell again, for those who weren’t here last week, the joke that gave me my sermon titles. It’s by the Reverend Thomas Starr King, a 19 th century Universalist minister who served Unitarian congregations for most of his career. He explained the differences between the two traditions he knew so well, “The Universalists think God is too good to damn them forever, while the Unitarians think they are too good to be damned forever.”
Whereas the Universalists trusted so in God’s grace that they knew there was no such thing as hell, thus their doctrine of “universal salvation,” the Unitarians believed in “salvation by character,” by what Channing called “self-culture,” by self-improvement, right living, good deeds, by seeking to be like God. I want to return to that notion, and how it relates to us today, but first let us look at how the Unitarians got their name.
It is ironic, perverse even, that our faith tradition, which today is non-creedal, is named by two doctrines: universalism and Unitarianism.
Channing’s Baltimore sermon was titled “Unitarian Christianity.” In the introduction he said he would “endeavor to unfold the principles which we [Unitarians] adopt in interpreting the Scriptures. And secondly, some of the doctrines, which the Scriptures, so interpreted, seem to us clearly to express.”
His key principle of Scriptural interpretation was the use of reason, as you heard in the Reading this morning. It still is a key tenet of our faith tradition: along with our own personal, direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder that moves us to a renewal of the sprit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life, the first of the Sources from which we draw, we value reason as a test of faith propositions. This is why it is said of Unitarian Universalism, “you don’t have to leave your brain at the door with your hat.”
And the first of the doctrines Channing unfolded was the “doctrine of God’s UNITY, or that there is one God, and one only” in contrast to the Trinitarian view exclusively held by Christians at that time and by many to this day. Trinitarianism held, and holds, that there are three infinite and equal persons, possessing supreme divinity, called the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
One of Channing’s objections to the Trinity was that it is not rational to say that three separate persons who each “has his own particular consciousness, will, and perceptions… [and]… love each other, converse with each other, and delight in each other’s society” are also, somehow, one person. Another objection was that the Trinity is not Biblical, it being mentioned nowhere in the Christian Scriptures that God is a threefold being. And finally, that practically-speaking, the idea of a Trinity is “unfavorable to devotion, by dividing and distracting the [human] mind in its communion with God,” redirecting some of the devotion to Jesus who, again, never referred to himself as God.
Channing went on in that sermon to address other views held by the Unitarians, but those are a longer story than I want to tell here. I do want to mention, as I did last week in regard to ancient sources of Universalist views, that the unity of God, being one not three, was not a product of the modern period; it is traced back at least to Arius, a Christian theologian at the turn of the 4 th century, and thrived enough that the Roman Church condemned it as heresy at the Council of Nicea in 325 (A Chosen Faith, by J. Buehrens & F. Church, page 213).
So by now it is clear that our heritage is heretical, on both sides of the family, and that the two branches shared many of the same heretical beliefs. Hosea Ballou, the first American Universalist theologian about whom we heard a lot last week, was a lower-case unitarian, believing as Channing did, that God was the one God and Jesus was a man. Similarly, Channing and the other Unitarians were lower-case universalists, holding the same critical view as Ballou of the orthodox Christian belief in an atonement somehow won by Jesus’ death for certain pre-selected “elect” persons.
If you are not comfortable with heresy, keep in mind that the root of the word simply means “to choose.” Ours is, indeed, a “chosen faith.”
So, how does all this relate to us in the 21 st century? Besides the fact Ballou Channing District is the name of the regional grouping of UU congregations that includes First Parish along with 46 other congregations in southeast MA, RI, the Cape and Islands. Now you know where we got the name! But, more than that, do we care about salvation at all?
Last week, I said that the Universalist belief in “universal salvation” connects with us today-- rather directly, for good and for ill--in the first of our UU Principles and Purposes, to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Or as the Quakers say, there is “that of God” or “the light of love” in everyone. This is directly connected to the Universalist doctrine of Universal Salvation: If God is too good, too loving, to condemn anyone to eternal suffering, who are we to write someone off as beyond hope, unworthy of our love?
Well today, I submit to you that the Unitarian doctrine of “salvation by character” connects with us --rather directly, for good and for ill--in the Principles and Purposes as a whole.
If you look on the back of your order of service again this week (and, usually, on alternate Sundays), you will find the Covenant adopted by the delegates of UU congregations to the 1984 and 1985 General Assemblies. On the left hand side are our seven principles and on the right a list of the sources of our faith. The principles are a set of intentions as to how we want to live. You might say they describe what we think is a “moral life.” They are our religious To Do list.
That’s very Unitarian of us. Remember, the Unitarians believed in “salvation by character,” by what Channing called “self-culture,” by seeking to be like God, especially as the divine is revealed in the life of the man Jesus, by self-improvement, right living, right relationships, good deeds.
If we’re made in the image of God, Channing argued, we have the potential to increase our likeness to that image by our own effort. His orthodox contemporaries were outraged by this presumptuous proposition.
But, it has some merit. I like it. It makes ours a religion of the here and now, focused on how we live in the present, not on what reward or punishment we will have in a life after this one. With our Principles and Purposes, we remind ourselves of how we want to live, and we accept responsibility for the state of our world.
How are we doing? Let’s look down the list: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations (pretty good locally, but what about nationally or globally?), Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations (let’s come back to that in a moment), A free and responsible search for truth and meaning (if you feel beleaguered by that one, you might consider signing up for Megan’s Building Your Own Theology class), The right of conscience, the goal of world community, and respect for the interdependent web of which we are but a part.
We set for ourselves lofty goals, requiring that we do more than just talk. That’s good. And, for some of us who are humanists, our only theology is our To Do List.
But, it can be for ill. Sometimes that To Do List can get you down.
I’m reminded of something said at the First Parish leadership retreat on the 10 th. It proved to be a fruitful session, didn’t it, providing me with a good quote last week regarding the Gulf Coast Hurricane and now this story.
At the retreat, each committee chair was asked to reflect on how his or her committee would contribute this year toward the Vision and Purpose adopted at the Annual Meeting in June:
We are a caring and diverse faith community,
That seeks to nurture and inspire each person's spiritual journey,
While serving others in our commitment to peace and social justice.
Someone from the Parish Committee suggested that one of its goals would be to model leadership as it ought to be in a spiritual community and not try to do so much that we lose sight of the spiritual journey we are on, or something along those lines. Then she added, tellingly, “I don’t come here,” meaning First Parish, “to do more. I do more because I love it here.” Then she paused, as if thinking aloud, “But if we aren’t getting the spiritual nurturance we need, because we’re doing too much, we’re not going to love it here.”
I believe she set an important goal: to tend to our spiritual growth, so that the tasks we take on are not draining. It’s the fourth of our principles.
I’m one of the worst offenders when it comes to having more and more good ideas for First Parish to do, and even more ideas for what I should do. While First Parish can only thrive if everyone contributes in some way—time, money, energy, skills, enthusiasm, saying “no” from time to time has to be ok at First Parish, too!
Do, do, do. But, here on Sunday mornings, we pause, to just “be” with ourselves, with our God by whatsoever name we worship. We pause to find that of God, to find the spirit of life and of love within us, and in each other. To remember our own worth and dignity, and find strength for the tasks on our To Do List, the one we inherited from the Unitarian side of the family. Amen.