Poet Maya Angelou once heard a "born-again" religious enthusiast declare quite piously, "I'm a Christian," to which she responded incredulously, "Already?" The clear implication here is that to seriously call oneself a Christian is a presumptuous act, suggesting far more than a religious identification, but rather a certain way of life. Furthermore, such an arrogant assertion hints that the speaker has already reached some lofty destination - has morally and spiritually arrived. Angelou raises the issue of human hubris - the sin of pride.
On the other hand, we human beings can also exhibit a becoming spiritual modesty. One theologian describes a team of Evangelical Christians who invaded Shipshewana, Indiana, to bring the lost of Shipshewana to Christ. In front of Yoder's drygoods store one of these earnest souls confronted a Mennonite farmer with the challenge, "Brother, are you saved?" The farmer was stunned by the question.
All his years of attending the Peach Bloom Mennonite congregation had not prepared him for such a question - particularly in front of Yoder's.
"Wanting not to offend, as well as believing that the person posing the question was of good will, he seriously considered how he might answer. After a long pause, the farmer asked his questioner for a pencil and paper and proceeded to list the names of ten people he believed knew him well. Most, he explained, were his friends, but some were less than that and might even be enemies. He suggested that the evangelist ask these people whether they thought him saved, since he certainly would not presume to answer such a question on his own behalf."
Unitarian Universalist author Dan Wakefield experienced still another vision of what it means to be a Christian when he attended a lunch with Father Henri Nouwen, who then taught at the Harvard Divinity School. Wakefield said to him, "Father Nouwen, I've read your Prayers from the Genesee. What bothers me is that if someone as advanced as you has doubts and difficulties with prayer, what hope is there for someone like me who's just starting out?" Nouwen looked at him sternly and said, rather sharply, "Mr. Wakefield, Christianity is not for 'getting your life together.'"
Says Wakefield, "I was taken aback, abashed. Was I getting it all wrong? In a way, yes. Nouwen was telling me that Christianity was not simply another scheme for the never-ending satisfaction of the self, that it went beyond an ego trip to the service of others, to the giving up of self. Christianity offered a journey that was not just sweetness and light but thundering darkness and doubt, thorns as well as roses, nails as well as doves."
Customarily, Unitarian Universalists don't worry if they are Christians, born again, or saved. Nonetheless, the implications are clear. What does it mean to say one is a Unitarian Universalist? Can one simply say I am one and be one? Is that rather cumbersome name merely a religious label, indicating with what church one is affiliated, or is it allegiance to a particular way of life?
I was reminded of one disquieting answer just a year ago at the center of the hub of the Unitarian Universalist universe. Accompanying our Religion in Life Seminar on a Boston pilgrimage, we visited the headquarters of our Unitarian Universalist Association atop Boston’s Beacon Hill. On a building tour we heard a communications expert give us a mini-lecture on computer home pages, the World Wide Web, the Internet and how electronically linked the liberal religious world was. Then came the coup de gras - he remarked how many of those in our Unitarian Universalist technological network listed Unitarian Universalism on their home page as their hobby. Think about it!
Perhaps it is this more casual attitude toward religion that prompted columnist George Will to write about "Political Unitarianism" in a recent Newsweek essay. Will was chiding Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone as "the last liberal in America," an anomaly in a conservative age. He wrote, "If you are looking for that old time political religion, you will be disappointed. Wellstone's liberalism is political unitarianism, as mild and inoffensive as Unitarianism itself, which has been defined as the belief that there is at most one God. Or (to change metaphors) if it is political red meat you are after, more disappointment awaits. You have entered a political salad bar."
I am sending Newsweek the following response: "Dear George: While I often disagree with you, I thought you the thinking man’s conservative until your column on "political Unitarianism," which you define as "mild and inoffensive...the belief that there is at most one God...a salad bar." If you wrote this of Judaism, you would stand accused of anti-Semitism. Apparently slighting Unitarianism (you forgot Universalism) is all right. It was a cheap shot.
I asked Will, "Was it merely mild and inoffensive that Michael Servetus was put to the stake by John Calvin for his unitarianism? Was Unitarian Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence simply bland? Do you find a salad bar faith in the Florida Unitarian murdered at an abortion clinic defending a woman’s right to choose? Is it religiously wimpy to struggle for one’s own faith instead of accepting someone else’s creed? It is weak-kneed to take seriously the Constitution’s call for government to "promote the common welfare"? Don’t you find ostentatious wealth and abject poverty offensive? George, it is you who need work - in respect, honesty and compassion."
I understand Will was raised a Unitarian in Champaigne/Urbana, Illinois, his father a professor at the University there and an active Unitarian Universalist. Evidently, George has experienced a slight rebellion. He no doubt grew up in the time when we leaned over backward to teach our children about every faith but their own, so we could never be accused of indoctrinating them. Today we proudly teach the tradition to which we are heirs and the faith we profess.
Ours is decidedly not a wimpy faith. Any religious tradition that dares us to build our own theology out of the raw stuff of our own experience; any faith that refuses to reduce truth to creeds; any religion that requires its adherents to create history rather than merely admire it; any ethic that demands we be good - not for fear of hell, or faith in heaven - but for the sake of our own integrity; any group that challenges its members to create a loose-leaf bible out of the collective experience of the race, that realizes revelation is never sealed, can hardly be called wimpy. It is not a faith for the faint-hearted. One never is finally a Unitarian Universalist - one is always trying to become one.
As one wag commented, "Some people want the whole matter of religion done up into a neat little package tied with red ribbon and spend the rest of their Sundays exclaiming, 'Oh, how nice.' Don't expect to put on a 'ready to wear' religion at this church. Our business is in 'make it yourself' kits." And we keep working on that project for a lifetime.
This religious community is a laboratory of learning in which we help one another navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of living. Our genius is not that we all think alike, but that in all our differences we have committed ourselves to walk together in religious living.
The Unitarian Universalist church, then, is a school of the spirit - helping us probe the depths of worship and worldly work.
It is a locus, and perhaps the only locus, where we can ask those basic questions about the fundamental meaning of our existence. That schooling, I submit, is serious business.
Because we deviate sharply from the religious mainstream in our sheer diversity of beliefs, Unitarian Universalism has sometimes been caricatured as nothing but a cult. Well, are we? The tragic Heaven's Gate mass suicide at Rancho Santa Fe provides ample evidence for answering that question in the negative and affirming what it is we are.
Theologically, a cult is a "totalistic" group which demands of its members' complete commitment to absolutist beliefs, regimented community and authoritarian leaders. Members of Heaven's Gate yielded up their freedom to a charistmatic leader who demanded their unquestioning obedience.
Their pessimistic, other-worldly theology compelled them to seek escape from the troubles of this world in an illusory space craft supposedly following the Hale-Bopp comet.
The utter fanaticism of their belief system is illustrated by the fact that one among them bought a pair of binoculars to be able to spot this arcane space vehicle which was supposedly waiting for them. When he couldn't see the promised space ship in the night sky behind the glorious comet, the glasses were returned as not working. Such is dogmatism in religion.
The contrast with Unitarian Universalism couldn't be more pronounced. We have no creed to which allegiance must be given. Blind obedience to anyone or anything is out; responsibility to formulate our own faith is in. We are not only allowed, but encouraged and enabled, to become theologians in our own right - putting together a set of values that will guide our living.
I have never been accused of using my charisma - such as it may be - to lead any group blindly off any theological cliff. It is fair to say that I openly encourage critique of what I say, and usually am not disappointed. I claim doubt to be as important as faith, and warn against any cult of personality - religious or political.
So independent are we that it has been said that Unitarian Universalists, when they find themselves in the majority, rush to review their position.
Finally, ours is a this-worldly religion - our goal is not to escape from the messiness of existence, but to accept our responsibility for helping to clean it up. There is a pragmatic strain in us that is fierce indeed. We want a religion that relates us to the real world and inspires us to change it. Cult nothing!
Church historian Earl Morse Wilbur once described the uniqueness of one of our Unitarian Universalist antecedents - the 16th century Minor Church of Poland - with its faith that Jesus saved not by his death on the cross but by the persuasive power of his life on earth. The Minor Church stressed church discipline - covenant - mutual promises and accountability - to an impressive degree. Church leaders frequently reminded individuals of their duty as religious people.
Adherents were evaluated on those responsibilities four times a year just before the celebration of the Lord's Supper. To prepare for this solemn communion, the congregation met Saturday for worship and to confess their sins. Congregants were interviewed privately about their conduct for the period just passed, and were taken to task for their faults, and urged to repent of their evil ways. The unrepentant were denied access to communion and might even be ostracized by other members.
Evidently this regular self-examination and social monitoring were taken very seriously by all involved, and helped maintain a high standard of conduct. So impressive was this spiritual and ethical discipline that even those who most disagreed with its doctrines were impressed by the Minor Church.
Wilbur reported that a "Catholic historian declared that Polish 'Arianism' was the most influential page in Polish religious history, and that one reason why its adherents did not become more numerous was that its moral demands were too strict."
These words are reminiscent of the more recent thoughts of Unitarian Universalist minister Harry Meserve, "If you were arrested for being a Unitarian Universalist, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"
What would that evidence look like?
Have you committed yourself wholeheartedly to a cause that transcends self?
Would you be willing to have your enemies, as well as your friends, assess your character?
Is your commitment to your faith and your church more than a mere hobby?
Are you more interested in helping save the world than in being saved?
Are you spiritually born again or born again and again and again?
Do your doubts challenge rather than discourage you?
Do you agree that the truth that makes us free also makes us glad?
There are no short cuts in our religion. It takes time and effort to become a Unitarian Universalist. We are distinctly not like one minister who announced the last hymn, "Take Time To Be Holy." Then he added, "In the interest of time, we’ll sing only the first and last verses."
Unitarian Universalists are committed to sing them all - with vigor!
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