Unitarian Universalism – Page 31 – Dan Harper

No God But You and Me

This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2006 Daniel Harper.

Readings

The first reading is from Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America, by James Turner.

“On an autumnal day in 1869, Charles Eliot Norton sat down in his Swiss resort to write to his friend and confidant John Ruskin. Norton moved with ease among the most eminent writers of England and America. Son of the distinguished Unitarian theologian Andrews Norton, he had helped to found the magazine Nation and had recently retired as editor of the North American Review. He counted among his intimates James Russell Lowell, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Frederick Law Olmsted, and shared friendships as well with such men as Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Charles Dickens, Louis Agassiz, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Few men were as well positioned to register the early tremors of any slippage in the primordial strata of Anglo-American culture.

” ‘There is a matter on which I have been thinking much of late,’ he confessed to Ruskin. ‘It does not seem to me that the evidence concerning the being of a God, and concerning immortality, is such as to enable us to assert anything in regard to either of these topics.’ As he tried to sort out the implications of his loss of faith, Norton wondered, ‘What education in these matters ought I to give my children?… It is in some respects a new experiment.’

“It was in many respects a new experiment. For over a thousand years Europeans had assumed the existence of God. Their faith might be orthodox or heretical, simple or complex, easy or troubled — and for serious, thoughtful people, it was very often troubled, complex, even heretical. Yet failing to believe somehow in some sort of deity was not merely rare; it was a bizarre aberration. Then, in Norton’s generation, thousands, eventually millions of Europeans and Americans began to abandon their belief in God. Before about the middle of the nineteenth century, atheism or agnosticism seemed almost palpably absurd; shortly afterward unbelief emerged as an option fully available within the general contours of Western culture, a plausible alternative to the still dominant theism.” [pp. 1 ff.]

The second reading is from the Christian scriptures, Matthew 12.28. In this passage, the radical Jesus has gone to Jerusalem, and has already upset the authorities.

“One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

So end this morning’s readings.

SERMON — “No God but You and Me”

Just to warn you: this is the first in an occasional series of sermons this year on Unitarian Universalist beliefs about God.

Growing up as I did, a Unitarian Universalist in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the dominant religious influence in my life was religious humanism — or, as some people prefer to term it, religious atheism — the religious position that says that there is no God, no divine power of any kind, nothing supernatural about the world. I grew up in a church where most of the church members did not believe in God. Even though our minister at the time was an avowed Unitarian Christian, to the best of my recollection he never tried to impose his particular understanding of God on the congregation — not that it has ever been possible to impose such understandings on Unitarian Universalists.

Not that I had all that much to do with the minister of the church. As a child, my church experience was mostly shaped by Sunday school classes, by adults who were friendly to me, by children’s chapel, and, later on, by youth group. We learned about God in Sunday school, to be sure. We were even given Bibles when we got to fifth grade. We had no pictures on the walls of the Sunday school classrooms that supposedly represented God. If we wanted to believe in God, that was fine; and if we didn’t want to believe in God, that was fine, too.

When I was older and a part of the church youth group, we talked about all kinds of things, including God and whether or not each of us believed in God. Our youth advisor was the assistant minister of the church, and as it happened he did believe in God. (In fact, he later left Unitarian Universalism and became a minister in the United Church of Christ, although he later told me the reason he switched denominations had nothing to do with theology and everything to do with the fact that the United Church of Christ was more active in prison, which struck me as a very Unitarian Universalist sort of attitude.) The discussion from my youth group days that I remember most vividly had nothing to do with God; it was a discussion of Zen Buddhism, and ko-ans, and satori or enlightenment. When I was in youth group, I was much more interested in understanding what it meant to achieve enlightenment, than I was in arguing over God’s alleged nature or existence.

I tell you all this by way of an excuse. The end result of my upbringing is that I’m not particularly interested in arguments about whether or not God exists. When someone tells me that she doesn’t believe in God, I’m likely to respond, What are the characteristics of the God in which you do not believe? When someone tells me that he does believe in God, I’m likely to respond in much the same way, What are the characteristics of the God in which you do believe? In asking these questions, I have found that there are nearly as many descriptions of the characteristics of God, as there are believers and non-believers combined. That doesn’t make me any more or less likely to believe in God myself, but it does make me far less likely to argue with someone over the existence or non-existence of God, because more often than not the person you argue with is arguing about a different God than you are arguing about. Such arguments seem fruitless to me. Such arguments seem like a kind of idolatry, where idolatry means attributing too much importance to something, an importance far beyond its actual worth.

Now I’ve made my excuses about why I’m not particularly interested in arguing with you about whether or not God exists. Yet I remain very interested in the way different beliefs about God affect how people act in the world. And I suspect that my indifference to arguments about God’s existence, and my interest in how beliefs affect people’s actions, has very much to do with the fact that I was surrounded by humanists and atheists when I was a child. The humanists and atheists I knew didn’t give two hoots about what you believed, but they cared a great deal about what you did. And the humanists and atheists I knew were staunchly opposed to idolatry in any form; they taught me that action is always more important than belief.

The Unitarian Universalist humanists I have known have all cared deeply about what people do with their lives. I have a theory about why this is so. As Unitarian Universalists, we are heirs to the great traditional of liberal Western Christianity. The liberal Christian tradition in the West has emphasized one teaching above all others. Other Christians have emphasized the mysteries of the Trinity, or the rules by which Christians are supposed to live, or they have emphasized the final fate of humanity, or humanity’s sinfulness, or fear of a vengeful God, or the liberating power of a God who’s on your side, or Jesus as Lord and Savior, or one of many other aspects of Christianity. But liberal Christians have emphasized one simple teaching, summed up in the words of Jesus that we heard in the second reading: “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”

Those of you who are particularly observant will have noticed that Jesus says a few different things in this passage. First, being a good observant Jew, Jesus recites the Shema Yisrael: “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad” — and forgive my bad pronunciation of the Hebrew. “Shema Yisrael,” which means: Hear O Israel; “Adonai,” a word we translate as “Lord” and which is substituted because it is improper to say the true, proper name of God aloud; “Eloheinu” meaning roughly “our god,” as long as you remember that this isn’t a name of God; “Echad,” which tells us that God is one, or that Jesus pays homage to God alone. This prayer formula, which comes from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4, is something Jesus would probably have said each and every day when he prayed.

Then Jesus adds the next verses from Deuteronomy, as was likely done by Jews in his time as it is by Jews in our time. In Deuteronomy, the story is told that God says to Moses: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Jesus knew this old story about Moses. So after repeating the Shema, that’s what Jesus says next: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

This is the first of two great commandments that liberal Christianity inherited from Jesus, who inherited it from Moses and the ancient writers of the book of Deuteronomy. When certain Unitarian Universalists chose no longer to believe in the God of Moses, or the God of Jesus, then as inheritors of this tradition, they were left with the second great commandment of Jesus, to wit: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This second great commandment also comes from the books about Moses, this time to the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. In this part of Leviticus, God is speaking to Moses, giving rules for good and moral conduct, and God says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am [Adonai].” Or, as Everett Fox more dramatically translates it, “You are not to take-vengeance, you are not to retain-anger… but be-loving to your neighbor (as one) like yourself: I am [Adonai].”

Remove God from liberal Christianity, and what is left is this second commandment, this powerful moral injunction: Love your neighbor as yourself. Do not take vengeance, do not retain anger: be loving towards your neighbor who is another human being like yourself. And this has proven to be an adequate foundation on which to build religious humanism in the Unitarian Universalist tradition. Indeed, this has proven to be an adequate common ground for Unitarian Universalism as a whole to maintain its integrity as a coherent religious tradition, in spite of the fact that we differ widely in our views of the divine. The liberal Christians among us still repeat the other parts of Jesus’s dictum, that God is one and to love God with all your heart, etc.; and they say, love your neighbor as yourself. The Jews among us might still affirm that passage from Deuteronomy (or they might not); and they say, love your neighbor as one like yourself. The Pagans among us might pay homage to the Goddess, and they would say treat other beings with the respect you yourself are due. The humanists among us see no need for any gods or goddesses, and they affirm that we must love one another as we would ourselves be loved.

I sometimes think that could more difficult to be a humanist and not believe in God, than to be someone who believes in a God or gods or goddesses. If the universe does not include some sort of benevolent higher power, perhaps it is harder to maintain one’s faith in the goodness of the universe, and particularly the goodness of human beings. For if there is no higher power, if it’s just you and me, then who are we to blame for evil? Love other people as we would love ourselves — those are fine words to say, but in a world filled with evil, it may be hard to live those words into reality. Ours is a world in which some people torture other people; when I read the horror stories of what torturers do to fellow human beings, I find it difficult or impossible to love those torturers as my neighbor. Whereas perhaps if there is a god or goddess, he or she or it would perhaps be able to love even torturers. Or what about people who engage in genocide? –how am I supposed to love them? If there is no higher power, if it’s just you and me, then you know who we must blame for evil — we must blame humanity, we must blame ourselves.

So we come to one of the great teachings of the humanists. The humanists have taught us that we must take full responsibility for our own actions. We cannot blame evil on God, or on the devil, or on mischievous spirits. We human beings have to take responsibility for evil, because ultimately evil is caused by us human beings.

The great gift that we all have received from the humanists, from the atheists, is a great big mirror. Instead of looking up at some abstract heaven for answers, the humanists have taught us all that we should look in a mirror first, and ask ourselves for the answers. That also means looking in the mirror and seeing our own limitations. We are limited beings; we don’t have all the answers. Even if you believe in God, or in goddesses and gods, or in some kind of higher power, you must learn how to know yourself; and next you must learn how to love yourself; and you must also learn how to love your neighbor as yourself. All this comes from the great gift that humanists have given to all of us.

I said earlier that the humanists and atheists I knew were staunchly opposed to idolatry in any form; where idolatry means attributing too much importance to something, an importance far beyond its actual worth. It is fine if you are someone who finds God indispensable to your understanding of the universe; I know that I cannot understand the universe without some sort of higher transcendent power. It’s fine if you are a theist who believes in God, but religious humanism teaches us that to love your neighbor as yourself is of first importance; actions are more important than beliefs; what you do with your beliefs is far more important than the niggling little details of whatever beliefs you might have.

Jesus reduced his religion to two great commandments, but the second is greater than the first. Yes, you should love your God (or goddess, or the universe) with all your heart, mind, and being. But then, love your neighbor as yourself. The first commandment cannot be complete without the second commandment. If you believe in God, the only way to prove that you truly are a believer is to love your neighbor as yourself. If you are a humanist, and you believe that there is no God but you and me, you still show your devotion in the same way: by loving your neighbor as yourself.

Seven Principles

Readings

The first reading this morning comes from the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the association of which First Unitarian is a member congregation. While excerpts from bylaws are not usually read as a part of a worship service, this particular piece of bylaws has taken on the status of an affirmation of faith among many Unitarian Universalists. This is section C-2.1, titled Principles.

We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion and the transforming power of love;
Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.

The second reading is another excerpt from the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association, which immediately follows the first excerpt we heard. Although rarely quoted, personally I consider these of equal importance to the more familiar principles.

Section C-2.2. Purposes: …The primary purpose of the Association is to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new congregations, extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions and implement its principles.

Section C-2.3. Non-discrimination: The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility, and that of its member congregations and organizations, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its and their activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, language, citizenship status, economic status, or national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or creed.

Section C-2.4. Freedom of Belief: Nothing herein shall be deemed to infringe upon the individual freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and Unitarian heritages or to conflict with any statement of purpose, covenant, or bond of union used by any congregation unless such is used as a creedal test.

So end this morning’s readings.

SERMON — Seven Principles

As you may or may not know, one widely-used statement of faith among Unitarian Universalists is commonly called “the seven principles.” We heard these “seven principles” in the first reading this morning, and as commonly used they are:

(1) The inherent worth and dignity of every person; (2) Justice, equity and compassion in human relations; (3) Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; (4) A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; (5) The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; (6) The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all; (7) Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

It’s an admirable statement of faith. And unusual, for that matter. As I said when I introduced that first reading, this statement is an excerpt from the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association. How many religions do you know of that use an excerpt from their bylaws as a statement of faith? As someone who is fascinated by institutional structures — I call myself a “bylaws geek” — I am tickled to think that many Unitarian Universalists use an excerpt from a set of bylaws as a statement of faith. What better way to merge the personal and the institutional, linking the individual with the communal.

But even though these seven principles may make an admirable statement of faith, they cannot serve as a final statement of faith among us. One of the grounding principles of Unitarian Universalism is that we have no final answers when it comes to religion. Revelation is not sealed, that is, there is plenty more revelation to come before we’re done. Unitarians and Universalists have revised our statements of faith many times over the years; I expect that we shall revise our current statement of faith before too many years have gone by.

Another way of saying this is that we are a critical, argumentative people. And we like it that way. We thrive on disagreement, because we know that disagreement can lead to constructive dialogue, and from that constructive dialogue we might get just a little closer to truth. In fact, the story of the how the seven principles came into being is indeed a story of constructive dialogue that led us closer to truth. What happened was this:

Back in 1961, when the Unitarians and Universalists consolidated together, we had to write new bylaws for our new Unitarian Universalist Association. I am too young to remember any of this, but as I understand it the debate about the principles grew so contentious that it almost put a stop to consolidation. I have been told that the debate went on all day and all night. Somehow, compromises were reached, and a set of six principles was enshrined in the bylaws of the new Unitarian Universalist Association. As a child, I vaguely remember seeing a copy of those principles framed and hung on the wall of my childhood church somewhere. They actually don’t sound all that much different from our current seven principles:

1. To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship; 2. To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to man; 3. To affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships; 4. To implement our vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice and peace; 5. To serve the needs of member churches and fellowships, to organize new churches and fellowships, and to extend and strengthen liberal religion; 6. To encourage cooperation with men of good will in every land.

You probably noticed the old useage of the word “men” to mean all human beings, and the old useage of the word “brotherhood” to mean common humanity. Back in 1961, though, no one gave a second thought to sexist language like that.

Within a few years, by the late 1960’s, feminism began to creep into Unitarian Universalist congregations. Many women, and a few men, began to realize that Western religion pretty much left women out of the religious picture. By the 1970’s, groups of women (with a few men) had gathered in various Unitarian Universalist congregations to see whether Unitarian Universalism suffered from sexist bias. The widespread conclusion was that yes, it did. The next question was: What should we do about it?

One of the women who had been investigating gender bias in religion was Lucile Shuck Longview, a member of the Unitarian Universalist church in Lexington center, Massachusetts. Lucile Longview decided that there should be a resolution introduced at General Assembly, the annual gathering and business meeting of Unitarian Universalists. She drafted a resolution that she called the “Women and Religion” resolution. Her resolution said in part:

WHEREAS, a principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association is to ‘affirm, defend, and promote the supreme worth and dignity of every human personality, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships’; and, WHEREAS, some models of human relationships arising from religious myths, historical materials, and other teachings still create and perpetuate attitudes that cause women everywhere to be overlooked and undervalued; and WHEREAS, children, youth and adults internalize and act on these cultural models, thereby tending to limit their sense of self-worth and dignity;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the 1977 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association calls upon all Unitarian Universalists to examine carefully their own religious beliefs and the extent to which these beliefs influence sex-role stereotypes within their own families; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the General Assembly urges the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association to encourage the Unitarian Universalist Association… to make every effort to: (a) put traditional assumptions and language in perspective, and (b) avoid sexist assumptions and language in the future.

It may be hard for us to realize it now, but in 1977 this was a pretty radical resolution. And that phrase that called on Unitarian Universalists to “avoid sexist assumptions and language” would prove to be quite radical.

Years later, Lucile Longview recalled how the Women and Religion resolution came to be passed at the 1977 General Assembly. She wrote:

I conceived of and wrote the resolution and sent it to 15 associates around the continent, soliciting feedback. They encouraged me to proceed, and offered suggestions. At First Parish in Lexington, Massachusetts, six other laywomen, one layman, and I sent personal letters to members of churches, with copies of the petition to place the resolution on the agenda of the 1977 General Assembly. We received more than twice the requisite 250 signatures. The Joseph Priestley District submitted the resolution directly, with some text revisions. Both versions were placed on the GA Final Agenda. We lobbied friends, GA delegates, and presidential candidates to support the District’s version, which passed unanimously.

In other words, the Women and Religion resolution was the result of non-hierarchical, grassroots effort. And it passed unanimously. That contentious Unitarian Universalists could pass anything unanimously indicates to me that we saw truth in the statement that we could learn sexist attitudes from religious stories and myths.

One of the first places to look for sexist language was in the six principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association. After the passage of the Women and Religion resolution, who could help noticing that the six principles referred to men but not to women? And so a movement arose to revise the six principles.

Revising the six principles into something that nearly all Unitarian Universalist congregations could agree on took seven long years. A seventh principle, respect for the Earth as sacred, was added based on the emerging feminist idea that human beings are not disembodied beings and cannot be separated from the world around them. An initial draft of the revised principles was brought to General Assembly, but it was criticized for completely leaving out the word “God,” which many people felt was tantamount to pushing theists and Christians (many of whom were strong feminists) out of Unitarian Universalism. Finally, in 1981 the General Assembly formed a committee to reach out to every Unitarian Universalist congregation for suggestions and comments and criticisms. This grassroots effort paid off: in 1984 and 1985, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association finally approved a new improved statement of principles, which you heard in the first reading this morning. The vote to approve these new principles was not quite unanimous, but it was pretty close to being so.

So here we are, 21 years later. We have this great set of principles. Many people feel deep affection for our statement of principles. Quite a few teenagers and young adults have grown up in our churches having been taught those seven principles — some churches have their children memorize the simplified version of the seven principles that we read together as a responsive reading this morning. Everyone seems happy with the seven principles.

Now a provision of the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association requires us to review the principles at least every fifteen years, and make any revisions that might be necessary. We are just beginning that review (six years late, which means we’re in violation of our own bylaws, but those things happen). And there are many voices saying that this only needs to be a cursory review, for after all we’re all pretty happy with the seven principles.

Well, no, we’re not all happy with the seven principles as they now stand. A small number of people — and I count myself as one of them — feels that it’s time for the principles and purposes to be revised. I personally would like to see a substantial revision. I personally am fairly unhappy with the current principles. Let me tell you why.

As I told you, the principles as we now have them grew out of the feminist movement of the late 1960’s and the 1970’s. We can call that feminist movement “second wave feminism.” “First wave feminism” was the feminist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a movement that perhaps reached its high point in legal reforms like women winning the right to vote. Within Unitarianism and Universalism, first wave feminism resulted in the first ordinations of women as ministers. Second wave feminism came about when middle class white women realized that although they had won the right to vote, and a few other legal rights, sexism was still rampant and widespread in our society. Second wave feminism pointed out, for example, that women earned less than men for the same work, and also pointed out how few women served prominent political offices or other positions of power. Within Unitarian Universalism, second wave feminism led to the eventual result that half our ministers are now women, that women now fill some of our most prominent pulpits, and that the last five moderators of the Unitarian Universalist Association have been women.

But then along came “third wave feminism.” Thoughtful women of color began to realize that second wave feminism did not adequately represent the particular circumstances of women who didn’t happen to be white. Thoughtful working-class women began to realize that second wave feminism assumed the kind of access to money and influence that many working class people, both men and women, just didn’t have. These women, and some like-minded men, began to ask why it was that middle-class white women seemed to be making so much more progress towards equality than women of color and working class women. To put it bluntly, second wave feminism did not deliver equality to many women.

Third wave feminism has led to a deeper questioning of second wave feminism. Many third wave feminists are younger women who came of age in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and some of them feel as though they are supposed to be “dutiful daughters” who follow the old second wave feminism without question — but then they ask, isn’t that exactly the kind of hierarchical thinking that the second wave feminists were trying to break away from? An increasing number of women who call themselves feminists are not Westerners, and they point out that second wave feminism almost requires a woman to adopt Western ways of doing things. So, for example, there are Islamic women who say they are feminists, and who don’t like the fact that some white feminists in the North America have stated that it is impossible to be an Islamic feminist.

Religion has become something of a bone of contention among North American feminists, too. Many of the second wave feminists rejected all religion as inherently demeaning to women, while other second wave feminists rejected Western Christianity or Judaism in favor of Paganism. But now younger women are coming along who are questioning how second wave feminism has rejected religion. Some of them are saying: You know what, I can believe in God and still be a feminist.

As you can see, lots of people are having lots of arguments about feminism these days. Those arguments have even crept into Unitarian Universalism. The questions that third wave feminists have posed have caused people like me to question how we Unitarian Universalists do feminism. And that has led a few of us to question those wonderful seven principles, which emerged from the insights of second wave feminism.

Speaking for myself, in the past few years I have grown unhappy with what I perceive as the selfishness of the seven principles. To say that I affirm “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations” sounds very fine indeed. Of course I want to be treated with justice, equity, and compassion. But when I remember how many women have to live with domestic violence, I’m not sure those fine-sounding words are quite strong enough. When I remember that far more women and children live below the poverty line than men, I really begin to want a stronger statement of what I can affirm.

In the second reading this morning, you heard what might be just such a stronger statement. The second reading this morning gave the rest of the principles and purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the parts that are rarely quoted, the parts that don’t appear on the little wallet cards we have at the back of the church. I am particularly fond of this statement: “The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility, and that of its member congregations and organizations, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its and their activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, language, citizenship status, economic status, or national origin….”

Those of you who come here regularly on Sunday mornings have probably noticed that the welcoming words that we hear each week at the beginning of the worship service include a similar statement: “Here at First Unitarian, we value our differences of age, gender, race, national origin, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, and theology.” Isn’t this a stronger statement than to say that we long for some abstract notion of justice, equity, and compassion? Isn’t this a stronger statement than to say merely that we value the inherent worth and dignity of every person? The seven principles are easy to affirm if you’ve already got some measure of justice, equity, and compassion in your life, if you’re already treated with inherent worth and dignity. But I’d rather affirm that I have a special responsibility to value the differences between people; and I’d rather be reminded of quite specific differences that I should be paying attention to; those differences that historically have resulted in certain groups of people being pushed to the margins of power and influence.

As I say, this is a debate that is going on right now in Unitarian Universalist circles. Within a couple of years, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association will be asked either to affirm the principles and purposes as they now stand, or to make changes. You’ve heard my opinion — I think I’d like to see some changes, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what those changes might be. You probably have your own opinion. Perhaps you would prefer that our principles and purposes remain as they are now. Perhaps you have some good ideas for specific changes that should be made. Perhaps you will be the next Lucile Shuck Longview, and start a new grassroots effort that will change Unitarian Universalism for the better.

Whatever your personal opinion, our shared faith of Unitarian Universalism requires all of us to talk these things over; we are required to remain in critical dialogue with each other and with our shared statement of faith. Ours is not a religion for complacent people. We can’t just come and sit in church once a week for an hour, and say that is the extent of our religion. The search for truth and goodness draws us ever onwards, into deeper and more careful reflection. The search for truth and goodness isn’t a part-time affair, but it permeates every aspect of our lives; and any affirmation of faith that we make must be regarded as provisional and subject to revision.

In short, go forth and think deeply — and argue!

Teach Our Children Well

Readings

The first reading this morning is from a poem titled “Toys” by Coventry Patmore, an English poet who lived in the middle of the 19th C.

My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
With hard words and unkiss’d,
— His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-vein’d stone
A piece of glass abraded by the beach.
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells,
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart….

The second reading this morning is from the book 25 Beacon Street, a memoir written by Dana MacLean Greeley, Unitarian Universalist minister and long-time president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. He writes:

“I dream every once in a while that I am still faced with taking high school graduation examinations, or that I haven’t completed by work. I did complete it and was graduated, but I had devoted myself probably too much to church work, and to athletics, and to being president of my high school class, and never was as brilliant in my studies as my brothers and sisters. One of our daughters once wrote in an autobiographical sketch for college admission (we didn’t see it until it came back) that her grades in school were not as good as they might have been because always when she was going to study her father said that there was a young people’s meeting at church, and that that was just as important. This seems to have been the theory in my own youth.”

SERMON — “Teach Our Children Well”

Let me begin with the first reading today, the excerpt from the poem by Coventry Patmore. The poet is sitting at his desk trying to write a poem — now I’m imagining this, and this is not exactly what the poem says — but there’s the poet doing important grown-up things, not wanting to be bothered his son. But his son does bother him, a little boy whom I imagine to be about seven or eight years old, “who look’d from thoughtful eyes /And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise.” I imagine that the boy asks his father a question, like, “Daddy, why are sea-shells smooth inside?” His father says, “Son, don’t bother me now. Daddy’s trying to work.”

I imagine the boy is silent for what seems to his seven-year-old self to be an impossibly long time — say, about five minutes. Even though his father said, “Don’t bother me now”, “now” must be long past. The boy says, “Daddy, why are sea-shells smooth inside?”

His father snaps back at him, “Can’t you see that I’m busy? Not now.” I imagine that this exchange goes back and forth between father and son until the father spanks the boy and sends him to bed without any supper, and without a good night kiss. Now of course back in the 19th C. when Coventry Patmore wrote this poem, spanking your child was still socially acceptable; whereas today, spanking is no longer something you’d put in a poem; first of all because you know spanking doesn’t accomplish anything, and second of all because it is believed that spanking generally does more harm than good. If this poem had been written today, the poet would have said,

Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I took away his video game and dismiss’d
Him to bed early, with hard words, and unkiss’d…

After which the poem continues,

— His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

Perhaps the boy’s now-dead mother would have been more patient; perhaps the father is still grieving his wife’s death. Whatever the case may be, the father sends his son off to find comfort in a red-veined stone, a piece of beach glass, and sea shells. All these are worthy objects of a child’s wonder; but how much more could that little boy have found in those objects of wonder if his poet-father had taken the time to look at them with him.

A century and a half later after this poem was written, we claim that we have a much more enlightened attitude towards children. Now we know all about the developmental stages of children, we know that children cannot act like little adults. Those old Victorians believed children should be seen and not heard, but now we encourage children’s questions, and encourage their interaction with the adult world.

Yet for all that we think we are enlightened when it comes to children, our society has become quite good at keeping children out of sight and out of mind. We do not allow children to accompany their parents to the workplace; even though we know that for the first two centuries of European settlements here in New England, when our forebears farmed, and kept shops, and fished the inshore waters, children were always a part of adult life. We have created a society where the norm is to place children together in schools, places where only a few adults come into contact with them. By putting children in schools, the rest of us don’t have to deal with children for a significant portion of each day. Furthermore, in the past decade we have created more and more after-school programs where again we can keep children out of the mainstream of society. We still keep children out of sight and out of mind.

Today’s attitude towards children is a change from a hundred years ago. A hundred years ago, religious liberals, along with allies like the philosopher John Dewey, created what they called “progressive education.” Progressive education meant educating children for democracy, getting children out of the schools and into the real world, in a controlled manner, so they could begin to understand and address the deep-rooted social ills of our society. Progressive education means telling children that this world could be better than it is now; that we can improve the world and make “progress onwards and upwards forever.”

“Progress onwards and upwards forever” — that phrase is part of an old Unitarian affirmation of faith that was used in North Unitarian church in New Bedford’s North End, before North Unitarian merged into this church. “Progress onwards and upwards forever” is a religious concept: it represents our Unitarian belief that we should not wait until some afterlife to experience heavenly bliss; that we cannot wait until some hypothetical second coming; that we should try to institute heaven here on earth, and now in our lifetimes, to the extent that we are able.

A very different religious understanding now colors our understanding of schools and schooling: namely, that heaven and heavenly bliss must wait until after we are dead; that we will have to wait until some second coming for things to get better; and that humanity does not have it in its power to do much to change the world here and now; except, perhaps, to anticipate the Second Coming. These days, there is a push to educate children to conform to authority; instead of pushing them to think for themselves, to better themselves, to better the world.

Which brings us to the second reading. In our second reading this morning, we heard how Dana Greeley, a prominent Unitarian Universalist minister and a president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, was brought up. Dana Greeley’s parents believed in the best kind of progressive education:– progressive education that aimed to nurture full, well-rounded human beings. His parents supported academic schooling; but they felt it was equally important that Dana Greeley participate in church. His parents saw that going to church would give the young Dana Greeley high ideals that he would live up to; would nurture his sense of wonder at the universe; that going to church would give their son a framework of high morality for him to live up to; and, more pragmatically, church would give their son with lots of opportunities for leadership development. In short, going to church would help turn their son into a well-rounded human being.

Here at First Unitarian, we can still offer these four things to children and teenagers. We have high ideals: when they are young we tell children that Unitarian Universalists have minds that think, hearts that love, and hands that are ready to serve; and as they get older, we help them deepen their thinking about their high ideals, challenging them to live out those ideals. We nurture a sense of wonder at the universe; whether our kids choose to call that wonder “God” or by some other name is less important than that they realize that we should all be struck with awe by the wonder of a new birth or the mystery of death, or the complex beauty that results from biological evolution. We still give young people a framework of high morality, steeping them in the knowledge that the world is imperfect and that each of us must do our part to make the world a better place; and that we as individuals are also imperfect but perfectible. Finally, we have leadership opportunities for young people, particularly teenagers: we allow them to become members of this congregation; and though, sadly, we still don’t allow them a full vote at congregational meetings, we allow them to serve on committees, and to have at least some voice in the governance of this congregation.

Let me give you an example:– When a child or teenager comes to First Unitarian, they come to one of the few places in our society that offers a deep and holistic sense of what it means to cherish the earth. A young person might feel deeply about ecological issues. A young person might learn all kinds of facts about global climate change. But here in our church, we unify the emotional and the intellectual into a spiritual whole. We have high ideals, that we are able to, and have the moral duty to halt environmental disaster. To this we add a sense of awe and wonder, we see the world as sacred, an expression of God if you prefer, just as Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Unitarian Transcendentalists did. Then we give kids a framework for high morality, a sense of duty and self-discipline that allows them to work to better an imperfect world. Finally, we give them manageable and age-appropriate leadership development opportunities, so that they can actually do something with their high ideals and morality and sense of awe and wonder.

While the MCAS, our state’s standardized test, may serve its purpose, it cannot do for young people what our church can do. If we insist that our children attend school so that they may pass the MCAS and get their high school diplomas, we must also insist that our children attend church so that they may learn what it means to be a good person, and learn how to make the world a better place.

Well over a century ago, Unitarian and Universalist churches figured out that if you really want to effect social change, then go teach high ideals to children. You can fix one social justice problem, but it’s like sticking your finger in a leaking dike, and another hole is sure to open up somewhere else in the dike. We have to teach our children to build a whole new dike, one that won’t crack and leak at all. And we have been doing this kind of religious education for over a century.

I’ll put this in fancier language. As Unitarian Universalists, we hold a deep and unshaken belief in the possibility of progress onwards and upwards forever; we hold a deep belief that we can institute heaven here on earth, now during our lifetimes. And we know that education is central to human progress. Therefore, our programs for young people must be at the very center of our Unitarian Universalist churches; and historically, that has been true for us Unitarian Universalists. It is no accident that our religious education programs are well-known outside of Unitarian Universalist circles; even though we are a tiny denomination, comprising less than one percent of the United States population, other denominations have looked to us for ideas and inspiration for their own religious education programs.

Yet as a movement, we have drifted away from our high ideals for religious education. The past ten years marked a time of decline in our historic commitment to religious education. Salaries for religious educators in our churches have been dropping in terms of constant dollars. Worse yet, it is harder to find volunteers who take joy in teaching children and youth.

It would be easy for us here at First Unitarian to fall prey to this wider trend. For example, seeing that we only have a few children, we could have slashed the Director of Religious Education position. But that didn’t happen. This fiscal year, I recommended a modest increase in salary for the Director of Religious Education position, but your elected Board of Trustees overrode my recommendation and provided for an even bigger increase in hours and salary. Then the congregational meeting approved that bigger increase, and furthermore, members and friends of this congregation increased their pledges on average ten percent over last year to help pay for that increase (I myself increased my pledge to over five percent of my gross income to help meet the budget).

We have the money — although we still need volunteers who will take joy in teaching our children….

*****

That’s about where I was planning to end this sermon when I sketched it out a week ago. Then I got a telephone call from our brand-new, enthusiastic Director of Religious Education, Erin Dunn. Erin said she was in the hospital again, that they didn’t know what was wrong with her heart, but that she was not allowed to continue working. She had been in the hospital four times in the past month. So Erin resigned before she could recruit teachers for our Sunday school, before she could organize the schedule for our youth advisors, before she could get the Religious Education Committee up and running.

We have a great Sunday school program all ready to go, but we don’t have the people to make it happen. We need to figure out a way to support a religious education program to help our church’s children — Sophia and Amanda and Peter and Kyle and all the others — grow up to save the world. I can help in this effort, but I’m finding I cannot do it alone. We all have to pull together to keep our programs for young people going — not just parents (I’m not a parent!), but all of us.

Nor is such an effort entirely altruistic on our part, because a truly excellent religious education program will bring us all a deep satisfaction, if for no other reason than we are hard-wired genetically to strive constantly for the continuation and improvement of the human species. We need good organizers to serve on the Religious Education Committee, we need Sunday school teachers to carry out a teaching ministry with kids, and yes we could use some more pledge increases because the budget is still going to fall a little short. But what I am really calling on us to do is to align our personal attitudes with our deepest religious beliefs and longings. Of course we won’t speak harshly to children and send them off to their rooms alone, as the father in the poem did. But we can’t ignore our young people, either. Let us learn how to treat all children the way Dana Greeley’s parents and his church did: seeing in our children the best hope for our future, nurturing and caring for our children as a deeply-satisfying religious and spiritual discipline.

To raise up children to be good people, knowing they an bring about a heaven here on earth, is one of the chief religious wonders and joys we can experience as a community. For us to do so will only lead to greater joy for each of us personally — joy, though not necessarily greater comfort — but definitely the joy and spiritual satisfaction that comes in knowing we are living out our deepest beliefs.