Category Archives: Liberal religion

Chant workshop to feature renowned singer

In the Dept. of Shameless Self-Promotion, here’s a press release for the upcoming chant workshops here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto:

Marsha Genensky, a nationally known singer with the classical music group Anonymous 4, will lead a free workshop on singing Gregorian chant on January 31 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto (UUCPA). Anonymous 4 is a critically acclaimed a capella group that sings early music.

Participants in Genensky’s workshop will do more than just sing together. Jack Owicki, one of the four organizers of the workshop, says the workshop will be an opportunity for spiritual practice as well. “A flourishing spiritual practice requires a good balance of head and heart,” Owicki said. “I already get plenty of intellectual stimulation in my religious community, but I could use some more direct emotional connection to others and to the world as a whole, and chanting will help with that connection.”

Genensky will be returning to the Bay area to lead the workshop after Anonymous 4’s December East Coast tour.

“Singing chant in unison is a challenge, but a wonderfully rewarding one,” she said. “As we sing these beautiful, single lines of music together, the group will seek and find a ‘unity of musical intent.’ It is in the seeking and finding of that unity that communities that sing chant form deep bonds and rise to higher spiritual experience.”

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Old Joy, old Hark

At the Christmas Eve candlelight service, we’ll be singing “Joy to the World.” We decided to keep the words as they appear in the 1937 Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit, substituting only “Let us our songs employ” for “Let men their songs employ” (that is, using inclusive language for all humanity, but retaining the masculine gender for Jesus and God). I made up sheet music with all four parts of the traditional Lowell Mason harmonization, sized to fit a typical 5-1/2×8-1/2 inch order of service. I’m including links to the PDF below, in case someone else might find it useful. Also included is “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” as it appeared in Hymns of the Spirit (and which is not in either of the current hymnals). We substituted “Born to raise up those on earth” for “Born to raise the men of earth”; and in the second verse, we kept the Unitarian “Sun” instead of the more orthodox Christian “Son” found in other denomination’s hymnals.

PDF of “Joy to the World”
PDF of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” 

He’s another Unitarian Universalist

In an article dated December 11, with a Raleigh, N.C., dateline, the Associated Press reported on a ruckus surrounding a local election: “Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government — but he doesn’t believe in God. His political opponents say that’s a sin that makes him unworthy of serving in office, and they’ve got the North Carolina Constitution on their side.”

Opponents are threatening a lawsuit, saying that the North Carolina state constitution requires political office holders to believe in God. Of course, the U.S. Constitution does not permit religious tests of any kind for elected officials. As is so often the case, it seems that there is very little religion in this political battle:– “Bothwell said a legal challenge to his appointment would be ‘fun,’ but believes his opponents’ efforts have more to do with politics than religious beliefs.”

You will not be surprised to learn that Bothwell is a Unitarian Universalist. Bothwell’s home town newspaper, the Asheville [N.C.] Citizen-Times provides more details about Bothwell’s precise theological position than the Associate Press report. As it turns out, Bothwell is not exactly an atheist…. Continue reading →

Country Joe, a UU?

A ten-year-old thread on the Mudcat folk music Web site* claims that both Country Joe MacDonald and Melanie belonged to Liberal Religious Youth, the old Unitarian Universalist youth organization.

Can any of you out there confirm that this is true? I’m sure neither one is still a Unitarian Universalist, but it would still be fun if they were in LRY.

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* This was a thread on folk musicians with a Unitarian Universalist connection who used their music to promote social justice. The obvious names came up: Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, Utah Phillips, Ric Masten, Fred Small, along with other less well-known folkies. They missed Daryl Anger, but he only started attending a UU church in 2004.

“If my God hates those who hate him, I ought to do as my God does, and I will hate them too.”

I was driving to work this morning, listening to the local liberal talk radio program on KQED. One of the guests this morning was a conservative Christian of some kind, who was involved with some “Christian social group” on the campus of UC Hastings. The host, Michael Krasny, mentioned that this Christian social group did not allow gay and lesbian members.

The Christian fellow, whose name I did not catch, hastened to correct him. He said something like this: We do allow gays and lesbians; this is not about orientation, it is about behaviors. We do not allow our members to have sex outside of marriage, and we do not allow them to have homosexual sex; but if a gay or lesbian was willing to abide by our traditional Christian views of sex and marriage, then they are welcome to join our group. We want everyone to experience what it is to live in Christ, etc. etc.

I listened to this fellow’s tone of voice as he was talking, rather than the standard conservative-Christian content of what he was saying. His tone of voice was defensive, as was only natural, given that he was on a liberal talk radio program. But I also heard smugness, and complacency, and sanctimoniousness, and rigidity. I realized I have heard that exact same tone of voice hundreds of times, and when I hear that tone of voice it always makes me want to insist that I am not a Christian, that I do not believe in that God, and that while I am a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, my Jesus has nothing whatever to do with their Christ.

And then I remembered something written by Hosea Ballou in 1805 that applies to people like this Christian fellow on the radio. Ballou writes:

“Idolatry is the sin of worshipping that which is not, in reality, the true God…. An Almighty [God], omnipresent, infinitely wise and good, may be talked of; but his wisdom, power and goodness must be denied; and he must be a great many millions of miles off, fixed to a certain place, yet everywhere present; infinitely wise, and powerful, yet suffers an everlasting violation of his will;… loves some of his creatures, and hates others; is pleased and displeased with the conduct of his creatures; is perfectly unchangeable, yet loves at one time, and, at another, hates the same object. Such an idol will answer for thousands. Now what are the consequences? Answer, one nation supposes itself the only favorite of God; other people are haters of him, and hated by him. If my God hates those who hate him, I ought to do as my God does, and I will hate them too…. Reader, turn over the pages of history, calculate the rivers of blood which have been shed on account of religious disputes, and ask yourself the question, Is this religion worthy of a Supreme Being?”

[excerpted from A Treatise on Atonement, chapter 3.]

And, dear religious liberals, before you get too smug….

So we religious liberals have let the conservative Christians set up their idol here in America, their false God, a God who hates the majority of humanity, teaches his followers to hate, teaches his followers to start wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who condemns billions of people to eternal torture. And in response to this false idol, this false God, what do we religious liberals do? In our turn, too often we hate all gods, refuse to let anyone mention the word “God,” hate the conservative Christians, and when we talk about religion we use a tone of voice that is defensive, smug, complacent, sanctimonious, and rigid, all at the same time.

Hosea Ballou offers us another path: We can engage critically with the Bible and the Christian tradition that is so much a part of Western culture. We can use reason, humor, and good common sense to come to our own understanding of the Bible, one of the central books of our Western tradition. We can follow truth, instead of letting others impose their false idols on us.

Post-Boomer spiritualities

On his UU Growth blog, Peter Bowden provides a link to a couple of interesting essays on “Faith Formation in 2020” on the “Lifelong Faith” Web site, with links to one essay on “Thirteen Trends and Forces Influencing the Future of Faith Formation in a Changing Church and World,” and to another essay on “Four Scenarios for the Future of Faith Formation in 2020.” I’ve done a preliminary reading of these two articles, and while I have my doubts about some of the material I also found plenty to think about.

In the “Thirteen Trends” essay, some of the usual trends are mentioned — the drift away from organized religion in the U.S., the increasing diversity in the U.S. population, the growing willingness to identify young adulthood as a separate developmental stage, etc. It’s nice to see all these trends collected together in one place, but mostly I didn’t see anything really new. However, the section on “The Rise of a Distinctive Post-Boomer Faith and Spirituality” was quite good, drawing on research by Robert Wuthnow, and work by Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller. Flory and Miller define “four emerging forms of the post-Boomer spiritual quest”:

Innovators are those who represent a constantly evolving, or innovating, approach to religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Many of these are newer, less established groups that are affiliated with the “emerging church” movement, while others are established churches and ministries that are innovating within their own traditions. Innovators demonstrate a desire for embracing the emerging postmodern culture, and within that context are engaging in a spiritual quest that by definition is one that must change and adapt — innovate — to meet the changing culture currents.

Appropriators refer to those churches and ministries that seek to provide a compelling and “relevant” experience for participants, both for those in the audience and for those who are performing in the service or event. In this, both churches and independent ministries seek to create these experiences through imitating, or appropriating, trends found in the larger culture and ultimately popularizing these through their networks into a particular form of pop-Christianity primarily oriented toward an individual spiritual experience.

Resisters refer to what are primarily Boomer-initiated efforts intended to appeal to Post-Boomers by focusing on the “recovery of reason” and resisting postmodern culture within Christianity. They hoping to reestablish the place of the written text and rational belief as the dominant source for Post-Boomer spirituality and practice.

Reclaimers are seeking to renew their experiences of Christianity through the history, symbolism and practices of ancient forms of the faith, such as those still found in the liturgical traditions, thus reclaiming the ancient symbols, rituals and practices of these traditions for their own spiritual quest. Reclaimers demonstrate a quest that takes them on a journey to ancient Christian traditions in small, family-oriented congregations through which they pursue their desire for spiritual development.

Obviously, this has been written for a Christian audience. But you can find these four trends within Unitarian Universalism:–

There are a few Innovators within Unitarian Universalism, though they mostly get forced out of the mainstream of our methodologically and liturgically conservative congregations. We have a few Appropriators within Unitarian Universalism, although most of them are trying to appropriate white middle class Boomer culture (e.g., the new hymnal supplement), which means that they really don’t represent post-Boomer spirituality. There are a few Reclaimers, who often meet in smaller groups for worship and service — UU neo-pagan groups meeting for rituals, UU Christian groups meeting for lectio divina or communion, UU Jewish groups, etc. There are also the Resisters — Post-Boomers who are being encouraged by older humanists to adopt an agenda of strong rationalism, with a heavy reliance on written texts (not scriptures, mind you, but rational texts), as opposed to visual arts, music, movement, etc.

The question is whether or not we Unitarian Universalists have really engaged with post-Boomer spirituality at all. What do you think? Outside of the Sunday school and youth group, is your Unitarian Universalist congregation engaging with post-Boomer spiritualities in any significant way?

“Death and glory” all the way!

In the middle and late 19th century, Universalists spent quite a bit of time arguing about the afterlife. Sure, they agreed that every human being was going to be saved; they were Universalists after all. But some Universalists (an increasing number as the 19th century went on) believed that there would be some form of punishment in the afterlife; while other Universalists believed that you would go straight from death to glory in heaven. The first group were called the Restorationists; the second group were called the Ultra-Universalists, or the “Death and Glory” faction. The Unitarian Universalist Historical Society has a good (albeit long) article on the Restorationist controversy.

You are probably not interested in the Restorationist controversy, but some few of us are. I used to get into gentle arguments with Lindsay Bates, who is a Restorationist. She would say, “There are some people whom I believe need to be punished.” I would say that if there is any afterlife at all, either I want us all to go straight there upon death (yes, even the child rapists and axe murderers), or I didn’t want to be a part of such a theological scheme; or to put it another way, either God is perfectly good beyond human comprehension, or I didn’t want any part of God.

Not only was Lindsay a much better debater than I, I always felt my argument was pretty weak. Today, I was leafing through Hosea Ballou’s An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution, on the Principles of Morals, Analogy, and the Scriptures (Boston: Universalist Trumpet, 1834), and I came across an argument against Restorationism that was new to me, and convincing in an odd, 19th-century sort of way. Ballou writes:

“But I must hasten to notice your queries. 1st. In relation to what you term ‘death and glory.’

“This subject has never been much agitated among brethren of our order, until quite lately. Dr. Priestley’s views of an unconscious state after death, were not known to me when I wrote my treatise on atonement, nor had that subject then ever been considered by me. This accounts for my silence on it. Of late, I have endeavored to know what divine revelation has communicated on this subject; but, owing to my want of discernment, I have not been able to reconcile all the passages, which seem to relate to the case, to a fair support of either side of the question. My efforts, I acknowledge, have not been made with that intenseness of application, respecting this matter, as they would have been, had I been persuaded that the question was of any great consequence. Being fully satisfied that the Scriptures teach us to believe no moral state, between the death of the body, and the resurrection state, in which that which was sown in dishonor will be raised in glory, and that which was sown in corruption, shall be raised in incorruption, it seemed to me immaterial whether we enter, immediately, after the dissolution of the body, on the resurrection state, or sleep in unconscious quietude any given time before that glorious event shall take place. In either case, it is what you call ‘death and glory’; for it makes no difference as to the length of time during an unconscious state. In such a state there can be effected no moral preparations.”

You go, Hosea! Take that, all you Restorationists!

Now I just wish someone would write a hymn that uses the phrase “Death and glory!”

Two miracle birth stories of Jesus

This Sunday in Sunday school, I will be teaching the children about the two stories that we tell about the birth of Jesus. In popular culture, we mush these two stories together — angels and shepherds get mushed in with wise men and the star in the east — but they really are two different stories, told by two people with differing theologies.

Part of the basic Biblical literacy I want to make clear to children that there are indeed two different stories. I don’t want to go into the subtle differences in the theologies of the two stories; it is enough for me that children learn that there are two stories. This will lay the foundation for later, when they can learn that the Bible is a collection of books by different authors, with different viewpoints. I also hope that having a good knowledge of the Biblical stories of Jesus will help them begin to distinguish the other additions that our culture has made to the Jesus birth stories — additions like putting animals in the stable, determining how many wise men there were, etc.

The Miracle of the Wise Men and the Star
The Miracle of What Angels Told to Shepherds

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The Miracles at the Birth of Muhammad

Once again, my purpose was to come up with a story that would be suitable for use in a Unitarian Universalist worship service, to show that many great religious leaders and prophets have legends of miraculous births. The legends about Muhammad’s birth (peace be upon him) interest me because they appear to be less important than the miracles told of Jesus’s birth (whcih make it into two of the four Gospels) or of Buddha’s birth (which make it into the Jataka tales) or of Confucius’s birth (which make it into the cultic traditions of Confucianism). Thus, when referring to miracles in this story, I have tried to use statements like “some people say,” etc.

Introduction

At Christmas we like to remember the old story of the miraculous birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But did you know that there are other miraculous birth stories of other great religious leaders? Today I’m going to tell you about the birth of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and I’ll tell you some of the legends that some people tell about his birth. See if you think these legends are at all like the legends that are told about Jesus’s birth.

The Miracles at the Birth of Muhammad (peace be upon him)

Once upon a time, many many years ago, far away in the land of Arabia, there lived a man named ‘Abdel Muttalib. As this story begins, ‘Abdel Muttalib was about 70 years old, and was the foremost leader of the city of Mecca. His son ‘Abdallah was then 24 years old, a young man renowned for the beautiful light shining in his face. ‘Abdel Muttalib took his son ‘Abdallah to some distant relatives, and gave him in marriage to Amina, the daughter of Wahb. Amina was said to be pure in her thoughts and deeds. (1)

The wedding took place at the home of the bride, as was the custom. After they were married, ‘Abdallah stayed with Amina for several days. Soon Amina was pregnant, but ‘Abdallah had to set forth on a journey with a caravan of merchants traveling to the distant city of Ghazza. As the caravan returned to Mecca, while in the city of Medina, ‘Abdallah became ill. He stayed there with cousins on his father’s side. Continue reading →