Monthly Archives: January 2008

Socialist sermons

Since 1992, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Standford University has slowly been issuing The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., a multi-volume series of King’s writings; new volumes come out as they get the funding for research, editing, and publication. The most recent volume, published in January, 2007, collects King’s sermons. In an article titled “The Prophet Reconsidered: 40 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., new studies emphasize his economic and social philosophy,” Christopher Phelps reports that King’s sermons are far more leftist than you might think:

The most recent volume [Vol. VI of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.] comprises King’s sermons from 1948 to 1963, which remind us of King’s immersion in the black Baptist church and of the wide range of theological sources and social criticism he drew upon. For King, Christianity was the social gospel. His outlook was astonishingly radical, especially for the McCarthy era. In a college paper entitled “Will Capitalism Survive?” King held that “capitalism has seen its best days in America, and not only in America, but in the entire world.” He concluded a 1953 sermon by asking his congregation to decide “whom ye shall serve, the god of money or the eternal God of the universe.” He opposed communism as materialistic, but argued that only an end to colonialism, imperialism, and racism, an egalitarian program of social equality, fellowship, and love, could serve as its alternative. In a 1952 letter responding to Coretta’s gift to him of a copy of Edward Bellamy’s utopian socialist novel Looking Backward (“There is still hope for the future … ,” she inscribed on its flyleaf), King wrote, “I would certainly welcome the day to come when there will be a nationalization of industry.”

This is a very different MLK than we get in the popular media these days! More about the book, including how to purchase for approx. US$40. Thanks to Fred for sending me the January 18, 2008, article on King.

More about UU blogs

Aaron Sawyer has put together DiscoverUU, an attractive Web site aimed at newcomers, that aggregates a wide range of Unitarian Universalist (UU) blogs (full disclosure: I’m one of the included sites.) Unlike UUpdates, which aggregates every UU blog in existence for those of us who are already Unitarian Universalists, Aaron aims to attract newcomers by picking out a wide range of representative UU blogs and podcasts and arranging them in an online magazine format.

The site went live today — check it out so you can show it to your friends who you know are really Unitarian Universalists but who don’t yet know it themselves: www.DiscoverUU.com

Not that bad

A friend called today and said, “Well, I hear you’ve been having a real winter up there.” It certainly sounds that way on the news, with all the reports of snowstorms in New England. But so far I have found this to be a relatively mild winter here in New Bedford. The harbor hasn’t frozen at all this winter, except for one day when a little bit of ice formed in one or two tiny protected backwaters. And there have only been three of four days when ice or snow kept me from walking as far as usual: we have had snow, but always followed by a warm spell that melts all the snow away.

From my point of view, this winter feels milder than the last two winters. And it’s not just my point of view — the waterfowl agree. I have seen about half the number of wintering waterfowl on New Bedford harbor this year, probably because the birds are dispersed over the many inland waterways and ponds that aren’t frozen. Had this winter been as bad as the last two, I think I’d be seeing lots more waterfowl on the harbor.

My narrow and ill-informed view: best UU blogs

The amazing UUpdater has begun to get ready for the annual Unitarian Universalist (UU) blog awards, and you can follow the process at the UUpdater blog. Last year, I said that I was completely incompetent to vote for the best UU blog, and that goes double this year — not only are there more UU blogs out there this year, I have even less time to read all the blogs I’d like to read. But this year, I decided that in spite of the fact that my views are narrow and ill-informed, I’m going to tell you my choices for best UU blogs whether you want to hear them or not. Here goes nothing:

— I have long thought that Colleen at Arbitrary Marks offers the best theological writing out there. I don’t always agree with Colleen, but I consistently come away from reading her blog with challenging new insights and new ideas for challenging books I really want to read. If I need a sermon topic, this is the blog I read.

— Speaking of UU blogs which challenge me, most UU bloggers occupy a political position between John Edwards and Bill Richardson, which is to say, not very challenging really. But two UU bloggers do challenge me and make me think: Bill Baar on the right, and Will Shetterly far to the left. In the end, I have to give the nod for best UU political commentary to Will — sorry Bill, but after all Will is a professional writer and I promise it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m as far to the left as he is and agree with him about most everything except his analysis of racism and capitalism.

— When it comes to the “Best UU Themed Blog,” for me there is only one choice. Aside from being witty, urbane, and loving local food, Scott Wells at Boy in the Bands is the best UU blogger when it comes to Universalism. Universalism is what keeps me going when the going gets tough, and I often find myself turning to Scott for my Universalism fix.

— As for the best UU blog written by a minister, after all these years I still like Phil’s Little Blog on the Prairie. I like his ideas, I like his prose, and I like his emphasis on religious education.

— When it comes to best writing overall, I kinda wanted to vote for Henry David Thoreau’s blog. Except that you could argue convincingly that Thoreau wasn’t really a Unitarian, and he’s dead. Besides which, if I’m honest I have to say I read Hafidha Sofia at Never Say Never more often than I read Thoreau; I consistently enjoy reading her prose, no matter what she writes about.

— Can we do Best U.S. Presidential Campaign Blog by a UU? No? Oh well, I guess there wouldn’t be that many contestants.

— And my final vote is for The Blue Chalice / El Caliz Azul, in the category of The UU Blog I Will Miss the Most Now That It’s Gone. Thanks for a great four years, Enrique.

And there you have it: my narrow and ill-informed views on the best UU blogs for the past year, views which you would do well to ignore completely.

UU Emergence overview

Here’s a brief excerpt from the sermon I preached last night at our 300th anniversary bash. In remarking on the many changes our congregation has seen over the years, I gave a brief overview of how we’re incorporating Emergent Church theories and techniques into our worship services. After the service, a 20 year old man told me he liked these Emergent Church ideas, and that they express the needs of his generation (at least, as he experiences those needs). Based on his response, I thought it might be worth sharing this excerpt here.

Over the past two years, the Religious Services Committee and I have been experimenting with new ways of conducting worship services. In initiating these changes, I had been inspired by the innovations of the Emergent Church movement.

The Emergent Church movement started when a number of evangelical Christians realized that an entire generation of Americans, Generation X, was drifting away from church. The majority of Gen-Xers were steeped in a postmodern mindset that questioned authority; questioned absolutes and demanded multiple points of view; was more interested in aesthetics than ontology; and loved the feeling of ancient and medieval religious forms. And so the Emergent Church movement created worship services that questioned authority by bringing the preacher out of the unassailable pulpit and down on the floor among the congregation; included many voices in the worship service, not just the preacher’s voice, to present more than one point of view; emphasized the arts and new media rather than systematic theology; and brought the feel of ancient and medieval religion into their services. And because the Emergent Church movement knew that Gen-Xers did not grow up in churches, they explained every element of the worship service.

I had been inspired by this Emergent Church movement, and the Religious Services Committee and I started using some their ideas in our worship services. We brought the minister out of the pulpit for parts of the service. We began using worship associates, so you’d hear more than just one voice. We’re working on including more arts in worship: poetry, and fabric arts, and lighting up our Tiffany mosaic, and putting art on the cover of the order of service. Fortunately, we already have this neo-Gothic building, so we already have that medieval feeling. And we have begun explaining every element of the worship service.

None of this has changed the eternal and permanent truths of religion; indeed, all these changes in our worship service are evanescent and impermanent, and will be swept away by future changes. But in the mean time, we have begun to attract people in their 20’s and 30’s to our worship services….

TV zombies

Last night, Carol and I decided to watch an episode of “The Mighty Boosh,” the British cult TV show, as a way to relax before we went to bed. We put the laptop computer on a chair and settled back on the couch to watch. But although we have access to the most recent episodes, from the third season just now being released in Britain, we decided not to watch them. As happens to too many television series, the characters have now shrunk into crude caricatures of what they originally were.

Carol pointed out that this happened with “Sex and the City”: in the first season, she said you could almost believe that these were real women talking to one another, but as the show progressed they looked more and more like caricatures. We agreed that the same thing happened with “Will and Grace”: in the first couple of seasons, the four lead actors did some wonderful, fresh, spontaneous ensemble acting; but as time went on, the acting got stale, and by the last few seasons the show had become hard to watch. As for “The Mighty Boosh,” by the third season, you can no longer believe that the two lead characters would ever be friends or even spend any time together, and so the whole premise of the show becomes unbelievable. In each case, the characters became what I think of as “TV zombies”: they move around and talk to one another and almost look alive, but inside they are dead and rotting away. John Cleese did the right thing when he pulled the plug on “Fawlty Towers” after only twelve episodes; it would have been almost impossible to keep the characters and their interactions alive and fresh, and what a zombie horror that show could have become had it continued.

So Carol and I watched an episode from the first season of “The Mighty Boosh.” No stink of death then; the old shows remain delightfully free from TV zombies.

There are parallels to preachers here — preachers need to keep reinventing themselves on a regular basis to keep from turning into preaching zombies — but that’s kind of close to home for me, and, not wanting to be tarred with my own brush, I really don’t want to go there right now.

Not-so-new biography

Somehow I missed it. John Buescher published a biography of John Murray Spear, the first minister of First Universalist Church of New Bedford, back in 2006. I had read Buescher’s The Other Side of Salvation: Spiritualism and Nineteenth Century Religious Experience, with its chapter on Spear, and had known then that Buescher was preparing a full-length biography of Spear. But somehow I missed the fact that Buescher had published The Remarkable Life of John Murray Spear: Agitator for the Spirit Land a year and a half ago.

Spear’s tenure at First Universalist here in New Bedford was remarkable in of itself. Spear was an ardent abolitionist, and managed to attract the prominent African American Nathan Johnson to join the Universalist church — Johnson was active with the Underground Railroad, and is probably most famous for providing shelter and a new name for Frederick Douglass when Douglass finally made it to the safety of New Bedford in 1837.

In midlife, Spear left Universalism to become a spiritualist — and perhaps it because of this that today’s Unitarian Universalists don’t talk about him much. But that doesn’t mean that you have to ignore Spear. You can buy his biography here.

The true nature of happiness

Having based sermons on readings from the Beatles and from Monty Python, I consider myself open to the insights of the sacred texts of British popular culture. But for the past couple of years, I have not found myself inspired by the Brits.

Until Carol discovered The Mighty Boosh. And lo, unto us has The Mighty Boosh spoken words power and righteousness on the nature of happiness. I’m not sure when exactly I’ll use this reading in a worship service, but it will be sometime in the next year….

Scene: the Zoo.

(Howard Moon and Vince Noir, in green zookeeper’s uniforms, carry a bucket of animal feed to some small cages. Vince wears a poncho over his uniform.)

Vince: C’mon, Howard, put some energy into it. Get involved.

Howard: I’m carryin a bucket of seed. How am I supposed to get involved in that?

Vince: This is the best job in the zoo — millet distribution!

(Vince opens door of small cage, chucks a scoop of seed in. Sound of small animal squeaking in delight.)

Howard: Somethin wrong with you, you know, don’t you.

Vince: What d’you mean?

Howard: You’re always happy aren’t you? Everythin’s fun for you.

(Vince sighs.)

Howard: You see a peanut — the day’s off to a good start. You witness some soil — it’s a jamboree for Vince Noir. I need something more.

Vince: I think it’s this poncho.

(He swirls around so poncho flares out.)

Vince: I mean, it’s impossible to be unhappy in a poncho!

And there it is, the answer to one of humanity’s age-old questions: how to find true happiness.

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