Your Papers and Reflections
(by submission date, recent first)
A Response to "What Is the Future for Christians and Christian Churches in the UU World?"
By Niala Terrell-Mason
These are my responses to the points brought up in Rev. Scovel’s essay regarding the future and history of UU Christianity. Some of my points are refutations of the reverend’s assertions of which I do not agree, or I do not agree with in full. I have some questions of my own as well. I think it will be easier to directly quote him and then offer my own commentary in kind.
“Implicit and explicit in the New Covenant text is the primary teaching of the Christian church, namely the Incarnation. This teaching proclaims that the Heart and Mind of Reality became real in the flesh and blood of a carpenter named Joshua from the town of Nazareth, who by God’s power became more than all of these. His one significance for Christians is that he became the Christ, namely the anointed, “the designated,” the one both human and divine, appointed to bridge the gap between God and our humankind, the gap created by our fall.”
I do not agree with the assertion that the incarnation is Jesus’ “one significance” for Christians. This claim really discounts all the reasons why Christians and others are drawn to Jesus. It also forms as a gatekeeping measure for what it means to be a Christian. This theme will be repeated over and over in this essay. For example, Rev. Scovel goes on to say:
“Finally, a Christian is a member of “the body of Christ,” that is the whole Christian community in time and space, throughout history and around this globe. This means that each Christian is part of the church’s sins and failures as well as the church’s continuing reception of the Holy Spirit. No Christian can stay a Christian without the church. “Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus.” That is a quote which UU Christians need to remember. (This, of course, goes dead against American and Emersonian individualism.)”
Where to even begin? First of all, Rev. Scovel assumes that Christians are all on board with what he considers to be right doctrine, even as he acknowledges that the church and the body has been reinterpreting literally everything since the founding of the church. Not all Christians think that Jesus is both human and divine. Lots of church heresies and fights are about this very issue. And the “reception of the Holy Spirit”? Most UU Christians aren’t Trinitarians. Not to mention the bold claim that one has to be part of the church in order to be a Christian. What does that even mean? You have to be a member of a formal congregation? Are those Christians without church homes, whether due to circumstance or choice, not Christians? Is that even a Christian claim?
That is a very orthodox view of the church. Like 3rd century orthodox. And it’s not just about being individualistic. Yes, Americans and UUs ARE very individualistic, but not just Americans or Emerson fans would go against that claim. Plenty of church scholars and followers have believed that the true Christian spirit is in one’s heart. You could make a case with Jesus’ own words about the importance of belief over being demonstrative or being part of a formal body.
“The second action of Christian life is taking seriously the Old and New Covenants through personal reading, communal study and hearing it read and interpreted at worship services. If the Bible tells the great themes of life, one will attend to it, and this is best done with others – in church, study groups and personal reading”
What is “taking seriously” mean?
“A Christian has to assume that the person of Jesus is ontologically significant, that the church, its scriptures and rituals, are essential to a full life on this earth.”
Again, I have a feeling that Rev. Scovel is thinking something first particular and specific when he writes these words. I think this is too vague. Which rituals? Which scriptures? Can each person define for themselves what “essential” and “full life” mean to them? Or is there some yard stick measure that one must meet (which is the sense I am getting from this)?
“A common logo emerged and now appears on clothing, jewelry and local printed orders of service. Lighting the chalice is now a meaningful part of many (most?) UU services. Some churches display the Seven Principles calligraphed and framed in the parish house.
I wonder if the reader has noticed how often on a Sunday morning at a UU church the name “Unitarian Universalist” is repeated in print or during the service. My memory records no similar repetitions of the household name in other religious households.”
Is this a criticism? I don’t quite understand the significance of bringing up these two things.
“UUsm believes in progress, namely that we can find solutions for our errors and difficulties. This assumption tends to divide people into those who see others as the problem and the selves as the solutions. This creates an inherently judgemental mindset. The politically liberal mindset of almost all UU congregations can blind them to their own complicity in the ills of our society.
For example, GA votes resolutions on climate change but doesn’t question the UUA’s heavy reliance on the income from North Sea oil. GA itself requires an immense expense of money, time and energy in just getting delegates to the site. But I don’t hear questions about this ambiguity. UU congregations are commendably inclusive of people with varying gender identities and should be proud of that, but Republicans, the poor and those with only a high school education may not feel comfortable there.
Christianity holds that, although we are created by Goodness for goodness, there is a terrible fault in human nature, called sin, that cannot be “fixed.” Although we are all caught in this condition, Christianity claims that we can be freed from total bondage to this condition by God’s grace given in Jesus Christ. Such forgiveness, however, requires that we ask forgiveness (freedom) and repent (mend our ways.) Thus, even though “sinful,” we can bear witness to Goodness, receive goodness and enact goodness. The words “repentance” and “forgiveness” are not found in the Seven Principles because they do not fit an enlightened world view.”
There is a lot of presumption in this “ethics” portion of the essay. None of this is unpacked and I’m left feeling like I think I see where he is going and what he is saying, but I hesitate because his statement about inherently judgmental UUs, for example, feels, ironically, very judgmental. I think UUs are one of the most conscious religious folks in regards to their/our complicity in societal ills. I agree that a lot of work is yet to be done, but this feels like too little credit.
And I think Rev. Scovel is amiss in accusing UUs of being unwelcoming to Republicans without talking about real and important differences in ideologies and beliefs. If someone is Republican and part of that identity for them is being opposed to many things UUs generally and denominationally support, then what is his suggest for what should be done about that? Is that on us or that person? Not to mention that being a republican, not as highly educated, and/or poor are very different things in terms of identities and “problems.” Two of those things are related to classism and the other is political (which is not to say that class is not related to politics and political identities).
“UU worship is primarily verbal. The message is the focal point of the service. Often the whole service is oriented around the sermon topic. Perhaps highly educated congregations prefer this worship style, inherited from the Reformation.”
Is this not true for most Christian denominations in the United States? And many non-Christian traditions like Islam? I haven’t been to a service where the important part of worship wasn’t the message. Now, it’s often the music as well if you are in an ethnic church, but usually it’s both. The last line sounds like pure shade. By which I mean it’s another swipe at UUs whom the author assumes are classist and bousie.
“Although the sermon, often focused on scripture, is important for Christians, globally most Christian worship is Holy Communion, a service where the focal point is an action, not a set of words. This action enacts the death and rising of Christ, and his coming once more to his people in that particular service.”
Again, in my experience in Christian churches, the communion and the sermon are part of the service. What he says is the purpose of communion is just one interpretation.
“UU congregations are not going to convert en masse to Christianity and will not adopt much if any Christian belief or practice. When they do, they convert it into a UU-compatible form. For example, a UU Tenebrae service on Good Friday usually celebrates the tragedy of evil in this world including the death of Jesus’ death; but not they do not see the crucifixion as the needed beginning of our redemption.”
I consider myself to be a Christian and I do not “see the crucifixion as the needed beginning of our redemption.” Am I not a Christian in Rev. Scovel’s view? Why is this the needed beginning? I’ve been reading a lot about the gnostic Christians lately and I find myself very drawn to them. They considered themselves Christian but thought that Orthodox Christian views were misguided at best and flat out wrong at worst. Particularly around the issue of the resurrection and what participation in the “body” meant.
Answers to the Questions Raised in the Essay
The first thing to reconcile with is the fact that there might not BE a center of Christian faith. And if there is a center, it’s going to be different for each person. This is individualistic, but I think each person must find that for themselves and that is what draws Christians to UUism. I want to find my own path to God and Jesus. Just by reading this essay, I know my path isn’t the same as Rev. Scovel’s. Most of his framing and wording does not work for me. That’s fine in my opinion but I strongly believe that this essay sees a big problem with that. Rev. Scovel seems to be looking for uniformity that he thinks has been lost. However, the idea of a universal church is a fallacy. There has always been a TON of diversity of doctrine on every aspect of what we see as Christian belief.
My continuing education is just that, continuing education. Like I mentioned earlier, I am reading the gnostic gospels and reading books about them. I could totally see myself taking in a lot of gnostic information because it makes sense to me on multiple levels. The UUCF can facilitate this sort of learning with workshops, videos, curriculum, discussions, book clubs etc.
Okay? Again, to what end/point? I like specifying and identifying myself with both UUism and Christianity. I want UUism to recognize it’s Christian roots and identity, very much, so saying that I am a UU Christian is a way for me to force the issue in a gentle way. Like hey, I’m UU AND Christian! Yes, you can be both! And yes we are still here!
I find this to be the opposite, actually. I am often striving to prove myself as a Christian when I apparently do not and cannot go with some or most of the orthodox conventions and rules. I feel that UUism is what gives me the freedom to “live and articulate my own unique Christian” identity.
I agree with the second part of this. I think a lot of universalism was lost in the merger and it makes me sad. I think I would love to be part of a universalist church and wider faith. I think the universalist side was/is the heart of the movement.
“While all mainline Protestant churches are declining, the UCC has presently outpaced them all in the race to the bottom. And this is happening in a church which has tried hard to be relevant and creative. I asked a knowledgeable friend how this decline came about. Her answer was brief: “People who want Christianity want the real thing.”
Wow. I totally disagree with this. It’s not necessary to drag the UCC like this. I love the UCC. What does this even mean: “they want the real thing”? Please tell me how the United Church of Christ is fake Christianity? Ugh. So offensive.
This entire end piece ignores massive data as to WHY attendance in churches and religiosity is declining. There has been a nearly equal rise in the “nones” and the “spiritual but not religious.” I would strongly, strongly recommend that Rev. Scovel and UU Christians read Diana Butler Bass. Particularly her 2015 book called “Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution.” Her main point is that religion isn’t necessarily dying, it’s evolving and changing. It’s becoming something new and the newer generations are driving it. But to more classic folks like Rev. Scovel, these people don’t register as people of faith or Christians.
Look. I think we need to have many, many conversations about UUism, Christianity, UU Christianity and so on, but I don’t think this essay is the spark of it. There are so many assumptions and gatekeeping here that I found myself having a reaction to nearly each sentence.
I think UU Christians need to be more visible in the wider UU world. We need to advertise for lack of a better term. How many UUs know that there are UUs who explicitly identify as Christians or that there are Christians in their churches? How many know that there is a UUCF? I think a lot of people would be interested in UU Christianity if they knew what it was and what the various positions on Jesus, the resurrection, the trinity, and so forth are.
I have a really tattered and badly copied paper I got from my first GA. It lists all the different types of UU Christians. I was blown away. I eagerly read each description to find myself and my beliefs. I was so relieved to see that people believed as I did or would and that there was a wide variety of beliefs that fit under our umbrella. Had I just read this essay, I wouldn’t have that that even possible. The net for the body of Christ needs to be thrown wider and be more flexible. Introduce people to ALL the ways to be a follower of Jesus.
By Niala Terrell-Mason
These are my responses to the points brought up in Rev. Scovel’s essay regarding the future and history of UU Christianity. Some of my points are refutations of the reverend’s assertions of which I do not agree, or I do not agree with in full. I have some questions of my own as well. I think it will be easier to directly quote him and then offer my own commentary in kind.
“Implicit and explicit in the New Covenant text is the primary teaching of the Christian church, namely the Incarnation. This teaching proclaims that the Heart and Mind of Reality became real in the flesh and blood of a carpenter named Joshua from the town of Nazareth, who by God’s power became more than all of these. His one significance for Christians is that he became the Christ, namely the anointed, “the designated,” the one both human and divine, appointed to bridge the gap between God and our humankind, the gap created by our fall.”
I do not agree with the assertion that the incarnation is Jesus’ “one significance” for Christians. This claim really discounts all the reasons why Christians and others are drawn to Jesus. It also forms as a gatekeeping measure for what it means to be a Christian. This theme will be repeated over and over in this essay. For example, Rev. Scovel goes on to say:
“Finally, a Christian is a member of “the body of Christ,” that is the whole Christian community in time and space, throughout history and around this globe. This means that each Christian is part of the church’s sins and failures as well as the church’s continuing reception of the Holy Spirit. No Christian can stay a Christian without the church. “Unus Christianus, nullus Christianus.” That is a quote which UU Christians need to remember. (This, of course, goes dead against American and Emersonian individualism.)”
Where to even begin? First of all, Rev. Scovel assumes that Christians are all on board with what he considers to be right doctrine, even as he acknowledges that the church and the body has been reinterpreting literally everything since the founding of the church. Not all Christians think that Jesus is both human and divine. Lots of church heresies and fights are about this very issue. And the “reception of the Holy Spirit”? Most UU Christians aren’t Trinitarians. Not to mention the bold claim that one has to be part of the church in order to be a Christian. What does that even mean? You have to be a member of a formal congregation? Are those Christians without church homes, whether due to circumstance or choice, not Christians? Is that even a Christian claim?
That is a very orthodox view of the church. Like 3rd century orthodox. And it’s not just about being individualistic. Yes, Americans and UUs ARE very individualistic, but not just Americans or Emerson fans would go against that claim. Plenty of church scholars and followers have believed that the true Christian spirit is in one’s heart. You could make a case with Jesus’ own words about the importance of belief over being demonstrative or being part of a formal body.
“The second action of Christian life is taking seriously the Old and New Covenants through personal reading, communal study and hearing it read and interpreted at worship services. If the Bible tells the great themes of life, one will attend to it, and this is best done with others – in church, study groups and personal reading”
What is “taking seriously” mean?
“A Christian has to assume that the person of Jesus is ontologically significant, that the church, its scriptures and rituals, are essential to a full life on this earth.”
Again, I have a feeling that Rev. Scovel is thinking something first particular and specific when he writes these words. I think this is too vague. Which rituals? Which scriptures? Can each person define for themselves what “essential” and “full life” mean to them? Or is there some yard stick measure that one must meet (which is the sense I am getting from this)?
“A common logo emerged and now appears on clothing, jewelry and local printed orders of service. Lighting the chalice is now a meaningful part of many (most?) UU services. Some churches display the Seven Principles calligraphed and framed in the parish house.
I wonder if the reader has noticed how often on a Sunday morning at a UU church the name “Unitarian Universalist” is repeated in print or during the service. My memory records no similar repetitions of the household name in other religious households.”
Is this a criticism? I don’t quite understand the significance of bringing up these two things.
“UUsm believes in progress, namely that we can find solutions for our errors and difficulties. This assumption tends to divide people into those who see others as the problem and the selves as the solutions. This creates an inherently judgemental mindset. The politically liberal mindset of almost all UU congregations can blind them to their own complicity in the ills of our society.
For example, GA votes resolutions on climate change but doesn’t question the UUA’s heavy reliance on the income from North Sea oil. GA itself requires an immense expense of money, time and energy in just getting delegates to the site. But I don’t hear questions about this ambiguity. UU congregations are commendably inclusive of people with varying gender identities and should be proud of that, but Republicans, the poor and those with only a high school education may not feel comfortable there.
Christianity holds that, although we are created by Goodness for goodness, there is a terrible fault in human nature, called sin, that cannot be “fixed.” Although we are all caught in this condition, Christianity claims that we can be freed from total bondage to this condition by God’s grace given in Jesus Christ. Such forgiveness, however, requires that we ask forgiveness (freedom) and repent (mend our ways.) Thus, even though “sinful,” we can bear witness to Goodness, receive goodness and enact goodness. The words “repentance” and “forgiveness” are not found in the Seven Principles because they do not fit an enlightened world view.”
There is a lot of presumption in this “ethics” portion of the essay. None of this is unpacked and I’m left feeling like I think I see where he is going and what he is saying, but I hesitate because his statement about inherently judgmental UUs, for example, feels, ironically, very judgmental. I think UUs are one of the most conscious religious folks in regards to their/our complicity in societal ills. I agree that a lot of work is yet to be done, but this feels like too little credit.
And I think Rev. Scovel is amiss in accusing UUs of being unwelcoming to Republicans without talking about real and important differences in ideologies and beliefs. If someone is Republican and part of that identity for them is being opposed to many things UUs generally and denominationally support, then what is his suggest for what should be done about that? Is that on us or that person? Not to mention that being a republican, not as highly educated, and/or poor are very different things in terms of identities and “problems.” Two of those things are related to classism and the other is political (which is not to say that class is not related to politics and political identities).
“UU worship is primarily verbal. The message is the focal point of the service. Often the whole service is oriented around the sermon topic. Perhaps highly educated congregations prefer this worship style, inherited from the Reformation.”
Is this not true for most Christian denominations in the United States? And many non-Christian traditions like Islam? I haven’t been to a service where the important part of worship wasn’t the message. Now, it’s often the music as well if you are in an ethnic church, but usually it’s both. The last line sounds like pure shade. By which I mean it’s another swipe at UUs whom the author assumes are classist and bousie.
“Although the sermon, often focused on scripture, is important for Christians, globally most Christian worship is Holy Communion, a service where the focal point is an action, not a set of words. This action enacts the death and rising of Christ, and his coming once more to his people in that particular service.”
Again, in my experience in Christian churches, the communion and the sermon are part of the service. What he says is the purpose of communion is just one interpretation.
“UU congregations are not going to convert en masse to Christianity and will not adopt much if any Christian belief or practice. When they do, they convert it into a UU-compatible form. For example, a UU Tenebrae service on Good Friday usually celebrates the tragedy of evil in this world including the death of Jesus’ death; but not they do not see the crucifixion as the needed beginning of our redemption.”
I consider myself to be a Christian and I do not “see the crucifixion as the needed beginning of our redemption.” Am I not a Christian in Rev. Scovel’s view? Why is this the needed beginning? I’ve been reading a lot about the gnostic Christians lately and I find myself very drawn to them. They considered themselves Christian but thought that Orthodox Christian views were misguided at best and flat out wrong at worst. Particularly around the issue of the resurrection and what participation in the “body” meant.
Answers to the Questions Raised in the Essay
- In what other ways can or do lay or ordained UU Christians experience their Christian identity? How do we who remain in the UU household learn the center of Christian faith? Where do we find our continuing education in Christian tradition? Or do we?
The first thing to reconcile with is the fact that there might not BE a center of Christian faith. And if there is a center, it’s going to be different for each person. This is individualistic, but I think each person must find that for themselves and that is what draws Christians to UUism. I want to find my own path to God and Jesus. Just by reading this essay, I know my path isn’t the same as Rev. Scovel’s. Most of his framing and wording does not work for me. That’s fine in my opinion but I strongly believe that this essay sees a big problem with that. Rev. Scovel seems to be looking for uniformity that he thinks has been lost. However, the idea of a universal church is a fallacy. There has always been a TON of diversity of doctrine on every aspect of what we see as Christian belief.
My continuing education is just that, continuing education. Like I mentioned earlier, I am reading the gnostic gospels and reading books about them. I could totally see myself taking in a lot of gnostic information because it makes sense to me on multiple levels. The UUCF can facilitate this sort of learning with workshops, videos, curriculum, discussions, book clubs etc.
- What if we stopped referring to ourselves “UU Christians?” What if we simply called ourselves Christians, Christians in UU churches, if you will?
Okay? Again, to what end/point? I like specifying and identifying myself with both UUism and Christianity. I want UUism to recognize it’s Christian roots and identity, very much, so saying that I am a UU Christian is a way for me to force the issue in a gentle way. Like hey, I’m UU AND Christian! Yes, you can be both! And yes we are still here!
- I raise this question because it seems to me that UU Christians show a certain defensiveness, an often unconscious need to prove that they are genuine Unitarian Universalists. This inevitably limits their freedom to live and articulate their own unique Christian identities. They may appear as pale Christian reflections of the denominational norm. To be a Christian is to be free in God.
I find this to be the opposite, actually. I am often striving to prove myself as a Christian when I apparently do not and cannot go with some or most of the orthodox conventions and rules. I feel that UUism is what gives me the freedom to “live and articulate my own unique Christian” identity.
- Notice how often the adjective controls the noun. We criticize the Roman Catholic church, not because it is catholic but because it’s so Roman. We call ourselves Unitarian Universalist, but with merger we became much more like the existing Unitarian churches than like the Universalists. Many Universalists knew this and therefore opposed merger.
I agree with the second part of this. I think a lot of universalism was lost in the merger and it makes me sad. I think I would love to be part of a universalist church and wider faith. I think the universalist side was/is the heart of the movement.
“While all mainline Protestant churches are declining, the UCC has presently outpaced them all in the race to the bottom. And this is happening in a church which has tried hard to be relevant and creative. I asked a knowledgeable friend how this decline came about. Her answer was brief: “People who want Christianity want the real thing.”
Wow. I totally disagree with this. It’s not necessary to drag the UCC like this. I love the UCC. What does this even mean: “they want the real thing”? Please tell me how the United Church of Christ is fake Christianity? Ugh. So offensive.
This entire end piece ignores massive data as to WHY attendance in churches and religiosity is declining. There has been a nearly equal rise in the “nones” and the “spiritual but not religious.” I would strongly, strongly recommend that Rev. Scovel and UU Christians read Diana Butler Bass. Particularly her 2015 book called “Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution.” Her main point is that religion isn’t necessarily dying, it’s evolving and changing. It’s becoming something new and the newer generations are driving it. But to more classic folks like Rev. Scovel, these people don’t register as people of faith or Christians.
Look. I think we need to have many, many conversations about UUism, Christianity, UU Christianity and so on, but I don’t think this essay is the spark of it. There are so many assumptions and gatekeeping here that I found myself having a reaction to nearly each sentence.
I think UU Christians need to be more visible in the wider UU world. We need to advertise for lack of a better term. How many UUs know that there are UUs who explicitly identify as Christians or that there are Christians in their churches? How many know that there is a UUCF? I think a lot of people would be interested in UU Christianity if they knew what it was and what the various positions on Jesus, the resurrection, the trinity, and so forth are.
I have a really tattered and badly copied paper I got from my first GA. It lists all the different types of UU Christians. I was blown away. I eagerly read each description to find myself and my beliefs. I was so relieved to see that people believed as I did or would and that there was a wide variety of beliefs that fit under our umbrella. Had I just read this essay, I wouldn’t have that that even possible. The net for the body of Christ needs to be thrown wider and be more flexible. Introduce people to ALL the ways to be a follower of Jesus.
More Jesus, Less Myth
By Mike Miller
Content note: Description of rape
The story of Christianity starts off with the myth of the virgin birth. This makes Christianity a difficult “sell,” to any person who categorically rejects myth. We will never recover the greatness of Christianity, until we reframe the story, without myth.
We need a new Gospel story, a story based on the old Gospel rendering, but with less myth. If we read the Gospel story fresh, looking for truth without myth, we may see a story like this: From the worst of humankind's acts, came the greatest gift to humanity.
Mary of Nazareth was walking past a spot where a Roman soldier was hiding. He silently, quickly jumped out and struck Mary in the back of her head. She lay unconscious, she was quickly raped.
When Mary came to, she was dazed, confused, her head throbbing (from concussion). All she remembered was a stunning flash, and then she was on the ground in pain. As Mary stood up, she discovered she had soiled her garments (during her unconsciousness). Perhaps Mary was near the Sea of Galilee, where she cleaned up (removing other evidences). As the pain in her head subsided, and the confusion lifted, she didn’t know what had happened. Concluding she must have hit her head when she fell. What caused her fall, what was that stunning flash, remained a mystery, for now.
Months later, Mary discovers she is pregnant! How? She has been with no man! This unbelievable story is made believable by Mary’s eyes and her convincing testimony. Upon reflection, the stunning flash, must have been God’s angel, that’s how she is pregnant! Mary quickly learns that social norms reject this conclusion, she keeps this story private.
But years later, Mary tells her precious son of God child, how he came into this world. Jesus also quickly learns not to tell this story, or he will be an honor less prophet in his home. But Jesus does believe, and in prayer calls God Daddy with a sincerity that God notices. God hears Jesus’s prayer; he is the first human that treats God as God, and we as his children.
God re-sets the stage of humanity and convenes the covenant of Jeremiah 31: 31-34. But not just for the people of Israel, and the people of Judah, as Jeremiah prophesized. A Christian believes that they are also under this covenant, as stated in the Gospel of John 3:16: “Whosoever believes in him will not be lost, but will have eternal life.”
This is a story that’s very plausible, very human, very Unitarian, and very Universalist. A story for our time, a story that could set Unitarian, Universalist Christian churches aflame. Aflame with an evangelical message that we could shout from the rooftops!
I have much more to say about the Bible, and Paul, but that’s another story for another time.
By Mike Miller
Content note: Description of rape
The story of Christianity starts off with the myth of the virgin birth. This makes Christianity a difficult “sell,” to any person who categorically rejects myth. We will never recover the greatness of Christianity, until we reframe the story, without myth.
We need a new Gospel story, a story based on the old Gospel rendering, but with less myth. If we read the Gospel story fresh, looking for truth without myth, we may see a story like this: From the worst of humankind's acts, came the greatest gift to humanity.
Mary of Nazareth was walking past a spot where a Roman soldier was hiding. He silently, quickly jumped out and struck Mary in the back of her head. She lay unconscious, she was quickly raped.
When Mary came to, she was dazed, confused, her head throbbing (from concussion). All she remembered was a stunning flash, and then she was on the ground in pain. As Mary stood up, she discovered she had soiled her garments (during her unconsciousness). Perhaps Mary was near the Sea of Galilee, where she cleaned up (removing other evidences). As the pain in her head subsided, and the confusion lifted, she didn’t know what had happened. Concluding she must have hit her head when she fell. What caused her fall, what was that stunning flash, remained a mystery, for now.
Months later, Mary discovers she is pregnant! How? She has been with no man! This unbelievable story is made believable by Mary’s eyes and her convincing testimony. Upon reflection, the stunning flash, must have been God’s angel, that’s how she is pregnant! Mary quickly learns that social norms reject this conclusion, she keeps this story private.
But years later, Mary tells her precious son of God child, how he came into this world. Jesus also quickly learns not to tell this story, or he will be an honor less prophet in his home. But Jesus does believe, and in prayer calls God Daddy with a sincerity that God notices. God hears Jesus’s prayer; he is the first human that treats God as God, and we as his children.
God re-sets the stage of humanity and convenes the covenant of Jeremiah 31: 31-34. But not just for the people of Israel, and the people of Judah, as Jeremiah prophesized. A Christian believes that they are also under this covenant, as stated in the Gospel of John 3:16: “Whosoever believes in him will not be lost, but will have eternal life.”
This is a story that’s very plausible, very human, very Unitarian, and very Universalist. A story for our time, a story that could set Unitarian, Universalist Christian churches aflame. Aflame with an evangelical message that we could shout from the rooftops!
I have much more to say about the Bible, and Paul, but that’s another story for another time.
The Edge and the Center
By the Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein
I want to respond very informally to Rev. Carl Scovel’s thoughtful piece about Unitarian Universalist Christianity. I am going to write this quickly without a lot of editing, so please bear with me!
I consider myself a Christian. I only use the modifier “UU Christian” where that designation might be useful – but it rarely is useful or necessary.
I am a Christian whose full-time parish ministry with the UU church means that I am mostly unavailable to worship with the Christian community, but I find the act of preparing worship and leading it to be very soul-satisfying because it is based in meaningful pastoral relationships and is generated out of love, effort and my own Christian devotional life. I think about God in an explicitly Christian way most of the time (I was, after all, raised UU and have never known any other religious community), I read the Bible regularly, I frame my Theism in a Christian way, and I never do not think of myself as a part of the body of Christ. I try not to “enroll” my parishioners in the story of Christianity without their consent, but I do consider them also part of the body of Christ. They daily show forth their spiritual ancestry in the Universalist religion and tradition. Our church practices are steeped in Universalism and in Unitarianism. I feel the presence of God and Christ in our work together and do not find the act of translating what I experience to be onerous.
Reaching middle age after twenty one years in UU parish ministry has impressed upon me that my chronic sense of yearning is less due to being a Christian in diaspora but because I am a “poor, wayfaring stranger” in this lifetime itself. As Carl puts it, I am “a traveler on a journey into a life of God,” and that’s a challenge for anyone of any religion. However, I am not ready to become a desert mother and leave my home and cultural context. I like shoe-shopping and trips to New York City too much. I do long for more time to pray and commune with Christ but I also like Netflix and the satisfaction of institutional administration.
I am grateful every day that it is actually my job to think about God, to pray, and to find holy communion in multiple places even if not often in a chancel receiving consecrated bread and wine. I do miss Communion and make it a point to receive at the Lord’s table as my schedule permits in fellowship with local Christian congregations where I feel welcome. I am part of a network of religious activists in my vicinity which has resulted in many friendships with Christian pastors and their congregations. These relationships are central to my spiritual health.
Carl’s paper makes reference to the difficulty in finding meaningful Christian worship. I find it difficult to find meaningful Christian worship in the UUA. I find it difficult to find meaningful worship in UU congregations, period! I think of Emerson’s essay, “Circles” and consider with some wry humor that while I am a Christian at the edge of Christianity who has to make a particular effort to stay connected to its center, Unitarian Universalists have chosen to locate themselves at the edge of religion itself, and have staunchly resisted identifying a compelling and commanding center to which all must be faithful and obedient. Hence our exhausting levels of collective handwringing, sanctimony, self-worship, creation of false idols and embarrassing displays of puerility in sanctuaries. I have walked out of more UU worship services than I can count. It appalls me what many of my colleagues consider to be acceptable and worthy worship programming.
(Mainstream Christianity is, of course, not immune to any of these sins).
As long as I am working with faithful people who are traveling on that journey into a life of the God of their understanding, I am pretty happy. I don’t think God cares one whit about denominational specificity or labels, and my own congregation would be doing what it does and standing where it stands regardless of whether there continues to be a Unitarian Universalist “brand” or formal Association. We would remain in fellowship with partner organizations and other congregations. We would still define ourselves as a spiritual community, faithful to the call of love, service and a vision that is articulated in many other honored documents beside the 7 Principles. We would continue to be a theologically eclectic group determined to practice the art of hospitality and who understand our central spiritual practice to be incarnating God’s love in community for as long as we can.
When I retire, I cannot imagine finding a Unitarian Universalist church to worship with, which makes me sad. When I have a free Sunday I want to hear the gospel preached and to pray unapologetically in a Christian way. I experience an equivalent disappointment over a shallow Christian sermon or badly-performed liturgy as I do over a bad UU worship service, but in the Christian setting I am generally spared the terminal uniqueness and aura of self-congratulations I so often experience among the UUs.
What I see now among the UUs is a heartbrokenness over the failure of the liberal “onward and upward forever” theology of the 19th century. I feel sorry for heartsick humanists who desperately wish they could maintain their foundational belief in the inevitability of human moral progress. I have always thought that article of UU faith was wishful thinking and grounded in white privilege, but as a Christian I am not enrolled in a story that makes false claims about human nature. It’s strangely comforting.
My strongest and most enduring clergy friendships within the UUA have been with other Christians and I am not surprised by this. I am exceedingly grateful for it, and for them. It is tragic to see so many religious leaders without a foundational faith that can sustain them through eras that particularly reveal the prevalence of human sin.
Looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday.
By the Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein
I want to respond very informally to Rev. Carl Scovel’s thoughtful piece about Unitarian Universalist Christianity. I am going to write this quickly without a lot of editing, so please bear with me!
I consider myself a Christian. I only use the modifier “UU Christian” where that designation might be useful – but it rarely is useful or necessary.
I am a Christian whose full-time parish ministry with the UU church means that I am mostly unavailable to worship with the Christian community, but I find the act of preparing worship and leading it to be very soul-satisfying because it is based in meaningful pastoral relationships and is generated out of love, effort and my own Christian devotional life. I think about God in an explicitly Christian way most of the time (I was, after all, raised UU and have never known any other religious community), I read the Bible regularly, I frame my Theism in a Christian way, and I never do not think of myself as a part of the body of Christ. I try not to “enroll” my parishioners in the story of Christianity without their consent, but I do consider them also part of the body of Christ. They daily show forth their spiritual ancestry in the Universalist religion and tradition. Our church practices are steeped in Universalism and in Unitarianism. I feel the presence of God and Christ in our work together and do not find the act of translating what I experience to be onerous.
Reaching middle age after twenty one years in UU parish ministry has impressed upon me that my chronic sense of yearning is less due to being a Christian in diaspora but because I am a “poor, wayfaring stranger” in this lifetime itself. As Carl puts it, I am “a traveler on a journey into a life of God,” and that’s a challenge for anyone of any religion. However, I am not ready to become a desert mother and leave my home and cultural context. I like shoe-shopping and trips to New York City too much. I do long for more time to pray and commune with Christ but I also like Netflix and the satisfaction of institutional administration.
I am grateful every day that it is actually my job to think about God, to pray, and to find holy communion in multiple places even if not often in a chancel receiving consecrated bread and wine. I do miss Communion and make it a point to receive at the Lord’s table as my schedule permits in fellowship with local Christian congregations where I feel welcome. I am part of a network of religious activists in my vicinity which has resulted in many friendships with Christian pastors and their congregations. These relationships are central to my spiritual health.
Carl’s paper makes reference to the difficulty in finding meaningful Christian worship. I find it difficult to find meaningful Christian worship in the UUA. I find it difficult to find meaningful worship in UU congregations, period! I think of Emerson’s essay, “Circles” and consider with some wry humor that while I am a Christian at the edge of Christianity who has to make a particular effort to stay connected to its center, Unitarian Universalists have chosen to locate themselves at the edge of religion itself, and have staunchly resisted identifying a compelling and commanding center to which all must be faithful and obedient. Hence our exhausting levels of collective handwringing, sanctimony, self-worship, creation of false idols and embarrassing displays of puerility in sanctuaries. I have walked out of more UU worship services than I can count. It appalls me what many of my colleagues consider to be acceptable and worthy worship programming.
(Mainstream Christianity is, of course, not immune to any of these sins).
As long as I am working with faithful people who are traveling on that journey into a life of the God of their understanding, I am pretty happy. I don’t think God cares one whit about denominational specificity or labels, and my own congregation would be doing what it does and standing where it stands regardless of whether there continues to be a Unitarian Universalist “brand” or formal Association. We would remain in fellowship with partner organizations and other congregations. We would still define ourselves as a spiritual community, faithful to the call of love, service and a vision that is articulated in many other honored documents beside the 7 Principles. We would continue to be a theologically eclectic group determined to practice the art of hospitality and who understand our central spiritual practice to be incarnating God’s love in community for as long as we can.
When I retire, I cannot imagine finding a Unitarian Universalist church to worship with, which makes me sad. When I have a free Sunday I want to hear the gospel preached and to pray unapologetically in a Christian way. I experience an equivalent disappointment over a shallow Christian sermon or badly-performed liturgy as I do over a bad UU worship service, but in the Christian setting I am generally spared the terminal uniqueness and aura of self-congratulations I so often experience among the UUs.
What I see now among the UUs is a heartbrokenness over the failure of the liberal “onward and upward forever” theology of the 19th century. I feel sorry for heartsick humanists who desperately wish they could maintain their foundational belief in the inevitability of human moral progress. I have always thought that article of UU faith was wishful thinking and grounded in white privilege, but as a Christian I am not enrolled in a story that makes false claims about human nature. It’s strangely comforting.
My strongest and most enduring clergy friendships within the UUA have been with other Christians and I am not surprised by this. I am exceedingly grateful for it, and for them. It is tragic to see so many religious leaders without a foundational faith that can sustain them through eras that particularly reveal the prevalence of human sin.
Looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday.
It's a New World
By Kimberly Rochelle Hampton
As the most recent past President of the UU Christian Fellowship, I have read the responses to Rev. Carl Scovel’s paper with some interest.
I am of two minds. Yet both minds end up in the same place. So I will answer the question and then raise my objection to the question.
Religious demographic data has been pointing something out for nearly twenty years. The future of Unitarian Universalist Christianity, like the future of Unitarian Universalism [and U.S. Christianity in general], is not white.
What does this mean?
It means that there will have to be real and substantive engagement with liberationist theologians whose last names include: Cone (may he be resting in peace), Douglas, Lee, Kim, Reyes, Carter, Floyd-Thomas, Lightsey, Mitchem, Ortega, and so many others alongside the liberal theologians that are on many Unitarian Universalist ministers’ bookshelves. And actually reading W.E.B. Du Bois.
It means real and substantive outreach to Howard Divinity School, Interdenominational Theological, Payne Theological, Hood Theological, Samuel DeWitt Proctor School, Shaw Divinity, and those divinity schools or seminaries that have large numbers of non-white students along with whatever outreach is done at the legacy div schools and seminaries.
It means going to the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference as well as going to the Wild Goose Festival.
It means reading the newspaper and the Bible and letting each inform the other.
It means engaging in parts of pop culture that most Unitarian Universalists consider beneath them.
It means answering the insulting questions of “How can you be a UU and a Christian?” and “Why don’t you go to the UCC?” with “Because this place is as much mine as it is anybody else’s.”
It means all of this and the things I can’t put into words at the moment.
Instead of asking what the future of Unitarian Universalism is going to be, people need to recognize that the future is now.
It’s a new world. The only question is how are Unitarian Universalist Christians going to deal with that new world.
Now...my objection.
People have been predicting the end of the church since the church began. And honestly, it’s a tired conversation.
The church is not as different now than it was 50 years ago. What’s different is who the church is. The future of the church is entirely dependent on whether the church will speak to who is there instead of those who are not.
By Kimberly Rochelle Hampton
As the most recent past President of the UU Christian Fellowship, I have read the responses to Rev. Carl Scovel’s paper with some interest.
I am of two minds. Yet both minds end up in the same place. So I will answer the question and then raise my objection to the question.
Religious demographic data has been pointing something out for nearly twenty years. The future of Unitarian Universalist Christianity, like the future of Unitarian Universalism [and U.S. Christianity in general], is not white.
What does this mean?
It means that there will have to be real and substantive engagement with liberationist theologians whose last names include: Cone (may he be resting in peace), Douglas, Lee, Kim, Reyes, Carter, Floyd-Thomas, Lightsey, Mitchem, Ortega, and so many others alongside the liberal theologians that are on many Unitarian Universalist ministers’ bookshelves. And actually reading W.E.B. Du Bois.
It means real and substantive outreach to Howard Divinity School, Interdenominational Theological, Payne Theological, Hood Theological, Samuel DeWitt Proctor School, Shaw Divinity, and those divinity schools or seminaries that have large numbers of non-white students along with whatever outreach is done at the legacy div schools and seminaries.
It means going to the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference as well as going to the Wild Goose Festival.
It means reading the newspaper and the Bible and letting each inform the other.
It means engaging in parts of pop culture that most Unitarian Universalists consider beneath them.
It means answering the insulting questions of “How can you be a UU and a Christian?” and “Why don’t you go to the UCC?” with “Because this place is as much mine as it is anybody else’s.”
It means all of this and the things I can’t put into words at the moment.
Instead of asking what the future of Unitarian Universalism is going to be, people need to recognize that the future is now.
It’s a new world. The only question is how are Unitarian Universalist Christians going to deal with that new world.
Now...my objection.
People have been predicting the end of the church since the church began. And honestly, it’s a tired conversation.
The church is not as different now than it was 50 years ago. What’s different is who the church is. The future of the church is entirely dependent on whether the church will speak to who is there instead of those who are not.
So What Are We: A Response to Carl Scovel's Paper
By the Rev. Susan LaMar
First, it was fortuitous that I became aware of this essay just as I began to explore and reflect on the book Centering: Navigating Race, Authenticity, and Power in Ministry. The descriptions of unwelcoming behavior, micro aggressions (some of which are not micro at all, but quite macro in both intent and impact), bad worship, bad hymnody, described in Centering are also reflected in Future, making it a similar, if not the same, genre. That genre: A literature of “What the hell are we?”
The image that came to mind for was one that I saw years ago (I can’t remember where) in a discussion of how different cultures look at art. Imagine a picture of a buffalo, portrait-style
– the buffalo takes up the whole center of the picture. Around the picture, in the margins, or even the frame, are tiny, complex figure drawings, which one has to look at closely. Americans tend to look at the center picture, as what the picture is about, indeed, the point of the picture. But in
other cultures, the point of the picture is actually the story that is told in the margins – the hunt, the chase, the history, the relationship between the hunters and the hunted. So the question becomes: what is the margin and what is the center? What, really, is important? What the hell are we?
Unitarian Universalism has a taproot:: Hebrew tradition (prior to the rabbinical Judaism that developed alongside Christianity) --- early Christianity --- Protestant Reformation Christianity --- Radical Reformation Christianity. When people ask me whether Unitarian Universalism is Christian, I often answer that yes, we have our roots in the Radical Reformation, that we are on the furthest left wing of that movement; and that some say we have jumped off, some say we have fallen off, some say we were pushed off that wing. I say that we are still hanging on to the tip of that wing to provide. (Can’t we ever have just a yes or noanswer? Well, no. The whole story is important.)
For me, all of this history, this taproot, provides the nourishment for more recent developments and struggles within Unitarian Universalism, from Transcendentalism, through Humanism, through the Humanist-theist controversies, up through the grafting on to the taproot of any number of theologies and non-theologies held by members of our congregations. But it is important to remember that the taproot feeds those theologies, not the other way around.
I am a third generation UU raised in a very humanist-bordering- on-atheist- but-deeply-ethical-household who was not offered the Christian story with any depth in my upbringing (just the bare outlines of Christmas (as everybody’s birthday), Easter (as spring – we lived in the northern hemisphere), and Jesus as an ethical teacher (taking his place in a long line of Hebrew prophets and among prophets of other religions), and a vague contempt for Christians in general but love for particular Christians in the more extended family – my paternal grandmother. (I can remember my mother saying of this grandmother that she wasn’t really a Christian, she was really a Unitarian except that there was never a Unitarian church near her, so she was in the habit of going to a Christian church. My father was slightly behind my mother at the time, and gave her a startled, bewildered and appalled look, but didn’t engage!)
Unitarian Universalism failed me as a teenager in a number of ways, offering nothing -- no vocabulary, no affirmation of the “big questions” that have stumped humanity forever -- for my deep spiritual hunger. Instead, I was told that religion was not important, and to go out to work for justice. Maybe, I thought when I finally recognized my hunger as a call to ministry, there might be a way to engage the Christian story that works for me. And so . . . I chose a Christian seminary, thinking that I wanted to learn about Christianity from those on the inside, rather than those on the outside.
Below is what I discovered – dis-covered – as I engaged – enrolled, as Carl says -- with the story. I do not accept it as the “greatest story ever told” (ever is a very long time and a wide array of space!) But I do accept it as among the greatest metaphors ever developed. And metaphors and stories require – demand! -- imagination to engage. Indeed, Basil “distinguished between dogma and Kerygma. Kerygma was the public teaching of the Church, based on the scriptures. Dogma, however, represented the deeper meaning of biblical truth, which could only be apprehended through religious experience and expressed in symbolic form.” [Karen Armstrong, A History of God, page 114.] It is this function of dogma that opened me to the Christian story.
Many religions seek to offer a way for humans to make sense of and access the awe-filled, incomprehensible vastness of God. Christianity offers this through a personification, an incarnation, specifically a “son-ship” of God. What this means is the theological field of “Christology,” or reflections on, stories about, wonderings about what this incarnation/son-ship means. Diverse Christologies within the vast vineyard of Christianity have offered various proportions. At one end is the highest Christology, in which Jesus is the only begotten son of God, conceived in Mary, and is therefore both fully human and fully divine, fully a human
person and fully God. At the other end is a low Christology, in which Jesus is fully human, a prophet in the line of other biblical prophets, but is not God. Other formulations (middle Christologies?), such as Socinianism propose that Jesus is not God, but holds divinity more intensely than other humans; or that Jesus Christ was the “first created spirit, who became incarnate with the view of effecting the salvation of mankind.” [Historical Introducton of
Racovian Catechism 1818, p. xxvii (Thomas Rees)] All of these formulations assert or accept that Jesus existed and walked the earth as a fully human person. There are also other formulations that deny his actual existence, suggesting, for example, that he was an apparition, that he only appeared to have a human body [Docetism]. In other words, he was fully God, but not fully human in the material, fleshly, bodily sense.
I offer here a low but highly spiritualized Christology. I will assume that Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Galilean, was an actual, historical human person. I think that something important happened 2000 years ago in Galilee and surrounding areas, through this person’s very being and through his teachings. AND, I think that somehow he was then, and continues to be, anointed (“Christened”) with a particularly full manifestation of God within. So I accept the appellation “Christ,” or anointed one. Here is how my reflection goes:
Suppose that the word Christ, or anointed one, means “divinity within humanity.” Divinity-Within-Humanity in turn means that the vastness of Good that is contained within the spiritual universe is not just available to but resident within every human person and all of humanity, in aggregate.
What we then have is Jesus – the human name of a human person – Christ – Divinity-Within-Humanity. He is representative of that goodness fully and completely (perfectly?) developed within one person – an incarnation of God.
This invites a focus for contemplation – the possibility that anyone can fully develop their Divinity-Within-Humanity, just as Jesus did. A koan, if you will. I have often demonstrated this idea with the use of balloons – calling it my “balloon theology.” Think of a balloon, uninflated, lying in the palm of your hand. There is air all around it – an infinite amount. There is air within it; not much, but some. Imagine all of that air – what is outside the balloon and what is inside the balloon, as God. Yet the balloon it is not inflated. Imagine that balloon as a metaphor for a human person. God is around, everywhere; God is within. Available; already within us. Now imagine blowing the balloon up – air from without inflating the balloon within. God from
without entering the deepest reaches within the person, fill the person’s being, the person’s soul.
Imagine: You tie off the balloon when you think it is inflated enough. But over time, what happens? It ever-so- slowly deflates.
Jesus was always going off by himself to pray – to re-inflate his balloon. Spiritual practices are means by which God can enter everyone
prayer/meditation/contemplation;
good deeds,
scriptural study, applying them deeply to your own life and the culture surrounding
you; adding to them if you think they do not go far enough; holding aside those which seem to no longer apply, but understanding the role they played when they were developed;
listen hard when you are challenged so that you can grow and change;
listening to the truths of others’ lives,
forgiveness,
loving (turning toward) the neighbor and stranger alike . . .
All this is what Jesus did, so his balloon inflated. Completely, perfectly.
Imagine: the balloon blows up so much that it bursts! Gone! In pieces, scattered.
I imagine sometimes that the crucifixion was Jesus’ balloon bursting. Leaders around him, both Temple leaders and Roman leaders felt threatened by his ability to inflate himself and
those around him with God, and they conspired to burst his balloon. Sometimes in the spiritual
life we think we have it right, our balloons are inflated, and we grow and grow and grow – and
then something happens and it all explodes and we are left feeling broken and alone. Our balloon
has burst.
Both of these things happen in the spiritual life. Sometimes our spirituality deflates slowly; sometimes it shatters.
But in either case, a slow deflation or a sudden explosion, spirituality can grow again. Just as it did the first time.
Even in the case of his crucifixion (remember we are in the realm of metaphor here), it turned out there was another skin underneath. The disciples, the apostles, the followers of may stripes through time are the new skin – the resurrection of his body of teachings, his way of being in the world. It was not then, is not now and never shall be solely about him; it was about his way and ways.
My point here is that Jesus Christ – Jesus Divinity-Within- Humanity – is “for us.” He showed us how, and it is up to us to accept our full humanity, which includes the capacity to fill ourselves with God – our full divinity -- as he accepted his.
[Note, you never get to decide whether you succeed or not – that is for those around you and those who reflect on your life afterward to decide!]
The complexity and depth of this metaphor, I have found, offers an opening into meaningful worship. Openings for preaching, surely. But also openings for an interpretation of communion. What meanings of “body and blood” arise inside what I have suggested as the metaphor? Body of Divinity-Within- Humanity as I have said it, or, as Carl has said it, the whole Christian community in time and space, throughout history and around this globe. For me this includes the body of teachings, as well as body of interpretation, as well as the suggestion that yes, we, too, can embody all of this. And blood, in ancient times, simply meant life. So for me it
refers to the spiritual, Divinity-Within- Humanity life. And communion is worship is a reminder of all of this, shared among a sliver of the enormous Christian community. The only way? Of course not. A Christian way? Absolutely.
Likewise, the metaphor as I offer it provides an entry into the crucifixion-redemption dimension of the Jesus story. Without incarnation, you cannot have crucifixion; if you don’t have
death [by hate], you cannot have resurrection: new life out of the ashes of hate. Yes, of course you can have new life (spring) but that does not have the profound, powerful, ongoing charge that the Resurrection story offers.
I and others have mentioned that Unitarian Universalist seem to be metaphorically challenged. Many of our parishioners like a tradition-less, story-less congregation. Perhaps this is because those who are willing to engage the metaphor find liberal Christian churches, as Carl suggests and I have observed. There they can engage not just the story as I have described it here, but also Trinity as another great and inviting koan. That leaves Unitarian Universalism, I fear, for those who cannot, or are not ready to, or do not want to, enter the realm of imagination, metaphor, and symbol. Others leave.
[Another set of thoughts that don’t quite fit here, and are not fully developed, but that I want to include.]
When Unitarianism left Calvinism, it not only left Trinity, wrathful God-ship and Hell, but it began its entrance into the realm of literalism and science and rationalism. I think that Transcendentalism was a reaction to this literalism, offering a mystical tradition within our fold. Sure, Emerson left the fold, but there are many others, and the recent hunger for more spirituality can be met, I think, by revitalizing transcendentalism as our mystical tradition.
This leads me to another reflection: that the three-legged stool that many religions have –parish life, monastery/seminary life, and religious orders focused on charity and justice – has
been lost, if we indeed ever had it. We have never had monasteries, and we have closed most of our seminaries. And where are our schools, hospitals, orphanages, etc.? Somewhere along the line we seem to have decided that it is government’s job to provide charity and justice; thus our focus on liberal democratic politics. (I state this here just as an observation – I am not arguing it one way or the other. And I think that the recent movement into community ministries is a corrective, even if not consciously so.) We focused on parish/congregational life, almost to the exclusion of the other two legs. No wonder we cannot keep our balance!
This leaves me with a giant “I don’t know” to the question about Unitarian Universalism’s future. But I can’t help but think that the answer will have to do with an reawakening to the metaphor of the Christian story; a restructuring into the three pillars of congregation, monastery/seminary, and justice; with worship/hymnody/ritual and heart somehow weaving it all together.
To return to the art image I suggested at the beginning of this essay, the questions become “What is at the center of Unitarian Universalist Christianity? And how can we integrate the margins with the center to encourage and invite the wholeness of a radically reformed understanding of the story so that the whole picture, the center and the margins, come alive for the 21 st century.” It may be too late; perhaps the whole story has died. And yet it may be that this is exactly where a Resurrection is possible.
By the Rev. Susan LaMar
First, it was fortuitous that I became aware of this essay just as I began to explore and reflect on the book Centering: Navigating Race, Authenticity, and Power in Ministry. The descriptions of unwelcoming behavior, micro aggressions (some of which are not micro at all, but quite macro in both intent and impact), bad worship, bad hymnody, described in Centering are also reflected in Future, making it a similar, if not the same, genre. That genre: A literature of “What the hell are we?”
The image that came to mind for was one that I saw years ago (I can’t remember where) in a discussion of how different cultures look at art. Imagine a picture of a buffalo, portrait-style
– the buffalo takes up the whole center of the picture. Around the picture, in the margins, or even the frame, are tiny, complex figure drawings, which one has to look at closely. Americans tend to look at the center picture, as what the picture is about, indeed, the point of the picture. But in
other cultures, the point of the picture is actually the story that is told in the margins – the hunt, the chase, the history, the relationship between the hunters and the hunted. So the question becomes: what is the margin and what is the center? What, really, is important? What the hell are we?
Unitarian Universalism has a taproot:: Hebrew tradition (prior to the rabbinical Judaism that developed alongside Christianity) --- early Christianity --- Protestant Reformation Christianity --- Radical Reformation Christianity. When people ask me whether Unitarian Universalism is Christian, I often answer that yes, we have our roots in the Radical Reformation, that we are on the furthest left wing of that movement; and that some say we have jumped off, some say we have fallen off, some say we were pushed off that wing. I say that we are still hanging on to the tip of that wing to provide. (Can’t we ever have just a yes or noanswer? Well, no. The whole story is important.)
For me, all of this history, this taproot, provides the nourishment for more recent developments and struggles within Unitarian Universalism, from Transcendentalism, through Humanism, through the Humanist-theist controversies, up through the grafting on to the taproot of any number of theologies and non-theologies held by members of our congregations. But it is important to remember that the taproot feeds those theologies, not the other way around.
I am a third generation UU raised in a very humanist-bordering- on-atheist- but-deeply-ethical-household who was not offered the Christian story with any depth in my upbringing (just the bare outlines of Christmas (as everybody’s birthday), Easter (as spring – we lived in the northern hemisphere), and Jesus as an ethical teacher (taking his place in a long line of Hebrew prophets and among prophets of other religions), and a vague contempt for Christians in general but love for particular Christians in the more extended family – my paternal grandmother. (I can remember my mother saying of this grandmother that she wasn’t really a Christian, she was really a Unitarian except that there was never a Unitarian church near her, so she was in the habit of going to a Christian church. My father was slightly behind my mother at the time, and gave her a startled, bewildered and appalled look, but didn’t engage!)
Unitarian Universalism failed me as a teenager in a number of ways, offering nothing -- no vocabulary, no affirmation of the “big questions” that have stumped humanity forever -- for my deep spiritual hunger. Instead, I was told that religion was not important, and to go out to work for justice. Maybe, I thought when I finally recognized my hunger as a call to ministry, there might be a way to engage the Christian story that works for me. And so . . . I chose a Christian seminary, thinking that I wanted to learn about Christianity from those on the inside, rather than those on the outside.
Below is what I discovered – dis-covered – as I engaged – enrolled, as Carl says -- with the story. I do not accept it as the “greatest story ever told” (ever is a very long time and a wide array of space!) But I do accept it as among the greatest metaphors ever developed. And metaphors and stories require – demand! -- imagination to engage. Indeed, Basil “distinguished between dogma and Kerygma. Kerygma was the public teaching of the Church, based on the scriptures. Dogma, however, represented the deeper meaning of biblical truth, which could only be apprehended through religious experience and expressed in symbolic form.” [Karen Armstrong, A History of God, page 114.] It is this function of dogma that opened me to the Christian story.
Many religions seek to offer a way for humans to make sense of and access the awe-filled, incomprehensible vastness of God. Christianity offers this through a personification, an incarnation, specifically a “son-ship” of God. What this means is the theological field of “Christology,” or reflections on, stories about, wonderings about what this incarnation/son-ship means. Diverse Christologies within the vast vineyard of Christianity have offered various proportions. At one end is the highest Christology, in which Jesus is the only begotten son of God, conceived in Mary, and is therefore both fully human and fully divine, fully a human
person and fully God. At the other end is a low Christology, in which Jesus is fully human, a prophet in the line of other biblical prophets, but is not God. Other formulations (middle Christologies?), such as Socinianism propose that Jesus is not God, but holds divinity more intensely than other humans; or that Jesus Christ was the “first created spirit, who became incarnate with the view of effecting the salvation of mankind.” [Historical Introducton of
Racovian Catechism 1818, p. xxvii (Thomas Rees)] All of these formulations assert or accept that Jesus existed and walked the earth as a fully human person. There are also other formulations that deny his actual existence, suggesting, for example, that he was an apparition, that he only appeared to have a human body [Docetism]. In other words, he was fully God, but not fully human in the material, fleshly, bodily sense.
I offer here a low but highly spiritualized Christology. I will assume that Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Galilean, was an actual, historical human person. I think that something important happened 2000 years ago in Galilee and surrounding areas, through this person’s very being and through his teachings. AND, I think that somehow he was then, and continues to be, anointed (“Christened”) with a particularly full manifestation of God within. So I accept the appellation “Christ,” or anointed one. Here is how my reflection goes:
Suppose that the word Christ, or anointed one, means “divinity within humanity.” Divinity-Within-Humanity in turn means that the vastness of Good that is contained within the spiritual universe is not just available to but resident within every human person and all of humanity, in aggregate.
What we then have is Jesus – the human name of a human person – Christ – Divinity-Within-Humanity. He is representative of that goodness fully and completely (perfectly?) developed within one person – an incarnation of God.
This invites a focus for contemplation – the possibility that anyone can fully develop their Divinity-Within-Humanity, just as Jesus did. A koan, if you will. I have often demonstrated this idea with the use of balloons – calling it my “balloon theology.” Think of a balloon, uninflated, lying in the palm of your hand. There is air all around it – an infinite amount. There is air within it; not much, but some. Imagine all of that air – what is outside the balloon and what is inside the balloon, as God. Yet the balloon it is not inflated. Imagine that balloon as a metaphor for a human person. God is around, everywhere; God is within. Available; already within us. Now imagine blowing the balloon up – air from without inflating the balloon within. God from
without entering the deepest reaches within the person, fill the person’s being, the person’s soul.
Imagine: You tie off the balloon when you think it is inflated enough. But over time, what happens? It ever-so- slowly deflates.
Jesus was always going off by himself to pray – to re-inflate his balloon. Spiritual practices are means by which God can enter everyone
prayer/meditation/contemplation;
good deeds,
scriptural study, applying them deeply to your own life and the culture surrounding
you; adding to them if you think they do not go far enough; holding aside those which seem to no longer apply, but understanding the role they played when they were developed;
listen hard when you are challenged so that you can grow and change;
listening to the truths of others’ lives,
forgiveness,
loving (turning toward) the neighbor and stranger alike . . .
All this is what Jesus did, so his balloon inflated. Completely, perfectly.
Imagine: the balloon blows up so much that it bursts! Gone! In pieces, scattered.
I imagine sometimes that the crucifixion was Jesus’ balloon bursting. Leaders around him, both Temple leaders and Roman leaders felt threatened by his ability to inflate himself and
those around him with God, and they conspired to burst his balloon. Sometimes in the spiritual
life we think we have it right, our balloons are inflated, and we grow and grow and grow – and
then something happens and it all explodes and we are left feeling broken and alone. Our balloon
has burst.
Both of these things happen in the spiritual life. Sometimes our spirituality deflates slowly; sometimes it shatters.
But in either case, a slow deflation or a sudden explosion, spirituality can grow again. Just as it did the first time.
Even in the case of his crucifixion (remember we are in the realm of metaphor here), it turned out there was another skin underneath. The disciples, the apostles, the followers of may stripes through time are the new skin – the resurrection of his body of teachings, his way of being in the world. It was not then, is not now and never shall be solely about him; it was about his way and ways.
My point here is that Jesus Christ – Jesus Divinity-Within- Humanity – is “for us.” He showed us how, and it is up to us to accept our full humanity, which includes the capacity to fill ourselves with God – our full divinity -- as he accepted his.
[Note, you never get to decide whether you succeed or not – that is for those around you and those who reflect on your life afterward to decide!]
The complexity and depth of this metaphor, I have found, offers an opening into meaningful worship. Openings for preaching, surely. But also openings for an interpretation of communion. What meanings of “body and blood” arise inside what I have suggested as the metaphor? Body of Divinity-Within- Humanity as I have said it, or, as Carl has said it, the whole Christian community in time and space, throughout history and around this globe. For me this includes the body of teachings, as well as body of interpretation, as well as the suggestion that yes, we, too, can embody all of this. And blood, in ancient times, simply meant life. So for me it
refers to the spiritual, Divinity-Within- Humanity life. And communion is worship is a reminder of all of this, shared among a sliver of the enormous Christian community. The only way? Of course not. A Christian way? Absolutely.
Likewise, the metaphor as I offer it provides an entry into the crucifixion-redemption dimension of the Jesus story. Without incarnation, you cannot have crucifixion; if you don’t have
death [by hate], you cannot have resurrection: new life out of the ashes of hate. Yes, of course you can have new life (spring) but that does not have the profound, powerful, ongoing charge that the Resurrection story offers.
I and others have mentioned that Unitarian Universalist seem to be metaphorically challenged. Many of our parishioners like a tradition-less, story-less congregation. Perhaps this is because those who are willing to engage the metaphor find liberal Christian churches, as Carl suggests and I have observed. There they can engage not just the story as I have described it here, but also Trinity as another great and inviting koan. That leaves Unitarian Universalism, I fear, for those who cannot, or are not ready to, or do not want to, enter the realm of imagination, metaphor, and symbol. Others leave.
[Another set of thoughts that don’t quite fit here, and are not fully developed, but that I want to include.]
When Unitarianism left Calvinism, it not only left Trinity, wrathful God-ship and Hell, but it began its entrance into the realm of literalism and science and rationalism. I think that Transcendentalism was a reaction to this literalism, offering a mystical tradition within our fold. Sure, Emerson left the fold, but there are many others, and the recent hunger for more spirituality can be met, I think, by revitalizing transcendentalism as our mystical tradition.
This leads me to another reflection: that the three-legged stool that many religions have –parish life, monastery/seminary life, and religious orders focused on charity and justice – has
been lost, if we indeed ever had it. We have never had monasteries, and we have closed most of our seminaries. And where are our schools, hospitals, orphanages, etc.? Somewhere along the line we seem to have decided that it is government’s job to provide charity and justice; thus our focus on liberal democratic politics. (I state this here just as an observation – I am not arguing it one way or the other. And I think that the recent movement into community ministries is a corrective, even if not consciously so.) We focused on parish/congregational life, almost to the exclusion of the other two legs. No wonder we cannot keep our balance!
This leaves me with a giant “I don’t know” to the question about Unitarian Universalism’s future. But I can’t help but think that the answer will have to do with an reawakening to the metaphor of the Christian story; a restructuring into the three pillars of congregation, monastery/seminary, and justice; with worship/hymnody/ritual and heart somehow weaving it all together.
To return to the art image I suggested at the beginning of this essay, the questions become “What is at the center of Unitarian Universalist Christianity? And how can we integrate the margins with the center to encourage and invite the wholeness of a radically reformed understanding of the story so that the whole picture, the center and the margins, come alive for the 21 st century.” It may be too late; perhaps the whole story has died. And yet it may be that this is exactly where a Resurrection is possible.
Embracing the Revolutionary Prophetic Universalism of Jesus
By Charley Earp
My golden text comes from the gospel named for Luke Chapter 6:
“How blissful the impoverished, for yours is the Social Order of God;
21 How blissful those who are now hungry, for you shall feast;
how blissful those now weeping, for you shall laugh;
22 How blissful you now as men hate you and when they exclude you and reproach you and reject your name as something wicked, for the Son of Man’s sake:
23 On that day, rejoice and leap about; for look:
Your reward from the universe is great; for their ancestors accordingly did the same things to the prophets.
24 “But alas for you who are rich, for you have your comfort. Alas for you who are now engorged, for you will be starved.
25 Alas for those now mirthful, for you will mourn and lament.
26 Alas for you when all speak well of you,
for in like fashion their ancestors did the same things to the false prophets."
This passage is ignored by both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives dislike it because it doesn't offer them an exegetical escape from the prophetic judgment of Jesus. In the typical translations of Matthew's parallel passages it is the "poor in spirit" and the ones who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" who are favored with beatitude, not the impoverished and physically hungry. Conservatives want a Jesus who focuses on their narrow moral issues of sexual sins and calls us only to poverty of spirit.
The liberals dislike this passage because it is too judgmental and doesn't fit their image of Jesus as a kindly humanitarian. Liberals want a Jesus who is nice to everyone, even the rich oppressors condemned in this passage.
It is only in the traditions of Christian Socialism and Liberation Theology that the full impact of this prophetic judgment is embraced. Jesus takes sides against privilege and power in favor of a promised future revolutionary liberation of the poor. Radical Latin American theologians reading these passages in light of the suffering of their nations came to believe that Jesus sides with even Marxist revolutionaries!
As I enter the Unitarian Universalist ministry in the next years of my life, I have little interest in either the conservative or liberal misrepresentations of Jesus. I have followed the radical Jesus for most of my life, but have had to leave behind conservative and liberal churches to find a tradition with the freedom to preach the gospel that I have found in the prophetic message of Jesus.
The message of Jesus isn't about "sin" or "salvation" but about oppression and liberation. The God of Jesus is the Infinite Source of fierce love and radical justice. Most UUs will side with the liberal non-judgmental Jesus. Most of the wider Christian culture in the US sides with the moralizing atonement soteriology that was devised by orthodox Christianities precisely to blunt the radical edge of the message of Jesus.
Who needs such Christianity?! Jesus would have nothing to do with it. The future of UU Christiantiy must be with the revolutionary universalism of Jesus.
Charley Earp is a ministerial candidate graduating from Meadville Lombard in May 2018. He is a member of Peoples Church of Chicago and resides in Evanston IL.
By Charley Earp
My golden text comes from the gospel named for Luke Chapter 6:
“How blissful the impoverished, for yours is the Social Order of God;
21 How blissful those who are now hungry, for you shall feast;
how blissful those now weeping, for you shall laugh;
22 How blissful you now as men hate you and when they exclude you and reproach you and reject your name as something wicked, for the Son of Man’s sake:
23 On that day, rejoice and leap about; for look:
Your reward from the universe is great; for their ancestors accordingly did the same things to the prophets.
24 “But alas for you who are rich, for you have your comfort. Alas for you who are now engorged, for you will be starved.
25 Alas for those now mirthful, for you will mourn and lament.
26 Alas for you when all speak well of you,
for in like fashion their ancestors did the same things to the false prophets."
This passage is ignored by both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives dislike it because it doesn't offer them an exegetical escape from the prophetic judgment of Jesus. In the typical translations of Matthew's parallel passages it is the "poor in spirit" and the ones who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" who are favored with beatitude, not the impoverished and physically hungry. Conservatives want a Jesus who focuses on their narrow moral issues of sexual sins and calls us only to poverty of spirit.
The liberals dislike this passage because it is too judgmental and doesn't fit their image of Jesus as a kindly humanitarian. Liberals want a Jesus who is nice to everyone, even the rich oppressors condemned in this passage.
It is only in the traditions of Christian Socialism and Liberation Theology that the full impact of this prophetic judgment is embraced. Jesus takes sides against privilege and power in favor of a promised future revolutionary liberation of the poor. Radical Latin American theologians reading these passages in light of the suffering of their nations came to believe that Jesus sides with even Marxist revolutionaries!
As I enter the Unitarian Universalist ministry in the next years of my life, I have little interest in either the conservative or liberal misrepresentations of Jesus. I have followed the radical Jesus for most of my life, but have had to leave behind conservative and liberal churches to find a tradition with the freedom to preach the gospel that I have found in the prophetic message of Jesus.
The message of Jesus isn't about "sin" or "salvation" but about oppression and liberation. The God of Jesus is the Infinite Source of fierce love and radical justice. Most UUs will side with the liberal non-judgmental Jesus. Most of the wider Christian culture in the US sides with the moralizing atonement soteriology that was devised by orthodox Christianities precisely to blunt the radical edge of the message of Jesus.
Who needs such Christianity?! Jesus would have nothing to do with it. The future of UU Christiantiy must be with the revolutionary universalism of Jesus.
Charley Earp is a ministerial candidate graduating from Meadville Lombard in May 2018. He is a member of Peoples Church of Chicago and resides in Evanston IL.
A Response to the Question of the Future of UU Christianity
By the Rev. Robin Bartlett
I think denominationalism is a sin. I define sin as separation from one another, which is what makes us separate from God. Denominations parse us needlessly as though we are different or unique. I care about theology as a lens through which we read our foundational texts. But I don’t care so much about the future of any “brand” of Christianity. I just care about the liberation and salvation of all souls in the family of God.
By the Rev. Robin Bartlett
I think denominationalism is a sin. I define sin as separation from one another, which is what makes us separate from God. Denominations parse us needlessly as though we are different or unique. I care about theology as a lens through which we read our foundational texts. But I don’t care so much about the future of any “brand” of Christianity. I just care about the liberation and salvation of all souls in the family of God.
Am I a Christian?
By the Rev. David M Kohlmeier
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Falmouth, MA
When I say I’m not a Christian, my husband laughs at me. He’s an Episcopalian,
discerning a call to priesthood, and I’m a UU minister at a largely-humanist fellowship.
Sometimes even my congregants argue with me. “You’re a Christian!” they say. “I’m not,” I
reply. “Of course you are!”
I was raised Christian, like so many UUs. Specifically, I was baptized as one of Jehovah’s
Witnesses when I was 16. There are a lot of reasons I left that faith, but a big part of it was
finally accepting myself as a gay man. I wandered a bit before finding my way into an LGBT-
affirming Episcopal Church. I have so much to thank them for, and they gave me a healthy
respect for well-executed liturgy; however, here’s the thing: I couldn’t stay. The priest would
always get around to Jesus being fully God and fully man, and the hymns and liturgy were rife
with the Trinity. They even recited the Nicene Creed every week! These were problems. Why?
Because having been raised one of Jehovah’s Witnesses I had never believed in the
Trinity. It was a totally foreign concept to me. As was Jesus being God incarnate. Jehovah’s
Witnesses believe neither the Trinity nor the Incarnation. Jesus is divine but not God (ala Arius), and God the Father (Jehovah) alone is worshiped. As my faith evolved from Witness apocalyptic fundamentalism it grew to accept many things they rejected, but the Trinity and the Incarnation remained stumbling blocks. I knew then as I know now that these doctrines are not in the Bible, were unknown to Jesus, and evolved centuries after the death of the apostles.
Eventually I would leave behind the Christian label and embrace the kind of Emersonian-
UUism Scovel describes. The chalice warms my heart, I cherish the principles, I delight in our
pluralism, and I am nourished by our hymnal. And I kept on loving Jesus and the Bible. I would
come to attend a UCC/Baptist seminary where the Trinity and Incarnation were assumed. I
asked and asked and asked, and no one could tell me why I should believe these doctrines,
because (to summarize all arguments I heard) “true Christians just do.”
Sorry. I just can’t. I respect these doctrines more than I used to, but I still don’t “believe” them. I can’t. And I don’t have to.
My second year of seminary I did my field education at an emerging Episcopal worship
community, and I would do my 2-year UU ministerial internship at one of our Unitarian
Christian churches; but even after these 3 years of ministry in Christian settings, I still don’t feel
I can call myself “Christian.” I’m just a Unitarian Universalist. I have to repeat that name,
because it’s what I am.
But sometimes I miss the label “Christian.” Sometimes I want to call myself that again.
Feel myself breathe into that word and that relationship again. Every time I think I can,
however, it happens: a Christian quotes doctrine as the rule of thumb for who is allowed in to
the Body of Christ. This time, to my surprise, the person blocking me from entering is Carl
Scovel.
If being Christian means you have to believe in the Incarnation, then out are the Unitarian and Universalist legacies I love so much. If I have to accept original sin to be a Christian, then out are Ballou and Channing. When I hear Scovel say that maybe UU Christians should give up the “UU” and be “Christians in the UUA,” my heart sinks. Old wounds hurt again. “Not you, David. You’re not allowed back in. You were never one of us anyway.”
I imagine this is what many of my Christo-phobic congregants feel when they think of
Christianity; they recall the faith that they feel pushed them out, often by demanding they
submit to ideas their conscience couldn’t follow. I don’t believe any such barrier is ever of
Christ. I think Emerson was right to lament that Christians far too often dwell “with noxious
exaggeration” on Jesus’ ontology, rather than on how he is an example we can actually follow.
Maybe Thomas Alitzer was right when he wrote that in our time the only way for a Christian to
truly follow the Word is to forsake the Church, for the Church is always, it seems, bound to the
past rather than open to the eschatological always-coming- yet-right- here-before- us Reign of God. “Behold, old things have passed away!” Or as Jesus said, “You can’t put new wine in old
wineskins.”
I simply can’t follow Jesus anywhere but here. If I ever become a Christian again it will be as a Unitarian Universalist, and it won’t be in spite of the UUA, but because of who we are that I can do so. There is a lot in Scovel’s essay I cannot speak to. My heart is not rooted in the
kind of Christianity he feels is passing away. I mean in no way to be disparaging towards one of
our great UU elders. Truly. I do not know the future of “UU Christianity.” No one does. The
story isn’t written yet, and we should be careful looking for clear signs, for as Jesus said; “The
Reign of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Look, here it is!’
or ‘Look, there it is!’, for in fact the Reign of God is within you and among you.” Within us and
among us right now. Doing something amazing. Something new. If I’m to be a Christian let me
follow Christ here in this moment and see what Christ will do. Let me be part of the Body of
Christ described in Colossians: the Body that is not one religion merely but all humanity and all
creation. I honor others going where they need to go, but for me I can only follow Jesus if I can
do so freely, without doctrinal works in the way of grace. If I do so, my walk to Emmaus shall
have the chalice lighting my way.
By the Rev. David M Kohlmeier
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Falmouth, MA
When I say I’m not a Christian, my husband laughs at me. He’s an Episcopalian,
discerning a call to priesthood, and I’m a UU minister at a largely-humanist fellowship.
Sometimes even my congregants argue with me. “You’re a Christian!” they say. “I’m not,” I
reply. “Of course you are!”
I was raised Christian, like so many UUs. Specifically, I was baptized as one of Jehovah’s
Witnesses when I was 16. There are a lot of reasons I left that faith, but a big part of it was
finally accepting myself as a gay man. I wandered a bit before finding my way into an LGBT-
affirming Episcopal Church. I have so much to thank them for, and they gave me a healthy
respect for well-executed liturgy; however, here’s the thing: I couldn’t stay. The priest would
always get around to Jesus being fully God and fully man, and the hymns and liturgy were rife
with the Trinity. They even recited the Nicene Creed every week! These were problems. Why?
Because having been raised one of Jehovah’s Witnesses I had never believed in the
Trinity. It was a totally foreign concept to me. As was Jesus being God incarnate. Jehovah’s
Witnesses believe neither the Trinity nor the Incarnation. Jesus is divine but not God (ala Arius), and God the Father (Jehovah) alone is worshiped. As my faith evolved from Witness apocalyptic fundamentalism it grew to accept many things they rejected, but the Trinity and the Incarnation remained stumbling blocks. I knew then as I know now that these doctrines are not in the Bible, were unknown to Jesus, and evolved centuries after the death of the apostles.
Eventually I would leave behind the Christian label and embrace the kind of Emersonian-
UUism Scovel describes. The chalice warms my heart, I cherish the principles, I delight in our
pluralism, and I am nourished by our hymnal. And I kept on loving Jesus and the Bible. I would
come to attend a UCC/Baptist seminary where the Trinity and Incarnation were assumed. I
asked and asked and asked, and no one could tell me why I should believe these doctrines,
because (to summarize all arguments I heard) “true Christians just do.”
Sorry. I just can’t. I respect these doctrines more than I used to, but I still don’t “believe” them. I can’t. And I don’t have to.
My second year of seminary I did my field education at an emerging Episcopal worship
community, and I would do my 2-year UU ministerial internship at one of our Unitarian
Christian churches; but even after these 3 years of ministry in Christian settings, I still don’t feel
I can call myself “Christian.” I’m just a Unitarian Universalist. I have to repeat that name,
because it’s what I am.
But sometimes I miss the label “Christian.” Sometimes I want to call myself that again.
Feel myself breathe into that word and that relationship again. Every time I think I can,
however, it happens: a Christian quotes doctrine as the rule of thumb for who is allowed in to
the Body of Christ. This time, to my surprise, the person blocking me from entering is Carl
Scovel.
If being Christian means you have to believe in the Incarnation, then out are the Unitarian and Universalist legacies I love so much. If I have to accept original sin to be a Christian, then out are Ballou and Channing. When I hear Scovel say that maybe UU Christians should give up the “UU” and be “Christians in the UUA,” my heart sinks. Old wounds hurt again. “Not you, David. You’re not allowed back in. You were never one of us anyway.”
I imagine this is what many of my Christo-phobic congregants feel when they think of
Christianity; they recall the faith that they feel pushed them out, often by demanding they
submit to ideas their conscience couldn’t follow. I don’t believe any such barrier is ever of
Christ. I think Emerson was right to lament that Christians far too often dwell “with noxious
exaggeration” on Jesus’ ontology, rather than on how he is an example we can actually follow.
Maybe Thomas Alitzer was right when he wrote that in our time the only way for a Christian to
truly follow the Word is to forsake the Church, for the Church is always, it seems, bound to the
past rather than open to the eschatological always-coming- yet-right- here-before- us Reign of God. “Behold, old things have passed away!” Or as Jesus said, “You can’t put new wine in old
wineskins.”
I simply can’t follow Jesus anywhere but here. If I ever become a Christian again it will be as a Unitarian Universalist, and it won’t be in spite of the UUA, but because of who we are that I can do so. There is a lot in Scovel’s essay I cannot speak to. My heart is not rooted in the
kind of Christianity he feels is passing away. I mean in no way to be disparaging towards one of
our great UU elders. Truly. I do not know the future of “UU Christianity.” No one does. The
story isn’t written yet, and we should be careful looking for clear signs, for as Jesus said; “The
Reign of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say ‘Look, here it is!’
or ‘Look, there it is!’, for in fact the Reign of God is within you and among you.” Within us and
among us right now. Doing something amazing. Something new. If I’m to be a Christian let me
follow Christ here in this moment and see what Christ will do. Let me be part of the Body of
Christ described in Colossians: the Body that is not one religion merely but all humanity and all
creation. I honor others going where they need to go, but for me I can only follow Jesus if I can
do so freely, without doctrinal works in the way of grace. If I do so, my walk to Emmaus shall
have the chalice lighting my way.
It is In Our DNA
By the Rev. Tom Schade
After documenting the decline of UU Christianity, the Rev. Scovel says, “This decline presents us with both a discouraging prospect and an incentive to learn what, if anything, has gone wrong with UU Christianity.”
Let’s start at the beginning.
Back when the AUA and UCA were unabashedly Christian, there was no Christian Fellowship. The UCF was formed in the late 1940’s, after much of the AUA had already become humanist. The Christian Fellowship was formed as a countervailing force to slow change and uphold the older ways. It’s DNA is that of a ‘faithful remnant.’
Further, the Merger of 1961 was traumatizing for Christians. The process used, and the
language deployed to talk about merger, made it clear that the new denomination thought
Christianity was quaint vestige of the past. Unfortunately, it still had to be appeased. The
question was “What’s the minimum concession that must be made to keep the Christians in
the tent?” It must have been humiliating, to fight for and lose every effort to include the mildest
of Christian affirmations in the documents.
So, the memory of humiliation and trauma confirmed what was already present among the
Christians: a sense of themselves as “a faithful remnant” and an abiding suspicion and hostility
to the UUA, as a denomination. That has been, and often still is, our default point of view. It is a
particular angle of vision. It has been passed down through generations of ministers and laity,
like an inherited myopia.
Christians see the UUA as fatally unbalanced. It neglected what is vital and concentrates on
trivial distractions.
The UUA does not have enough of these three things, in the eyes of UU Christians.
1. It needs more theological discussion and clarity — specifically it needs to situate itself in
terms of Christian theology.
2. It needs to study and remember its history more — which is a way of reminding everyone
that we used to be Christian, and are no more.
3. It needs to recommit itself to our historic polity, because the denomination should be
weaker, to protect ministers and churches still engaged in explicit Christian ministry.
What, in the eyes of Christians, the UUA has way too much of:
1. Politics. The UUA is in constant danger of becoming a political organization, following
someone’s ‘political agenda’.
2. Concern about diversity. How can UU’s seek to include others if we do not have our
theological center identified? What are we asking people to join? We are in danger of
making diversity itself an idol because we have nothing else at the theological center.
3. Non-Christian based ritual and symbols, like chalices and the principles, and even our own
holidays, like Chalica. Aren’t these just shallow and silly substitutes for the Christianity that
Unitarian Universalism has rejected?
The overall attitude of UU Christians has been that until UUA gets its relationship with God in
order, nothing it will attempt can, or even should, succeed. And that goes even for its
engagement with issues of justice in the society.
I may be stating this sharply, but I think most of us can recognize the underlying truth of this
history.
So, what’s the problem?
The problem is UU Christians were, therefore, at cross purposes with most UU’s. Most UU’s
want to be a part of religious movement that is generally progressive. Many are uneasy with
“the powers and principalities” that have showed up in some way in their lives. They came
because they are looking for religious community that does not separate social and political
issues from religion. They came because Unitarian Universalism has a reputation, dating back into the 19th century, of seeking justice. (Whether that reputation is deserved is another
subject.)
Step back and take a wider look. Since the end of WW2, American society has been convulsed
by social movements for justice that have reached into every community and every family. It’s
been a wild roller coaster ride, with the heights and the depths becoming higher and lower and
closer together. There were people looking for a (w)holistic religious movement that could place
this upheaval into a larger narrative that could shape their whole lives. Many of those people
came into our churches and congregations.
But, throughout most of this 60-70 year period, UU Christians viewed our denomination’s
efforts to be relevant to what was happening through the lens of our bitter suspicion. When
UU’s were active in broad-based movements, they were thought to be following someone’s
political agenda. When UU’s took stands that were not popular, they were thought to be being
weird and offensive to the people in the pews. Even when UU’s were right on the mark, it didn’t matter, it was thought, because the underlying theology was weak.
Is it any wonder that Unitarian Universalist Christianity has little influence within Unitarian
Universalism? UU Christians did not address, or even respect, the spiritual aspirations of the
Unitarian Universalist laity.
The UU laity was (and is) looking for a theological narrative that explains why there is such injustice, how it affects each person, how to live a full life in the midst of injustice, and where
this whole situation is going, and what they must do. You would think that UU Christians might
have had a message that would have been good news.
UU Christians did not carry forward the tradition of the Christian Social Gospel, or even James Luther Adams.
UU Christians did not invite Black Liberation Theology into Unitarian Universalism.
UU Christians did not preach “with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”
UU Christians did not present the Gospel as a narrative that could ground people’s urgency for
justice, or sustain them in defeat.
For those who wanted to build the Kingdom of God, by whatever name they called it, UU
Christianity kept the blueprints locked away.
Now, here is a chicken-and-egg question.
For most of its history, the UUCF has isolated itself from Black Theology. That self-isolation is
inextricably connected to its aversion to the UUA’s political agenda. Even though Black
Theology was working within the Christian space, UU Christians, were, until recently,
uninterested. I believe that it was thought to be not real theology, but a theological sounding
rationalization for political ends.
But as the UUA itself was more engaged with Black Theologians than was the UUCF, was our
dismissal of Black Theology more about preserving our own White theological space, where UU Christians could recycle our theological reflections about what is wrong with the UUA?
Of course, chickens and eggs always exist together. In the USA, any separation of politics, as a category, and theology, as a category of thought, serves white supremacy.
UU Christians must confront and reverse its longest held instinct: suspicion of the UUA and its justice work. We must end the distinction we make between a ‘political agenda’ and ‘theology.’
We must offer to Unitarian Universalists who seek depth but are afraid of deeper waters our
eschatological hope. God, who is justice, walked among us, incarnate, pointing us to the
human possibility of justice, and who suffered and died as one of the lowliest and most
oppressed, but rose again, incarnate now in this imperfect Body of Christ, which struggles for
justice now, and will forever.
Our job is not the sell the Christian brand, or bring back the cross behind the pulpit, but to
bring the good news to those who desperately need to feel the strength of this Body of the
Resurrected Christ as it works, in and among us, to liberate the human future.
By the Rev. Tom Schade
After documenting the decline of UU Christianity, the Rev. Scovel says, “This decline presents us with both a discouraging prospect and an incentive to learn what, if anything, has gone wrong with UU Christianity.”
Let’s start at the beginning.
Back when the AUA and UCA were unabashedly Christian, there was no Christian Fellowship. The UCF was formed in the late 1940’s, after much of the AUA had already become humanist. The Christian Fellowship was formed as a countervailing force to slow change and uphold the older ways. It’s DNA is that of a ‘faithful remnant.’
Further, the Merger of 1961 was traumatizing for Christians. The process used, and the
language deployed to talk about merger, made it clear that the new denomination thought
Christianity was quaint vestige of the past. Unfortunately, it still had to be appeased. The
question was “What’s the minimum concession that must be made to keep the Christians in
the tent?” It must have been humiliating, to fight for and lose every effort to include the mildest
of Christian affirmations in the documents.
So, the memory of humiliation and trauma confirmed what was already present among the
Christians: a sense of themselves as “a faithful remnant” and an abiding suspicion and hostility
to the UUA, as a denomination. That has been, and often still is, our default point of view. It is a
particular angle of vision. It has been passed down through generations of ministers and laity,
like an inherited myopia.
Christians see the UUA as fatally unbalanced. It neglected what is vital and concentrates on
trivial distractions.
The UUA does not have enough of these three things, in the eyes of UU Christians.
1. It needs more theological discussion and clarity — specifically it needs to situate itself in
terms of Christian theology.
2. It needs to study and remember its history more — which is a way of reminding everyone
that we used to be Christian, and are no more.
3. It needs to recommit itself to our historic polity, because the denomination should be
weaker, to protect ministers and churches still engaged in explicit Christian ministry.
What, in the eyes of Christians, the UUA has way too much of:
1. Politics. The UUA is in constant danger of becoming a political organization, following
someone’s ‘political agenda’.
2. Concern about diversity. How can UU’s seek to include others if we do not have our
theological center identified? What are we asking people to join? We are in danger of
making diversity itself an idol because we have nothing else at the theological center.
3. Non-Christian based ritual and symbols, like chalices and the principles, and even our own
holidays, like Chalica. Aren’t these just shallow and silly substitutes for the Christianity that
Unitarian Universalism has rejected?
The overall attitude of UU Christians has been that until UUA gets its relationship with God in
order, nothing it will attempt can, or even should, succeed. And that goes even for its
engagement with issues of justice in the society.
I may be stating this sharply, but I think most of us can recognize the underlying truth of this
history.
So, what’s the problem?
The problem is UU Christians were, therefore, at cross purposes with most UU’s. Most UU’s
want to be a part of religious movement that is generally progressive. Many are uneasy with
“the powers and principalities” that have showed up in some way in their lives. They came
because they are looking for religious community that does not separate social and political
issues from religion. They came because Unitarian Universalism has a reputation, dating back into the 19th century, of seeking justice. (Whether that reputation is deserved is another
subject.)
Step back and take a wider look. Since the end of WW2, American society has been convulsed
by social movements for justice that have reached into every community and every family. It’s
been a wild roller coaster ride, with the heights and the depths becoming higher and lower and
closer together. There were people looking for a (w)holistic religious movement that could place
this upheaval into a larger narrative that could shape their whole lives. Many of those people
came into our churches and congregations.
But, throughout most of this 60-70 year period, UU Christians viewed our denomination’s
efforts to be relevant to what was happening through the lens of our bitter suspicion. When
UU’s were active in broad-based movements, they were thought to be following someone’s
political agenda. When UU’s took stands that were not popular, they were thought to be being
weird and offensive to the people in the pews. Even when UU’s were right on the mark, it didn’t matter, it was thought, because the underlying theology was weak.
Is it any wonder that Unitarian Universalist Christianity has little influence within Unitarian
Universalism? UU Christians did not address, or even respect, the spiritual aspirations of the
Unitarian Universalist laity.
The UU laity was (and is) looking for a theological narrative that explains why there is such injustice, how it affects each person, how to live a full life in the midst of injustice, and where
this whole situation is going, and what they must do. You would think that UU Christians might
have had a message that would have been good news.
UU Christians did not carry forward the tradition of the Christian Social Gospel, or even James Luther Adams.
UU Christians did not invite Black Liberation Theology into Unitarian Universalism.
UU Christians did not preach “with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”
UU Christians did not present the Gospel as a narrative that could ground people’s urgency for
justice, or sustain them in defeat.
For those who wanted to build the Kingdom of God, by whatever name they called it, UU
Christianity kept the blueprints locked away.
Now, here is a chicken-and-egg question.
For most of its history, the UUCF has isolated itself from Black Theology. That self-isolation is
inextricably connected to its aversion to the UUA’s political agenda. Even though Black
Theology was working within the Christian space, UU Christians, were, until recently,
uninterested. I believe that it was thought to be not real theology, but a theological sounding
rationalization for political ends.
But as the UUA itself was more engaged with Black Theologians than was the UUCF, was our
dismissal of Black Theology more about preserving our own White theological space, where UU Christians could recycle our theological reflections about what is wrong with the UUA?
Of course, chickens and eggs always exist together. In the USA, any separation of politics, as a category, and theology, as a category of thought, serves white supremacy.
UU Christians must confront and reverse its longest held instinct: suspicion of the UUA and its justice work. We must end the distinction we make between a ‘political agenda’ and ‘theology.’
We must offer to Unitarian Universalists who seek depth but are afraid of deeper waters our
eschatological hope. God, who is justice, walked among us, incarnate, pointing us to the
human possibility of justice, and who suffered and died as one of the lowliest and most
oppressed, but rose again, incarnate now in this imperfect Body of Christ, which struggles for
justice now, and will forever.
Our job is not the sell the Christian brand, or bring back the cross behind the pulpit, but to
bring the good news to those who desperately need to feel the strength of this Body of the
Resurrected Christ as it works, in and among us, to liberate the human future.
A Response to the Rev. Scovel
By the Rev. Stephen Lingwood
First to say I am writing from the UK, but have lived in the US, so am bringing a different experience and culture to this conversation.
Like others I am uncomfortable with Carl Scovel's characterisation of Christianity, set up as opposed to Unitarian Universalism. I am a Unitarian Christian. My Christianity is Unitarian and my Unitarianism is Christian. They are one and the same thing for me. I am interested in preserving Unitarianism as a distinct non-Nicene form of Christianity, as it is in the Hungarian Unitarian Church. And I disagree that Unitarian Christians can find comfortable homes in other Christian churches (though this may be more true in the US where there are more liberal denominations). I cannot live with only male language for God, with Trinitarianism and blood sacrifice. Every other church I could go to would give me this.
But I think those are relatively minor points. I think the major point is this: how much did Christian Unitarianism (and Universalism?) contain the seeds of its own destruction in its emergence in the English-speaking world? By emphasising rational religion and "common sense" was the pathway to atheism already there? The first Unitarians were sure that biblical miracles "proved" the religion of Jesus. Biblical criticism removed this foundation. Then they were sure that rationalism and science would at least lead to deism or theism. But then with Darwinism and other scientific developments this too was lost.
I believe religion needs to be rooted in "heart" more than "head", or actually in the body. Religion needs to provide real visceral and direct experience of God. In Quakers this comes through silent worship, for Catholics through the sacraments, for Pentecostals through charismatic praise and gifts. The problem with Unitarianism was that it never contained these religious practices that actually give people an experience of God. It always tried to argue people into religion, and it lost the argument (as it was always going to) and so inevitably drifted into soft liberal atheism.
There were voices that pointed us towards the mystical, but we never quite managed it. We never were quite able to raise to Emerson's challenge to give people a first-hand experience of deity.
So the future of Unitarian Christianity may be lost within these traditions, but it seems quite possible to me it could re-emerge out of Pentecostalism, which is the fastest growing form of Christianity across the world. Rooted in a charismatic style of worship that actually creates an emotional and spiritual experience of God a form of Unitarian (or maybe more likely Univeralist) Christianity could yet emerge. In a sense this has happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma with what is now their contemporary service.
Or could we encourage it to emerge? My prayer is still for a Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit on these dry bones. Do we believe in miracles?
By the Rev. Stephen Lingwood
First to say I am writing from the UK, but have lived in the US, so am bringing a different experience and culture to this conversation.
Like others I am uncomfortable with Carl Scovel's characterisation of Christianity, set up as opposed to Unitarian Universalism. I am a Unitarian Christian. My Christianity is Unitarian and my Unitarianism is Christian. They are one and the same thing for me. I am interested in preserving Unitarianism as a distinct non-Nicene form of Christianity, as it is in the Hungarian Unitarian Church. And I disagree that Unitarian Christians can find comfortable homes in other Christian churches (though this may be more true in the US where there are more liberal denominations). I cannot live with only male language for God, with Trinitarianism and blood sacrifice. Every other church I could go to would give me this.
But I think those are relatively minor points. I think the major point is this: how much did Christian Unitarianism (and Universalism?) contain the seeds of its own destruction in its emergence in the English-speaking world? By emphasising rational religion and "common sense" was the pathway to atheism already there? The first Unitarians were sure that biblical miracles "proved" the religion of Jesus. Biblical criticism removed this foundation. Then they were sure that rationalism and science would at least lead to deism or theism. But then with Darwinism and other scientific developments this too was lost.
I believe religion needs to be rooted in "heart" more than "head", or actually in the body. Religion needs to provide real visceral and direct experience of God. In Quakers this comes through silent worship, for Catholics through the sacraments, for Pentecostals through charismatic praise and gifts. The problem with Unitarianism was that it never contained these religious practices that actually give people an experience of God. It always tried to argue people into religion, and it lost the argument (as it was always going to) and so inevitably drifted into soft liberal atheism.
There were voices that pointed us towards the mystical, but we never quite managed it. We never were quite able to raise to Emerson's challenge to give people a first-hand experience of deity.
So the future of Unitarian Christianity may be lost within these traditions, but it seems quite possible to me it could re-emerge out of Pentecostalism, which is the fastest growing form of Christianity across the world. Rooted in a charismatic style of worship that actually creates an emotional and spiritual experience of God a form of Unitarian (or maybe more likely Univeralist) Christianity could yet emerge. In a sense this has happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma with what is now their contemporary service.
Or could we encourage it to emerge? My prayer is still for a Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit on these dry bones. Do we believe in miracles?
Another Paper Suggested
Suggestion by the Rev. Jo James
Paper by the Rev. Stephen Lingwood
Please see full text at:
www.millhillchapel.org/definite-plot-soil-stephen-lingwood
Suggestion by the Rev. Jo James
Paper by the Rev. Stephen Lingwood
Please see full text at:
www.millhillchapel.org/definite-plot-soil-stephen-lingwood
A Response to the Rev. Scovel
By the Rev. Marie DeYoung
I look forward to reading any future version of Carl Scovel's essay. His main point is very important: we can find spiritual fellowship and care in other denominations, but, non-Christian UUs cannot, and THEY are in the super majority. I disagree with his interpretation of statistical info as an indicator of our health as a denomination. While it may be true that we have approximately the same number of buildings since merger, we clearly have lost both membership AND "market share" or share of the US exploding population. Within a generation, this (UUA) denomination may be as extinct as many UCC churches AND DCC churches that were closed since the 1990's. The strongest UU churches have "membership extending back at least three generations." They are still mostly white churches in a world that is never going to be that pale again. The number of "strongest" multigenerational UU churches continues to decline. The strongest Catholic and Christian churches reach out to whoever lives in the neighborhood, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, education level. And, these churches continue to thrive. If the purpose of Carl's essay was to explore the future of UU Christianity, I suggest we learn from our Catholic and Christian colleagues. I've had my door knocked on by many a Catholic, Southern Baptist, Jehovah's Witness. I've received many an invitation to a special event/Easter, and many a call or door knock to see how I am doing. Very few UU communities engage in this type of outreach and evangelism, but, THAT is what it takes for a church to be vibrant and alive in the 21st century.
By the Rev. Marie DeYoung
I look forward to reading any future version of Carl Scovel's essay. His main point is very important: we can find spiritual fellowship and care in other denominations, but, non-Christian UUs cannot, and THEY are in the super majority. I disagree with his interpretation of statistical info as an indicator of our health as a denomination. While it may be true that we have approximately the same number of buildings since merger, we clearly have lost both membership AND "market share" or share of the US exploding population. Within a generation, this (UUA) denomination may be as extinct as many UCC churches AND DCC churches that were closed since the 1990's. The strongest UU churches have "membership extending back at least three generations." They are still mostly white churches in a world that is never going to be that pale again. The number of "strongest" multigenerational UU churches continues to decline. The strongest Catholic and Christian churches reach out to whoever lives in the neighborhood, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, education level. And, these churches continue to thrive. If the purpose of Carl's essay was to explore the future of UU Christianity, I suggest we learn from our Catholic and Christian colleagues. I've had my door knocked on by many a Catholic, Southern Baptist, Jehovah's Witness. I've received many an invitation to a special event/Easter, and many a call or door knock to see how I am doing. Very few UU communities engage in this type of outreach and evangelism, but, THAT is what it takes for a church to be vibrant and alive in the 21st century.
A Response to the Rev. Scovel
By the Rev. Don Erikson
Here is my response to Rev. Scovel's essay. My thoughts mostly derive from his overview of Christianity. That overview prompts a question in my mind. Is their anything that differentiates UU Christianity from other forms? It seems to me that Rev. Scovel gives us a description that a UCC or DOC thinker or minister could easily give. An example of this is his focus on the notion of incarnation. It is rather orthodox in its conception
As I think about the place of UU Christianity in the general public, I think of UU Christianity meeting a need that I don't see being met. Based on my experience and interactions, I perceive a need for a proudly heretical Christianity that predates Nicean uniformity, a Christianity grounded in the Jewish-Christian side of things, the lineage of James, the brother of Jesus, the Ebionites, and the Polish Jewish-Christian Unitarians examined by Susan Ritchie in her wonderful book "Children of the Same God."
Interestingly, the Jewish-Christian lineage has an "unorthodox" view of the incarnation. The Word became flesh in Jesus not in Bethlehem, but at the River Jordan upon Jesus' baptism. This idea is known as Adoptionism. A human yet uniquely human, adopted as Son of God after a 30 years of life seeking God's face, that is Jesus for me. And it seems we find in this view of Jesus a common denominator that doesn't preclude a higher Christology built upon the common denominator.
I also wanted to again lift up that there is a sincere search for a community of Jesus-followers that views Jesus in similar ways. We hear again and again, well, these folks have the UCC. But the UCC as Rev. Scovel mentions is declining rapidly. It is my view that the reason this is so is because it is denominationally tied to orthodoxy. Read its creed and it hymnal. Its language and approach is mainline Christian and in my opinion, to use an Evangelical term, "lukewarm." Put in another way, it is not proudly heretical. It presents a normative view of Christianity, albeit on the liberal end of it.
I say this because there is a real yearning for a non-normative approach and practice of the Jesus-tradition. It is a yearning that is only exponentially being met. UU Christianity seems to me uniquely positioned to meet that need. My own essay for the event looks at the questions surrounding this.
Lastly, not to market an organization I am proudly a part of, but in thinking about Rev. Scovel's question about what is a UU Christian to do, I mention the Christian Universalist Association. CUA is a burgeoning group that hearkens back to traditional Universalism. It is a much smaller and younger cousin of the UUA. I think it can provide UU Christians a unique outlet, an outlet grounded in "old school Universalism."
By the Rev. Don Erikson
Here is my response to Rev. Scovel's essay. My thoughts mostly derive from his overview of Christianity. That overview prompts a question in my mind. Is their anything that differentiates UU Christianity from other forms? It seems to me that Rev. Scovel gives us a description that a UCC or DOC thinker or minister could easily give. An example of this is his focus on the notion of incarnation. It is rather orthodox in its conception
As I think about the place of UU Christianity in the general public, I think of UU Christianity meeting a need that I don't see being met. Based on my experience and interactions, I perceive a need for a proudly heretical Christianity that predates Nicean uniformity, a Christianity grounded in the Jewish-Christian side of things, the lineage of James, the brother of Jesus, the Ebionites, and the Polish Jewish-Christian Unitarians examined by Susan Ritchie in her wonderful book "Children of the Same God."
Interestingly, the Jewish-Christian lineage has an "unorthodox" view of the incarnation. The Word became flesh in Jesus not in Bethlehem, but at the River Jordan upon Jesus' baptism. This idea is known as Adoptionism. A human yet uniquely human, adopted as Son of God after a 30 years of life seeking God's face, that is Jesus for me. And it seems we find in this view of Jesus a common denominator that doesn't preclude a higher Christology built upon the common denominator.
I also wanted to again lift up that there is a sincere search for a community of Jesus-followers that views Jesus in similar ways. We hear again and again, well, these folks have the UCC. But the UCC as Rev. Scovel mentions is declining rapidly. It is my view that the reason this is so is because it is denominationally tied to orthodoxy. Read its creed and it hymnal. Its language and approach is mainline Christian and in my opinion, to use an Evangelical term, "lukewarm." Put in another way, it is not proudly heretical. It presents a normative view of Christianity, albeit on the liberal end of it.
I say this because there is a real yearning for a non-normative approach and practice of the Jesus-tradition. It is a yearning that is only exponentially being met. UU Christianity seems to me uniquely positioned to meet that need. My own essay for the event looks at the questions surrounding this.
Lastly, not to market an organization I am proudly a part of, but in thinking about Rev. Scovel's question about what is a UU Christian to do, I mention the Christian Universalist Association. CUA is a burgeoning group that hearkens back to traditional Universalism. It is a much smaller and younger cousin of the UUA. I think it can provide UU Christians a unique outlet, an outlet grounded in "old school Universalism."
A History of Healing With UU Christianity
By the Rev. Harvey Joiner
When I became a minister with standing in the UUA way back in 1987, I sought this connection as an open way to work out my Christian faith. (I served two interims - Tallahassee & 1st Universalist, Salem & a settled pastorate with All Souls, CO Sps.).
I left my connection in 1998 for "privilege of call" in the UCC, because I was told that my employable options as a minister in the UUA were dramatically reduced as an "out-in-the-open" Christian. After 18 years in the UCC, 38 years altogether as an actively employed ordained minister, I retired.
I am happy to have renewed my connected with the UUA vis-a-vis the The First Church UU Christian Fellowship of Richmond, VA. I am grateful for the ministry of the UUCF in the UUA. It has allowed me to find healing and reconciliation and a way to continue the journey of faith with fellow progressive Christians.
By the Rev. Harvey Joiner
When I became a minister with standing in the UUA way back in 1987, I sought this connection as an open way to work out my Christian faith. (I served two interims - Tallahassee & 1st Universalist, Salem & a settled pastorate with All Souls, CO Sps.).
I left my connection in 1998 for "privilege of call" in the UCC, because I was told that my employable options as a minister in the UUA were dramatically reduced as an "out-in-the-open" Christian. After 18 years in the UCC, 38 years altogether as an actively employed ordained minister, I retired.
I am happy to have renewed my connected with the UUA vis-a-vis the The First Church UU Christian Fellowship of Richmond, VA. I am grateful for the ministry of the UUCF in the UUA. It has allowed me to find healing and reconciliation and a way to continue the journey of faith with fellow progressive Christians.