British Unitarianism is held back by the language of the 'Object'
May no one be a stranger. Let all who come find a welcome. Those are the words of the Rev Nick Cardell, Minister Emeritus, May Memorial Unitarian Society, Syracuse New York. These were the words which greeted me every Sunday when I attended May Memorial. I started attending in 1979. It is with these words ringing in my ears, I testify; hand on heart, that I am a Unitarian. As for the good congregants of May Memorial, with all of their collective short comings and all of the wrangling over one thing or another, never ever was their disagreement with these words. May no one be a stranger. Let all who come find a welcome.
It is this welcoming which forms the basis of my address today. And at the end of today, I would like us to indulge in a personal inventory and ask this question, 'Are we, Golders Green Unitarians, welcoming? And are we part of a movement which celebrates the ethic of 'Let no one be a stranger?'
Language is important. What we do is important, but what we say and affirm about ourselves with words is equally important. For those of us who are parents, how we finally solidify our world view and how we distil, for us, exactly what is right or wrong becomes evident in the way in which we raise our children. I remember discussing that old adage with my children: 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.' I affirmed that violence is always a non- starter, but I also affirmed that the words we say to each other can be equally violent. Those are wounds of the heart perhaps, and not wounds of the body. Words can heal as well as hurt. Words can call to war or create peace. My children understood. Words are important.
I was not raised Unitarian. I was raised Methodist. My mother was a Sunday school teacher, and I took piano lessons from the church organist and sang in the choir. We did a Christmas pageant each year. And one year, I even got the lead part of Mary. But it never rang true for me. So I didn't become confirmed. When I went away to University, I stopped attending church of any kind, devoted my non-studying time to social justice activities of one kind or another. At that time, Americans were shamefully involved in the Vietnam War.
Faith journey began with a child's question
I came to Unitarianism when my children were very small and began asking questions, usually stemming from the assertions of playmates who came from more doctrinaire families. Joshua was Jewish, Annabelle was Roman Catholic, Reggie attended the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion church and they all had a point of view. I was asked that question, "Mommy, what are we?" The search for identity starts with this question and there was absolutely no way that I was going to say, "We are nothing". We started attending May Memorial and the children were enrolled in the religious education program.
We are Unitarians. The answer to the question is: We are Unitarians.
So our small family settled into an identity affirming ourselves as Unitarians. However, what is it that we, as Unitarians, believe? Remember words are important. We are what we affirm. Sticks and stones can break our bones and words can break our hearts. So what do we affirm? Just as I wouldn't say to my children, 'We are nothing', neither will I say as a
Unitarian, 'you can believe whatever you want.' We believe what we must believe; we believe what our conscience dictates we must believe. Consider these words by Dick Gilbert: "Belief has to be passed through the fires of scepticism. And boiled in the crucible of doubt." How do we get through the fire, and exit the crucible and arrive at a common understanding of what it is to be Unitarian?
"We believe that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves." Those are words from our UK Unitarian website in the section entitled 'Values We Share'.
Search for truth and meaning
"We covenant to affirm a free and responsible search for truth and meaning." That's the fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism in the United States. (You can find the principles at www.uua.org, under the 'About Us' section.) Those two affirmations sound the same to me. When I came to the UK seven years ago, I immediately became involved with the Unitarian chapel in Norwich. I felt a welcome immediately. I was a stranger, but not a stranger at the Octagon Chapel. The words, the welcoming, the at-homeness was wonderful. I've felt the same here at Golders Green.
But there is a problem and there is a difference. Hovering in the background, there was a conundrum of which I was aware but didn't acknowledge until coming to Golders Green and becoming Membership Secretary. I have been busily trying to make sense of membership lists and membership forms and renewal dates and the differences between members and friends and what all of that means within a GGU context. Both my husband Bob and I became members without a second thought. But there is amongst us, a single person, who, as I do, takes words very seriously. That person continues to stay within the confines of the Friends list, never to become a member. And there may be more. Or, perhaps, there are even those who would like to become Friends but don't feel welcomed. This person and those unknown others remain Friends (or anonymous) for one reason. They do so because also within the affirmations of UK Unitarians is the following. Under the heading of the General Assembly, the following is listed as an object. I quote: We, the constituent congregations, affiliated societies and individual members, acknowledge that the Object of the Assembly is to promote a free and inquiring religion through the worship of God and the celebration of life; the service of humanity and respect for all creation; and the upholding of the liberal Christian tradition.
Circles include and exclude
SAY WHAT??? In one fell and deadly swoop of a sentence, we have drawn a circle around ourselves as Unitarians and disallowed all of those who may not affirm Christianity… or God. We come with our doubts as well as our convictions. However, if we are to honour the inclusiveness and pluralism which we at GGU celebrate on a daily basis, we cannot in any way see this as an object of our movement. I recall a poem from my childhood by Edward Markham:
"You drew a circle that left me out.
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took you in."
We need to redraw this circle here in Britain. We need to open our arms to those who wish to accompany us in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. I read a statistic recently about Unitarian Universalism in the United States. It seems that only 10% of Unitarian Universalists are born and raised in the faith. The rest come to it from elsewhere and it is usually the theological freedom that attracts them. Those who are uncomfortable with it don't stay. The principle of the right to seek truth and meaning for ourselves is an affirmation of our creedlessness. It is what sets us apart from other religious, which are defined by what they believe. When we "honour the liberal Christian tradition", we are inserting creed into our Unitarian self-definition. I and our GGU permanently dissenting Friend remain profoundly uncomfortable with this.
I am further dismayed by the insertion of the worship of God (with a capital G) into this equation. Perhaps the search for truth and meaning leads some people to what is called God, but others might find other words for this search more descriptive ... more meaningful. "God" can be a useful word to name that which is beyond words. But on the other hand, it is a loaded word that can be misleading. Everyone has their own associations with the word, but how do we convey the pluralism which is Unitarianism through a so thoroughly tradition-laden word like God? With a single stroke, we have eliminated the atheists, the agnostics and the humanists.
I remember reading an article in the UUA magazine, UU World, written by the renowned Rev Forrest Church. He talks of religious truth being like truth in poetry. I find that apt. Ultimate reality, God, Truth or whatever you want to call it is not something we can know absolutely, in its entirety, or objectively. We are always viewing it from a perspective. Our perspective includes our historical and cultural context. "Truth emerges only indirectly, as refracted through the windows of tradition and experience," says Church. If we accept that experiential definition of Truth in Unitarianism, then there is no place for the Christian God, which is affirmed when we call ourselves constituents of the Unitarian General Assembly.
The minute we offer that as an affirmation we are no longer welcoming. We draw a circle which leaves others out.
This does not mean that we negate our roots or dishonour our ancestors. Just the opposite. We celebrate the path which opened us to the place where we now dwell. Both UK Unitarianism and North American Unitarian Universalism derive from a God-centred Christian tradition which celebrated the unity of God. But we have moved beyond that. We now celebrate that journey of searching. Forrest Church develops the metaphor of cathedral windows. He imagines the world as a vast cathedral, with many windows. "The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through," he says. "Because the cathedral is so vast, our life so short, and our vision so dim, we are able to contemplate only a tiny part of the whole creation". Because we affirm the freedom of the search, because individual conscience is the primary religious authority for us, we must also recognise that other paths are equally valid. As the Rev Church says, "the same light shines through all our windows, but…. each window is different." By asserting ourselves as liberal Christians, we are limiting ourselves to a single pane of glass. And because words are important, we are saying that all those who don't see this refracted light in the same way we do are wrong.
This must be changed. Our identity as Unitarians is affirmation enough to encompass a wealth of meaning and the search which is the community creating part of what Unitarianism is. By eliminating those important words which prevent us from affirming our connectedness with each other and welcoming all who come with their doubts as well as their convictions, we allow ourselves to delve into the innermost recesses of our souls and more intensely identify with other human beings. The further inward we explore, the more we touch what Professor Huston Smith calls the deep water table of our common humanity.
I would like to call us all to work this coming year toward eliminating the Christian references in our Unitarian and General Assembly identity. We must open our arms and welcome those who are seeking truth and meaning, as we are, and we must further honour those who find meaning in ways which may be different from our own. It is this process which should define us, not an archaic label which eliminates full participation in our community. Evidence our Friend who will never be a Member until this is changed.
We must be comfortable with the fact that the search for meaning takes us in different directions and that ultimately authority rests within ourselves. In closing, I would like to quote from a website called Belief.com. In its description of Unitarianism, someone says, "Because Unitarianism gives you freedom, people who don't know what they believe feel lost. If you feel like you need to be told what you should believe, there's nothing wrong with that, but Unitarianism is not for you". It was signed by someone called chalicechick'.
My hope and aspiration for this coming year is that we affirm the plurality of Unitarianism by affirming a Unitarianism that eschews doctrine of any kind.
Sermon by Judy Jerome, a member of Golders Green Unitarians.
Printed in The Inquirer 13th August 2005