[3/31/02] UU Christianity
by Rev. Joan Montagnes
March 31, 2002
A true story: Once upon a time, there was a Lutheran minister who served six little towns in New Iceland, an area of land on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. This minister, Magnus Skaptason by name, woke up one sunny Easter morning prepared to preach a sermon on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But, this was no ordinary Easter sermon, because he was going to daringly depart from the orthodox doctrine.
The good pastor preached his sermon in the towns of Hecla, then Riverton, then Hnausa, then Arnes, Gimli, and Willow Point. And by the time he returned to his home base in Riverton, they had changed the locks on the church door. He was no longer welcome. Shortly after Magnus Skaptason preached his Easter sermon, he and four of his congregations left the Icelandic Lutheran Church and joined the American Unitarian Association. I can only hope that I'm not as effective or provocative a preacher as Magnus Skaptason lest you lock me out of the church after I finish my Easter message.
So what was the orthodox doctrine from which Skaptason was departing? It's not an unusual doctrine; it's the doctrine which is preached in most mainline Christian congregations and certainly in the more conservative churches:
I find this pretty scary theology. That's pretty spooky stuff. I don't think that's really a world I want to live in. And yet most people felt, and lots of people still feel, like they don't have a choice. It’s a pretty scary thing.
There are, however, other Christian theologies which are preached here on the Palouse and elsewhere, and some of those Christian theologies are believed and cherished right here in our congregation. These other Christian theologies also have roots that stretch deep into the good nourishing soil of our movement.
After Roger Lynn, the minister of the United Church spoke here a few months ago, I received a few disturbing phone calls from our members. They were couched in terms of "crisis of faith." And they said to me, "Joan, I'm a closet Christian." These people were coming out to me. "I'm a closet Christian, and I don't know if there is a place for me here in this congregation."
I can't tell you what kind of sadness I felt that our brothers and sisters in faith didn't feel welcome in our beloved community. It's true, and it needs to be celebrated that the humanists of the 1950's and 60's built this congregation and a good number of congregations in our movement. But the Christians started our movement. Surely there's still room for them in our communion.
Let me tell you a little about the roots of our movement in this nation. The old Puritan churches built by the passengers of the Mayflower and all those other early folks grew into Congregationalist churches, and the Congregationalist churches became the established religion of Boston and Massachusetts and New England and surroundings. These Congregationalist churches were similar to us in their grassroots polity, but they continued to spout the orthodox Calvinist doctrines of the trinity, original sin, the atonement, predestination, the elect, and damnation.
Over time, the Enlightenment blossomed to full bloom and society became more benevolent and more reasonable. Hence, some theology also became more benevolent and more reasonable.
The Congregationalist churches began to see a divide in their ranks between the orthodox Calvinists and the new liberals with their kinder, gentler God. Regardless of the widening gap, the orthodox and the liberals remained friends. They exchanged pulpits and shared the lord's supper and basically hung together.
But then one day, in 1805, Henry Ware, a liberal, was elected Hollis Professor of the Harvard Divinity School, thus delivering control of the school, the shaper of all young Divines in America, over to the liberal camp. Well, the orthodox were outraged, and not only stopped mingling with the liberals, not only did they build another theological school, but they also began accusing the too-big-for-their-boots liberals, of being Unitarian in their theology. Well, the name stuck, and here we are.
So the question is this Easter morning - the highest holiday on the Christian calendar - the question is "what did our Unitarian Universalist forebears have to say about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, if they weren't preaching the orthodoxy anymore than we do today?" The answer lies in two tracts written at the beginning of the 19th century. The first is Hosea Ballou's "Treaties on Atonement" and the second is William Ellery Channing's "Unitarian Christianity".
The Enlightenment's effect on these two preachers, with its emphasis on reason and its kinder and gentler God, can not be understated. Hosea Ballou brilliantly argued his points using comparative biblical passages and clear logic to knock down one orthodox doctrine after another. William Ellery Channing took advantage of the modern German biblical criticism which stated confidently that the bible was indeed the revealed truth of God, but it was recorded by men and for men. So when we interpret the bible, we have to use cultural and historical lenses. It's just the way we interpret the Bible today. Reason, logic, rationality were extremely important to Ballou and Channing. But make no mistake, both the Universalism and Unitarianism of the 19th century was primarily a biblical faith.
This was a time of great religious interest and public debates held all kinds of attention. Understanding a well argued point could mean the difference between one's eternal salvation and damnation. You could imagine that feelings ran fairly high over these discussions and contrasting doctrines. There's a story of a Universalist preacher giving a lecture one evening on the good news of Universalism. He was busy giving his lecture and a rock came hurtling through the window. It landed in a shower of glass beside the preacher. Well, he stooped down to pick it up, he hefted it in his hand, and he said to the congregation, "My friends, this is indeed a weighty argument, but it is neither scriptural nor rational."
So, what was Unitarian and Universalist Christianity in those 19th century days, and What is it today? Let's start at the top. Let's start with God. Both Unitarians and Universalists agreed that the doctrine of the trinity had no foundation in the Bible. Furthermore this three-in-one business just didn't make any sense. And moreover, the trinity detracted from wholesome worship. In Trinitarian worship, God the father - that mean old guy in the sky, the judge - had to play bad cop to the son's sweetness and light good cop - when everybody knows of course that God is all-loving and ever-forgiving and ever-welcoming and ever-beneficent. The bad cop thing just didn't work.
And what about Jesus? Well, both the Unitarians and Universalists agreed on biblical and scriptural grounds, that Jesus was sent by God on a divine mission - that's no different from anyone else - but while the orthodox said that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, the Unitarians said that Jesus was fully human, but no more divine than the rest of us.
Unitarians and Universalists also both made arguments, clear arguments, against the doctrine of original sin. It was simply unjust, unscriptural, and irrational. How could a finite Adam sin infinitely? That just doesn't make sense. How could a finite sin deserve eternal punishment? That's just not fair. And how could a loving parent God punish a child eternally? That’s just not right. Rather, the Unitarians said that we have the choice to do good or to do evil at any moment of the day. And the Universalists said we only sin because we live in these craving, carnal, mortal bodies. Once we shed these mortal coils, we'll sin no more, and we'll all be welcomed into our heavenly home. Moreover, the Universalists said sin is its own punishment. If we choose to sin, that's its own punishment, it's an estrangement from God. And if we choose to do good, well that's its own reward, that warm fuzzy feeling of communion with the Divine.
Both denominations were adamant that God was ever-loving, ever-beneficent, ever-welcoming, ever-just. And both denominations agreed that Jesus was in no way sent to earth to suffer in unmitigated agony to placate an angry God. That's just not the way it happened. Rather, Jesus was sent here to wake us up, to remind us to love God, and to remind us how to love again. Channing wrote that while "we gratefully acknowledge that he came to rescue us from punishment" - hell - "we believe that he was sent on a far nobler errand: namely, to deliver us from sin itself"; that is, to teach us how not to sin, how to love instead.
And as for the doctrine of the pre-destined elect who get to go to heaven while the rest of us burn in hell for eternity, well the Unitarians and the Universalists just rejected that outright. I mean, what kind of all-loving parent creates a world with more misery than happiness? And what kind of an all-loving parent sends a savior for everyone and yet only accepts a few home when we all knock on the door? Ballou wrote "Why the above ideas should have ever been imbibed by men of understanding and study, I can scarcely satisfy myself. Their absurdities are so glaring that it seems next to impossible that men of sobriety and sound judgment should ever avoid seeing them." Although Ballou wrote that in 1805 it seems very likely that our own Ralph Nielsen could have written it today for the Daily News.
So, in this Unitarian Universalist Christianity, we have:
Oh, that is such good news! That's the good news. That's our forebears' good news for us and for everyone. For what then, in heaven's name, do we need Easter? Why the bloody and horrible crucifixion? Why the miraculous and irrational resurrection?
Well, it seems even the optimistic Channing, Ballou and the rest of all those liberals thought that human nature was recalcitrant, stubborn, belligerent, unwilling to change. Especially if the alternative to change is to stay in our comfortable rut, to satisfy the cravings of this carnal body, to avoid risk, or to act for short term gain. Humanity does seem just a little unwilling to change at times, doesn't it? Especially if change means facing that incredibly difficult task of living in loving community with our neighbors, our friends, and our enemies. Especially if change means feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and aiding the poor and the sick.
Now most of us, most of us here, when giving a divine mission like saving our public schools, or working to provide affordable health care for the elderly, or working for human rights and world peace, or teaching new forms of communication or being a fair and loving parent, spouse, citizen - most of us when giving a divine mission will work hard for our cause. We will stand up for what we believe, we will do what is necessary to be heard. Some of us will even go to great lengths for the cause of truth and justice and love.
The Easter story tells us that Jesus was given a divine mission, and he simply would not stand down. He would not stand down because he so loved the world. He would not stand down because he so loved us, regardless of the consequences of human nature. The crucifixion was merely a matter of killing the messenger. There was nothing sweet or saving about it. It was Jesus' life that was saving, not his death. Moreover, Jesus' life could not be restricted by death. He would not linger in death. Even if death was a secure insulating refuge from a cruel and imperfect and broken world as it must have been for him.
Jesus' story, Jesus' message tells us that he thought it was time to roll away the stone. Time to awaken new possibilities of life for himself and for all of us. The resurrection - the pinnacle of Christian theology, the Easter message - the resurrection, according to our forebears, bore witness to Jesus' message, his divine mission. The resurrection proved that love and justice can conquer death. We are stronger than death. Even our very rational forebears gave into the irrationality of hope.
Now whether or not Ballou and Channing believed literally in the resurrection, I don't know. In spite of their extremely detailed comments on just about everything else, they're kind of hazy on this one. But they claimed the resurrection, and they owned the resurrection, and they called themselves Christians for it.
These are the roots of our Unitarian and Universalist movements. Roots that nourish us into a something, roots that enable us to spring hopeful green shoots up from beneath the rotting leaves of despair, roots that enable us to bloom into the multi-spirited congregation that we are today, with leaves enjoying the light of truth and the warmth of love from all directions, all directions, including a leaf or two towards Christianity. So Happy Easter. And I beg you now, not to change the locks.
Sources and Further Reading
March 31, 2002
A true story: Once upon a time, there was a Lutheran minister who served six little towns in New Iceland, an area of land on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. This minister, Magnus Skaptason by name, woke up one sunny Easter morning prepared to preach a sermon on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But, this was no ordinary Easter sermon, because he was going to daringly depart from the orthodox doctrine.
The good pastor preached his sermon in the towns of Hecla, then Riverton, then Hnausa, then Arnes, Gimli, and Willow Point. And by the time he returned to his home base in Riverton, they had changed the locks on the church door. He was no longer welcome. Shortly after Magnus Skaptason preached his Easter sermon, he and four of his congregations left the Icelandic Lutheran Church and joined the American Unitarian Association. I can only hope that I'm not as effective or provocative a preacher as Magnus Skaptason lest you lock me out of the church after I finish my Easter message.
So what was the orthodox doctrine from which Skaptason was departing? It's not an unusual doctrine; it's the doctrine which is preached in most mainline Christian congregations and certainly in the more conservative churches:
- First, that God exists in a trinity: a father, son and holy spirit, a single God-head in three persons, indivisible, yet separate. That's the doctrine of the trinity.
- Second, that Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating the apple in the garden of Eden, and since they had sinned against infinite God, their sin was infinite - to be born by all humanity for all time. This is the doctrine of original sin.
- Third, that all humanity could never atone. We could never make it up to God, because we sinned infinitely and yet we are mortal, finite beings. So, God, ever-merciful, sent Jesus down, his only begotten son, both god and man, to be sacrificed like a lamb on the altar. And Jesus' sacrifice was the infinite sacrifice necessary for God to forgive humanity for our transgressions in Eden. This is the doctrine of the atonement.
- Finally, only some of us are going to be good enough to get to heaven, right? And since God is all-knowing, God knows which of us are going to go to heaven even before we are born. And as for the rest of us, by far the vast majority, well the rest of us are going to hell to burn for eternity. These are the doctrines of pre-destination, the elect, and damnation.
I find this pretty scary theology. That's pretty spooky stuff. I don't think that's really a world I want to live in. And yet most people felt, and lots of people still feel, like they don't have a choice. It’s a pretty scary thing.
There are, however, other Christian theologies which are preached here on the Palouse and elsewhere, and some of those Christian theologies are believed and cherished right here in our congregation. These other Christian theologies also have roots that stretch deep into the good nourishing soil of our movement.
After Roger Lynn, the minister of the United Church spoke here a few months ago, I received a few disturbing phone calls from our members. They were couched in terms of "crisis of faith." And they said to me, "Joan, I'm a closet Christian." These people were coming out to me. "I'm a closet Christian, and I don't know if there is a place for me here in this congregation."
I can't tell you what kind of sadness I felt that our brothers and sisters in faith didn't feel welcome in our beloved community. It's true, and it needs to be celebrated that the humanists of the 1950's and 60's built this congregation and a good number of congregations in our movement. But the Christians started our movement. Surely there's still room for them in our communion.
Let me tell you a little about the roots of our movement in this nation. The old Puritan churches built by the passengers of the Mayflower and all those other early folks grew into Congregationalist churches, and the Congregationalist churches became the established religion of Boston and Massachusetts and New England and surroundings. These Congregationalist churches were similar to us in their grassroots polity, but they continued to spout the orthodox Calvinist doctrines of the trinity, original sin, the atonement, predestination, the elect, and damnation.
Over time, the Enlightenment blossomed to full bloom and society became more benevolent and more reasonable. Hence, some theology also became more benevolent and more reasonable.
The Congregationalist churches began to see a divide in their ranks between the orthodox Calvinists and the new liberals with their kinder, gentler God. Regardless of the widening gap, the orthodox and the liberals remained friends. They exchanged pulpits and shared the lord's supper and basically hung together.
But then one day, in 1805, Henry Ware, a liberal, was elected Hollis Professor of the Harvard Divinity School, thus delivering control of the school, the shaper of all young Divines in America, over to the liberal camp. Well, the orthodox were outraged, and not only stopped mingling with the liberals, not only did they build another theological school, but they also began accusing the too-big-for-their-boots liberals, of being Unitarian in their theology. Well, the name stuck, and here we are.
So the question is this Easter morning - the highest holiday on the Christian calendar - the question is "what did our Unitarian Universalist forebears have to say about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, if they weren't preaching the orthodoxy anymore than we do today?" The answer lies in two tracts written at the beginning of the 19th century. The first is Hosea Ballou's "Treaties on Atonement" and the second is William Ellery Channing's "Unitarian Christianity".
The Enlightenment's effect on these two preachers, with its emphasis on reason and its kinder and gentler God, can not be understated. Hosea Ballou brilliantly argued his points using comparative biblical passages and clear logic to knock down one orthodox doctrine after another. William Ellery Channing took advantage of the modern German biblical criticism which stated confidently that the bible was indeed the revealed truth of God, but it was recorded by men and for men. So when we interpret the bible, we have to use cultural and historical lenses. It's just the way we interpret the Bible today. Reason, logic, rationality were extremely important to Ballou and Channing. But make no mistake, both the Universalism and Unitarianism of the 19th century was primarily a biblical faith.
This was a time of great religious interest and public debates held all kinds of attention. Understanding a well argued point could mean the difference between one's eternal salvation and damnation. You could imagine that feelings ran fairly high over these discussions and contrasting doctrines. There's a story of a Universalist preacher giving a lecture one evening on the good news of Universalism. He was busy giving his lecture and a rock came hurtling through the window. It landed in a shower of glass beside the preacher. Well, he stooped down to pick it up, he hefted it in his hand, and he said to the congregation, "My friends, this is indeed a weighty argument, but it is neither scriptural nor rational."
So, what was Unitarian and Universalist Christianity in those 19th century days, and What is it today? Let's start at the top. Let's start with God. Both Unitarians and Universalists agreed that the doctrine of the trinity had no foundation in the Bible. Furthermore this three-in-one business just didn't make any sense. And moreover, the trinity detracted from wholesome worship. In Trinitarian worship, God the father - that mean old guy in the sky, the judge - had to play bad cop to the son's sweetness and light good cop - when everybody knows of course that God is all-loving and ever-forgiving and ever-welcoming and ever-beneficent. The bad cop thing just didn't work.
And what about Jesus? Well, both the Unitarians and Universalists agreed on biblical and scriptural grounds, that Jesus was sent by God on a divine mission - that's no different from anyone else - but while the orthodox said that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, the Unitarians said that Jesus was fully human, but no more divine than the rest of us.
Unitarians and Universalists also both made arguments, clear arguments, against the doctrine of original sin. It was simply unjust, unscriptural, and irrational. How could a finite Adam sin infinitely? That just doesn't make sense. How could a finite sin deserve eternal punishment? That's just not fair. And how could a loving parent God punish a child eternally? That’s just not right. Rather, the Unitarians said that we have the choice to do good or to do evil at any moment of the day. And the Universalists said we only sin because we live in these craving, carnal, mortal bodies. Once we shed these mortal coils, we'll sin no more, and we'll all be welcomed into our heavenly home. Moreover, the Universalists said sin is its own punishment. If we choose to sin, that's its own punishment, it's an estrangement from God. And if we choose to do good, well that's its own reward, that warm fuzzy feeling of communion with the Divine.
Both denominations were adamant that God was ever-loving, ever-beneficent, ever-welcoming, ever-just. And both denominations agreed that Jesus was in no way sent to earth to suffer in unmitigated agony to placate an angry God. That's just not the way it happened. Rather, Jesus was sent here to wake us up, to remind us to love God, and to remind us how to love again. Channing wrote that while "we gratefully acknowledge that he came to rescue us from punishment" - hell - "we believe that he was sent on a far nobler errand: namely, to deliver us from sin itself"; that is, to teach us how not to sin, how to love instead.
And as for the doctrine of the pre-destined elect who get to go to heaven while the rest of us burn in hell for eternity, well the Unitarians and the Universalists just rejected that outright. I mean, what kind of all-loving parent creates a world with more misery than happiness? And what kind of an all-loving parent sends a savior for everyone and yet only accepts a few home when we all knock on the door? Ballou wrote "Why the above ideas should have ever been imbibed by men of understanding and study, I can scarcely satisfy myself. Their absurdities are so glaring that it seems next to impossible that men of sobriety and sound judgment should ever avoid seeing them." Although Ballou wrote that in 1805 it seems very likely that our own Ralph Nielsen could have written it today for the Daily News.
So, in this Unitarian Universalist Christianity, we have:
- A single, loving, moral God;
- People like you and me and Adam and Eve who make mistakes and are punished for our errors in proportion to our errors in this life;
- A remarkable teacher, Jesus, who came to teach us in word and deed how to love each other and our God;
- And, the promise of eternity in which we will breathe the air of unbounded benevolence, knowing that heaven is big enough for all of us and universal nature will eventually be brought into perfect harmony with truth and holiness.
Oh, that is such good news! That's the good news. That's our forebears' good news for us and for everyone. For what then, in heaven's name, do we need Easter? Why the bloody and horrible crucifixion? Why the miraculous and irrational resurrection?
Well, it seems even the optimistic Channing, Ballou and the rest of all those liberals thought that human nature was recalcitrant, stubborn, belligerent, unwilling to change. Especially if the alternative to change is to stay in our comfortable rut, to satisfy the cravings of this carnal body, to avoid risk, or to act for short term gain. Humanity does seem just a little unwilling to change at times, doesn't it? Especially if change means facing that incredibly difficult task of living in loving community with our neighbors, our friends, and our enemies. Especially if change means feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and aiding the poor and the sick.
Now most of us, most of us here, when giving a divine mission like saving our public schools, or working to provide affordable health care for the elderly, or working for human rights and world peace, or teaching new forms of communication or being a fair and loving parent, spouse, citizen - most of us when giving a divine mission will work hard for our cause. We will stand up for what we believe, we will do what is necessary to be heard. Some of us will even go to great lengths for the cause of truth and justice and love.
The Easter story tells us that Jesus was given a divine mission, and he simply would not stand down. He would not stand down because he so loved the world. He would not stand down because he so loved us, regardless of the consequences of human nature. The crucifixion was merely a matter of killing the messenger. There was nothing sweet or saving about it. It was Jesus' life that was saving, not his death. Moreover, Jesus' life could not be restricted by death. He would not linger in death. Even if death was a secure insulating refuge from a cruel and imperfect and broken world as it must have been for him.
Jesus' story, Jesus' message tells us that he thought it was time to roll away the stone. Time to awaken new possibilities of life for himself and for all of us. The resurrection - the pinnacle of Christian theology, the Easter message - the resurrection, according to our forebears, bore witness to Jesus' message, his divine mission. The resurrection proved that love and justice can conquer death. We are stronger than death. Even our very rational forebears gave into the irrationality of hope.
Now whether or not Ballou and Channing believed literally in the resurrection, I don't know. In spite of their extremely detailed comments on just about everything else, they're kind of hazy on this one. But they claimed the resurrection, and they owned the resurrection, and they called themselves Christians for it.
These are the roots of our Unitarian and Universalist movements. Roots that nourish us into a something, roots that enable us to spring hopeful green shoots up from beneath the rotting leaves of despair, roots that enable us to bloom into the multi-spirited congregation that we are today, with leaves enjoying the light of truth and the warmth of love from all directions, all directions, including a leaf or two towards Christianity. So Happy Easter. And I beg you now, not to change the locks.
Sources and Further Reading
- Ballou, Hosea. A Treatise on Atonement. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1986.
- Cassara, Earnest. Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1971.
- Gumundson, V. Emil. The Icelandic Unitarian Connection. Wheatfield Press, Winnipeg, 1984.
- Mendelson, Jack. Channing: The Reluctant Radical. Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, 1979.
- Wintersteen, Prescott B. Christology in American Unitarianism. Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, Boston, 1977.
- Wright, Conrad. Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism: Channing, Emerson, Parker. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1986.
posted by UUCP Sermons at 7:54 AM
