|
|
Home | FAQs | Site Map | Member Intranet |
| Our Ministers | Background | Selected Sermons: A Profoundly Robust… | ||||
|
A Profoundly Robust Unitarian Universalism The Reverend Mark Edmiston-Lange, March 18, 2007 You probably do not remember the name Meredith Hunter. He was a man who was stabbed to death at Altmont Motorsports Park on December 6th, 1969. Some of you may know that Altamont is the name used to describe a free concert whose lead act was the Rolling Stones. The Hell’s Angels had been asked to provide crowd control, a role which they had frequently played at Grateful Dead concerts. At Altamont, however, the crowd of about 300,000 was just about uncontrollable. Meredith had brought a handgun to the concert and a member of the Hell’s Angels saw it and stabbed Meredith repeatedly. A jury found that the biker had acted in self-defense although the sequence of events was never crystal clear. Altamont followed another concert, not originally free but one that ended up being free, Woodstock, held on farmer Max Yasgur’s alfalfa field from August 15 to 18th in 1969. These two concerts are important bookends in the cultural history of the United States. Several people also died, accidentally, at Woodstock but the entire three day period was characterized by polite considerate cooperative behaviors on the part of the 500,000 people who attended. I bring up what may be for some of you ancient history because these two events mirror some history of Unitarian Universalism. Altamont is often described as the end of the “hippie” era. 1969 was also the end of Unitarian Universalism. That might strike you as a rather odd and off-putting thing to write. Okay, I wrote it for dramatic affect. And yes, there still are Unitarian Universalist Churches. Certainly there still are many people who call themselves Unitarian Universalists. And yes, there still are Unitarian Universalist ministers. I know, I am one. And I would not and am quite certain that I could not be anything but a Unitarian Universalist minister. I decided to be a Unitarian Universalist minister when I was 16, in the summer of 1968. Yes, I was an odd kid, who has grown up to be an odd adult. And you can be quite certain that I am not a Unitarian Universalist by default. If you tested my DNA you would discover that all my genes are bent into little “u’s.” So what do I really mean when I write, “1969 was the end of Unitarian Universalism?” It became rather common for Unitarian Universalists in the 1970s and 80s to notice that we were excellent at describing what we didn’t believe. We didn’t believe in Biblical literalism, we didn’t believe in supernatural deities. Many proudly became defiantly anti-Christian. But our clarity about what we didn’t believe was not matched by a clarity about what we did believe as a religious community. It is true that we did believe in concepts, like “justice” but that is hardly a distinctive Unitarian Universalist belief. That is, it is very hard to find people who don’t believe in justice. Acting on this perception about our missing positive identity the Unitarian Universalist Association appointed a blue ribbon commission that devised a continent wide process for creating a statement clarifying our positive identity. That process eventually brought us the Seven Principles, which on the whole have given us something positive to say about ourselves. We Unitarian Universalists, for instance, are for the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. I do not find myself in disagreement with any of the principles. I suspect that holds for most of you. But have you ever wondered if the principles are an adequate description of the real heart and sinew, mind and backbone of a religious community? You might surmise by now that my answer to that question would be, “no.” One of them comes closest to my own personal reasons for a devotion to Unitarian Universalism, principle #4, which states that we promote a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” This devotion is born out of a belief that religion as it is practiced around the globe is filled with great gobs of very earnest and often well intentioned dishonesty. I sometimes think that people ought to know better than accept the amazing stuff religion asks them to swallow. Don’t even bother with the obvious zaniness of people getting excited about an image of the Virgin Mary appearing on a pizza pan. It strikes me as bizarre that in the year 2007 people believe that the Bible contains literal instructions from God. Humankind’s first fundamentalists were the hapless Easter Islanders who went to their graves building ever bigger statues. That is, when there seems to be a lot of trouble afoot human beings are greatly tempted to believe that merely trying harder at older solutions will solve the trouble. So fundamentalists in this country rise up and say, “We need unwavering, tall, heavyweight Christianity!” I can hardly blame people for trying to find some comfort amidst all the reasons for feeling troubled. But at the same time, somebody has got to be working hard at real solutions to the dilemmas we face. Somebody’s got to be willing to face the harsh realities and seek some way through the murk ahead. Somebody’s got to be willing to forego the easy answers so that we do not spend precious hours wandering down blind alleys. And I believe that somebody is you and I as Unitarian Universalists. I believe that this task is ours because at the very least I am not the only one who feels strongly about honesty. You probably would not be a Unitarian Universalist if you thought that a free and responsible search for truth was negotiable. You probably would not be Unitarian Universalist if you too did not feel strongly about honesty in religion. Indeed, one way to tell if you are a Unitarian Universalist is if you are remarkably unwilling to accept the stuff that traditional religions think you need to accept. And so you, no less than I, have probably wondered, “Then why are so many people willing to believe things that are unbelievable?” There are all kinds of pejorative ways to answer that question but I think insulting the intelligence of other human beings is not only too ugly an answer but also lets us off the hook. That is, I think the true reason why so many people have retrenched into believing unbelievable things is because you and I have not come up with an adequate reason to do otherwise. We may feel it is sufficient to merely topple fundamentalist statues, but unless we come up with a sufficiently robust alternative, I don’t believe it is actually all that unreasonable for people to think, “Well nothing else seems to be working, so let’s put the statue back up.” They don’t know what else to do as they look upon our world with its rank materialism, superficiality and violence. They don’t know what else to do because you and I have not come up with a persuasive alternative. Perhaps another way to describe our omission is that our faith commitments as Unitarian Universalists led us right up to Woodstock. Trust the human spirit, trust human beings’ ability to reason together. Learn to be a free spirit! Meanwhile the rest of the world is living in Altamont with its self-indulgence, simmering tension and outbreaks of terrifying violence. It is easy enough for me to claim that fundamentalism won’t solve the problems of Altamont. What is more difficult for me to admit but I think is also true—we have not come up with solutions to the problem of Altamont. A book review in a recent Houston Chronicle Zest magazine introduced American Fascists by Chris Hedges. Hedges reports on the growing influence of the Christian Dominion movement which seeks to, in essence, replace constitutional law with Christian ideology. The reviewer Brad Tyer writes, “What Hedges fails to address head-on is the awkward truth that if the threat he’s unearthed is real, it’s because secular humanism is losing its appeal. Hedges too often simply shows the” irrational claims of the fundamentalist movement “—trusting that a rational audience, which has already dismissed fundamentalism’s magic show, will find resolve. But if the fundamentalist position is so self-evidently absurd, what are so many people choosing fundamentalism? It’s a tough question, but no battle for the soul of America is likely to be won without answering it.” It is a tough question, and it is imperative that we answer it. Yet can we? Yes. We have before. Our current answer depends on remembering something we have forgotten and making some deep refinements of some of our most longstanding commitments. As to what we have forgotten? It might surprise you to know the answer to the question, “What was the most influential church in Washington , D.C. in 1955?” The answer? All Souls Unitarian Church on Howard Street. Certainly people still went to many other churches but it was widely believed they went to such other churches out of mere habit. The church that was the future, the church that was exciting, the church that had the ear of much of Washington D.C.’s and the nation’s leadership was All Souls. It was not unusual for the words of A. Powell Davies, the minister, to be quoted as a matter of course in the Washington Post. The things which those Unitarians of that era believed are not all that radically different from what Unitarian Universalists believe today—freedom, reason, tolerance. Those have been the big three, the central concerns of Unitarian Universalism wherever and whenever it has taken root. So what is different? Certainly the world has changed and we along with it. But in those ensuing decades we forgot or lost something—the conviction that we could create a very successful future for humankind. A Powell Davies was quite certain about the vector of history. The way ahead to a positive future would be difficult but it was clearly something that human beings could accomplish. His confidence was not merely a form of arrogance. He thought he had at his disposal two drivers for that positive outcome. These drivers formed a mighty engine that would allow us to advance with vigor no matter the terrain which lay before us. And what were these drivers? A Powell Davies and his generation of Unitarians and Universalists believed deeply in the twin powers of science and education. Science and education would unlock every secret, find a solution to every problem. Our future would be, as long as we used these two drivers, nothing short of marvelous. The ample sunniness of A Powell Davies faith made his Unitarianism very compelling. Many new churches sprang up and people flocked to Unitarian doors because those Unitarians thought they knew where they were going and the destination was very attractive. And we, we will not really grow unless we are able to tell where we as Unitarian Universalists are going and that our destination is also very attractive. The utter necessity of a sense of direction is the part of our heritage that we have forgotten. It follows that we will not really grow in any meaningful way until we recapture a sense of where we intend to go. We have tried very hard, out of a mistaken, I think, sense of intellectual honesty, to act as if religion is all about the journey and not the direction that journey is taking us. But God help us if it turns out that we are merely acting like a bunch of lemmings—also on a journey. Somebody at the very least has got to stand up and say clearly and distinctively, “Hey! There’s a humongous cliff just ahead and if we keep taking our wonderful journey this way we are all going to drown in the sea!” But, and this is a crucial difference to understand, merely issuing a warning is insufficient. The dilemma is that some other factions in our society claim with utter conviction that “just on the other side of that horizon you will fall right into the arms of God! Don’t you want to fall into the arms of God!” If we are going to have any hope of urging people to follow a different course, then we have to move beyond merely warning and describe how the “arms of God” will truly be encountered. Of course, confidence about the future cannot be manufactured out of thin air. Our need to feel a sense of robust purpose has to be based on something other than our desire to be spiritually winsome. And surely part of our dilemma is that both science and education do not have nearly the prestige they once enjoyed in our society. It is not unusual for people to think that science has not only brought us wonders—but also nightmares. And of course, education has become a battleground of competing political, social and religious interests. But just as surely, part of our ability to create any kind of meaningful future will come when scientific inquiry and education are restored to their former positions of influence and importance in our society. Anyone who thinks we will arrive at any positive place by discounting the insights of scientific knowledge and by refusing to make the necessary public investment in education is just not worth taking very seriously. But a renewed commitment to science and education alone will not help us overcome the destructive world of Altamont. There is still one element missing. In A. Powell Davies’ world the realms of education and science did not operate on an entirely blank slate. No, those Unitarian Universalists believed unequivocally in refining rationality in human expression so that all else would be squeezed out. Education was devoted toward creating that perfectly reasoning human being, and science would thus become that reasoning being’s perfect tool. Culture was important, in the form of the high arts, but existed for the purpose of relieving the furrowed brow of the reasoning being. You can perhaps see where this equation fell apart. At the very least, reason cannot do much more than shake its head in amazement at all the destructive and self-destructive behaviors that thrive in Altamont. Reasoning is helpless in coping with addiction. Reason is no match for the many goblins of mental illness that simmer under loose wraps in so many lives. And reason’s coinage is terribly debased when it is suspected of being used to cover up rather than explicate and defeat the wages of injustice, cruelty and fraud. And as reason’s virtue is thus seen as tarnished, we Unitarian Universalists thus lost our confident voice and our way. There has been no religious community in our society that was seen as so closely allied with reasoned faith. When reason ruled, we rocked. But when reason became suspect so did we. So what to do? Just this: we must greatly deepen our understanding of human consciousness, we must profoundly embrace all that consciousness can accomplish within the context of our own evolutionary unfolding as a creature. The power of reasoning is substantial, but it is not alone sufficient. We must certainly become far more conversant with the amazing role that emotional states have always played in our lives. Reasoning will only again become helpful when we stop discounting emotional realities. As our emotions are generated in our brains at a more elemental level than the structures of reason, we simply have to acknowledge the power that emotions exert all the time over almost all that we think and do. Second, we must also acknowledge how our evolution as a species has greatly shaped our thinking and feeling. The evolutionary history of our brains reveals that all our thought processes are heavily influenced by evolutionary tasks. That is, what we think we are thinking and what our brains are actually doing are not always the same thing. Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary to recognize that consciousness is not some static quantum but rather an evolving organism that is undergoing adaptation, right now, seeking avenues for success. It may occur to you that including emotional reality and evolutionary process in our understanding of consciousness is just way too complicated. But there is astounding research being conducted right now that is providing an increasingly detailed understanding of all the amazing and rather odd things that consciousness does. That research increasingly reveals that the only way out of Altamont depends upon our ability to understand the complex realities that led Meredith Hunter to bring that handgun to that concert. Even more, the only real way out of Altamont depends upon our ability to build with our consciousness a world in which Meredith Hunter no longer feels any need to bring a handgun—any place. Can we actually do that? Of course we can. And furthermore, it is maybe not quite as complicated as it may seem. Some of the feeling of difficulty can be traced back to the unfamiliarity of the terrain we must travel. But as we move, so will we become more adept. But there is one more saving truth in this effort. The very good news is that evolution really does rule. We don’t need to create it. We just need to pay attention to it, we just need to listen more carefully to our own evolving in the world in which we find ourselves. You see, even our own increased desire to understand consciousness is an evolutionary drive. And not one of us will bring the world of which we dream into being by ourselves. We are each part of a astoundingly immense process and our lives are unfold within it. We must learn to trust that process and accept that even as we each take responsibility for our living within it, it still rules. And you can tell, you know, even with all your doubts, all your questions, all your fears, when you are on the right path. You can tell because it feels like grace. You feel, even with all the perspiration, that you are on an amazing path which has been given to you to follow. Now if it seems easy, think—“h’m lemmings.” If it is hard, think—there by the grace of God go I. |
|
Contact Emerson Webmasters |
©2007 Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church 1900 Bering Drive | Houston, Texas 77057 | Phone (713) 782-8250 Unitarian Universalists—The Uncommon Denomination |
Back to Top |
