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Rev. Lee Barker |
2004 Plenary I
“Language of Reverence”
Presented by Meadville Lombard Theological School
Lee Barker, President and Professor of Ministry:
Meadville Lombard Theological School is especially pleased to
serve as one of the principals in Unitarian Universalism’s
discussion about vocabularies of reverence and I am equally delighted
to share this time with two of our School’s professors, Dr.
Thandeka and Dr. Dean Grodzins, each of whom will be introduced
more fully in a few moments.
Meadville Lombard has been at this conversational table for a while.
As President Sinkford has noted, it was a lecture by our own professor
David Bumbaugh that helped him to articulate his first thinking
on the subject back in 2001. Tomorrow on Sunday, professor Bumbaugh
will offer a workshop titled “Language of Reverence Revisited”,
in which he will assess all that happened in our movement around
this topic since that original paper was written. I should also
add that Meadville Lombard has now published a book of essays and
sermons titled, A Language of Reverence, that it is available
in the UUA bookstore.
It is Meadville’s intention to add to the clarity and structure
of this denominational conversation this morning, as well. At the
conclusion of our oral presentation, I am going to ask the assembly
to reflect on two questions that are central to this conversation.
First, “How are you deepened by your experience of Unitarian
Universalism?” Second, I will ask you to be an objective observer,
to take a step back and take note of the key words you used to answer
that question.
These were issues that presented themselves to me back in 1987
when I pulled what could be considered a “fast one”
on the congregation I was serving in Montclair, New Jersey. After
using strictly philosophical language in the first several years
of my ministry there, I began to use words that I had until then,
ceded to more traditional believers.
My words changed almost over night, but it was the not so immediate
unfolding of my life that led to the change. In the years I had
been with that congregation I’d been through the ups and downs
of love and discovered something deep inside that I could rely on
even in that uncertainty. I’d found new ways I could move
on with my life even after I had missed the mark of living up to
my best self and hurt others I loved. I found that I received profound
gifts and pleasures in this life that had been wholly underserved
by me. And I had become acquainted with the hard knock of death.
One particular death was my straw. In 1987 my niece Hannah, six
months old, was found dead in her crib.
As terrible as that was for me I had no trouble recognizing that
it was infinitely more terrible for my sister and brother-in-law.
As I watched them pick up and put their lives back together again,
and saw so closely the business of restoration and renewal and the
survivability of love, I knew it was time for me to begin to use
some new words.
Gulp! I didn’t want to do it. I loved that congregation in
New Jersey. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I didn’t
want to risk losing their favor.
But I had no real choice in the matter. I was brought up in a
Universalist home and I was taught that one must be true to one’s
religious convictions and my convictions were leading me to employ
what we now call a language of reverence.
I underestimated that congregation. They took my shift in stride
and I was able to serve them for many more years of productive ministry.
I have since come to understand why. First, they had a good sense
of Unitarian Universalist history. They knew, over the years, we
have tussled over language in so many ways. That is an element of
the process we use to define who we are as a religious movement,
a movement that claims something greater than creed to hold us in
religious community. They weren’t threatened by the conversation
because they understood its place and its value. And second, they
had a good sense of theology. They understood that religious growth
is not dependent upon agreement with a minister over matters of
theology or language. The hope for religious growth comes in the
ability to seek understanding from another, in the ability to remain
open to another. That is how we tie in religious community. That
is how we grow in religious community.
So today, Meadville Lombard advances the conversation around the
language of reverence through two presentations, one historical,
one theological. First, I introduce to you Meadville Lombard professor
Dean Grodzins, who will explore for us some of the historical foundations
of this conversation. Dean is the editor of the book I referred
to earlier, A Language of Reverence. He is also the author
of the book, American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism.
Dean Grodzins:
UUs are grappling with the problem of religious language, but
this is nothing new. The Unitarian and Universalist traditions have
been grappling with this problem, in one form or another, for over
two hundred years. The UU traditions have always struggled with
how a creedless faith, one that is liberally welcoming, can also
have a meaningful vocabulary, one that reinforces bonds of fellowship
and meets the spiritual needs of individuals and communities. UUs
have struggled continually to find religious language that is specific
and vibrant enough to be useful to the faithful, and yet broad and
general enough to prevent exclusion.
In 1803, the Universalists, at their general convention in Winchester,
New Hampshire, wrote a famous Profession of Faith. They tried hard
to avoid creating anything resembling the exclusive creeds they
knew. The Calvinists’ Westminister Confession had 33 detailed
chapters, but the Winchester Profession had only three broadly worded
statements, declaring belief in the Bible as a revelation, in God,
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and universal salvation, and in the value
of upright behavior; the Winchester delegates even added an “escape
clause,” which allowed churches and associations to add their
own doctrines. Nonetheless, one delegate worried that although this
Profession seemed “harmless” enough, like a calf whose
“horns have not yet made their appearance,” it would
“soon grow older—its horns will grow, and then it will
begin to hook.”
This delegate was right to worry. Eventually, Universalists came
along who began to question what the Winchester delegates took for
granted, that the Bible was a miraculous revelation. To thwart these
innovators, the denomination, in 1870, dropped their “escape
clause,” and two years later dis-fellowshipped a Universalist
minister from Minnesota, Herman Bisbee, because he denied that the
biblical miracles had actually happened. Yet the Universalists came
to repent having created a verbal bull, with horns that hooked.
In 1899, the denomination removed the horns by reinstating the escape
clause, and also asserting that no “precise form of words,
is required as a condition of fellowship.”
The Unitarians, meanwhile, emerged as a denomination in the early
19th century in a fight with Calvinists, who denied them fellowship
because the liberals rejected doctrines the Calvinist considered
vital, such as original sin and the Trinity. In response, Unitarians
made a point to distinguish between religion and theology. Fellowship,
the Unitarians argued, should be based on people’s religion,
not on their theological speculations.
The distinction between religion and theology seemed clear enough,
yet soon Unitarians realized that they disagreed where to draw the
line. Eventually Unitarians came along, Transcendentalists like
Theodore Parker, who denied what the first generation of Unitarians
took for granted, that belief in the miracles, in the Bible as a
guide to faith and practice, in Jesus as a mediator, were essential
to being religious. Most Unitarians of the 1840s and ’50s
disagreed with the Transcendentalists; they denounced Parker as
an infidel and unofficially denied him fellowship. Unitarians came
to repent their treatment of Parker. They now hail him as a hero
of the free pulpit.
I could point to many other examples of Unitarians and Universalist
fighting over religious language. In the late 19th century, they
fought over the acceptability of “Free Religionists,”
who rejected even Christian symbols. In the early 20th century,
they fought over the acceptability of Humanists, some of whom rejected
God talk altogether. These fights were all, in the end, resolved
in favor of inclusion, and they left to Unitarian Universalism a
legacy of great sensitivity—some would say excessive caution
and circumspection—in using religious language. They also
left a legacy, which I think is a very valuable one, of recognition
that religion and theology are distinct, and that “no form
of words” can fully express what religion is.
Today, Unitarian Universalists are grappling with the problem of
the “language of reverence.” Driving this debate is
a widespread sense that UUism is not living up to its potential
as a religious movement—that UUs do not retain enough of their
youth, do not attract enough newcomers, do not have a high enough
profile in matters of public witness. People wonder whether these
problems would be eased or solved if only UUs would talk differently
about religion—if they would use more theistic language, for
example, or more poetic language. This discussion makes some UUs
uneasy, because they fear that certain forms of words exclude them,
as they once excluded Herman Bisbee and Theodore Parker. In this
way, the current debate seems to resemble the old debates I have
just mentioned.
I believe that UUism can transcend the old debates, and perhaps
also live up to its potential as a religious movement, if UUs focus
less on how they talk about religion, and more
on how they do religion. I am not suggesting that the problem
of religious language is unimportant—far from it. Religious
language must always be adapted or invented to meet the current
needs of each religious community. Moreover, those who use different
religious vocabularies—Christian vocabularies, for example,
or Humanist, or Pagan—must learn to speak together, which
is the central challenge of religious pluralism, and an important
protection against religious exclusion. But the first step to ensuring
that the needs of the current UU community are met, and that these
different religious vocabularies can be made cognate, is to realize
that religion is above all something that you do. UUs, I have observed,
often fail to realize this.
UUs tend to recognize and celebrate only a certain aspect of their
faith: that which is rational and concerned with transcendent things.
This aspect of UUism involves principally what UUs say. UUs often
fail to recognize and celebrate another aspect of their faith: that
which is ritualistic, emotive, and embodied. This other aspect of
UUism involves principally what UUs do.
I am talking about UU religious practice. UUs have only
recognized and celebrated one form of religious practice: social
justice work. They are certainly right to recognize and celebrate
this. Yet social justice work is only one part of a universe of
activities encompassed by the concept of “religious practice.”
UU religious practice includes communion services, total immersion
baptisms, and chalice lightings; spiritualist séances, Christmas
tree parties, Pagan solstice dances, and potluck dinners. It includes
practicing homeopathy and phrenology. It includes organizing book
clubs, sewing circles, singing groups, and sports teams. It includes
observing annual days of feasting and fasting. It includes the building
of church kitchens.
Each of these practices has been, at least for a time, common among
Unitarians, Universalists, or UUs; some of the most controversial
of these practices (spiritualist séances, for example) have
been adopted not just by marginal figures, but by the great heroes
of the UU tradition. Yet when UUs write accounts of their own movement,
particularly histories, these practices are almost always slighted,
or altogether ignored. They are nearly invisible. The history of
Unitarian Universalist religious practice has not been written.
Yet the vital element of any religion—the one thing that makes
it a lived experience—is its practice. Through practices,
more even than words, people deal with joy and suffering, with the
great transitions of their lives, and with the struggles of community.
Practice, I believe, is the vital if under-recognized element in
Unitarian Universalism.
If it were truly recognized and celebrated, then UUs could more
easily see that the hopes they have for a new, more effective religious
language could only be realized if that language were grounded in
religious practice. The different UU vocabularies of faith—Christian,
for example, or Humanist, or Pagan—could then more easily
be seen as having common referents in human experience, and a pluralist
dialogue could more easily be opened between them. If the great
intellectual heritage of UUism is right—if religion is not
theology, nor a form of words—then the salvation of UUism
cannot be found in what UUs say. It can only be found in what UUs
do.
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