4060 Starr King President's Lecture: Looking Back, Moving Forward

The Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker and the Rev. Dr. Gordon McKeeman

Sponsored by the Starr King School for the Ministry

Rev. Gordon McKeeman told the audience gathered for the Starr King President's Lecture that the title of his lecture was "Looking Backward, Moving Forward."

"Now about the title," said McKeeman, "it sounds foolish and perilous...." McKeeman paused while the audience laughed. "Probably is," he added in dry tones, to more laughter.

McKeeman, who started his career as a Universalist minister and is now retired, served as a parish minister as well as president of Starr King School for the Ministry in his long career. He was introduced by the current president of Starr King, Rev. Rebecca Parker, who said he is "known for a tenderness of heart that calls one to conversation with ever more candor."

McKeeman said he wished to reflect on events in recent Unitarian Universalist history, events in "most of which I was a participant." McKeeman began by telling about the 1947 biennial General Assembly of the Universalist Church of America, a meeting at which he was in attendance. Frederick May Eliot spoke at that meeting, appealing to Universalists to consider consolidating with the American Unitarian Association, "and so began the process" that eventually led to the consolidation of the two denominations. Consolidation resulted in the current Unitarian Universalist Association.

"But the road thereto was not a smooth highway," said McKeeman. A gradual path to consolidation did not work, and rather than returning to the status quo of having separate denominations, the two groups tried for fast merger. But the faster pace of merger meant that issues of theology and ecclesiology were avoided.

McKeeman maintained that it would have been good to have serious theological discussions at the time of consolidation. According to McKeeman, the central tenet of Unitarianism at the time was around holding Jesus as a human paradigm. Universalism, on the other hand, had different theological roots, with a deep-seated belief that "we are all one human family."

Almost 50 years after consolidation, said McKeeman, the Unitarian Universalist Association is still struggling to resolve questions about "our cosmic story," or the central story of the denomination. "Rejecting one story," that is, eliminating the cosmic story of orthodox Christianity, "does not eliminate the importance or desirability of having a story," he said.

"We offered what we appeared to have in common, namely freedom of belief," said McKeeman. But freedom of belief is but one stage on a person's faith journey. McKeeman asserted that people come to Unitarian Universalism asking for help to develop a "mature faith." However, a faith so deeply committed to freedom and individualism is really just an "adolescent faith," and so Unitarian Universalism is not necessarily able to help people achieve a mature faith.

Turning to ecclesiology, or the theory of religious institutions, McKeeman pointed out that the old Universalist Church of America and the old American Unitarian Association had important differences of method. Frederick May Eliot had called for Unitarians "to cease being merely an aggregation of separate and highly individual units" while he was president of the American Unitarian Association. McKeeman said that Eliot was in essence calling for the Unitarians to move from being a loose association towards becoming a true "church." According to McKeeman, a true church has a unity of purpose and a mission in a way that an association of local congregations can never have.

"In our passion for freedom, we have accepted the association of independent units," said McKeeman. If Unitarian Universalists are trying to confront a society that has placed individualism at the top of its hierarchy of its values, he said, we should not be puzzled by the impotence of a loose association when it comes time to do social justice. McKeeman also asserted that multiculturalism and anti-racism would make better progress in a church, rather than an association, because a true church would have good discipline and a common vision.

"Diversity, dear friends, is a given," he said. "Unity is an achievement one that has mostly escaped us." He called on Unitarian Universalists to create a gathered community dedicated to the task teaching the components of a "mature religious faith."

McKeeman offered the historic experience of Universalism as a corrective for current problems of theology and ecclesiology within Unitarian Universalism. He cited the Universalist process of ordination as an example of one way that the Universalist Church of America promoted a unity of purpose.

"Universalists did not have any provision for congregational ordination," he said. "My ordination, for example, was authorized by the Fellowship Committee of the Massachusetts Convention [of Universalists] and approved by the Central Committee [of the Universalist Church of America]." Unlike the Unitarians of the day, McKeeman was not ordained by the local congregation to which he had been called.

In the act of ordination, McKeeman said he promised "a cheerful support" of the laws and constituted authorities of the Universalist Church of America. "What that meant to me was that I was a Universalist minister [rather than minister of a local congregation], and wherever I was serving I was pledged to be a minister of the Universalist gospel." This type of ordination resulted in a unity of purpose throughout Universalism.

"It is possible that we might still not wish to be a church," said McKeeman. "But we should make the decision in a conscious way, and not by acquiescence and inattention."

Because Unitarian Universalists are resistant to becoming a truly unified institution, many problems arise. For example, he asked what underlies multiculturalism and anti-racism. "Freedom of religion? Not on your life!" he said.

"Moving forward," said McKeeman. "Where do we go from here? I resist the conclusion that we can't get there from here.... As a Universalist, I believe even the most meandering trail will eventually lead us home." He added, "We will have to undertake some serious thinking about what our most promising possibilities are."

He called for the kind of serious conversations Unitarian Universalists should have had in the 1960's. But he said we don't have the venue to hold those kind of conversations now. "These General Assemblies have become seductive carnivals," he said, but they do precious little to solve the core issues facing us. He said we are willing to save the world, but will not do the work of cleaning up our own institutional house.

"Personal freedom and individualism are not the last stops on the railroad, or on the religious journey," he concluded.

Reported by Dan Harper; edited by Jone Johnson Lewis

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