HomeOpening Comments – Rev. Bryce
The Unitarian Universalist approach to religion developed over time and owes a debt to many different influences.
At the time of the Reformation, the Protestant movement told people that they did not need a priest to intercede for them with God. It claimed that each of us has a right to read the Bible for ourselves and to decide for ourselves what any given text means.
The early Unitarian movement claimed that the Reason, and of individual Reason, was an important aspect of the search for religious truth.
In the 1860’s the American Unitarians approved a creed that included reference to the leadership of Jesus. A small group calling them selves the Free Religious Association withdrew from Unitarianism in protest not of claims about the leadership of Jesus, but in protest of the existence of a creed of any kind. Ultimately it was their approach to religion that was adopted.
This is a history of the rise to individualism in religion.
But there is something more than that. Creeds are the distillation of someone else’s experiences, thoughts and beliefs. They are summaries of or synopses of religious and spiritual truth. To the extent that anything points us toward deeper truth it is valuable. But to the extent that it becomes its own truth rather than a pathway, a doorway to what it only represents, it is a stumbling block. Creeds are too often a distillation of a distillation, because they are too detached from the experience they are meant to point towards. We end up defining and debating words, not having moments of personal openness to the divine that is present in every moment of life.
When the opportunity for individual search is used well, religion becomes not a set of statements or beliefs to accept but instead it becomes a set of possibilities to grapple with. It becomes a living, changing part of us. Whatever tradition we hold to, one with creeds or one without, that is the ultimate goal: for religion to be alive within us.
Our Unitarian Universalist religious education programs aimed at adults are designed to provide a setting where the individual can actively search their own heart, soul and mind for their own beliefs and religious truths.
The course Building Your Own Theology is one such course.
John Murray is going to speak about the course itself, and John Scheuneman is going to share some of his insights from the program.
REMARKS
ON LAST WINTER'S ADULT RE CLASS:
"BUILDING YOUR OWN THEOLOGY"
John
Murray
On a Tuesday evening in January, eleven of us gathered
for the first of eight sessions on BUILDING YOUR OWN THEOLOGY.
John Scheuneman, Chair of the Adult Religious Education
Committee, working with the Minister, made all the arrangements.
John then served as our facilitator for each session, helping us get
started on the evening's work.
Because the participants were free to share their own
intimate thoughts and experiences, we agreed to treat everyone's remarks as
confidential. So I can tell you a
little about the course and the topics we discussed, but nothing about who said
what.
We had a workbook, titled Building Your Own Theology,
2d edition, by Richard S. Gilbert, the UU minister in
The readings include excerpts from sacred texts and the
works of many different authors. There
are poems, essays, speeches, writings of social reformers, philosophers,
theologians. They touch on a wide
range of topics: faith, morals, history, psychology, politics, ethics, science.
As we advanced from session to session, each
participant was encouraged to develop and reduce to writing a personal credo.
Sharing this with the other participants was optional.
So what did it all amount to?
Together, we tackled some of the Great Questions:
·
Do our genes govern our moral behavior, or are we free agents
capable of choosing between right and wrong?
·
Do the ten commandments represent divine revelation, or simply
our cumulative human experience?
·
Is there such a thing as Ultimate Reality, and if so, are
humans capable of apprehending it?
·
Where is the line between legitimate self-regard, and due
regard for others?
·
Can we discern some human purpose or meaning in the cosmos, or
does it consist only of impersonal forces that are utterly indifferent to what
we know as life?
As a believer in Darwinian evolution, my unequivocal
answer to that last question is that the cosmos is neutral, indifferent,
uncaring. I think the physical
universe (excluding living beings that are part of it) is neither pro-life nor
anti-life; it is simply matter in an
active but unconscious state. But as
we humans encounter the cosmos, observe and study it, and react to it, I think
that, in a certain sense, we give it meaning by being part of it and by letting
it become part of our consciousness. Maybe
this gets close to what Margaret Fuller meant when she said, "I accept the
universe."
If speculating about such questions, and listening to
the speculations of others, is something you find intriguing, even exciting, I
recommend that you sign up for the next class.
And if you're one of those UUs who sometimes ask,
"What exactly is it that we UU's believe?", this course is a must for
you! You'll find out that the
beliefs of individual UUs can differ widely.
After listening to the others, you could even find yourself deciding to
change some of your own beliefs!
The new pope, Benedict XVI, recently gave a speech in
which he warned against what he called "do-it-yourself religion."
Of course he represents a religion that is professionally designed and
time-tested. Like any quality
product, it carries a lifetime guarantee. Even
an after-lifetime guarantee. So
naturally the Holy Father frowns on amateurs like us trying to figure it out for
ourselves. I suppose he fears we'll
get it all wrong and go to hell as a result.
But what if the most inspiring, the most rewarding
religion is precisely the one you work out for yourself?
The one you have taken the trouble to think through?
The one you are free to change your mind about from time to time?
It's been more than 50 years since I decided to
distance myself from my inherited Christian faith by joining a Unitarian
congregation. I felt great
relief at having taken that step. No
longer did I have to pretend to myself or others that I believed in an
omniscient God or a personal Savior. I
felt I now had a religion that respected my intelligence and my humanity, and
that upheld the moral and ethical ideals I believed in.
The passing years haven't changed that, but have only
reinforced my UU convictions. The
class in Building Your Own Theology clarified my belief that the heart of
religion is not so much in the destination as in the journey.
In retrospect, I remember those winter evenings as an
exciting exploration into the unknown, with the most interesting and amiable
traveling companions you could possibly ask for!
A
Short Note on Prayer
John
Scheuneman. Summer, 2005.
I spent a lot of time last Spring working on my credo statement for the "Building Your Own Theology" workshop. One of the things I thought about was prayer. I came to a new view of it – new for me, at least - and that's what this note is about.
In Varieties of Religious Experience, William James defines prayer as "every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine." This includes the usual sense of prayer as petition, but opens the possibility of other meanings. James goes on to remind readers of his view that religion, "apart from ecclesiastical and theological complications," consists in "the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related." Prayer in his wider sense, says William James, is the essence of religion and it is not real unless it does really affect the world of facts and some things happen only because of it. I'd say that's a pretty stringent definition and it's the one I'm using here.
I'm too much of a humanist to believe in praying for rain, to take one example. On the other hand, a sense of human limitation is an important part of my world view, so my religion includes a sense of the divine, meaning things that are of, from, or like God, things that are more than humanly excellent, gifted, or beautiful. Some sense of connection to some divine higher power is needed for there to be a possibility of prayer.
The form of prayer I'm proposing is a certain kind of thinking. This prayer-thinking is the voluntary, conscious work and worry that's involved in problem solving. It's part of the creative process, but only part. After thinking, worrying, and working to solve a problem, sometimes you get an insight that leads to a solution. The insight part of the creative process is mysterious, not logical and not under rational control. You can't command insight to occur. The mind, when it does provide insight, hatches it outside of conscious control or awareness. And I believe this happens to everyone, not just to people we call creative, like writers, artists, and scientists.
If thinking is prayer and insight is the answer to the prayer, I certainly feel that there is some sort of intercourse, a two-way conversation. The world of facts is affected and of course I don't expect to solve my problems without thinking about them. But is there anything divine in this? Isn't it just something that all humans do because they are human?
Thinking means using your mind, a divine gift and blessing. Of the divine and from the divine, more than humanly excellent. Your mind is part of your human self, which is the result of genetics and nurture and an enterprise tracing back through your parents, their parents, and back and back and back. Way back to before the human species even existed. I certainly feel awe and a sense of the divine when I ponder my connection to this history. And it isn't a stretch for me to consider my voluntary thinking to be a call on forces not under my control, gifts and blessings connected to something stretching back and back and back.
I'm sure that many people would not see thinking as a form of prayer. Many would see my argument as nothing but word play. All I can say is that thinking isn't mundane for me any more. The creative process has a spiritual value that I wish I had sensed decades ago.
Closing Comments – Rev. Bryce
A few weeks ago at a meeting, we were discussing the impact of the Coming Of Age program on our young people, and how meaningful the COA service is each year. Someone said to me that what we need in this congregation is a Coming Of Age program for adults.
Building Your Own Theology is precisely that. It is a program that encourages the individual search for truth and meaning.
In fact, all of the programs sponsored by the Continuing Religious Education Committee—what used to be called Adult Religious Education—are aimed at providing that same opportunity. The goal is not to inculcate any particular belief, but to provide a space where we can think through and feel through a variety of beliefs, where we can challenge our own beliefs, where we can change and grow.
Each year we say to our young people in the Coming Of Age program, “You are only at the beginning of your journey; religious and spiritual growth is a life-long process”. Our Continuing Religious Education program is designed to foster that very search.
Whether in a formal program of study, or in our own hearts, may we ever be open to new truth, new awareness, and to new visions of life, hope and possibility.
And may we help one another in our spiritual quests.
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