Does Theology Matter? Confessions of a Reverent Heretic Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society The Reverend Lyn Oglesby, Ph.D.

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1 Does Theology Matter? Confessions of a Reverent Heretic Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society The Reverend Lyn Oglesby, Ph.D. August 17, 2014 I was standing in the pews of the Tokyo Union Church in the fall of The Tokyo Union Church is ecumenical in spirit, and serves mostly Western expatriates corporate business families on assignment to Tokyo, longtime foreign residents of Japan, some students, tourists, and a smattering of Japanese citizens. The building is a beautiful traditional Christian church, with a magnificent new stained glass window behind the dais, a church with wooden pews and a wooden pulpit, simple in the Presbyterian tradition. The church is located smack dab in a busy commercial section up the street from a large antique store that is popular with foreigners, and an area further down that has a large green or park, where Japanese teens gather on weekends wearing tee shirts that make statements, and outrageous costumes and gear. A way for them to express their individuality in a culture where the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Although the Tokyo Union Church welcomes persons of all faiths, it was founded by Presbyterian missionaries, and follows the

2 Christian tradition in its liturgies and services. Its ministers usually come from the Presbyterian denomination in the United States. So I was standing there mindlessly reciting the Presbyterian version of Nicene Creed, also known as the Apostles Creed, just as I had from childhood. It goes like this: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen. i Indeed, this version is posted by the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Bryan, Texas, near College Station, home of the Texas Aggies. I grew up saying these words every Sunday I was in church, and that was most Sundays. No one ever explained what they meant

3 or where the words had come from, but they were essential to my inclusion and acceptance in the Christian faith, as interpreted by the Presbyterian Church. So there I stood, mindlessly repeating until suddenly I paid attention to the words, for the first time in my 43- year- old life. Can you believe that? I was 43 years old before I ever listened to what I was reciting just about every Sunday? In Texas, we call that having dirt for brains, except we say something a lot more pungent than dirt! And there the journey began. I arranged a meeting with one of the ministers, a new young minister right out of seminary. I explained to her that I felt insincere, that I didn t believe in the virgin birth. I didn t believe in the resurrection of Jesus or anybody else, and I asked her how I could still come to church if I could not say those words. Her response astounded me. Oh no, don t worry about that. None of us believe in that stuff any more. We are all post- Newtonian and don t interpret the Bible literally. I noted that she said post- Newtonian, not post- modern, but that s another topic for another day. I learned that most modern theologians and theological schools no longer teach a literal translation of the Bible, and

4 consider most of the Bible stories as metaphor. Symbolic language. And so I asked, Why, then, do you continue to use these creeds in every service? Why do you administer communion, and refer to the symbolic body of Christ and the blood of Christ, if you don t believe he was born of a virgin and that he and his body went swoosh up to heaven on the third day so he could sit at the right hand of God the Father? If you don t believe it, why do you still teach it in Sunday school, and why do you ask people to make a profession of faith in that stuff when they want to join the church? She smiled, rolled her eyes, and said, Well, institutions don t change very quickly. And if I don t follow the script, and the party line then I can t be a Presbyterian minister. Is this hypocrisy or simply cultural lag? I don t know but it is what it is. In Washington DC, my home is near a large conservative Jewish synagogue. An attorney friend of mine who attends told me that he has had several meetings with the head rabbi to discuss religion. He s learned that the rabbi s theology has evolved into something very close to contemporary Buddhism. But of course, he can t say that to his congregation! And, as you probably know, Buddhism is not a theistic religion. So that is a big deal for a prominent rabbi!

5 Friends, with all due respect, a lot of religious doctrine and a lot of theology is political, about power and control. Witness the ISIS movement in northern Iraq and southern Syria. The Emperor Constantine, Constantine the Great, was the first Roman Emperor ( ) to convert to Christianity. His wanted to consolidate his vast empire and make it easier to govern and control. So he turned to the church and the bishops. He called all the bishops in his empire to a meeting in Nicea, now known as Iznik, to discuss the true meaning of the Christian faith. This was in 325 AD, that s 325 years after the birth of Jesus. They had quite a pow wow, and there was a big discussion of whether Jesus was God, a man, the Son of God, or what. And that was the question. I suppose youall have heard of The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Right? That s the Trinity. All one and the same, equal. The bishops discussed this in terms of the philosophy of Origen of Alexandria, as represented by Arius, a Libyan. Bishop. According to Origen, The God and Father, who holds the universe together, is superior to every being that exists, for he imparts to each one from his own existence that which each one is; the Son, being less than the Father, is superior to rational creatures alone (for he [the Son] is second to the Father); the Holy Spirit is still less, and dwells within

6 the saints alone. So that in this way the power of the Father is greater than that both the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the power of the Son is more than that of the Holy Spirit, and in turn the power of the Holy Spirit exceeds that of every other holy being (because the Holy Spirit resides in saints)(fragment 9 [Koetschau] tr. Butterworth 1966, pp , and footnote). This graded hierarchy reveals an allotment of power to the second and third members of the Trinity: the Father s power is universal, but the Son s corresponds only to rational creatures, while the Spirit s power corresponds strictly to the saints or those who have achieved salvation. ii Arius was a Libyan bishop whose religious opinions were partially derived from Origen, and his views also differed from the established church. Arius developed teachings and doctrines that also opposed the notion of the Trinity. Arius professed that: 1. The Logos or Word and the Father were not of the same essence Recall the beginning of the Book of John; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. iii Arius is saying that the Word and the Father/God were not the same. Arius contradicted the scripture according to John.

7 2. Arius also said that The Son was a created being, He was a human being not a God. 3. Although God was the creator of the worlds, and must therefore have existed before all the worlds and before all time, there was a time when Christ did not exist. iv So Arius clearly did not believe in the Trinity or that the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit were one and the same. Arius was pretty rational and had developed quite a following, so he and his ideas were a threat to the dominant theology (the Trinity) and the institution of the Church. At the Council of Nicea, Constantine and a lot of other bishops ganged up on Arius, and when the vote came on whether to accept the Trinity as the Doctrine of the Church, they significantly outvoted Arius, and Emperor Constantine banished him. The Council of Nicea, a meeting called by an emperor to consolidate his power, adopted the doctrine of the Trinity that became the Nicene Creed in 325 AD and that s why Christians have been reciting it ever since. These little stories may give you a hint of how I became affiliated with the Unitarian Universalists. We are not required to say things or recite words we don t really believe! We are free to believe and to seek the truth in earnestness. We are free to study

8 and reflect, and to create our own meaning for our lives. We create meaning, rather than conform to institutional meaning. Now we Unitarian Universalists are far from perfect. Our denomination is a theological hodgepodge. First of all, as most of you know, we are called Unitarian because our forefathers insisted that there was only one God, not three. And some of us question the concept of any God. But historically, Unitarians believed in one God, like Arius and Origen, and that set them apart from institutional Christianity. To this day, the Unitarian Universalist Association is not accepted or included in the National Council of Churches. This Christian organization has welcomed and praised President Obama s appointment of Rabbi David N. Saperstein as ambassador- at- large for international religious freedom. But we are shunned even though quite a few of our members are Christian, and there is even a Unitarian Universalist Christian organization, just as we have a Buddhist group. Sadly, theology and beliefs sometimes divide people. History points to quite a few wars to support that, including some going on as we speak. In every congregation I have served we ve conducted a survey to try to find out what moves folks to come to church, to learn what people value about membership and attending Unitarian

9 Universalist services. Invariably when people answer the question about what they like most, either the first or second highest response is being with like- minded people. I suppose that s a human thing, a sort of tribal or comfort thing, but it is certainly paradoxical for a denomination that espouses free thinking. Our denomination is also a clumsy union of Unitarians and Universalists. Unitarians traditionally have believed in one God or no God at all, and have been active in the secular and religious humanist movements. Universalists, on the other hand, traditionally have been theists, believers in God or a supreme being. They broke off from the Calvinists who insisted that only an elect or certain people were eligible for salvation after death. The Universalist felt and still do feel that if there is a God, that God is a God who loves us all, and if there is any salvation it is universal, not just for a special few. Theologically the Unitarians and the Universalists differ, and to be brutally frank, the main reason that two denominations merged was that both were small and both were going broke. That union of two religious denominations into one was utilitarian rather than theological. So our ministers don t all agree on theology. What we do agree on is respect for most other beliefs and religious traditions.

10 And, I am sad to let you know, we practice certain prejudices clear up to the top. I don t want to discourage you with this story. Rather I want to alert you to be aware of what even we who respect the inherent worth and dignity of every human being are capable of. A colleague of mine retired as a philosophy professor to study for the ministry. He had a very successful eight or ten years as a Unitarian Universalist minister. His churches grew rapidly with his leadership. Not to diminish him, but his wife played a large role in his successful ministry, as many minister spouses and partners do. Then his life changed. His children grew up, he and his wife divorced. Sounds like a mid- life crisis. It happens. After two years of retirement, he has become a practicing Christian, and has let his ministerial colleagues know how happy he is in his newfound faith. I am pleased for him because I knew he had been restless and unfulfilled. But someone in the Unitarian Universalist hierarchy in Boston has had the audacity to ask him if he is planning to resign from his fellowship as a Unitarian Universalist minister. I m not in close touch with this but I mention it to emphasize that the best of religious institutions and organizations can become rigid and intolerant and exclusive. Many of us dance to a different drummer. Many of us are

11 rugged individuals struggling to build beloved communities that share and care for and include everyone regardless of beliefs. We struggle with individualism vs. community building. What we think and what we believe matter, ground us and guide us. That s why it is so important to keep on questioning, to keep on learning, to continue to grow and transform ourselves. Getting comfortable often means getting stuck! In my own journey I ve ended up wearing three theological hats, a trinity of beliefs, if you will. I m first a humanist, and believe that we human beings have the capability to take control of our behavior and guide our lives with carefully chosen moral and ethical values. I m a religious naturalist, gasping in awe and wonder at the ocean, the heavens, the forests, the animals and all living things. If whatever makes existence and life possible is something some folks call God, it s fine with me. Lastly, I m a struggling Buddhist, trying to live a more loving and compassionate life, learning to laugh rather than swear when I stub my toe, trying to look for the best in everyone, working really hard to counteract my judgmental tendencies that come so naturally. I do not seek Salvation and everlasting life. I just want to live a good life and serve humanity and our planet, and congregations like you. And folks, I don t worry

12 about going to hell. I ve already been there. Theology does matter. Theology and belief systems are sources of knowledge and strength. Theology and belief systems are gold mines of myth and metaphor, stories that we can learn from. So when I use scriptures from different religious traditions, it s not that I share their gods or theologies, but because we can learn and enrich our lives with their stories. The bottom line is that what we do and how we do it, is much more important than what we believe. Unitarian Universalism is a faith I love because it is a faith of deeds, not creeds. Amen i we- believe/apostles- creed/ ii Such a structure of divine influence on the created realm is found much later in the system of the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus (see J. Dillon, in G. Vesey, ed. 1989). of- alexandria/#sh3a iii iv catholic.org/arian/arius.html