A Tale of Two Heresies 50 Years of Learning to Keep our Opinions to Ourselves, or Not By Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof June 30, 2013

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1 50 Years of Learning to Keep our Opinions to Ourselves, or Not By Rev. Dr. Todd F. Eklof June 30, 2013 Unitarian Universalists are often uncomfortable with using traditional religious language in our churches. Some of us don t even like the word church. We prefer words like, congregation, fellowship, and community instead. We also struggle with words like, worship, faith, spiritual, denomination, and religion, and the term God itself has almost become taboo in our meeting places. While I appreciate this struggle and think our ongoing discussion about religious jargon and its meaning is partly what defines UUs to begin with, I also find it ironic that nobody ever seems to question calling ourselves Unitarian Universalists to begin with. Unitarianism, in brief, refers to the belief that God is one person, not three; and Universalism is the claim that Christ died for everyone, not just an elect few, and that eventually all souls will be reconciled with the one true God. I don t know about you, but neither of these doctrines expresses the crux of my religious beliefs. I personally don t believe in a personal god at all, and I think Jesus died because he was politically subversive, not to prevent souls from burning in everlasting torment. But even my atheism and humanization of Jesus do not reflect the core of my deepest beliefs and values. The heart of my faith, rather, centers on freedom and equality, not on God and salvation. But however we define our core values, I m confident most Unitarian Universalist today don t ascribe to the original doctrines for which our faith remains named. We tend to value these terms, instead, for their more general meanings oneness and inclusion. Together, they re kind of like saying, all for one, and one for all. Yet I do feel our faith remains appropriately named, not because we maintain enlightened vestiges of these original doctrines, Unitarianism and Universalism, but because, since their very inception, they have been considered heretical ideas. In short, what makes us Unitarian Universalists is that we are still a bunch of heretics. As you may know, heretic comes from a Greek word meaning to choose. Heretics are those who choose what to believe for themselves; those who don t necessarily accept what most others believe without question. And, to this day, Unitarian Universalists most highly value the worth and dignity of every person, which means all persons have the right to seek the truth for themselves the right, that is, to choose what they will believe. So we remain heretics to this day, not only because we retain the name of two doctrines officially declared heretical by Christendom hundreds of years ago, but because we have such high regard for individual choice, especially when it comes to matters of truth and faith. This, I believe, is also the very reason both these traditions have become increasingly inclusive over the centuries. Universalism formally began in reaction to

2 John Calvin s 16 th century doctrine of Predestination, the idea that God elected a chosen few for salvation even before the creation of the world, and chose everyone else for eternal damnation. The Universalists argued that Christ died for everybody and that everyone, therefore, is salvageable. This, in turn, led to an inherent understanding that everyone should be included. Unitarianism, likewise, was founded by Michael Servetus, a 16 th century theologian who was burned at the stake by Calvin, along with his book, for arguing against the Trinity. So, inherent within Unitarianism was the notion that people shouldn t be burned for their ideas. In fact, the first law ever protecting religious freedom was the Edict of Torda, established in the 16 th century by the Unitarian King of Hungary, John Sigismund. Such openness to others caused both the Unitarians and Universalists to become increasingly liberal throughout the centuries until, as you will recall, they joined together to form the Unitarian Universalist Association in The joke is that the Universalists believe God is too good to damn them, and the Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned. But I think the greatest similarity between these two heretical traditions is their openness and inclusion. My concern about all of this, however, which I wish to address today, is that at some point during the past 50 years we ve come to define Unitarian Universalism mostly by it s inclusivity while often forgetting that we are primarily heretics, and that our openness and inclusivity is born of our heresy. The result has been an almost compulsive tolerance for just about everyone and every notion, rational or not. Many of us now express the same misnomer of bewildered outsiders, that ours is a religion made up of all religions and that we accept all beliefs. And in the confusion of our identity with a muddled, diluted, preposterous concoction of all faiths, our tolerant religion seems more an idolatrous religion of Tolerance. Too often we sacrifice reason and honesty upon the altar of this peculiar fetish in the holy name of not offending others. For tolerance, in our age of political correctness, has been spun on its head to mean we mustn t say anything others might disagree with. Although ours is no longer a theocracy that outlaws and burns heretics, too many treat those they disagree with as if they are disagreeable. They blame those they don t wish to tolerate as if they are intolerant. Just last month the media made a big deal about a Moroccan college student who became a fugitive after posting a picture of himself on Facebook holding a sign saying, I m proud to be an atheist. In doing so, he violated a law against offending Islam. Yet, even in our country, many tend to treat those with whom they disagree as if they are offensive, as if they are the offenders, which often results in tremendous pressure not to disagree with others. It s one thing to mock another s beliefs, especially one s religious beliefs, but it is quite another to say, I disagree or, I think that s a terrible, even dangerous idea, and here s why As UU minister, Roger Mohr writes, The congregation can 2

3 be about making friends with those of other faiths, welcoming them into our world. That does not mean that we should endorse their religious doctrines and beliefs as true for them. True is still true, false is still false, and foolish is still foolish, even if someone else chooses to believe otherwise. 1 On the contrary, heretics don t keep their thoughts to themselves, that s what makes them heretics. Having radical ideas alone doesn t make us heretics. We become heretics, rather, by expressing those ideas. Rev. John Murray, who brought the Universalist heresy to America in 1770, once had a rock thrown at him while preaching, to which he quickly responded, not all the stones in Boston, except they stop my breath, shall shut my mouth The first minister of this very church, in fact, the Rev. Edwin Wheelock, fled to Spokane in 1886 after the State of Virginia placed a bounty on his head, dead or alive, for preaching in favor of abolitionist John Brown. Upon learning of this, Charles Wendte, the Unitarian missionary who started our church, just knew Wheelock would be the perfect minister for our fledgling congregation. A few years later, in 1911, when John Dietrich was tried and convicted of heresy by the Reformed Church for his liberal sermons and for opening his pulpit to a Jewish Rabbi, our church knew he was the right heretic for us! It was during his ministry here, at his first Unitarian church, that he became a humanist and founded religious humanism, which has since become an intricate part of Unitarian Universalism. Long before Dietrich came along, however, our church was speaking out against the kind of religious views its members believed were detrimental to the larger world, no matter how much they stood out or who they offended. Our 1888 church bylaws, for instance, state outright, that, the authority for its belief is reason; The method of finding its beliefs is scientific; Its aim is to crush superstition and establish facts of religion; and its, First principle is freedom of opinion and is subject to no censure for heresy I m a pretty prophetic personality myself, and ours is a pretty radical church, even among UUs, but I wonder how many of us would feel comfortable should I stand here and use such aggressive language today? I don t know how well the aim to crush superstition fits into nonviolent communication. The banner above our open doors states, All are welcome here. But how welcome would some feel should I stand here and say that, The church s attitude toward truth has been contemptible. It has fought tooth and nail every advance in politics, in science, in morals, in religion. If the church could have had its way modern civilization would never have developed. Only the instinctive and irresistible impulse of human nature has saved humanity from destruction by the ecclesiastical organization Can you expect a man with brains to identify himself 1 Mohr, Roger, Soft Power: A New Humanist Ministry in a Post-Religious World, Religious Humanism, vol xliii number 1, US, Fall 1912, p

4 with such an institution? 2 Although these may seem like fighting words, they are precisely the words spoken by Rev. Dietrich in this very pulpit during a sermon he gave in October of They are the heretical words spoken by a convicted heretic, and were perfectly in line with our church s aim to crush superstition. It is no accident that religious humanism was born in our church during Dietrich s ministry here. For Unitarianism, originally the belief in one god, has always emphasized the humanitarian teachings of Jesus and argued against his divinity. Far from being a reaction against the Trinitarian doctrine of three-gods-inone, the Trinity was created by the Council of Nicea in 325 CE to counter the popular idea that there is only one God and Jesus was but a man. Afterward, it became heresy, that is, illegal, for anyone to openly express these Unitarian notions. Then the Dark Ages set in and it wasn t until the Age of Enlightenment, after the printing press was invented and people began reading the Bible for themselves, that the ageold controversy reemerged, resulting in the execution of Michael Servetus. Shortly thereafter, Faustus Socinus ( ), an Italian theologian, began arguing it is not Jesus death that can save us, but his teachings. When the Inquisition began, Socinus had to flee Italy in 1574, first to Switzerland, then through Transylvania, where John Sigismund had been king, and eventually ending up in the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was the most tolerant country in Europe at the time, nicknamed, the heretics asylum. It was there, nonetheless, that he was dragged out of his bed, watched his books and papers burned, then thrown in a river when he refused to recant. Fortunately he did not drown. His heretical ideas, initially called Socinianism, later, became known as Unitarianism. The point is, what remains a radical idea today, that Jesus should be remembered for his practical teachings, not worshipped as a divinity, is, in some ways, the deepest part of our tradition. This is precisely why we have traditionally disdained superstitious thinking, because we ve never believed in Jesus as a magical god, but as a wise man whose humanitarian teachings, if practiced, could transform the world. Yet today I sometimes hear Unitarians themselves complaining about the hardcore humanists in our churches who openly complain about some of the superstitious beliefs that have become part of our movement since the UU Association was formed 50 years ago. Yet, unlike the many faiths we now embrace as part of our Living Tradition, that is, as the many sources that can inspire us mysticism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Paganism, and so many other faiths Humanism was ours to begin with. Humanism was born in the Unitarian church and, to this day, remains mostly Unitarian. Although Secular Humanism found independence from us in 1941, with the founding of the American 2 Dietrich, John, Says Church is Hostile to Truth, The Spokesman Review, October 14,

5 Humanist Society, religious humanism, though it has tried, has never fully succeeded in becoming a stand-alone entity. In addition to humanism being founded by Unitarian ministers, 15 of the original 34 signers of the Humanist Manifesto in 1933 were Unitarian ministers. Yet, as William F. Schulz says in his book, Making the Manifesto, As Unitarian Universalism has discovered spirituality and made room for a variety of religious lexicons, those of traditional humanist persuasion have often become uncomfortable. 3 The reason for this discomfort, no doubt, is the humanist commitment to rational thinking and science. As Schulz puts its, The truth is that a lot of nonsense passes for religion in this twenty first century, as it has in all the preceding centuries. Religious humanism is willing to call a charlatan a charlatan, and while reason is by no means the only vehicle of religious exploration, we abandon it altogether only at our peril. 4 We should also keep in mind that long before the 21 st century, and even before the 20 th century, when humanism officially began, it was as early as the 19 th century, in 1888 that our church adopted those bylaws basing its beliefs on reason and science, and declaring its mission to crush superstition. I personally love studying a variety of religions and always gain deep insight and meaning from all of them. Certainly I keep my wits about me and don t buy into any of them hook, line, and sinker, but I do think I could spend a lifetime studying any single religion and never tire of mining its wisdom. I m glad Unitarian Universalism welcomes the exploration of all faiths and dialogue with the people of many religions. But I also grieve my right to speak out against superstitious beliefs without raising a few eyebrows, even from some of my UU brothers and sisters. Today, poachers in South African are bringing rhinos to the brink of extinction because some wealthy people in Vietnam superstitiously believe their horns can cure a variety of illnesses. Today, in Kenya, people who don t profess Jesus Christ as their God are being burned alive as witches. Today women are being attacked by orthodox mobs for attempting to pray at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem because they believe women are inferior to men. Today, in Iran, run by a supreme religious leader, women aren t allowed to run for President. And, today, the Lt. Governor of Virginia, E.W. Jackson has suggested that yoga and meditation can open the door to demon possession. I could go on with other examples, but the point is that religious superstition is alive and well in the world, and it is often not only foolish but also harmful. So today I m advocating for the heretical side of our tradition by saying such beliefs are ignorant, unfounded, and lead to all manner of injustice and human misery, and, yes, I wish to crush such notions into smithereens. To paraphrase John Murray, not all the political correctness in the world, nor all the 3 Schulz, William F., Making the Manifesto, Skinner House Books, Boston, MA, 2002, p. xxi. 4 Ibid., p. xiv. 5

6 accusations of being intolerant, or of offending others, except they stop my breath, shall shut my mouth. 6