I’ve Got Good News!

August 3, 2014
© 2014 by Paul Britner

Poem: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

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I’ve got good news! There is a place of faith where people can believe what their conscience calls them to believe, a place of hope that accepts both the responsibilities and possibilities of humankind, and a place of love, where all people are accepted for who they are and who they were created to be. That place is our Unitarian Universalist movement, which nurtures my spirit and, to borrow a phrase from our poem, sustains me on the inside when all else falls away.

Yet, I’m uncomfortable standing on a street corner and shouting out this good news to all who might hear it, including some who might desperately need it. We’ve all seen people with those sandwich sign boards walking up and down the street that read “Repent or go to hell.” I guess they’re trying to scare people into their pews. If I were so inclined I would walk up and down a busy street with one of those sandwich sign boards with our Universalist message on side, “Don’t worry—you’re going to heaven!” and our Unitarian message on the other: “You’re OK—God doesn’t make junk!” Of course, if people saw that, they might think, “Wow, a church that says I don’t need to go church!” Well, that’s true. You don’t need to go to church to be a good person.

The truth is, though we lack the leverage that fear mongers have, we have much more to offer: the affirmation of inherent worth and dignity, the responsible search for truth and meaning, and the encouragement to spiritual growth, to name three. Generally speaking, though, we are not the kind of people who would tap a stranger on the shoulder and say, “Let me tell you my good news.”

I wonder, though, if in our enthusiasm for reticence, we sometimes go too far. We choose to err on the side of privacy and leaving people alone. I believe we are so afraid that someone might be offended by our even talking about our faith that we say nothing, and we deny our good news to people who want what we have and don’t even know we exist.

There are many reasons why we are hesitant to evangelize, starting with our objection to the idea of evangelizing. We are so determined that each person find his or her own path that we don’t even leave bread crumbs for those who might actually want to follow us. It’s been said by others, and I think there is some truth to this, that we only want newcomers who are smart enough to get here by themselves.

I think there’s something else going on here. Though we say we value our differences, we are not exempt from the very human condition of wanting to be around people like ourselves. We want to grow our movement on the one hand, but only if we can add people who think and look like we do. One speaker I heard at another UU congregation said, “Of course we value diversity here. We have both socialists and communists.” It’s also been said that a diverse UU congregation is one with at least three different colors of Prius’s in the driveway.

The question I have for all of us is whether we are open and welcoming to those who share the liberal religious values that have shaped our movement for nearly 500 years but who may not fit into the particular culture of a particular congregation?

We know what the liberal political tradition is, but what is this liberal religious tradition to which I keep referring? Though the two traditions overlap, there is a difference. If I polled this congregation on the issues of the day—war, abortion, gun control, the death penalty, global warming—most of us would agree on most of those issues. Yet, we know, too, that on any one of those issues, we are not of one, unanimous opinion and each issue might produce a different majority within the membership. We may all be minorities on any given issue but not most of them.

We know what it is like to be a religious minority in a conservative religious community. Yet we often are less aware of what it is like for those who feel they are a minority within our walls, those who might be in the minority on several of the issues I just suggested.

This may disappoint you, but we are not the only progressive thinkers who attend church. The United Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians (PCUSA) officially are pro-choice and against the death penalty. When it comes to helping the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed, our strongest allies oftentimes are Catholics, even though we have profound differences on other issues. There is within the Evangelical movement a growing call for stewardship of the environment that rivals our Ministry for Earth.

We all get that each other’s personal spiritual path does not represent a creed that all others must affirm. Our personal politics is no different. One of our liberal religious values is social justice, but that is not the same thing as partisan politics. We are engaged like all religions in the struggle to provide food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, and comfort to the afflicted. As religious liberals, we are engaged, too, in our culture and the issues of our age. In our time, that includes the full inclusion of the LGBTQ community into our larger society, justice for immigrants, and the conservation of our environment.

The principles of religious liberalism include the affirmation of one’s own conscience in moral decision making, in contrast to those who see organized religion as an instrument of conformity. Religious liberals embrace continuing revelation. We do not limit ourselves to ancient prophets or texts. Rather, we embrace the possibility that evolution and the advance of knowledge may continue to inform our understanding of the ultimate reality. We recognize the capacity of human beings to choose between good and evil. Thus we accept that we are both responsible for our problems and empowered, each with our own gifts, to create the beloved community in our time with our hands. We also recognize that the limitations inherent in the human condition preclude any group from claiming to have exclusive knowledge of truth—including us. Women and men of good will who apply liberal religious principles to their political values may come out on different sides of any given issue.

Regardless of what I say as a minister or even what a majority of members here may believe, you do not have to leave your beliefs behind to join those of us who have chosen the path of Unitarian Universalism. When you enter a UU sanctuary, you don’t have to check your integrity at the door. That’s one of the many messages of the good news of Unitarian Universalism.

OK, let’s say that we’re willing and even excited to share our good news with others. This is when some of you start thinking, “tell me again just what am I supposed to say?”

This brings us to the proverbial elevator speech. If you just had a few seconds between floors, how would you describe Unitarian Universalism?

You know this is a serious problem when we make so many jokes about our inability to reduce a description of our movement to something that would fit on a bumper sticker.

• What do you get when you cross a UU with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.

• How does a hate group get rid of a UU who has just moved into the neighborhood? They burn a question mark on his lawn.

They’re oldies but goodies and they are fun, but they do speak a certain truth about us.

If you really are in an elevator or in some other situation where you have only a few seconds, there is nothing wrong with refusing to answer. It’s OK to say, “All I can say now is that I’ve found a really good home for my faith, and I’d love to tell you more about it when we have more time.” The person who really does care about your answer will ask you again, and the person who never asks again was just making conversation and doesn’t really want to hear your answer anyway.

If you choose to offer a more substantive answer, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We may look to our tradition for answers to questions about our identity.

In 1553, Sebastian Castillo wrote a letter to John Calvin arguing for freedom of religion in which he wrote, “I must be saved by my own faith, not that of another.” As elevator speeches goes, that’s as good as it gets: Unitarian Universalism means that I must be saved by my own faith, not that of another.

A few centuries later, Beatrix Potter, the author and illustrator of the Peter Rabbit stories, who was herself a third generation Unitarian, explained her faith this way: “Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest.” (Beatrix Potter-A Life in Nature. Linda Lear. Google Books, 41, 42.)

Of course, our pamphlets, our websites, even YouTube videos are good sources of information about our movement for newcomers and longer-term members alike. Still, our movement is not built on a foundation of documents, whether sacred texts or holy creeds. Our movement is built on the stories of real people like Castillo and Potter. We are a history of people who have compelling and inspiring stories to tell.

Over 300 years ago, the first Unitarian Bishop, Francis David, wrote, “we need not think alike to love alike” which by the way is another excellent elevator speech. What do UUs believe? We need not think alike to love alike! In his time, during the early years of the Reformation, people were killing each other by the thousands over questions like “Is the presence of Christ in the Eucharist real or symbolic? David argued that we don’t have to come to agreement on these kinds of questions to love one another—to come together in community to encourage one another, to care for another, and to help each to be better parents and partners and citizens. Yet, for that belief, David eventually was thrown in prison where he died alone, but with the faith whose legacy we claim today.

Two hundred years ago, the Father of Universalism in America, John Murray, encouraged us to “take to the highways and byways and give others not hell, but hope.” Murray had been a Methodist preacher in England when he converted to Universalism, the doctrine that all souls will be united with God. Yet this good news did not spare him from life’s realities. His first wife and child died of illness. In despair, he sailed for America in 1770 to start a new life, and he did. Today he is just as famous for being the husband of Judith Sargent Murray, a successful social activist often called America’s first feminist. She wrote “On the Equality of the Sexes” in 1793.

A little over 100 years ago, Olympia Brown, the first woman ever ordained at a denominational level, challenged the patriarchy of our own movement. She wanted to become a minister at a time when such things were not done. She was rejected by the Unitarian seminary in Meadville and accepted but merely tolerated at the Universalist seminary at St. Lawrence. Yet, she preserved and graduated in 1863.

These ancestors in faith show us by example that our lives are ours to live, that we must conform only to our conscience. Yet, as Emerson would remind us, they were mere mortals like us. They did not accomplish anything beyond the grasp of anyone here, which brings me to my final point.

Ultimately, the good news of Unitarian Universalism is you. To use two very non-spiritual words, each member here is a success story in recruitment and retention. When others want to hear the good news of Unitarian Universalism, just tell them your story. There will be as many variations as there are storytellers, but they will have some things in common. I am a come-outer, as they say. I was raised a United Methodist, but never really felt like I belonged there because I simply could not believe much of what they believed. I was un-churched for many years until a friend invited me to his UU congregation, and from the very first service I felt like I finally found where I belonged.

If you were born a UU, your story may differ. Your story may be about growing up around other kids who taunted you because you were going to hell, which is why you are so determined now to make sure our children have a loving, supportive environment.

Tell your story, and you will tell the good news of Unitarian Universalism. To borrow a phrase from my Quaker friends, let your life speak. Let us share our good news with all who would hear it so that we may add new stories to the narrative that is our faith, our history and our future.

May it always be so. Blessed be.