Rev. Judith E. Meyer
Unitarian Universalist Community Church
Santa Monica, California
February 10, 2002
You have to go all the way back
to the beginning of Christianity
to understand our faith today.
In the early years after the death of Jesus,
vigorous debates about the unity of God
and the salvation of all souls
could have taken Christianity in another direction.
Our predecessors argued for unity and universal salvation.
Their promising and fertile affirmations lost out, however,
in the struggle for control of the church,
which labeled them as heresies
and banished them to the margins forever.
Our tradition grew
out of these stifled but hardy roots.
It bears little similarity – at least in content –
to the faith we practice here and now.
Yet the tensions and potential that were present
three hundred years after the death of Jesus
were formative for us
and inform our faith today.
Unitarian Universalism still offers a compelling alternative
to the dominant view of religion –
an alternative that opens minds to diversity
and hearts to all humanity.
It is simple,
in the sense that it avoids unnecessary distinctions
and exclusions.
And it is sophisticated,
because it challenges the mind to grasp pluralism
and oneness at the same time.
How we understand and practice this faith
has a lot to say to our world.
Joseph Hough, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York,
has given memorable interviews recently
on National Public Radio and in The New York Times,
sounding a provocative and timely call
to come to grips
with the reality of religious pluralism
in our world.
He spoke as a Christian theologian
struggling with his own tradition
in the grim but illuminating aftermath
of the terrorist attacks.
Christians need a "new theology of religions,"
he said.
We cannot make sense of diversity any other way.
People have very different ideas about
who God is
and what God asks of them
and how to be a religious community.
What this means
and how people of diverse faiths
should view each other
are questions this "new theology" must answer.
A pluralistic worldview allows the possibility
that different faiths in different cultures
each help people to seek what they need –
God,
redemption,
an ethical life.
Each path that people follow
has its own integrity,
its own sense of truth.
These are allowances that traditional Christianity –
and most traditional religions, actually –
have not been willing to make.
Hough observed
that Christianity operates by an "exclusionary principle,"
an assumption that only Christians have received
the revelation of God.
Though believers may teach and practice tolerance,
such tolerance has little meaning
if other faiths are seen to have lesser value.
A new "theology of religions" would teach
that others faiths have wisdom and value too,
expressed in diverse ways.
What Joseph Hough wants
is something of a breakthrough
for Christian thinking about religious pluralism.
Relinquish the "exclusionary principle."
Other faiths have their truth too.
Learn about them
and understand their power.
"There is ample evidence," Hough said,
"in the best of the world's religions,
including our own,
that God's work is effective.
Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others
have been and are being transformed
by a powerful vision of God
that redeems them with hope
and infuses their religious practice
with compassion, justice and peace.
Wherever there is peace
and movement toward peace,
where there is justice
and movement toward justice,
God is present and working."
Hough's struggles within his Christian tradition
are a profound validation of our own.
The power of what remains
when the "exclusionary principle" is relinquished
is what has inspired Unitarian Universalists
for hundreds of years.
This pluralistic edge is what has made us different
from other faiths:
now our heretical,
intensely humane
and imaginative grasp of the world
in all its diversity
may finally come into its own.
We have our own work to do, however.
As expansive as we have been
in embracing religious pluralism,
we are not always clear about our own place in it.
Although we are rooted in Christianity,
we no longer define ourselves
in terms of any exclusive faith tradition.
The inclusive stance is what matters to us:
our sanctuaries are places
where we want everyone,
of any religious background,
to feel welcome.
We are free of the "exclusionary principle."
But our openness lacks definition.
We have journeyed along for years now,
seeking the enrichment of religious pluralism
without engaging in a rigorous examination
of what makes us a unique faith.
This is not all bad.
Religion is essentially about
what resides beyond definition.
Human attempts to reduce the wonder of life
into something we all understand
may miss the point.
But religious pluralism is not by itself, a faith.
It is what the world is –
and it makes a great deal of difference to the world
how we look at it
and what we see.
But simply to say that all religions are equally good,
and all practices and wisdom equally salutary,
and all scriptures equally insightful –
well, then we're back to A Tale of Three Ralphs.
As you heard earlier in the service,
there was once a husband and wife
who decided to treat all their children equally,
no exceptions.
The first born child is named Ralph.
So is the second,
and then the third.
The situation is absurd almost from the start.
In a misguided attempt to ensure equality and fairness,
no allowances are made for difference.
Treating each child the same,
with no exceptions,
ends up being unfair to all the children.
Relinquishing the "exclusionary principle"
does not minimize the very real differences
there are in the world.
Building an inclusive community does not suggest
that all religions are all alike.
Belonging to a tradition that embraces religious pluralism
does mean that our faith is a journey through possibility,
a process of discovery
that leads us to growth.
Joseph Hough describes faith
as "a response to the experience of the presence of God."
As a Christian, he is comfortable with these theological terms.
Perhaps another way of saying what he means
is that faith is a response to the possibilities in life –
possibilities that shape us,
shake us up,
change us forever.
Our Unitarian Universalist faith today
seeks these life-changing possibilities.
We seek them because we sense the presence of God –
or if not God,
then the power of goodness –
in the human capacity to live ethical lives,
to change for the better,
to participate in creation
as a positive force in evolution.
We hold out the hope that anyone,
of any age, ability and background,
can have access to the life-changing power of goodness
and can grow.
This hope has been embedded in our tradition since the beginning,
surfacing in various ways,
many of them now archaic,
but no less relevant in their time.
One church historian [David Bumbaugh] has described
the struggle for "the soul and the mind" of early Christianity
as the conflict between an ethical religion and a creedal one.
Our predecessors argued for an ethical religion,
based on character,
while their opponents argued for a creedal faith,
based on correctness of belief.
The other side prevailed,
but the original vision of our predecessors
has steadily evolved anyway.
And it is the faith we have today.
We choose the path of ethics and character,
not creeds and belief.
And because we choose
and test our choices by how well we live our lives,
we can function in a pluralistic environment
without compromising our faith.
We all understand how this works,
because we are all already doing it.
Some of us may lean
towards one tradition or another.
We are drawn to the story
or the customs
or the holidays.
Or our family history roots us there,
and our identity is tied to it.
But none of us defines ourselves exclusively
in terms of that tradition.
If we did,
we wouldn't be here –
we would be there.
We choose to stay open instead.
We are one part of a whole,
where diverse traditions coexist
in the common quest for character
and a better life.
It's an instructive model in a world
that cannot seem to find the way
to make peace with diversity.
Our faith today has evolved a long way
from the early Christian church,
and it will evolve into the future.
But whatever challenges we face
or conditions that change in the world,
what continues is our simple affirmation
that we do not all need to believe alike
to see each other's humanity;
and we do not all need to be alike
to grow together.
Our common quest:
to live fully,
to grow in character,
to give something good back to creation,
only gets better
when we learn from each other.
References used in preparing this sermon include Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History, by David E. Bumbaugh (Chicago: Meadville Lombard Press, 2000); interviews with Joseph C. Hough, Jr., on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition January 27, 2002 and in The New York Times, January 12, 2002.
Copyright 2002, Rev. Judith E. Meyer
This text is for personal use only, and may not be copied
or distributed without the permission of the author.
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