Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Alex Brianson
We gather today to share a particular kind of community – a community of faith in which each of us is free to quest for our own ways of being spiritual and religious.
We gather today to think about how we have done this until now, and how we might do this from now.
We are none of us the same as we were twenty years ago or even last week; we are none of us the same as we shall be in five weeks or ten years.
As the paths of our lives cover new terrain, may we find helpful new thinkers, concepts, and understandings of Spirit, or of the highest good in life, and new ways to interpret those we have loved long and hard.
And may we be open to the voice of wisdom, wherever – and however – we find it.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). (words by Jane Blackall)
The lighting of this chalice calls us to attention –
as we focus on its flickering light for a moment
let us recall the shared intention that it represents –
to make this a safe and sacred space for prayer and sharing
in which we can re-connect with life’s depths and our highest aspirations –
a community of solidarity and trust to nurture and strengthen us for the days of our lives.
May this little candle be a beacon that lights the way,
guiding us through these still-uncertain times,
and inspiring each of us to paths
of peace, justice, and love.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which the clouds
of war, poverty, and climate change hover,
and help us to make a difference,
starting where we are, with what we have.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
Help us to be grateful for the freedoms we have
and to respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
victims of violence and war,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from We Affirm and Promote The Right of Conscience and the Use of the Democratic Process within Our Congregations and in Society at Large by Earl K. Holt III, in With Purpose and Principle edited by Edward A. Frost
What is unique and precious to Unitarian Universalism is that we affirm no external authority in our religious lives, not of church or creed or Bible, but hold as authoritative only the internal voice of conscience that speaks in each and every human soul. And as we grow in knowledge and experience, we come to new and different religious understandings. Our religious lives are works in progress. This is obviously true individually, but it is also true of our religious tradition as a whole. So we are organized both as a church and as an association, as a democracy, because a democracy too is a work in progress. It changes according to the changes desired and expressed by its constituency. Conscience and democracy work together, though sometimes uncertainly and always imperfectly….
It is the elevation of individual conscience to the primary category of religious authority that has been the uniquely distinguishing characteristic of liberal religious theology from Channing’s time to our own. The purpose of life from this perspective is the opportunity it presents to grow a soul, to gradually unfold the moral and religious forces within us, employing all the resources at our disposal. We believe that the individual conscience is the only legitimate source of religious authority and that the purpose of the church is to grow and nurture individual conscience.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
may we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
and may our shortcomings be forgiven,
as we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
the inspiration and guidance to do right,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
and receive whatever life brings,
with courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from We Affirm and Promote The Right of Conscience and the Use of the Democratic Process within Our Congregations and in Society at Large by Earl K. Holt III, in With Purpose and Principle edited by Edward A. Frost
It is important to note, that in the UUA Purposes and Principles, our covenantal commitment to the democratic process is explicitly linked, not to a social goal, but to the protection of an individual right: freedom of conscience. … All forms of government, being merely human inventions, are flawed; and all, including democracy, are subject to abuse. Without a firm commitment to the right of every individual to freedom of thought and expression, in simplest terms the right to be wrong, democracy itself can degenerate into a tyranny of the majority, as Jefferson warned in his inaugural address: “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,” he said, “that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.”
In adopting their Liberty Clause, the Universalists fundamentally altered the nature of their Declaration of Faith. After all, a creed with a built-in allowance for conscientious objection is no longer quite a creed! The Unitarians never formally adopted any similar statements of faith, and if any single principle can be said to be paramount in the history of American Unitarianism, it would have to be individual freedom of belief. In consequence, both movements have experienced increasing theological diversity over their whole history.
Prayer by Andrea Hawkins-Kamper (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
May we see all as it is, and may it all be as we see it.
May we be the ones to make it as it should be,
For if not us, who? If not now, when?
This is answering the cry of justice with the work of peace,
This is redeeming the pain of history with the grace of wisdom,
This is the work we are called to do, and this is the call we answer now:
To be the barrier and the bridge,
To be the living embodiment of our Principles,
To be about the work of building the Beloved Community,
To be a people of intention and a people of conscience.
Amen
Reading from The Right of Conscience and the Use of the Democratic Process within our Congregations and in Society at Large by Parisa Parsa, in The Seven Principles in Word and Worship edited by Ellen Brandenburg
In our religious lives, the democratic process requires trust in the development of each individual conscience – a belief that such development is possible for each of us, as well as a commitment to cultivate our own conscience. We could call it a commitment to the value of each person. In the words of Theodore Parker, “Democracy means not ‘I am as good as you are’, but ‘You are as good as I am.’ My connection with the sacred is only as precious as my willingness to acknowledge the same connection in others.
It’s the right of conscience, not the right of ego, that we preserve in our fifth Principle. The distinction is important. A. Powell Davies… called conscience “the sight of the soul” – the soul being that innermost part of each person that yearns to move toward greater insight and wholeness. Our conscience is not something that is directed by a God who acts outside of us, but the emanation of a God dwelling deeply within us…. The inner point of connection that speaks to us in stillness is our compass and our guide when the rules of the human world are broken or have become abhorrent. That place in us that affirms life and love in all their glory and messiness is where we must return if our conscience, our soul, is to flourish.
Time of Stillness and Reflection by Laura Horton-Ludwig (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
we are here because we believe what we do matters.
We are here because we believe how we live our life matters.
That with every act of kindness or meanness,
courage or fear,
love or hate,
we are weaving the fabric of the universe that holds us all.
We are here because we need encouragement.
Because we need strength.
Because so often, we get distracted.
We get in a rush,
we don’t think,
we choose the easy way
when the harder path is what our spirits truly long for.
We are here
because none of us is perfect,
but together we inspire one another.
To try again.
To take another step.
We are here because we have felt the stirrings of love and grace
in our hearts and hands and we crave more of that,
for ourselves and not only for ourselves: for everyone!
[silence]
We are here because how we live matters.
Blessed be.
Musical Interlude Melodia Africana III by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Fifth Principle: Conscience and the Democratic Process
For modern day Unitarians the primacy of conscience is a given. We are so lucky in that we don’t have set rules and creeds to tie us down and blind us to new revelation, from whatever source it might come. As Philip Hewett says in his book On Being A Unitarian, “one of the features of Unitarianism is that it changes constantly in response to its adherents’ changing experience of life and their changing reflection on that experience. … Unitarianism represents an attempt to make sense of life as it is, and to find effective ways of living it.” He goes on to argue that, “a religion for our own day must reckon with the facts of our own day. It must express the real feelings of human beings in this new and bewildering age. It must not conflict with the best thought of our times, provisional though all ideas must be. It must be flexible enough to grow with new advances in knowledge. It must help the individual in his personal growth and ability to cope with the demands of life in times such as these.”
Like I said, in these days, the Unitarian commitment to reason and conscience as arbiters of our religious and spiritual thinking is fairly much taken for granted. However, it was not ever thus. When Unitarianism started to take off in Britain in the 18th century, its leading lights were Joseph Priestley, Theophilus Lindsey and Thomas Belsham. George Chryssides explains their position in his book Elements of Unitarianism: “In the wake of new scientific discoveries, they were determined to maintain a form of religion which bore fidelity to science; and, just as science relied on reason for its conclusions so, they held, reason must be brought to bear upon matters of faith, and in particular on exegesis (interpretation) of scripture”. But they did not go so far as to tackle the question of what you should choose to believe if reason is found to contradict scripture.
It was not until the 19th century that scholars really began to question the infallibility of the Bible. But as both scientific and biblical scholarship began to progress, parts of the Bible came into question – for example creation. Lyall’s discovery of fossils that appeared to be millions of years old called into question the traditional dating of creation laid down by Bishop Ussher as occurring in 4004 BCE. Darwin’s theory of evolution dealt this belief its final death blow, although it took a good while to be widely accepted (some fundamental Christians still do not accept it!). And Biblical scholars were discovering that, for example “the five books of Moses were probably not written by one man … but were edited collections of accounts by various writers, probably emanating from different backgrounds and periods of time.” Other parts of the Bible were found to contradict each other.
The traditional Christian (and other faiths’) view of religious authority is summarised admirably by Cliff Reed in his little book Unitarian? What’s That?, “It is often the case that a religious organisation, whatever its size, vests spiritual authority in a holy book, a creed or confession of faith, in a hierarchical structure or priestly caste, or in some charismatic leader or authority figure .. this authority may be seen by its own adherents as divine or a mediation of the divine.”
It was James Martineau, the celebrated 19th century Unitarian scholar, who finally addressed the problem of possible conflicts between reason and scripture, in his book The Seat of Authority in Religion, which was published in 1890. In his book Elements of Unitarianism, George Chryssides summarises Martineau’s arguments concisely: “Martineau’s important work is a lengthy study of the various sources of authority on which the Church typically relied: the authority of the Church’s tradition, the authority of scripture and the authority of Jesus himself. Martineau’s conclusion was that the only true sources of authority were reason and conscience and that these were the touchstones for determining how much reliance should be placed on any other supposed authority. … Martineau had acknowledged that the discovery of religious truth could no longer be regarded as the result of reason and scripture working in tandem: there were genuine conflicts between the two, and where such conflicts were apparent, reason should prevail.”
Martineau’s book marked a watershed in Unitarian thinking. It opened the door to a wider view of what religious authority means, which has evolved into our present questioning faith. Unitarians today believe that although we may develop spiritually within a particular faith tradition, “such development is greatest when the believer is in active and critical dialogue with it.” It means that Unitarians can be open to inspiration from whatever source it comes – in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys. In our services, we are free to draw inspiration from many sources. As Chryssides explains, “since it is believed that no single religion possesses a monopoly of truth, there is a widespread practice of having at least one reading from some other piece of writing. [apart from the Bible] This could be from the sacred texts of some other tradition, from the works of an eminent Unitarian thinker or some other spiritually edifying writer. Secular writings too can be used, since there are many ways in which the divine can reveal itself.”
This wide latitude in the Unitarian attitude to what constitutes divine revelation or inspiration could lay the movement open to the accusation that we “believe in anything.” However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Cliff Reed acknowledges that, “The Unitarian approach is, therefore, to recognise that each person is his or her final authority in matters of faith. Our liberal religious ethos grants full individual freedom in this regard.” BUT, and it is a big but, “we also see the necessity of religious community, of exposure to the beliefs, doubts, and insights of others. This provides the necessary checks and balances that prevent belief descending into self-indulgence, fantasy and a blinkered self-centredness.” So although we regard individual conscience as the highest form of authority, interaction with our fellow Unitarians should ensure that we are open to reason to temper our beliefs.
This is where the importance of the democratic process comes in. It may seem from what I’ve said so far, that the Unitarian movement’s emphasis on individual seeking after truth might preclude any feeling of religious community. But in fact, the reverse is true. It is precisely our “unity in diversity” that gives the movement its strength. As Cliff Reed writes, “shared values and a shared religious approach are a surer basis for unity than theological propositions. Because no human being and no human institution can have a monopoly on truth, it is safer to admit that from the outset. We are seekers and sharers, fellow pilgrims on the path, and this is how we Unitarians see ourselves.”
The common Unitarian values have to do with mutual caring and mutual respect – what could be more democratic? As Reed says, “they are the values of a liberal religious community that honours individuality without idolising it; of a community that finds spiritual stimulation in the unique contribution of each person while feeling itself united by a bond too deep for words. They are the values of a community that is open to truth from many sources; a community of the spirit that cherishes reason and acknowledges honest doubt; a community where the only theological test is that required by one’s own conscience.”
I believe that religious and spiritual development of the individual is dependent upon an openness to progressive revelation – the Quakers would say, “Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment?” So revelation is vitally important to the Unitarian approach to religion and spirituality.
Our view of authority has modified over the centuries, from a dual belief in reason and scripture, to our current position that “each person is his or her own final authority in matters of faith.” The authority of individual reason and conscience is held to be supreme, but it is important to be a member of a religious community to which you can bring your questions and your doubts, in the sure knowledge that they will be met with a broad questioning tolerance. The interplay of individuals’ beliefs is one of the great strengths of a Unitarian congregation – the bouncing of ideas off each other means that we can never be complacent about what we believe. It is stimulating to belong to such a congregation, but can be very hard work. Nothing is set in stone, and each individual is responsible for keeping his or her mind open to new ideas, so that our faith can grow.
And finally, we then have to go out into the world and put our ideas, our beliefs, into action, supporting democracy and free thinking, and standing up for the rights of freedom of expression, and freedom generally. Because what we do matters as much as what our consciences direct us to believe.
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we respect the primacy of conscience
in our individual and collective searches
for truth and meaning, and stand up for
the protection of that freedom elsewhere.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
may we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
now and in the days to come.
Amen
Postlude Melodia Africana II by Ludovico Einaudi