Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Briarcliff, Croton, and Ossining

Can Unitarian Universalists Believe Anything They Want?

Given by James Covington on April 29th, 2007

A few weeks ago, after preaching a sermon on Unitarian Universalism a couple of people expressed their appreciation for the sermon, saying they now had a better understanding of Unitarian Universalism. But two others told me they still didn’t know what Unitarian Universalism is. Both comments are indicative of how difficult it is for some people to define what we are. ON the other hand, I have heard a number of people over the years say to me, “I’ve been a Unitarian Universalist and didn’t know it.” I understand that statement to mean that the principles of UU affirmed that person’s personal faith or philosophy or outlook toward life. Certainly that was true of me. When I first attended a UU congregation, I knew I was in the right place. I joined that congregation, because it represented and defined the values which I had come to embrace for myself through my own knowledge and experiences.

Now when I wrote that sentence down in preparation for this sermon, I realized that perhaps I had just stated the basis of our faith. The key words in that sentence are “values,” “knowledge,” and “experience.” Whatever my theological beliefs may be about God, Jesus, scripture, heaven, etc., they must ultimately help me define the values by which I live and be informed by expanding knowledge and my personal experience.

Does that mean as a UU that I can believe anything I want? The short answer to that question is NO! I can’t believe anything I want. People often make this comment when asked what UUs believe. And often, they say, “Well, UUs believe anything they want.” Our esteemed president of the Board of Trustees wrote about this in his Newsletter column last month, which became the inspiration for this sermon today. After posing the question I believe Eddy replied “Absolutely Not!”

So if we can’t believe anything we want, why do people say it? And what do we believe? Well, I think I know why some people, if not most, will make that comment. Most people think of religion as a belief system defined by dogma or creeds. That is, there is an assertion made in the name of the religious faith about the deity and rituals which must be believed and rigidly practiced if one is to consider himself a member of that religion and a believer in God. Otherwise, one is considered a “lost soul” or “infidel.” The religion we are most familiar with is Christianity which asserts that one must believe in Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God, crucified, buried and resurrected. It is the heart of the Christian dogma. So when a Christian is asked, what do you believe, she will say I believe in Jesus Christ as the Divine Son of God. But UU’s have no such dogma! We may value the teachings of Jesus, but we state no dogma about the origin and identity of God or Jesus. We say one is free to define his own beliefs about God, Jesus, the afterlife, based on his or her own knowledge and experience. For instance, I happen to like the concept of God as that which is greater than all and present in each. For me, it offers a place of refuge and a source of hope. But some of you will see it differently, no doubt. So, in response to the understanding of dogma, people will sometimes say, since we declare no dogma, that “UUs can believe anything they want.” But that leaves a rather vacuous note to our particular faith. It is sometimes referred to as our holy doctrine of “anythingaraianism.”

It has even been said that within our churches “anarchy rules”—a classic oxymoron. Some have said we are a place for people who cannot make up their minds. Others say we are a “refuge for rebels, a haven for heretics and a shelter for skeptics.” Well, that’s ok with me!

But sometimes we so amuse ourselves by this self-inflicted humor that we don’t comprehend the seriousness of its implications. Is it true that because we are presumably free to believe anything we want, Unitarian Universalism is all process, no substance? We rightly understand that creeds are not the basis of our religion—to us they seem to be beliefs frozen in time and space—they say “no” to new truth.

We know we need constantly to recreate our covenant—the mutual promise-making and keeping that enables us to walk together religiously. We correctly claim that our church cannot compel the conscience—ultimately we must be our own religious authority.

When one of our popular advertising campaigns says Unitarian Universalism puts its faith in you—it ought to be real scary. Who me? Me, who determines if God is dead? Me, who must signify the meaning of Jesus? Me, who must determine right and wrong and worse yet, live as if I knew it? Me, the creature who must create meaning out of the raw stuff of my own existence? You’ve got to be kidding!

It is so much easier for me to say what I don’t believe! I don’t believe God is that supernatural figure in the heavens—much less a white male with a beard. I don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. I don’t believe the Bible is the literal word of God. I don’t believe we live this life just to get into Heaven—if there even is a Heaven.

Stating the negative –that’s the easy part! The hard part is to figure out what I do believe. These are non-trivial issues—serious matters that make a difference in the way I live.

It is important that I come to terms with my feelings about that Reality in which I live and move and have my being. It is vital that I have some models of human behavior to whom I can turn for hints about how to live a life. It is crucial that I have a strong sense of right and wrong—and try to live by those standards. It is essential to me that I detect in my life some reason for living.

After all, one of our oft-repeated Principles is the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Our openness to the search, however, can have two meanings. One relates to indifference, in which we either give up on ever finding truth, or simply don’t care to look.

Poet Russell Davenport gave us a sober warning:

Let us not fear Man; let us fear
Only what he believes in.
It is Nothing that we must fear; the thought of Nothing;
The sound of Nothing in our hearts.
The belief in nothing.

Robert Frost described himself as always a “pursuitist, never an escapist.” “Don’t be an agnostic, he said. “Be something.” And, of course, there is the old saw, “the trouble with being open-minded is that your brains may fall out.”

Therein lies one of the great misunderstandings of our religion—that we are a faith without content. Wrong! Our non-creedal religion requires much more of its adherents than meets the eye. In understanding this religious liberty as merely freedom-from, we have not understood the heavy burdens freedom places upon us—its severe disciplines, its weighty responsibilities. Remember, it must be a free and RESPONSIBLE search! Each individual is responsible to decide what to believe in and how to live.

So again, if we cannot have a faith based on creed, dogma, tradition, ecclesiastical authority, on what can we base it? Ourselves? Surely that is a weak reed upon which to lean. But what other? Who else will shoulder responsibility of our convictions if we ourselves are not willing to do it?

The blue print we can liken to any authoritative religious formulation—the Apostles Creed, the Westminster Confession, the Baltimore Catechism—clearly we are without such blueprints. But how about tools and materials? My observation has been that people entering our churches from other traditions experience a certain joyful release when they learned we would not compel their conscience or require any particular belief. But when the aura of that freedom faded; with what were they left? A series of rejected beliefs? But that is not much help in living a life. What comes next?

Yes, ours is a faith for people who want to think for themselves. We are a liberal religion, not a literalist, fundamentalist religion. But what is Liberal Religion?  It is when the Buddha said that salvation is to be found in the realization of truth.  It is in Islam when it is said that giving alms is good, but giving anonymously is divine.  It is the Tao Te Ching when it is said that only difficult things are worth pursuing. Instead of being absorbed by salvation for an “afterlife,” we are more concerned about living responsibly and deeply, here and now.

Rather than allow our lives to be influenced by literal interpretations of scriptures and the prescriptions of dogma and creeds, we live by deeds and interpret religious stories as metaphors for living responsibly.

This doesn’t mean that whatever anyone believes is fine, since some beliefs are good for us and others are not. We do look to ancient sources for spiritual wisdom and contemporary individuals for religious leadership, but the ultimate authority when it comes to the meaning of your life is you. Here’s the catch: the freedom within which we act to determine our beliefs should always be directed by our sense of responsibility to the common good as we understand it through the evolution of humanity and in the context of community.

The principles we read together this morning and this Fellowship’s mission which you can read on the back of our program have to do with assuming a responsibility for the common good of all—a community of equality, equity, justice and compassion. So the short answer to the question “What do UUs believe?” is this one: We believe that human beings have a responsibility to one another in this life to care for the earth and to work for the common good.

In religious terms, this challenge constitutes what theologian Paul Tillich calls our moral imperative: to become a person in a community of persons. In the same way as one cannot be a citizen without being a citizen of a particular country, so Tillich insists that one cannot fully be a person without a being a member of a community.

It is always my abiding hope that this Fellowship will exemplify one such community. Like all religions, ours is constituted by two distinct but related impulses: a sense of awe and a sense of obligation. The feeling of awe emerges from our experience of the grandeur of life and the mystery of the divine. This feeling becomes religious when we respond with a sense of duty to the larger life that we share.

But liberal religion is not merely a process of living together religiously—though it is that. It is not simply learning to respect the values and beliefs of others. It is not simply making peace among warring believers. It is a place wherein one comes to believe not anything one wants—as if religion were so casual an affair–but to believe what one must—because the mind and heart and conscience compel us to do so—because our understanding of history and our observations of human life insist we square our beliefs with our experience and our growing knowledge.

Matthew Arnold in 1861 wrote, “It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like, but after all, an important question remains, what do you think?”

It’s a bit like doing a crossword puzzle. Consider these words: “You should do theology like you do a crossword puzzle. First of all, you do it in pencil, because it is very arrogant to do it in pen. As you find our more, sometimes you have to change answers you thought you had. And sometimes you may never find the answer; sometimes you just have to live with the question.”

We know we are unlikely to be able to ink it in and get all the answers right. Sometimes, you have to think outside the box! Most important, we know that we have to try to put some letters, some words—in those spaces if we are to grow.

And so I share with you my own theological crossword puzzle—penciling in my provision answers to the big questions—enjoying the process but needing to state my own convictions—where I stand here and now.

I believe that life is a gift and that our responsibility as human beings is to preserve that gift.

I believe that almost all religions are saying that we are precious people who need to treat everybody else as though they are precious, too.

As stated in our principles and affirmed in our mission, I believe that truth, justice and compassion are requirements for living.

I believe that love is better than hatred, understanding is better than prejudice, and that if there is ever to be a better world, people of widely differing beliefs will have to help each other build it.

I believe that, down deep, all people of goodwill hold these same beliefs and that every individual should feel encouraged to develop a fulfilling philosophy of life.

I believe that if my life is to have meaning I must create it.

I believe in Creation, a powerful impulse that pervades and permeates the univers; manifest on earth as nature, over time as history, and in humanity as love.

I believe in reverence for all of life with which I hsare the planet; the earth is a garden to be cultivated, not a mine to be emptied.

I believe in the power of people of good will and sacrifical spirit who seek to create the Beloved Community of Earth.

I believe that in the love of beauty and the spirt of truth we unite in this sacred space for the celebration of life and the service of humanity. Amen.

I could go on, Lord knows I could go on. I believe this not because I simply want to—I believe it because I must. It is part of the distilled essence of the stuff of my life. That is my credo. What is yours?