To Build a Church
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
May 9, 2021
Sixty-one years ago this week, in May of 1960, representatives of the Unitarians and the Universalists met and voted overwhelmingly to consolidate their two denominations into one new religion. A worship service attended by hundreds was held in Boston’s Symphony Hall to celebrate the occasion. The Reverend Donald Harrington was chosen to preach, and he proclaimed, “We have achieved a union which is the result of more than 100 years of striving, and which now, at last, when the time is fully ripe, has come to completion. It is our tremendous potential, born of the world’s response to our new relevance, caused by this new world’s need for a religion which is dynamic instead of static…history-making rather than history-bound, that has made this Unitarian-Universalist merger necessary and inevitable.” (Donald Harrington, “We Are That Faith!”, in A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism, Vol. Two, Dan McKanen, ed., p. 213)
The delegates to the convention were thrilled and hopeful about the potential that this joining of the two small denominations could create. Somewhat heartbreakingly, Reverend Harrington went on to say, “Looking forward, I see the need for us to prepare ourselves to absorb the shock of the incredible growth which will accompany our newly-won relevance.” (ibid.)
Unfortunately, that prediction has not yet come true.
But that night they stood and sang together, apparently over and over until they wept: “As tranquil streams that meet and merge, and flow as one to seek the sea, our kindred hearts and minds unite to build a church that shall be free.” (Singing the Living Tradition, #145.)
Earlier we told two creation myths, from the Babylonians and the Greeks, both stories beginning in unformed watery chaos. And the image of water holds throughout our UU origin stories as well: the tranquil streams meeting and merging, John Murray setting sail to meet his destiny, and running aground. Water – life-giving, but chaotic; creative source, but uncontrollable. In 1960 and then in May 1961, when the first General Assembly was held, chaos looked more like committee meetings and resolutions and amendments rather than monsters and dragons, but the endless debates, compromises, and decisions might have mae the delegates feel as though they were confronting a hydra, a many-headed serpent.
And so our religious forebears set out to build a new church, full of promise and hope for the growth of liberal religion. They set out to build a church where all beliefs would be welcome, where we would learn to draw from many religions to seek wisdom. Their hope was to create a religion that would respond to and embrace the new world, with its shrinking distances, with jet travel and ever-improving communication. The world was growing smaller. Unitarian Universalism could respond by offering an alternative to all the traditional religions born out of a different time with less connection and less understanding between people of the world. The new Universalism wasn’t focused so much anymore on universal salvation, but rather on universal human experience. The new Unitarianism wouldn’t focus so much on the absence of the Trinity, but rather on the unity of all; the connection of everything in the universe.
So we set out to create this new religion that would speak to anyone. And because of this tradition of acceptance, of trying to draw the circle ever wider, we found that one question our forebears, and we today, have had to confront both then and now is: are we really a religion?
It turns out that many people have turned their attention to deciding what makes a belief system a religion. There are lists of boxes to be checked. Of course, because this is complicated, there are multiple lists, some with more religious characteristics than others. Some of the categories ask: are there common beliefs? We would have to say, some, but not all. We don’t have a creed that we recite. How about ritual? We can check that box: our church services strive to help us connect with the Ultimate and with our religious feelings. We take seriously elements such as lighting our chalice, and we carefully plan rites of passage such as memorial services, and child dedications. Another characteristic of religion is the presence of a moral, ethical framework: in our case, our seven Principles serve as a foundational blueprint for how we expect ourselves and each other to make our way through life with love, compassion, and care.
Underlying all those components, for us there is something fundamental: a belief in coming together as a community. The Latin root of the word ‘religion’ is ‘religare’: the ties that bind. Certainly we know how to create community, through our commitment to joining together, as we in Gloucester recite each week: ‘to seek, to sustain, and to share.’
But one of the most common characteristics that defines a religion is its origin stories; its creation stories. And we, too, have our stories: stories that define us, offer us glimpses of our beginnings, and help us to create an identity that sets us apart. And today is a day for stories.
We Unitarian Universalists are heretics; we have been founded and shaped by people who believed in heresies, by rejecting the concept of the Trinity, and by believing that a loving God would never consign humans to eternal suffering. People paid dearly for those beliefs, sometimes with their lives.
In our reading, we mentioned Arius, who argued at the Council of Nicaea in 325 that Jesus could not be made of the same substance as God, and that therefore, the concept of the Trinity could not be true. The arguments grew heated and it has been claimed that Saint Nicholas actually slapped Arius in the face. Once all was decided, in favor of the Trinity, Arius was in effect voted off the island – he was exiled far from his home in Alexandria.
The concept of a God undivided in nature would not die, however, but continued to arise in Christianity from time to time. In the 1500’s a brilliant Spanish physician began to argue his case against the Trinity. His name was Miguel Serveto. Throughout our history he has been known as Michael Servetus. Servetus was a believer in Christianity, but rejected the Trinity. In 1553 he was imprisoned in France for his heretical beliefs, as set forth in a book titled On the Errors of the Trinity. He managed to escape, and set out to travel to Italy. For some reason, he stopped off in Geneva, where John Calvin was the leader of the Protestant church. Servetus had attempted many times to engage Calvin in debate, and possibly thought he could do so in person in Geneva. Instead, Servetus was arrested, tried and found guilty of heresy, and burned at the stake standing on top of a pile of his books.
Fast forward just a few years, to the 1560’s in Transylvania. Francis David was a religious thinker and scholar. He was raised Catholic and studied for the priesthood, but within a few years converted to Lutheranism. David became a Lutheran pastor and then bishop. Not long thereafter he converted to Calvinism. Once again he was appointed bishop, and was then made the court preacher to the young King John Sigismund. While at court, he met Giorgio Biandrata, the king’s physician, and a follower of Michael Servetus. You might be able to guess what happened next: David converted to Unitarianism, and convinced the young king to not only convert himself, but to declare that in Transylvania all four religions would be accepted equally. Such tolerance was unheard of. Sadly, the king died just a few years later, and the brief era of religious tolerance came to an end. At the same time, Francis David’s religious beliefs continued to evolve, and when he reached a point where he announced that it was no longer necessary to pray to Jesus Christ, he was sentenced to life in prison. He died in a miserable dungeon in 1579.
Today is a day of stories. One thread that has emerged today, running through all these stories, is that human religious belief is always evolving. We are unlikely today to worship a remote sky god sending terrifying thunder and lightning, or a warrior-god, slaying monsters and dragons. In fact, in reading the myths, it is clear that the gods themselves evolved over time, taking on different personas, different forms, even different names. Gaia, for example, might have become Demeter. In many cultures, worship of feminine deities was suppressed and evolved into worship of male deities.
Our personal beliefs evolve over the course of our lifetimes, as demonstrated by the rapid conversions of Francis David. Within a span of about 25 years he converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism to Calvinism to Unitarianism.
In 1960 and 1961, 60 years ago, the brand-new religion of Unitarian Universalism set itself to offer a new path where it would be safe, even encouraged, to seek, to explore, and to grow. For some people this can look like a deepening belief in a divine presence. For others, it might enable a journey away from belief of any kind. Often we serve as a springboard, helping people to find out who they really are and what they really believe. What we have set out to do is to create a religion that can hold all of that, and more.
We do not always succeed. This is an extraordinarily difficult task, and we sometimes fail people. We find that we cannot be a refuge for everyone – for those wanting more tradition, or for those so harmed by traditional religious practices that any mention of God is difficult to hear. We have all too often failed to provide a refuge for Black people and people of color. What we learned in the years since the first General Assembly in May, 1961 is that the work was not completed there. The work was just beginning, and it is continuing on to this day.
My friends, 60 years ago we were born out of hope and of dreams in our potential as a new religion for the whole world. The delegates at that first GA could never have imagined the world that would emerge since then; the changes to society and to science and technology that they, and we, would be forced to confront. We set ourselves to respond to the world as it evolved, and to remain relevant, guided by our beliefs that there could be a place for everyone among us. It is hard religious work. Whether we will succeed is up to each and every one of us. May the stories of our past guide us forward into the future.
Blessed be,
Amen.
