Belief's Wide Skirt

Today a friend posted a wonderful quotation from Toni Morrison on Facebook:

image by quotepixel.com

 

"For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul."

And it occurs to me that this is what ministry (and religion) should be about. It isn't about telling people what they should believe, or frightening them with bogey-stories about what will happen to them if they don't subscribe to a particular creed or ethical viewpoint. It should be about sharing our own authentic beliefs ("what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light") with courage and honesty, so that others may do likewise.

This is why freedom of belief is so important to Unitarians (and to other religious liberals, such as Quakers). We believe that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves, and that the final authority for this is the still, small voice of your own conscience. So within the Unitarian community, belief does indeed have a wide skirt, and the best thing that we can do for ourselves and for each other is to share our authentic beliefs in a supportive community that encourages questions and doubts, so long as they are real.

The Future of Unitarianism

In a keynote speech to the FOY Society seminar in 1997, Miles Howarth said:

"If we can get the fundamentals right, then there will be enough people who are inspired, involved and active so they provide the money, the ways and the means ... We must be in the business of impact and success and growth."

This begs the question: "What are the fundamentals?" I think that this is the issue that our General Assembly needs to be concentrating on - to provide a clear, simple to understand exposition of the fundamentals of Unitarianism, so that new people will be attracted into our movement, and will stay.

Six years ago, in June 2006, the Executive Committee circulated a statement entitled Our Unitarian Ethos, which I believe was a step in the right direction. In comparison with the wordy 2001 GA Object, it is snappy, easily understood, and interesting. It reads:

"We Unitarians and Free Christians are united by our ethos and values. We aspire to create a loving, caring, religious community within which we:

• value people in their diversity and uniqueness
• encourage freedom of thought and speech
• support spiritual exploration
• create celebratory worship
• advocate justice, liberty, honesty, integrity, peace and love

Hence we strive to:

• make the best of the life we have
•  be democratic in our practice
• celebrate life in its many forms
• respect people whose beliefs and attitudes are different from our own."

This statement, with which I think the vast majority of Unitarians would agree, needs publicising widely. It sums up the underlying values of present day British Unitarianism. We all need to work together to save our precious "uncommon denomination" from extinction. Let us use our heads and hearts, our reason and imagination, and turn our movement around. In the words of Earl Holt:

"We remember this day those who have gone before us here, who laboured not for themselves alone, but with a vision of building for the future a world better than they had known. Inspire in us also a like vision, that we too may labour for things beyond ourselves, that our lives may be dedicated to high purposes and grand horizons. Make us unafraid of hopes and dreams; release us from cynicism and despair. Teach us to be realistic about our limitations but never to lose hope in our potential to transcend them."

May it be so.

 

Be ye therefore perfect

I've just been writing my last essay for Regent's Park College, about Pelagius and St. Augustine. Pelagius was a late 4th century British monk, who acquired quite a following in the dying days of the Roman Empire for proclaiming that humankind had free will to choose to do right, and the responsibility to follow all the law and the teachings of the Gospel. And ran up against Augustine of Hippo, who believed that we are all rotten with the taint of original sin, totally unable to do anything right except through God's grace. Guess which one I am in sympathy with?

The thing I found very interesting is that both Pelagius and one of my all-time heroes, 19th century American Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, were both inspired by the same bit of Matthew's gospel: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matt 5:48) Both men believed that humankind has the potential to be perfect, otherwise God would not have commanded us to strive for it. There is an absolutely beautiful passage in Theodore Parker's address The Transient and Permanent in Christianity, which goes like this:

"Christianity is a simple thing, very simple. It is absolute, pure morality; absolute, pure religion; the love of man; the love of God acting without let or hindrance. Its watchword is, Be perfect as your Father in heaven. The only form it demands is a divine life; doing the best thing in the best way, from the highest motives; perfect obedience to the great law of God."

What a challenge! And what an inspiration! Whenever I read those words, it makes me want to sit up straight, and do better.

One of the authors of the books on St Augustine that I was reading for the essay accused Pelagius of a sort of "icy Puritanism", in which there was no room for backsliders and ordinary, everyday, weak, sinful human beings. And I guess I see his point. The sort of church I want to belong to would have the high aims of Pelagius and Theodore Parker to inspire us to do the best we can in all the ways that we can, but also some cradling arms and listening ears to catch the broken and the fallen, and help them back up. Otherwise it could be terribly judgemental, and holier-than-thou, which is not what our inclusive, loving denomination is about.

"Still I am one"

The title of my blog is taken from a quotation by Edward Everett Hale, a 19th century Unitarian minister and writer. The full quote reads as follows:

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do."

For me, this sums up where I'm coming from as a Unitarian. All of us are little individuals, but each one of us can do "the something we can do". In my case, this involves my job, my training and my involvement with sundry Unitarian societies. I feel so blessed to be able to serve such worthy things.