Last evening Jan and I heard a presentation from Carlton Pearson and Marlin Lavanhar about how Bishop Pearson’s spiritual journey led to the folding of his Pentecostal Universalist congregation into All Soul’s Unitarian Church in Tulsa. Quite a story.
The presentation offered an interesting challenge to contemporary Unitarian Universalists and our relationship with Christianity. We UUs tend to think all religions have something to offer with the possible exception of Christianity. We kind of get the absurdity of this position. But it is also visceral among us, a tradition that for much of the twentieth century was a safe haven for those wounded by “mainstream” Christianity.
But…
We have historically honored two spiritual approaches which we tag with the much older terms unitarianism and universalism. In our current usage unitarianism might best be characterized as the way of the mind. It is all about reason. It takes old Occam’s razor to pretty much everything, but in particular to ideas of a personal God. Universalism, however, is the other current. And in our contemporary usage it is about the feeling life, the way of the heart. It is about hurt and longing and healing. It is about a sense of reconciliation with the world and with each other as the great work of religion, of spirituality.
One might argue, and I think I do, that the operant theology of Unitarian Universalism is in fact universalism rather than unitarianism. This is a position that needs clarification and defending. But for this brief reflection, I need to simply let it stand as an assertion of fact.
But if true, if Unitarian Universalists really are universalists, if one is a universalist, how much does it really matter if one considers oneself post-Christian or an ecstatic Christian?
If the goal is healing the wounded heart and revealing our common inheritance within the great web, what does it matter how we come to experience that healing balm?
For contemporary UUs this boils down to the conundrum that we really, really want to be multicultural, and in particular to attract African Americans into our communities, but that our very, very “white” culture appears to have little appeal to these people we say and I believe mostly really want to bring into our community. And in this regard Carlton’s and Marlin’s challenge to us was the question what are we really about, the transmission of a culture or a faith stance? Are we about classical New England Unitarianism and its humanist expression and its relentlessly “white culture,” or are we about the reconciliation of the world?
A compelling question. At least for me.
And it opened a floodgate of thoughts…
From time to time people ask me if I’m a Christian.
And we Westerners like our answers about religion simple and to the point. A simple yes or no, thank you.
But, the truth is rarely so simple. And certainly not a simple question for me.
Just as when people ask whether I believe in God, I need further clarification of the question, which God are you speaking of? The one who created the heavens and the earth and watches every action and someday will judge who goes to heaven and who to hell? That one? Well, no. But, Spinoza’s God, the God that is identical with the world? Sure, you bet. (And for those who want to know, panentheism, not so much. Seems to me there’s an unnecessary extra there…)
So, people ask me whether I’m a Christian. The question is reasonable enough. I am a minister in a church that has deep roots in the Christian tradition and which includes a number, although a minority of people who certainly consider themselves Christian. But, people also notice I usually say I am a Buddhist, indeed I’m also an ordained Soto Zen priest and that I have been practicing Zen for over forty years.
Those who have nothing better to do and have looked at my various writings, sermons, etc, notice I am not consistent in this matter.
Of course a necessary question is who is a Christian?
I know folk who will say that you are a Christian if you believe Jesus is your personal savior. I know others who want assent to one of the historic creeds, at a bare minimum, the Apostle’s, although more want the Nicene with its unambiguous Trinitarianism.
But some say a Christian is anyone who can say Jesus is Lord and are very wary of defining that Lord thing.
I was raised a Christian and Christianity informs my stance in the world. Those who read my sermons and other writings notice that Biblical allusions and metaphors run a flooding current through what I have to say.
There are ways of understanding Jesus that make sense to me, that while minority opinions, are intellectually defensible and call to my heart.
So, some part of any given week I certainly can say I am a Christian.
But, more importantly, I think, is that what unites my Christianity with my Buddhism, and both of these with my fairly extreme rationalism is universalism.
For me it all turns on universalism.
And I think shove comes to push this is true for our UU churches, as well.
And the real question is if universalism is the message, what should we be doing in our churches today to foster and to fan and to spread the good news?
I think of the current leadership of the churches that I serve are ultimately charged with giving their power away to the future. In practical terms this has meant that the current generation needs to cultivate the next and in a reasonable amount of time pass the torch.
Pass that torch even knowing the next generation aren’t doing it the “right” way. They’re doing it their own way…
In my experience this has meant that the older and more humanistically oriented are encouraged to encourage the younger and for the most part more theistically inclined to step into positions of authority.
But Carlton and Marlin were offering an even more radical position.
If we’re really about universalism and if we really want to open our doors to a larger segment of our contemporary American culture, well, what about those Pentecostal Christian universalists?
What about it?
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