On the Mayflower Compact, the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes and a Spirituality for the Twenty-First Century

On this day in 1620, if you adjust for the change in calendar from Julian to Gregorian, forty-one passengers of the Mayflower, which was at the time anchored in Provincetown Harbor at the end of Cape Cod, signed a compact. This document was brief enough…

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November [New Style, November 21], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

Of course social contracts were in the air. The idea that people should gather together in some sort of democratic manner had been bruited about for ages.

What is important here is that with this document the idea enters the religious sphere as for all practical purposes the Pilgrims who would establish the Plymouth colony like their Puritan cousins up the coast in Boston were establishing theocracies, there was no air between the civil and the religious aspects of life.

As the Puritan and Pilgrim strands matured and became Massachusetts and Congregationalism took root as the uniting form of church governance this idea of individual conscience and the relationship between individuals within communities of faith became increasingly a spiritual question. Gradually the principles of freedom and reason and tolerance would take on a religious cast.

And the spirituality we call Unitarianism would spring from all this.

It should be noted there are other Unitarianisms around the globe that do not depend upon a congregational polity to uphold individual freedom – the Unitarians of Great Britain and Ireland both maintain presbyterian polities and the Hungarian speaking Unitarians maintain modified episcopal polities. And all have to one degree or another a sense of the preciousness of the individual.

But how this happened in America and how covenant became so central has had substantial consequences of emphasis and eventually of what becomes central to this spiritual enterprise.

Today Unitarian Universalism is the heir to a fairly radical congregationalism. While congregants and especially ministers bemoan the creeping authority of the center, in fact the denominational structure is extremely weak, having no authority to assess financial support and no provisions for disciplining congregations. Only the ministers are bound by rules generated from the center, and if they have the support of their congregation and no need to seek a new placement, they can happily thumb their noses at the center with relative impunity, as well.

But even though the central institution is weak, one is not allowed to topple toward a bare libertarianism, one is still bound within relationships. Only that the central expression of this connection is found in the more intimate setting of a living congregation rather than within denominational structures.

That said, all this to what effect?

Personally I’m concerned with the spiritual consequences.

I think they emerge as both the first and seventh principles of the UUA’s statement of Principles and Purposes.

Yes, the fifth principle is a straight ahead call for democratic process. But I think the reasoning and the deeper call is found in the first and seventh principles.

The first speaks of “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” The seventh calls for “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

There was an attempt to replace “respect” in the seventh principle with the word “reverence.” For various reasons it failed by the slimmest of margins at a vote of the UUA General Assembly in 2009. Still, I believe the intuition this is a more profound thing going on and calling for reverence rather than respect hangs in the air, and whether enshrined in the document or not, is a sense informing how we might best investigate the matter.

I believe these two statements are the most amazing theological assertion to rise in modern Western religion. They are naturalistic, that is they do not rely upon God’s revelation. And yet they do not deny the possible hand of God in their discovery, or how these insights are planted in the human heart. One can hold this perspective and be nontheist, a classical theist, a pantheist or a panentheist.

The principles themselves leave the investigation of how they arise in other hands and instead go to their direct consequences within our lived lives.

Which is that the human person (and I believe implicit in this the whole of creation) is as it is precious. Each individual is unique and wondrous as it emerges. And this individual always and only emerges out of the web of relationships. As unique and precious as the individual is, the individual is always a part of some greater. And that greater is the whole of the cosmos united in an endless play of relationships.

And implicit in this is an understanding of the human mind.

We can discern our differences.

And we can discern our unity.

And this stance implies strongly that we can “know” in the gnostic sense of coming to a fully manifested realization that is more than the process of reasoning by itself, more than an idea bubbling in the brain. Rather we can experience the twin realities of our individuality and our connection as one thing as the very foundation of our life.

Understanding this, and coming to a direct experience of it, is what makes it a spiritual path not unlike Buddhism. Although Unitarian Universalism tends to lack Buddhism’s sense of tragic. It seems to me stylistically Unitarian Universalism is a bit more like Taoism’s naturalism, if lacking Taoism’s taste for the fantastical.

For me what brings this all together is the fourth principle which holds up “a free and responsible search for meaning.”

Here the responsibility is placed upon the heart of the individual.

And sometimes this means license to do nothing or to follow whatever bypath one wishes.

But if one feels the urge of responsibility for the whole, for suffering humanity, for the pain of the world, then the quest for meaning, that sense which gives us direction, from which all morality and all hope rises, becomes compelling. And then we have something.

I consider this the heart of liberal religion.

I believe there is a perennial quality to this insight. It can be found more or less complete in all religions, or at least those that have been around a while.

And there is something peculiar about the Unitarian Universalist enterpise that opens it to hyphens. One may be a UU Christian, a UU humanist, a UU Buddhist, and many, many more forms of Unitarian Universalist.

Personally I’m deeply interested in how all this informs my Zen Buddhism and how my Zen Buddhism informs this emergent Western expression. I see others using (not quite the right word… Engaging. Dancing.) the traditions of Christianity and Judaism in similar ways. Again using doesn’t quite feel the right word – it is a full hearted engagement. It is a dance. The list of partners is long. Earth-centered perspectives can be enormously valuable, particularly those aspects found in Native American traditions. I can see how Hindu and Taoist spiritualities can be a part of this.

It is, yes, dangerous. Many dead-ends will appear. No doubt.

And it is a human enterprise, so abuses have and will appear.

And, it is so exciting.

Who knows what can come out of an open-hearted investigation of this matter?

Particularly if we are humble, and look to the older traditions, and seek that wisdom wherever it might appear.

Applying a fierce devotion to attention, to not turning away, to looking, looking, feeling, feeling, reflecting, and looking again.

Something precious is afoot.

And it all, I believe, can be traced back in significant part to those forty-one Pilgrims sitting in the bowels of the Mayflower and creating a compact, a contract, a covenant.

Never dreaming where it could lead…