I was reading a part of Ann Lee Bressler’s The Universalist Movement in America, 1770-1880, when I ran across this:
Until it ceased publication in 1891, the Universalist Quarterly supplied a forum for those thinkers who, like the neo-orthodox theologians several decades later, objected to the increasingly pervasive theme of continuity between the present world and the divine, “the major positive principle of the liberal mind.” (p. 144)
I have long read the Universalist Quarterly and General Review, first for background for my never-written master’s thesis, and later for Richard Eddy’s multi-part “Universalist Conventions and Creeds.” But you don’t have to read them on microfilm any more. Several volumes have been scanned and may be read online or downloaded. It’s a good read, and is a counter to the oft-repeated trope that Universalists were unsophisticated.
Note: some of these are misnumbered. This is not the scanner’s fault, but the original publisher’s.
Alsos, not all volumes are online, but I’ll keep looking and filling in missing volumes.
So, can you count the ways you use a smart phone? Here’s another for you: as the working end of an inexpensive DIY image “scanner” for religious texts. This setup, depicted with a workflow, at the Open Siddur Project, might be just the thing for recording church archives or other documents that shouldn’t be lain on a flatbed scanner.
I really was thinking about unfamiliar tools for shared church work; that is, tools where people can work collaboratively without having to all be in the same place. This is normal and increasingly common in business, but well all know that church is slow to change and underfunded. Or slow to change because it is underfunded.
About the time I had this thought, the news cane out the Metro will be shutting down at midnight tonight and all through Wednesday until Thursday morning. I’m just grateful my workplace has some systems — developed before blizzards — to cope, and most of my officemates will work from home. Of course, we will use Google Docs and Dropbox, and I bet many my readers do too.
But can you imagine the possible uses of something like Github, a software development tool used to manage the versions of documents. For churches, perhaps reports and resources, and to keep repositories of documents and graphics files? And webpages (Github Pages) easily stood up to share and promote those products. The humanities has a small presence of Github, but the Open Siddur Project (on Github) is objectively religious and liturgical, and makes me wonder about other possibilities. My sleepy Github account is here.
The other tool I want to point out now is Overleaf, an easy-to-use frontend for the very-powerful LaTeX typesetting software that’s widely used in academia, especially mathematics. Indeed, Overleaf’s market seems to be universitites, and if I were writing a thesis now, I’d be all over it. And if I were to get some people together to make a book or serious journal, I’d start there.
Are there unlikely tools you use that might be used in collaborative church work?
Several years ago, I wrote about a then-new resource called EmergingUU.org, and was hopeful it might spark new churches. That page has since vanished as a free-standing resource, but re-appeared as a page within the UUA Mid America Region site. But new church planting is as low as I’ve ever seen it.
There used to be quite a bit of church starting literature, both historically and within “career lifetime memory” but about the time I was coming on the scene in the 1980s, it was already drying up. Perhaps in repudiation of the Fellowship Movement model? The new model was to create a highly developed, programmatic church with high-commitment donors. This has worked in a couple of places, though I wonder if there has been any net gain in those areas. In any case, this is not the kind of church start that you leave new start publications out for. There’s not a new model that’s yet emerged, and it would be helpful for the appropriate authorities within the UUA to produce some, particularly as the “primary purpose” (as in “Principles and Purposes”) of the UUA is “to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new congregations, extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist institutions and implement its principles.” (By-Laws C-2.2.)
The thing that first hits you is that the most important goal of a congregation is to affiliate with the UUA, without much of a case of why a congregation would want to do so. Oddly enough, there’s almost nothing said about what a congregation is, and while the site mentions some things (faith development, social justice, environmental concerns, for instance) it doesn’t go further to say why these are important. Administration trumps ecclesiology. It’s hard, without a huge amount of commitment and training, to come up with pathway for starting a new church without help, and it seems to me that the UUA ought to be generous this way. What better way could it earn its reason for being? Who better to lead this important work? Keep this in mind as the new congregations are welcomed at General Assembly. If any are welcomed at General Assembly.
Well, the housing block for General Assembly opened this week, and althought there was a false start that allowed some people to register on February 29, I can’t complain because I got a room!
It’s long been my opinion that you can get a lot done at General Assembly — so long as you don’t rely on the formal agenda. I treat the experience as an opportunity: the people who are likely to help you get something done are more likely to be in that one place, so here’s an easy way to build the relationships and dream big. I intend to meet a lot of people for coffee and lunch and beer.
But the area around the convention center doesn’t look great for easy dining, so I’ll review by notes from the Disciple of Christ, who had their General Assemly there last year. Posts and maps forthcoming.
It’s funny — I am, quite deliberately, not a member of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, but its Guidelines continually affect me, and all Unitarian Universalists. In particular, there is a troubling culture that has grown up around one of the expectations of conduct:
I will not speak scornfully or in derogation of any colleague in public. In any private conversation concerning a colleague, I will speak responsibly and temperately. I will not solicit or encourage negative comments about a colleague or their ministry.
These Expectations of Conduct apply to all forms of public or private media including electronic and internet communications.
Which is fine, as written, and a bit embarrassing that it needs to be spelled out.
But the rule, as applied, has grown legs and can run. Too often, it claims the power of “covenant,” which so far as I can tell means “because I said so” and which really comes from our Unitarian and New England-ish approach to interpersonal power.
That power gave us strength — in the past. The kind of principled, theological debate that once marked our traditions is long gone. So, there’s a decided chill to not only not “speak scornfully or in derogation” but to not speak negatively about another minister, his or her thoughts or behavior or conduct in the ministry. Or really say anything that could be read negatively. I’ve spoken to several ministers over the years who have decided to self-censor and not criticize or challenge bad ideas for fear of being hauled up on charges of unprofessional conduct. There’s no reason someone’s reputation should be menaced by a fragile personality, yet our system allows it.
And we are the more bland, insular and stupid for it.
We are at the beginning of an over-long campaign for the presidency of the Unitarian Universalist Association, a position that (for the life of me) I can’t imagine anyone wanting. Two ministers were nominated, one has since dropped out. Another candidate, almost certainly a minister, will be presented by the same nominating committee to be run though an ersatz grassroots nomination by petition. I suspect others will see the opportunity and run. The process is in tatters, but where is the analysis? Ministers are candidates, nominators, campaign supporters, whips, funders and voters. What, in our subdued culture, is right to say? I suspect we can demand little from ministers, and get less. How is that leadership? What can we demand of the candidates in public, however nominated?
I add in public because when there’s a pressure not to speak candidly, back-channels and coded language takes its place, in this election and in all our business.
So, first, let’s look at this rule and not over-function. To “speak scornfully or in derogation” assumes the application of emotion over reason, and presumably to speak against the person — ad hominem — and not the ideas, prospect, record or plans. It means to use the rhetorical skills associated with the ministry carefully, and the care means asking those tough questions — in public — among the ministerial college. Apply the rule as written.
Our heritage, dignity and reputation demand nothing less.
I don’t have time to write about it now, but Sue Phillips announced this morning that she is withdrawing from the race for the presidency of the Unitarian Universalist Association. This is bad news for her and for the UUA, and it sets up a crisis for the new and untested process for selecting a new president.
It also creates an unequal power relationship for any candidate that may now come forward, and privileges established power centers that might want to put forward a candidate.
I’ll be writing more on this subject later, and as the news develops.
So, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died, and I’ve seen how careful ministers have been to keep a neutral, even upbeat tone. Variations on this theme are calls to “stay classy” or “remember that he was a child of God” or that he had “inherent worth and dignity,” the last quoting the Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Note the forms of these admonitions; I certainly did. I’d call the tone “policing.”
Let’s review. Scalia had a lifetime appointment to one of the world’s most powerful institutions, and in his time made decisions with the majority that were harmful to the nation, and others, had he been in the majority, would have harmed more. Like many other gay people, I recall with disgust his minority opinion on Lawrence v. Texas, made just days before my church wedding with my husband. This is not ancient history. Had he retired from the bench, I probably would not care so much, but had he continue to live, he could have continued to act. Remember that at the next billionaire-bought election, if indeed you’ll be able to vote. His death is both the end of his life, and the end of this work.
Still, I am worried about the actions of the living to minimize over Scalia’s record, and emphasize the private man. This looks like an attempt to play nice and minimize conflict, and that’s dishonest. The people he hurt have to pay for this dishonest accounting of his life’s work. How is that fair?
Since I write theologically, I’d like to focus on ministers and their responses. I’ve seen not one “well, thank God, that’s over” though that’s arguably a biblical response. Or even a “the less said, the better” which is reasonably diplomatic. There have been, I note, plenty of comments about his colleague and opera buddy Ruth Bader Ginsburg, like their friendship is supposed to make it all OK. Or his intellect, like smart or charming people can’t be rogues. Or in consideration of his family, like the rest of us don’t have them, but indeed, thanks to the Windsor decision (again Scalia going out of his way in his dissent) my family is safer.
When ministers defend the powerful in death — particularly those who were equally repulsed by the decedent — it tells me a lot about what side they’re on. It’s the side of authority itself, and telegraphs the power of authority over justice, the power of niceness over goodness. Perhaps it’s a fear of stirring up trouble in the church, and so again those who are hurt stay hurt. Some people will praise you for your temperate words, but others will remember that your judgment cannot be trusted when it matters. And that our behavior, the behavior of everyday people, must be managed because someone more powerful than we has died. Genteel coverups happen — though I hope it happens less — when misconducting ministers die, for instance.
“But Scott, you’re a Universalist. Isn’t God’s nature love?” You bet. Love, but not everything-goes, and I stand in our tradition here. There are two main streams of Universalist thought, but in mature (post-Civil War) Universalism, the restorationist stream was by far the stronger and, I think, the more compelling. That is, through our acts, including repentance, we are restored to God. The process may be slow and faltering, and (this is where Universalists differ from other Christians) does not end with death. God’s salvation will be complete, but surely not immediate. There’s no need to re-write Scalia into a fictional, better man before he’s cremated. God won’t be fooled; there’s no need to try and fool ourselves, either.
As a Universalist, I believe in a continuity between this life and the next. Death does not seal one’s fate. Death is not more powerful than God’s care. But it does break human relationships. Dead people cannot heal the harm they cause, and they cannot further harm the living. That’s good news to anyone who’s been hurt by someone who has since died. Nor should you be pressured into a hasty forgiveness. The work of reconciliation is between the dead and God, to be resolved and cured in time. Death doesn’t seal one’s fate, and doesn’t make them good either.
I would caution people to not forgive Scalia because it’s the nice thing to do, or expected of them. He did not repent of his action, nor seek your forgiveness. Quite the opposite. It is the way of the powerful to expect rules to apply to you and not to them. Do not comply. You are not the unreconciled party. And now that he’s gone, Scalia will have to manage with God’s docket; you do not have to plead to him, or for him.
Over the years, I’ve run across smallish, say 8×10 posters, with the Universalist “Five Principles” (click the link to download a copy) on them, clearly intended for domestic use and personal inspiration. And I know the Universalists were not opposed to the use of religious art in the home, and particularly with children, and particularly if the art was was sufficient quality. But more that this, apart from t-shirts, we lack the elements of material culture — the stuff — that develop a sense of belonging.
But this was an expensive endeavor, and I can imagine a publications manager, some decades ago, having masses of unsold, faded and dog-eared prints hauled to the landfill. Inspirational poster art has withered away among the Unitarian Universalists, probably everywhere else, too. But there’s no excuse for it.
Anyone on Facebook knows there’s a market for it, it’s never been cheaper or easier to create the images, and print it. Or, for the first time, practically ask people to have it printed locally.
Wednesday, February 3. The deadline was pushed back, so today is the last day to certify, if you’re in one of the 148 remaining congregations!
I’m fond of certification time for the UUA. It’s when I get new data to analyze. But for congregations, it’s an important annual task. Without it, no voting representation at General Assembly. And I’ve noticed that churches that don’t tend to register are often not long for this world. Don’t tempt fate; certify.
All congregations must have filed for certification by 5 p.m. PST on February 1, 2016, in order to be certified for GA. Only certified congregations may send voting delegates to the 2016 General Assembly.
So, an interesting bit of news: that a Unitarian Universalist House of Studies is opening at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio “early in 2016.” This was announced yesterday.
No, at first I thought this an audacious move. There are two Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)-related houses of study, respectively affiliated at Vanderbilt and the University of Chicago. These have buildings, including student housing, a developed program and formal denominational recognition. Likewise, the “General Convention” Swedenborgians transformed its freestanding seminary, taking from a small Cambridge, Massachusetts institution and embedded itself into Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. These are seminaries in miniature, and the UU program at MTSO isn’t that. And that’s worth noting in case it’s written off as a pale imitation.
But Duke Divinity School has two “houses of study” (for Baptists and Episcopalians/Anglicans respectively) that’s more of a student nexus with an academic track. Something more programmatic than institutional, and that may be the model Dean Lisa Withrow and Susan Ritchie, the house of studies director, who the announcement describes as the minister of her church and “immediate past trustee and secretary on the national board of the Unitarian Universalist Association.” Nothing about her role at the Starr King School for the Ministry, which is itself strange and noticeable. But as a program with in a school, rather than alongside a school is quite reasonable.
In this light, perhaps this house of studies will be seen as a rival of Starr King, or even the much closer Meadville Lombard. But aren’t all schools that aren’t one of these — I didn’t go to either for what it’s worth — and the house of studies still functionally in the experimental phase. I am concerned that MTSO is one of the smaller contributors to the Unitarian Universalist ministerial college. If I were to develop one strategically, perhaps Boston University or Wesley here in D.C., where there are a significant number of congregations for field education. (There are only five UU congregations within 50 miles of MTSO, and only one has more than a 150 members. Field education needs field supervision.)
Which brings me to my point: this looks less like an alternative to Starr King or Meadville Lombard than an alternative to the fading option of Andover Newton. And its role in forming Unitarian Universalist ministers will be hard to replace, so good luck to the UU house of studies. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
Continuing the long-dormant transcription project of lessons and propers from A Free Church Book of Common Prayer (1929). The Universalist A book of prayer for the church and the home (1866) does not have these occasions.
Saint Stephen.
December 26th.
Collect.
GRANT, O Lord, that, in all our suffering here upon the earth for the testimony of the truth, we make steadfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors by the example of thy first martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers, O blessed Jesus, standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.
¶ One or more of the collects for Christmas Day maybe may also be said.
MERCIFUL LORD, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed apostle and evangelist Saint John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of the everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
¶ One or more of the collects for Christmas Day maybe may also be said.
Epistle: 1 John i, 1-10 (end), or, Ecclus, xv, 1-6. Gospel: John xxi, 20-25 (end).
The Holy Innocents.
December 28th.
Collect.
O ALMIGHTY GOD, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; mortify and kill all the vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even after death, we make glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
¶ One or more of the collects for Christmas Day maybe may also be said.
For Epistle: Rev. xiv, 1-5. Gospel: Matt. ii, 13-21.
About three years ago, I started a project where I compared the one-year lectionaries, with accompanying collects (prayers), of a nineteenth-century Universalist prayerbook and an English twentieth-century work that tried to restore liturgial worship to historic dissenter churches, project that reminds me of the work of James Martineau.
It is largely complete, but I realized that in moving the content from Boy in the Bands to this domain, I let the links to this and other liturgical resources vanish. I’ve fixed that, and this week will fill in the missing propers for the days after Christmas.
I’ve been thinking about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services, as one does at Christmas.
I’ve long thought that a model 40-minute long service could be a helpful resource for churches to have, and have thought about what it might include, but haven’t made the case out loud of why 40 minutes. After all, it made a lot of sense to me but I wasn’t trying to convince anyone of it.
But if 40 minutes, then why not 20 or 10? Well, those could make sense too, but for different reasons, and that made me think of use cases. So before working out what those services might include, I wanted to think of adequate occasions for having them.
The 40-minute service might make sense:
For Christmas Day in a congregation wanting to develop a custom, but with few resources or committed attendees.
For an additional Christmas eve service: perhaps one more lean and more subdued for an adult audience who does want to be left out of the season, but doesn’t want the full blowout. Or doesn’t want to be left out of dinner reservations!
For a smaller church that shares a minister with another congregation, and needs to keep the liturgy short. Or uses borrowed or rented meeting space and can’t run long.
If the 40-minute service is to make the most of the available options, a 20-minute service might be needed when there are no other options.
An opt-in service at a workplace where the staff cannot attend a service at a church. In the breakroom, with people eating a meal as it goes on?
Before a group sets out on a trip or service project.
In very remote places, or in places where the language of worship is a minority language in the community, under the heading “it’s better than nothing at all.”
To those used to “the worship hour” this may seen lean, but morning or evening prayer can certainly be said within 20 minutes, and I attended a minor saint’s day communion service once many years ago that I timed to exactly 17 minutes.
It’s easier to imagine these led by a trained or experienced lay person.
A 10-minute service make sense for the benefit of one person, or a small group of people. Someone sick or near the end of life, for whom not only is there no option of going to church, but may only have a limited capacity to participate. The service may be at bedside; communion comes to mind. This suggests a less casual approach and pastoral direction, or at least pastoral support, and may be some other time than December 24 or 25.
So, dear readers, do these seem like approximately correct use cases?
Chancel mosaicI had the pleasure of preaching at Universalist National Memorial Church today, and by request am posting my notes. Be warned, these notes have as much in common with what I said today as grapes have with vinegar, but most of the points are there. The readings and benediction follow.
Thanks for returning to the pulpit
My thanks to UNMC pastors Crystal Lewis and Dave Gatton for having me return to the pulpit this morning, and thanks to you as we mark this third Sunday in Advent.
"Sing praises"
As we heard a few minutes ago, Isaiah said:
"Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst, is the Holy One of Israel." (Isaiah 12:5-6)
Let this be known in all the earth…
But how, friends, shall we sing praises, among ourselves, much less all the earth?
Since the last time I was in this pulpit, the world — if anything — seems dimmer. Not only are there more people desperate to flee violence in the Middle East, South Asia, the Horn of Africa and elsewhere, but the violence in Paris and San Bernardino makes it seem that the most vulnerable people are the first to be blamed. Indeed, we have one presidential candidate who has gone farther to stir up viscousness that I thought possible — so far that xenophobic politicians can use him for cover.
And this says nothing about the older wounds fading from the news cycle, or the private hurts. The losses, the slights, the could-have-beens and what-never-will-bes at home, at work and in the wider world.
In short, there doesn’t seem to be very much to be happy about. And yet I feel a lot of expectation to be happy, with Christmas coming, and everything.
How can we look at our world and and hope that joy will follow?
We tend to chose the wrong frame
But I’m not ready for Christmas
I’ve not bought a single present for Christmas. I’ve not decided on what cards to send, or if we’re even sending cards from home. I’ve not even bought stamps.
Perhaps it’s the warm weather. It doesn’t feel like Christmas yet. And that’s not even taking into account how sad and miserable Christmas can be. Like when someone you love has died and won’t be here this Christmas. Or when you have to disappoint someone because the girt is wrong or the travel is too difficult. In those cases, it doesn’t feel like it’s time for joy.
But it’s not just Christmas. We are fixed to our calendars
We mark our whole lives with calendars. Even before we are born, our development is marked and measured in weeks. As children, our lives our tied to school calendars, and often, as adults, to quarterly reports and fiscal years.
This time of the year, we are particularly aware of our calendars. So much ends with December, and if you work in a nonprofit, for instance, you know that this is the time to bring donations in. And time to buy a new calendar for 2016. The predictability of calendars is part of the appeal, I suppose.
Calendars aren’t appropriate
But I think calendars, by simply existing can mislead us — mislead us into thinking that God’s desire for us can also be measured and scheduled.
If you can measure or schedule something — like joy — you risk acting like you have more control over than you really do. And I don’t mean a pink candle, a cross-country flight or a doctor’s appointment, as much as compartmentalizing our lives. Deferring everyday pleasures in hope of really enjoying something, somehow, sometime in the future.
But life is too short and too uncertain to be compartmentalized.
And I believe that we were made for happiness. And that we can and we should live our lives accordingly.
Joy, in particular, cannot be scheduled. It can be found or cultivated, but it cannot be scheduled.
So how can we find or cultivate it? We have some unlikely resources. Consider John the Baptist.
John the Baptist
According to the passage we heard this morning,
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
This is not what I associate with joy, you? But then again, John’s an unlikely character. But he’s certainly not someone who was likely to compartmentalize his life. What you see is what you get.
Usually depicted as a liminal, almost wild figure. He was probably acetic, certainly an apocalyptic, and given his diet of locusts and wild honey — he was definitely Paleo.
His camel hair suit sounds scratchy (Matthew 3:4) and I suspect he smelled less than fresh.
But John was the forerunner, anticipating Jesus. When Mary spoke to Elizabeth, John — still in utero — John lept for joy. We’re supposed to see him as a part of God’s greater purpose, and that’s not a tragic role.
Joy is more than getting what you want and when you want it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that John wasjolly, but he know what he was, know what he had to do, and saw it faithfully to the end.
How many of us can say that of our own lives? And what we do to know ourselves so deeply, to know what we must to fully, and saw it through completely? And if the outcome was goodness, in what was would that not be joy?
The Winchester Profession
Each week we recite the freewill declaration of faith that this church adopted in 2008. Before that, we recited the officially adopted declaration of faith that Universalists adopted in 1899.
But that was itself an interpretation — and not a replacement — for the cornerstone document of Universalist faith. It was adopted in 1803 in Winchester, New Hampshire, and so is commonly called the Winchester Profession. Its three articles are short enough to be printed on an index card. Here’s the whole thing:
We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament contain a revelation of the character of God, and of the duty, interest and final destination of mankind.
We believe that there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.
We believe that holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to maintain order and practice good works; for these things are good and profitable unto men.
There’s a lot going on there.
The Winchester Profession isn’t just focused on the nature of God or human destiny, but on how we should live our faith, and not simply think about it.
First, while we as Universalists speak about a lot about "the final destination" of the human family, our heritage puts equal weight on discerning our "duty" from scripture. A duty that isn’t spelled out.
Second, that this final destination has a character derived not from chance or fortune or luck, but from God’s own nature, and that this nature is love. Universalists would quibble that it’s wrong to say we will be restored, as there was no factual Garden of Eden. Our common past might be mythic, but they agreed on the source of our hope for a common future.
Third, and this is the kicker…
Say, do you have a phrase that you go back to in times of stress. A quiet mantra that helps you frame difficult problem?
After the Lord’s Prayer, my go-to phrase comes from the Winchester Profession.
"Holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected."
This little phrase reminds me of something early Universalists wanted to remind themselves and others. Just because God is loving, and will save all — it doesn’t mean that you can do just what you want.
What is holiness?
For one thing, we have to face the idea of holiness, and that’s going to be hard. For many of us, holiness is tied up from childhood with an expectation that God has prepared a list of dos and don’ts. If that was the case, correct living is a simple as doing certain things and not doing others. Mostly the don’ts.
We saw this dynamic vividly this year in Kentucky. We remember Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, who famously defied federal court orders to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. News coverage focused on the how, and less on the why.
But when I heard that she was a member of a Oneness Pentecostal church, it all made sense. Those churches practice what’s called outward holiness. Some unkind commentators pointed out her unfashionable clothes, unmade-up face and uncoiffed hair. But looking plain is as much as part of her Christian witness as her refusal to issue the marriage licenses. Presumably, she also avoids movie theaters and doesn’t wear jewelry, possibly not even a wedding ring. It’s a kind of rule-based separation from the world that at the same time identifies the believer with God and — here’s the problem — sets the believer over other people.
Kim Davis may not think so, but it’s not hard to see her setting herself over other people. Wearing her faith on her sleeve and lording her authority over others.
I can respect her response to discipleship, but not its form or its effect.
At its heart, it seems based in fear, and taking it beyond Kim Davis — because she’s hardly alone in this — that this kind of holiness is holiness in name only.
So, what should she — or we — do?
Holiness is…
Our Universalist tradition offers hints to a mode of holiness that is at the same time more life-affirming and more resonant with the Gospel.
The implication is that holiness is a way of life where we grow into closeness with God. Thus, there’s no checklist.
The result of this closeness is not fear, but joy.
This closeness opens us up to be new people, unafraid of the moment’s hardships.
This closeness slowly transforms us to see other people and the world around us a God would see it.
To grow closer to God is to hope that joy may follow.
Joy may, but not necessarily, follow
I don’t want to mislead you. A life of increasing holiness and happiness takes work, and some people never know it in this life.
This isn’t the kind of thing you receive in a flash, or that gets better over a fifteen minute sermon.
Not just personal holiness
And it’s not limited to personal self-cultivation.
There is not one mode of happiness
You will never be happy — truly happy — living through someone else’s dream. Just as a you are a particular person with likes and dislikes, your vocation in God — one that will lead you to happiness and holiness — cannot be copied in full from one person to another.
Tools for finding happiness
John, for all his wild manners, did not focus on doom and punishment, but in repentance; that is, for people to find to change their lives and to live in harmony with God.
This church is a school and hospital for people who want to grow into something new.
And here Joy may follow.
Readings
Isaiah 12:2-6
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.
Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
Luke 3:7-18
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?"
In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."
Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?"
He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you."
Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah,
John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
Benediction
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.
Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Derek McAuley, the Chief Officer of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, in Great Britain, cites an article in the current Evening Standard
Is it true that "Away in a Manger" was first published in a Universalist hymnbook in #Boston as in tonight's ES #UUhttps://t.co/zdepzXBlJw
So, it would be interesting to see if there is any earlier citation. It would also be interesting if the poetry of the carol compares with one of the known Univeralist poets in The Myrtle…
That said, the temperance songs on the next page are fun, if not so evergreen. Here’s the first three (of nine) stanzas of one.
I have a day off today and wanted to visit a church supply store, like I used to do. If I could only find one. There are a couple left in the inner metro D.C. area: dusty, shabby affairs featuring dubious Bible translations and sateen choir robes. That’s worse than nothing.
I thought about what’s been lost. Whittemore’s up near Boston — the grand go-to shop used by Unitarian and Universalists — has been closed for years. So too the home of a mix of practical goods (like clericals) and tcotchkes catering to Catholics up in suburban Wheaton. At some point, Ikon and Book Service, a great supplier of Eastern Christian goods near Catholic University vanished, taking my source of icons, candles, incense, even my butterlamb mold.
Not that I bought so much at any of these. But I did shop at Cokesbury at Wesley and Virginia Theological Seminary — until Cokesbury closed all of their retail stores. That hurt. And then, recently visiting the Episcopal cathedral’s once-fine bookshop (not even a supply store, per se) to discover it was little more than a souvenir stall… that was too much. There was, literally, more fudge for sale than prayer books. Make of that what you will.
This contraction predates the rise of internet bookselling — indeed, Washington, D.C. doesn’t have a single remaining mass-market bookstore left, either — and that can’t help, but I’m sure the lessening influence of churches are a problem, too. (There is the Potter House for Christian books, if not church supplies in D.C., I’ll try that tomorrow.)
So, what’s the solution? More exhibit and sales halls at church meetings? Discussion about repurposing or making church goods out of “secular” wares? Candid, independent reviews of online retailers? Asking vendors, who supply other religions’ needs, to expand their lines? (I’ve seen this in a Vietnamese shop.)
Perhaps all of these. But there’s something lost when you don’t have easy access to the material culture with which you “do” religion. Perhaps the focus on selling to the “pros” is an issue; after all, yarn and bead stores stay open, even it high-rent D.C., and those are hardly less niche.
I’m taking some time off work next week, and one of the things I’ll do is review the 100 data points I’m collecting. That is, 100 Sunday services for the four weeks of October 2015 from 25 congregations, five each from the five new UUA regions, distributed by size. This is my method.
I downloaded this year’s certification numbers. Now, this rules out the 41 congregations that did not certify, but since these tend to be overseas congregations (and not in any region anyway) and I’ve noticed before that non-registration is sometimes an early tell for congregations disbanding… well I think the certification list is a suitable list to take a sample from. The Church of the Larger Fellowship, also in no region, is an outlier and reasonably excluded.
So, I filtered by region, sorted by size, numbered the congregations and calculated how many congregation would be in the smallest 40%, the next larger 40% and the largest 20%. Then I generated a list of random numbers (YouTube video) from those three ranges. Looked up the congregations by the assigned number. Checked its website or Facebook page to see if I could find the Sunday services in October. No? Then I moved to the next on the list. Once I got two from the first group, two from the second group and one from the third group, I would move to the next region.
I collected as much information as was practical, including whether the congregation had its own minister and if the minister led the service, or a guest or affiliated minister, or a lay speaker or speaker. Plus the title or theme of the service, of course, and if there was a theme for the month.
So that’s the collection method. I’m almost done. Next, putting some numbers on the framework.
When one — say, me — complains about the failings of Unitarian Universalism, it’s easy to get hung up on national-level ministries. And that’s a problem.
For one, it’s a single point of attention, which can skew perceptions. Also, the national ministries attract participation, and that work also concentrates good and bad behavior; that might misrepresent effort. Plus, it’s in the nature of national organizanions to represent their interests as the interests of its participants, even if the participants in the provinces are in fact ignoring the national office. Lastly, if one did want to change the focus, it seems unfair to highlight the work of a particular congregation, because that means also pointing out its faults; that can be hurtful, which is itself unfair and counterproductive.
But Unitarian Universalism is (or ought to be) more than the work, though and opinion of the UUA, UUMA, the two recognized seminaries and a handful of other organizations that may or may not be functional.
I think an interesting test would be to see what people are hearing in Sunday services.
So I propose to find twenty-five congregations: five from each of the new regions, and distributed in size, chosen as randomly as possible. I will look at their October services and see what themes emerge, if any. I’ll also see how wany services are led by professional staff and what is led by visiting ministers or lay people. This might give us a clue about how congregations staff. October is good because it’s not the summer (when programs often become more informal), not “starting up the new church year” and not near Christmas or the other December holidays.
It’s the kind of survey that might take some time, and certainly one that will reveal failures in sampling part the way through. But this is informal, and still might be useful.
Is there anything you would like me to keep an eye on?
I took a course in hymnology during my Master of Divinity program at Brite Divinity School around 1996, when the Hymn Society will still housed on campus. The textbooks were written by esteemed hymnologist and minister Erik Routley (1917-1982) with the lectures supplemented by recorded lectures by Routley, helpful because hymns need to be heard and sung, and he was prone to sing fragments.
I loved that class, but I hadn’t heard the recordings again until a couple of days ago, when I discovered his Christian Hymnody series — originally issued on tape — playable online.
It covers the history of Christian hymnody though the end of the nineteenth century, and if you don’t have a background in hymnology it’ll probably help deeply. A bit of a caveat there, as I’ve not replayed it all: it runs about three hours.
Later notes: It runs in a conversational style,like having dinner with a very knowledgeable person who dominates the conversation. But don’t expect to learn anything about the Eastern church. Or is it six hours? A tape has two sides, you know.
Here’s the letter I’m sending; you’re welcome to crib from it. And quickly.
His Excellency Ernest Ndabashinvze
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Burundi
2233 Wisconsin Avenue N.W., Suite 408
Washington, D.C. 20007
Your Excellency:
I learned today that a brother minister, the Rev. Fulgence Ndagijimana, of the Unitarian Church of Burundi (Eglise unitarienne du Burundi) in Bujumbura was taken into police custody around November 17, and also that members of his church are being harassed by police.
I was horrified to hear this news, and generally about the unrest in your country. Ours is a peace-loving religion, resting on a deep foundation of mutual respect. So, I respectfully ask that you do whatever you can to have the Rev. Fulgence Ndagijimana released from prison, and to have the police stop intimidating or harassing the Unitarians of Burundi.
I join hundreds of thousands of fellow believers around the word in petitioning you to help.
Cleaning up on a Sunday afternoon. I found one of a number of coated wire plate holders that I bought years ago at an icon shop, now gone. And while they are not a religious good per se, they are terribly useful in doing church.
The GH marks on the hinge identifies it as a Gibson Holders product, and they are still in business.
They’re good for displaying icons, framed pictures, books and the like. Think: special services, funeral. And they’re inexpensive. And they fold up nicely for easy storage.
So, in order to try out the new UUA WordPress theme, I installed it onto one of the domains I’m not currently using. I’m sticking to defaults mainly, because that (to my mind) is one of the benefits of a template.
I’ll critique the experience of installing and configuring it later, and UU minister and blogger Cynthia Landrum (Rev. Cyn) has already reviewed the features.
But so far, I’m not sold and suspect the value of the theme will be the lessons shared in the theme’s documentation; that really sets it apart.
Perhaps it’s because Daylight Saving Time has ended, and the local businesses have their lights on as I come home, but for some reason, I noticed the travel agency in the ground floor retail space in my apartment building this evening.
And why wouldn’t I notice it other days? Because the business is confined to a small office at the back the retail space it formerly occupied alone. Most of that space is a dry cleaner, a shirt laundry, and an alterer. It’s what has the lit signs. When Hubby and I moved to our building, it was a quiet, somewhat old-fashioned neighborhood amenity — quiet, and a little sad. Even in an internet age, there’s a place for travel agents, especially in a city like Washington with such a large and varied international community. But surely, one or two desk’s worth of specialized travel agent is enough.
There’s another former travel agency near church — no, former isn’t fair. Again, there’s a desk in the back of the retail space, and it specializes in Japanese travel. The owners, reading the writing on the wall, contracted the one business and filled in the rest of the space with a Japanese grocery. So most Sundays after services, I’ll get bean sprouts, tofu, packaged curry, mochi and the like. I had never gone by when it was just a travel agency.
The stories are quite alike, so why “a tale of two travel agents”? Shouldn’t these be different, contrasting stories? Sure, but I can’t find another travel agent around here to compare or contrast…
I’m thinking of churches, of course. And I’m not sure churches are the travel agencies yielding space to stay in (smaller) business, or are the new enterprises making the most of the new situation. Perhaps both. But it’s easy to look at a church contracting in its space, or “rooming” with another entity and see it as regression. But it might just be the future, and future worth having.
I saw a notice today that a WordPress theme — the engine that powers this site and surely millions of others — particularly for Unitarian Universalist congregations. You can see the release notes and download the theme at uuatheme.org.
I downloaded it and intend to test it. In addition to ease of installation and customization, I’ll look at its license and consider whether the use of the support documentation apart from the theme.
Even before reviewing it, I’m of two minds. A shared resource can be helpful, but one customized for a small user base might never earn an economy of scale. Perhaps a non-denominational church site tempate would be more useful — but first, an examination of the work..
Well, thank you to all those on Facebook who welcomed the move of web domain so warmly. I hope you enjoy what you see; now, on to the content.
What is Universalism? I make a point of taking about my work in terms of Universalist Christianity, not just because non-Christian versions of Universalism emerged a few generations ago, but because as a theological term it has multiple meaning, both inside and outside of the institutional Universalist Church. Further, the term “universalist” can have secular, even commercial uses.
So when I talk about Universalist Christianity, I mean that belief system that proclaims, at a minimum, the eventual, joyous reunion of all human beings with God, and that this action takes place though the interaction of God and Jesus Christ.
Is that all I believe? No, of course not, but I take the traditional Universalist big-tent approach to heart: past this, particular views are tolerable and understandable. (Will there be punishment after death? More than human beings? What did Jesus do?) But without this much, there’s not an adequate basis of union. (That, and not a free-for-all is the right way to read the Universalist liberty clause, but that’s a discussion for another time.)
A lack of clarity has made it possible to make contradictory statements about what Universalism is — including definitions from those who are no friend. So for the purpose of this blog, Universalism is not
multi-religious pluralism
the product of human accomplishment, singly or as a group
the destruction of the wicked
the divine, but fruitless, offer of salvation to all persons or all nations
other teachings that often travel with Universalists, including Unitarianism
Others are free to believe those, but that’s not what I’m doing here. And there’s plenty of room in the prior description, and the adopted professions of faith, for broad and varied discussion.
From here on, the focus of my writing ministry will be at RevScottWells.com, and that is
interpreting Universalist Christianity for today, particularly in practical and popular ways, and
identifying and developing methods to operate churches and other ministries more efficiently and economically, including worship and leadership development,
plus short notices and news as appropriate.
An archive of my writing, to date, will be mirrored at BoyintheBands.com, which will continue with miscellaneous religion news, pop culture and opinion. UniversalistChristian.org will continue as a documents archive, and will grow slowly to support my work at RevScottWells.com.
The name “Boy in the bands” started as wordplay on the stage play and film The Boys in the Band, and the Geneva bands I wear when preaching. The play doesn’t match my experience as a gay man (and never has), I’m hardly a boy, and I only preach occasionally (though I do still wear bands) so even if the name ever made sence as a public persona, it doesn’t now.
Changing domains means a hit to readership, but in time that heals. That said, I’d appreciate you reading my blog here, and sharing the word.
I’m glad to share the news that went public yesterday: that Jake Morrill, the minister of the Oak Ridge (Tennessee) Unitarian Universalist Congregation has been named the new Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship. I couldn’t be more pleased.
He follows Ron Robinson in the role, who for many years to his retirement admirably held the position.
Thanks to Ron, and the UUCF Board, lead by Kim Hampton. And congratulations to Jake.
The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association is in the middle of its October meeting.
No great thought on my part, but I did note that there is a net loss of two congregations, per the Changes in Congregational Status (PDF) report.
The First Universalist Society of Salem (MA) has merged with First Parish in Beverly (MA).
All Souls Church UU (Durham, NC) has dissolved.
Does anyone know how true the musings I’ve heard that All Souls, while not paricularly Christian itself, came out of the aftermath of discussions in the early 1990s to start a Christian church there?
Sobering news in any case, and my best wishes to the parishoners in their new settings. (The All Souls website resolves to the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship site.)
I’ll not hide the lede: Unitarian Universalism is not heresy, even when it’s not right.
It’s hurtful and vexing that it’s a common assertion that Unitarian Universalism is a heresy, and that it is built on heresies. [Here’s a link to a Google search for “unitarian universalist heresy” to underscore my point.] At worst, this claim demonstrates an adolescent rebellion against ghosts of authority. At best, it’s an assertion of choice in religion, with faulty etymology that overlooks the possibility of bad and harmful choices. Somewhere in between, proud heretics radiate the message “doesn’t play well with others” and “is impressed with own self.” Little wonder we’re the butt of jokes: we don’t even know when we’re insulted, or insult ourselves.
And you can see, off to one side, the more shark-like of opponents nodding in agreement. Unitarian Universalism is a heresy, and surely a damnable one, and their own opinions are — of course — true and edifying. That’s some deflective cover for their own shortcomings.
I don’t think it’s too controversial — though I’ve been wrong before — to say that people do make choices, so far as they are capable, and intend to choose the right. Praising heresy isn’t about valuing good choices, but devaluing the possibility of making the right choice, sticking to it and building from it. And I think that’s why so many people who enter Unitarian Universalism by the front door leave by the back. If one choice is as good as another, there’s a better chance the right answer is out there. Because if one choice is as good as another, then Unitarian Universalists — collectively — won’t work to cultivate it among ourselves. And if a spirit of heresy is true, why is there such little high-level discussion about theology, or indeed any serious disagreements?
Harsh words, perhaps, but look around our general fellowship. What do we have to show for ourselves? Are you satisfied with that?
A nice chat with other member of Universalist National Memorial Church after services today, over coffee. As sometimes happens, the matter of books came up, which merged with another comment about Hosea Ballou, and from there to books about Universalism.
I recommended two smallish, straight-forward books and a documentary history, if with reservations. Both are institutional histories, and both are irenic towards Unitarianism, positing Universalism as a close relation rather than a religious tradition on its own terms. Fine as denominational works, but also a bit unsatisfying for informing a faith, particularly a Christian faith. Of course, theological universalism is hot now — in evangelical circles, and so many of the faith-forward works are better for evangelicals. And the academic works are good for academics.
There’s room for a primer. In the mean time, here are those three books.
The Larger Faith by Charles A. Howe
American Universalism by George Huntston Williams
Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith, ed. by Ernest Cassara
All three are from Skinner House, but only the first two are available at the UUA Bookstore.
I was happy to find this archive, created and hosted by the
Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, of Unitarianism and Universalism in Atlanta, plus the congregation’s own archives.
So, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, but I’ve not been inactive. And since I have the day off today, I thought I’d catch you up. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be putting up two chapters from the 1946 Parish Practice in Universalist Churches as text; I’ve previously posted it as a scanned PDF.
I want to discuss my workflow. I can do the odd report, but I’d like to see more Universalist and other documents transcribed, and to have typographic errors discovered and corrected. I shouldn’t be the bottleneck.
In the past — going back twenty years or so — I would photocopy a book, carefully crop it into a single column, rephotocopy these onto letter size and take them to a central computer center where they would be processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). I’d get a file back, and then edit it. Later, I would use a flatbed scanner at home and OCR software at home, but some documents required the images being edited to one column. These processes were very time consuming. Sometimes, transcribing by keyboard was more efficient!
Image capture and OCR software have improved markedly. Today, instead of scanning, I take a picture with my phone, and use a graphical front-end to powerful OCR software to process the text. It’s not always clean — a second snap and process is sometimes necessary — but the improvement over twenty years ago is striking.
In particular, on my Ubuntu Linux (14.04 LTR) machine, I use YAGF — “Yet Another Graphical Front-end for cuneiform and tesseract OCR engines” with the tesseract engine.
Since I earlier opined that some of our conflicted Unitarian Universalist polity is the product of Universalist and Unitarian inheritances, I thought it best to “show my work” — or rather, some original documents.
Some carryovers are obvious, and some fixes necessary. I recall a senior minister telling me of how a General Convention in the 1950s ground to a halt, as it was the final court of review. Can you imagine a General Assembly stopping in its tracks over a MFC matter? Well, I can, but I wouldn’t want to… But I also think there are protections lost from over-correction. What other continuations do you see? Things you’d like to see come back?
I’m also reorganizing and cleaning up the my documents site — UniversalistChurch.net — a bit, and will add more documents as time allows.
Noteworthy changes 1946 to 1951: higher standards for parishes and the education of ministers; easier to deactivate or sidestep under/dysfunctional state conventions. Note sure it’s germaine, but the 1946 set was job printed and bound, and the 1951 set was mimeographed and stapled. But the laws would go through three more revisions, until 1958, which should be seen less as Universalist than as pre-UUA.
A couple of weeks ago, I was batting back and forth with an informed Unitarian Universalist friend about our polity, when at one point he zeroed in at the settled clergy vote at General Assembly, at which point I had to stand up for the Universalist contribution to our polity.
This is my side of the discussion, which I admit was a bit of a monologue at that point. I don’t have his permission to share his side, but if commenters want to continue the conversation, I would consider it an honor.
I was wondering what the future holds…
With the one-way push to regions, will there be an opening for devolution of connection authority? — congregational membership, mission planning, ministerial fellowship [at the regional level] — now that there aren’t 19-22 districts.
[After all,] There’s a lot more embedded Universalism in our system than we sometimes credit.
[And then the push about General Assembly votes.]
It’s about fellowship, not credentials per se. Makes more sense in the Universalist sense if the other piece was still in place.
That is, the fellowship of the parishes.
That’s because, from a Universalist frame, the UUA acts (imperfectly) as a national church, something the Unitarians would never have.
[My friend opined that this result is sub-optimal.]
[Today’s system is]neither-nor.
The names tell you all. The American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America.
And why scant resources went to build a Universalist National Memorial Church, but the Unitarians never did.
To finish my thought, the churches were (supposed) to have a parallel relationship to their conventions that the ministers did, supervised by the same committee.
And both ministers and lay persons served on them. Not that I’m all rah-rah retro Universalist.
The half-time service requirement for fellowship renewals — a thorn in my side — is a re-write of a pre-consolidation Universalist rule.
The Dutch Remonstrants — a liberal Protestant church that have often worked with Unitarians — have new website, with the hallmarks of the very familiar Bootstrap framework.
How new? Not sure, but it’s an improvement over their last one.
It’ll certainly be less expensive for more people than last year’s (Portland, Oregon) and possibly than 2017 GA in New Orleans, as Columbus is a lower cost city for hotels and nearer the population centroid for Unitarian Universalists, which is in Illinois.
I hope to be there. So what great plans can we make with the opportunity?
It’s been a hard day, and seeking solace, turned to prayer. I pulled this book off my shelf because the title — Light and Peace — spoke to me. It’s a collection of prayers by Charles Hall Leonard, published by the Murray Press, a Universalist publisher, in 1915.
Leonard (1822-1918) was an outsized figure in Universalist history, was a professor and later dean of the theological school at Tufts, and remembered today I’d guess for creating Children’s Sunday, though readers of this blog may be more interested to know that he was the unacknowledged author of A Book of Prayer for the Church and the Home, or what I call usually “the Universalist prayerbook.”
Elmer Hewitt CapenOne prayer “in memory E. H. C.” bears repeating here. That was the thirty-years’ Tufts president and Universalist minister Elmer Hewitt Capen, who died in office in 1905.
Prayers for deceased ministers have a special place in my heart, and particularly as Terry Burke, the long-time and much-loved minister of First Parish in Jamaica Plain was laid to rest today, and with whom some day we shall each share glory.
A Fruitful Life
O God, our heavenly Father: To whom can we go, but to Thee, who art our strength in weakness, our light in darkness, and our comfort in sorrow? To-day, we know not how to speak to each other, nor how to interpret to ourselves. We turn to Thee, and, first of all, beseech Thee to awaken within us the memory of all that has been precious in the life of our great friend and leader: his wise devotion to the college into which he built his life; his intelligent administration of its affairs in a manifold range of usefulness bearing upon its progress and growing facilities, and in that loving care and interest which reached the endeavor and the struggle of the humblest student. Help us to recall the calmness of his thought, his unselfish regard for others, his generous approval of all that is right and good, and his Christ-like pity and forgiveness toward all the weak and sinful. We remember the words, spoken in private and in public, which move us to-day with new power, because of this mystic silence.
We desire also to remember all that he was and is, and will be to us, as a part of permanent influence in all the relations which distinguished his life: in the privacy of his home, in the maintenance of a loyal service to the church, in all his efforts as an educator, and in the ampler calls of citizenship.
Help us, O God, in our sense of gratitude for all that this full life has been to us now that we read it anew, know anew its noble witness to learning, to charity, to religion, and get its larger message as from open skies.
Goddard Chapel at Tufts We bow down before Thee, with whom are the issues of life and of death. Help us all to that acquiescence in grief, which, year by year, has been taught from this place, and, above all, breathed in the prayers that here have daily been put up in our behalf. Help these sorrowing teachers who waited for his step, were cheered, day by day, by the denials he so patiently took up, and were inspired more and more by his confident sympathy. We remember before Thee those who, in great procession along the productive years, moved through these halls, and bore hence the mark of the man they had learned to know, to honor and to love. And grant Thy especial favor to the students, in all ranks, and in all places, here and there, who are now enrolled as members of the college. Have regard unto their sad and questioning hours; and give joy to them also, that they came to know so well the man and president who greeted their coming at first.
And now, what wait we for but for grace and power, both for mind and heart; new motive in view of a great example; new ability to take up the tasks which a great leader has laid down; and new light, also, for comfort to those whose sorrow to-day is deepest, that there may be to them one fixed and tranquil object of thought and affection; and help us all to see that it is no fractional life that we are called to contemplate, but a life, forecast and fashioned in accomplishment, opening more and more into its own power and beauty, and, at the last, opening forth towards the realities of a world from which all veils were taken away. O God, most merciful and gracious, open our eyes to that grateful vision, that so we may be enabled to go on, to bear up, and to find our highest joy and peace in the field of duty to which now Thou dost send us back, and in the entrusted daily care to which Thou hast appointed us. Grant that, from the trembling moments of our human life, and from the mourner’s watch, we may go forth with uplifted heart, and a diviner purpose, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
After much trial and error, I have come up with this method of printing a service or sermon text to be put in a small binder for use in worsip, using free and open source software. And I thought it was worth sharing with you.
First you will need to download the LibreOffice office suite; a version 5.0 has just been released but I use 4.2.8.2, so I’m just hoping there’s not much of an apparent difference.
Also, ideally the Linux Libertine Graphite type face. (That typeface is free to use and share, and has features that I will describe later.)
You will also need a half sized binder (like this one) and page protectors.
The trick is composing half-sized pages and then letting the office suite compose those pages on to full size pieces of paper.
Here’s a sample of the service typed out.
When you go to print, click the Properties box on the General tab, and then set the paper to print Landscape. This is what it looks like with my printer.
Here’s the trick: check “Use only paper size from paper preferences.”
Then change the layout to print two pages side by side. Extra points to those who can figure out how to print a booklet or brochure, in which case a saddle stapler is a help.
Then print, fold, slip into the protectors and then into the binder.
Download the file I used in this lesson here, or click here for a Google Doc that does essentially the same thing (with the Gentium font) for you to copy and modify as you will.
I would appreciate feedback if you use either source.
File this under “not working on tomorrow’s sermon.”
So, when was that midcentury Universalist pamphlet published. It’s helpful to know when a clear pivot away from Christianity was made from a central authority, in this case, the “Department of Public Relations, U.C.A.”
It’s clearly post-World War Two, and presumably before the 1959 convention that ratified consolidation with the Unitarians. Any more internal evidence?
The quotation from Harry Overstreet citing The Mature Mind. The book was first published in 1949.
The Universalist Circle program, a parallel to the Unitarian fellowship movement, that lasted through to consolidation.
The 16 Beacon Street address. Offices there from 1933, per Miller, The Larger Hope, 2: 630.
Possibly the quotation from the Brainard Gibbons, who championed this approach. Probably from his 1949 Convention sermon, or related to it. The Larger Hope, 2: 634; Spoerl, in Universalist Heritage, 4.
But the most evidence isn’t of date, but of kind. Long-time readers of this blog know I’m not fond of this kind of Universalism. (I think it’s naive; it also cultivates self-centeredness and — perversely — sectarianism.)
But I’m not unsympathic to why they wanted a religion that they though would be expansive and more optimistic. The fires of war had just died down, and a thermonuclear fire might have destroyed everything. It was a time of growth and unexpected prosperity. Why wouldn’t they respond to the times?
This is a follow up to my blog post about a mid-century Universalist Church logo. I’m guessing it’s from the 1950s, but I don’t have any details about it. Got it years ago, and realized that it would be unfamiliar to many of my readers.
When minister and friend Derek Parker mentioned that he was in a study group, and that they were reading a book about people who were once devoted church members but have left the church without giving up what they believed … well, that piqued my interest. And it’s a sociological study, not just an opinion piece.
I even ordered a copy. And you can also download a sample chapter at the link.
Church Refugees, by Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope. (Group, 2015)
But I read slowly, so you’ll have a change to catch up.
So, I’ve heard through the grapevine that ministerial candidates are being charged $250 to see the Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Said grapevine is not happy about that.
I would love some commentary about that, but first I would like confirmation and (better still) a statement of reasoning. Or perhaps this is old news — I met the MFC a very long time ago — but if the story’s making the rounds, then it’s worth discussing it plainly and in the open.
The World Congress of Esperanto (Universala Kongreso, or UK) started its meeting this evening in Lille, France.
I’m not there; perhaps next year in Slovakia. But to mark the occasion, I looked up the official World Esperanto Association (Universala Esperanto-Asocio, or UEA) and found this page, incongruously written in English, and thus the title of this blog post. It’s meant to explain the UK to “partners” presumably to include local government and tourism authorities, who are more likely to read English than Esperanto.
Now, I’ve found Esperantists to be thrifty in their arrangements, and this passage sums up the reasoning in a dignifed way:
As a non-profit NGO, UEA is a very budget-conscious organization and so is the Congress of the Association. This congress has many special charms, but sober treatment of the financial matter is required. The delegates pay expenses from their own funds and usually are price conscious. Many of the delegates come from developing countries, and there are significant proportions of retired people and students among the participants. This is a people’s congress for ordinary people, not an elaborate meeting of executives financed by corporate funds.
I think you could say much the same about General Assemblies. Ours, and from the #CampbellCon plaints, others, too. Just because you’re clergy doesn’t mean that our basic meetings are affordable, or paid from expense accounts.
In case you wonder about the costs of going to the UK, see this registration cost page. Early registration for a typical member from a rich country is 180 euros; a member with a disability from a poor country would pay 60 euros; and a person under 21 would pay nothing. For some hotel options, see the Dua Bulteno (Second Bulletin; the First is the invitation with registration info) with lodging info, from page 9, including student accomodation, much like the Unitarian Universalist use of college dorms. Or here. I also like the meal ticket (see page 12), for example six dinners — two courses, cheese, dessert and tap water for 54 euros, but this may be an opportunity of meeting in a French college town. (Another Esperantist custom — the amasloĝejo; “mass-dwelling” — is often only BYO sleeping bag crash space; a hard sell for most people. But the Lille local committee did try to find a place, without success. I did have an attendee crash on my apartment floor the one year I lived in a GA town.)
You may also note excursions (from page 13) and a banquet that show that some Esperantists have the means and will to spend more.
And you may also note that the flight from North America would double all of these costs. But there’s something to learn here if we try.
I was talking to a friend tonight about management — church management in particular — and once again turned back to a favorite resource, the Management Center.
I can recommend their courses, but if you live too far from where they offer them (or it filled up) then be sure to get the companion book,
This is less blog post and more notepad, to record on-the-ground observations from attendees of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly. They’re meeting in Columbus, Ohio now, and the Unitarian Universalist Association will meet there next June.
Convention Center seating leaves something to be desired.
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly began today in Columbus, Ohio under the theme “Soar!” I noticed a bunch of my classmates flying cross country, and then I noticed they were going to the city the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly will be next year: Columbus, Ohio.
And so the Twitter hashtag for the CC(DOC) GA is #DisciplesSoar.
But what keeps my attention is a playful and cheerful parallel hashtag. If #DisciplesSoar is for the serious business, the #CampbellCon is for the fun stuff, for the relationship building and a knowing recognition that our awkward, wonky church conventions bear more that a passing resemblance to comics and sci-fi fandom. (The hashtag is a reference to Alexander Campbell, a wild-haired founder. It would be as if we had a hashtag #BallouBoatHome. But I’m sure we could do better that that.)
I mean, I wish we could be so playful. There are a few of us, but we’re on the magins. If we Unitarian Universalists, who suffer from debilitating earnestness, could put up with Twitter accounts like
@DisciplesLeslie (Knope) — a pop-culture reference not about NPR
So, it’s the eleven o’clock hour, and I’m at home. Late rising, some work around the house and — dang! after ten o’clock and unshowered, so I decided to stay home from church. And I wanted to go and intended to go. I feel bad because, for a number of reasons including travel, I’ve not been able to attend worship for the last few weeks. But I also don’t want to rush, and I have more work around the house I’d have to put off until two o’clock or so.
Not Attending Worship is high on the classic Bad Church Member list, so perhaps that’s what I’m feeling. But rather than ignoring the feeling, I’d rather own up to the feeling as a (probably) misplaced expectation.
Church life requires a measure of discipine, but using old rules and expectations will stifle those who haven’t committed to the discipline of “just knowing how to behave” in church, including attending, volunteering, giving and all the rest.
I’m thinking through “what is” and “what must be.” And how I’ll make it to church next Sunday.
Still not quite ready to resume blogging, so combing through my “I should post this” pile.
This is the Universalist denominational logo, undated here, but probably from the 1950s. Not used for many years, but I’ve seen it on signs, pamphlets and here on letterhead — always this shade of blue, too.
I rely on two indicators for weather: my sinuses and Forecast.io.
When I’m already congested, a strong weather front will give me a blinding headache. (Like today.) But that’s not helpful for you, or Daisy, our bichon frise, who hates having a potty walk in the rain.
I recommend Forecast.io for amazingly accurate hyper-local, minute-by-minute weather forecasts, which sometimes (alas, not quite, today) gives the dog enough time outside to do what she must.
This is the text of the form — it fits on two sides of half-sized piece of paper — used by applicants for a letter of license in the Universalist Church. I pulled this from a filled-in example from 1920 in Indiana, but variant date back to the 1880s and forward to the 1950s.
Interesting stuff.
Form 1.
Application for License
To the Committee of Fellowship of the [State] Universalist Convention:
Brethren:
I desire to devote my life to the work of the Christian Ministry, in the Fellowship of the Universalist Church. I respectfully apply for a Letter of License to preach under its auspices. The motives are expressed on the other side of this paper. I cordially accept the essential principles of the Universalist Faith as follows:
The Universal Fatherhood of God;
The Spiritual Authority and Leadership of His Son Jesus Christ;
The Trustworthiness of the Bible as Containing a Revelation from God;
The Certainty of Just Retribution for Sin;
The Final Harmony of All Souls with God.
And I freely acknowledge the authority of the General Convention, and assent to its laws, promising to co-operate faithfully in all measures that may be devised by the General Convention, and by the State Convention with which I am connected, for the furtherance of the work and welfare of our Church.
Fraternally yours,
[Name]
[Date]
I hereby certify that the above named [Name] is a member, in good standing, in the [Church name] Universalist Church.
[Name] Pastor
[Date]
(over)
Why do you desire to preach?
What led to this desire, and under what circumstances?
Why do you see to preach under the auspices of the Universalist Church?
What preparation have you had, or what experience in public address?
How long have you been a member of the church named on the other side?
What further references as to personal character can you give?
Have you applied for License to any other Committee? If so, to which, with what result?
I didn’t have much to add to the discussion of the vital issues of the day, except that, at some points, I thought that writers were lost in delusional or self-serving arguments. And I decided to keep my own counsel.
Oh, and I think that Unitarian Universalism has a grim future — as bad or worse as the mainline — and that forward progress is likely to look like a salvage and reconstruction exercise.
Even though I didn’t go to General Assembly this year — there was a very nice family wedding the same time — I tried to keep up with the news as best I can.
And saying that, I’m glad I didn’t go. There seemed to be a lot of feeling there — and camaraderie — but (as I’ve suggested elsewhere) I can meet my friends elsewhere (online included) and the amount of forward motion the UUA generates doesn’t seem to justify the effort of GA. (Indeed, a lot of the work of the UUA seems to be solving problems of our own creation.) That and there seemed to be a good bit of grievance cultivating there. Enough.
But if you were there, perhaps you have other experiences. Better ones, worse ones. And perhaps you have a special way of actually participating in General Assembly. (I think the attend-every-possible-session approach is certain death.)
Feel free to share your thoughts.
And as of now, I do plan on attending the General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio next year.
I just got a pseudonymous email, informing me of the publication of a new edition of the satirical magazine, The Beacon. A magazine that proves that just because something’s not factual doesn’t mean it’s not true.
The grief and horror Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church must now be facing is hard to get my head around, but the killings are not themselves inconceivable.
Brother Roger, Oscar Romero, and the “troublesome priest” Thomas Becket were each murdered in worship. When I was in seminary (and just after) there was a spate of church killings. And we can’t forget the shootings at a Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee, with one fatality two fatalities. Each one was a bit different, all devastating. I remembered not feeling personally safe when alone at church in my last pastorate. But Emanuel lost four ministers, including the senior pastor…
Churches are supposed to be welcoming and outward-facing, but that feeling makes them vulnerable, sometimes to malicious people, sometimes to predators, sometimes to the violent and murderous. It’s a tough balance between mission and safety. For nine people to die… I’ll just have to leave it there for the moment.
What then can we do? First, this is assumes there can do. I’m avoiding online commentaries that suggests that these murders can be addressed by study, or progressive action or better ideas. And I’m double-avoiding any notion that adds a burden to that church, Charleston or the increasingly beleaguered African American community. If you can’t help, take a pass. Words are nice, but contact is better and (since a casserole is impractical) a gift of money is better still. It adds heft to those nice ideas. Lots of gifts big and small reminds us — us Southerners particularly — of the outpouring of gifts to The Temple in Atlanta when it was bombed. (That was a plot point in the film Driving Miss Daisy, in case it sounds familiar.) Gifts of money will cover costs the church will have. Maybe help the survivors. But that’s for the church to decide; I have faith in them.
I got a little, unexpected windfall today. I thought it right to tithe it to Emanuel AME. You can give at their church website; it’s easy to do so.
If you don’t have the money to spare, that’s fine, too. But if all you have are ideas that make things harder, just keep them to yourself.
So, who’s going to General Assembly in Portland, Ore.? Who’s following from home? I’ll not be there in person, and I’m not sure how much I can watch: I may need to rely on bloggers and twitterers using #uuaga.
And a request for those who will be on-site: more photos. On Flickr, posted to Twitter or what-have-you. It helps those who can’t be there get a better sense of General Assembly.
There has been some buzz, both associated with the #sustainministry theme and the fear of shortages in the ministry, that there should be some intermediate ministerial status. To which I noted to those within earshot that the Universalists once licensed ministers, and that we could consider doing so again.
There were licensed ministers — holdovers from before consolidation — within my time as a Unitarian Universalist. They even had their own section in the UUA directory, but year by year their numbers declined by death.
In time they were all gone; I don’t know who was the last. The right the UUA reserved (or at least claimed) to recognize such licensed ministers seem equally a dead letter, so it was cleaned out of the bylaws at a General Assembly.
When? More recently than you might think. The year 2000.
I was present at that GA and was both sad at the moment passing and thought that without a prior claim, any church was free to so license ministers. And I still feel this way.
effective June 28, 1999
[…]
Section 11.4b
[…]
The Ministerial Fellowship Committee may also with the approval of the Board of Trustees make rules pertaining to the status of, and recognition by the Association of, lay preachers and the granting of licenses to them.
So, I was reading through the Unitarian Universalist Association Board packet for the June meeting — as one does — and see that All Souls Miami is (alone) scheduled to be voted upon for admission to the UUA.
I’ve never never seen an application go this far and not be accepted, so I’ll offer my confident (if premature) congratulations. I welcome all new members to the UUA of course, but All Souls Miami is special to me because it’s Christian: the first Christian church admitted since Epiphany Church, Fenton, Michigan, joined many years ago and has since disbanded.
So, again, congratulations to All Souls Miami. You can read their application packet here. (PDF)
Before the #sustainmininstry thread fades (presumably to revive at General Assembly) I wanted to meditate on how our ancestors coped. In my last blog post, I opined that ministerial shortages were practically a tradition. So is coping with meagre funds. This theme cropped up continuously when I worked on my never-finished master’s thesis — golly — about a quarter century ago. But those lessons learned over microfilmed antebellum newspapers made an impression.
Have a sideline. Perhaps seasonal. Perhaps not farming.
Your sideline? Call it media production. There was a reason why there were so many Universalist newspapers. (Which inspired me to create my first websites.)
But don’t expect to get paid. Those minister-editors had a terrible time getting their subscribers to pay.
Seminary may not be in reach, but an apprenticeship may be.
If you can’t get a minister full time, perhaps you can be in a circuit. Some little societies only saw the minister every few months. But it was consistent. Ish.
Be ready to pool your resources to memorialize a dead minister, or to support surviving dependents. But people may still mumble and grumble about the expense…
Plant churches to make better use of public transportation. Who can afford a carriage, horsed or horseless?
And follow migration patterns. When church members move, start a church where they go.
Inactivate churches when there’s no minister, leadership or money. Call them dormant, but don’t lose contact with with a would-be reorganizer: it may be re-started.
Use home hospitality at conventions. Well, I guess that one never really went away.
It’s hard for me to get too wound up about the prospect of a perceived ministerial shortage in the parishes, as reported in the UUWorld. (“Demand for interim ministers outruns supply“)
Until a generation or so ago, ministerial shortages were common. Low pay, poor prospects and frequently harrowing conditions meant that ministerial supply has been less than demand, often leading churches to do without a minister, or share one. A broader view of ministry means you can’t limit faithful service to the parish, and the whims of those who dwell therein.
What’s different today is that there are more ministers, but evidently no more who are willing to face the parish. And with so many churches reputed to be “clergy killers” or otherwise dysfunctional, who can blame them? And even if the church is even-keeled, the pay may be far less than what one’s skills would fetch in another field. Is it the minister’s duty to bear the time and cost of preparation, and then effectively subsidize the church through lost income?
Ideally, the burden should be (at least) shared. And since I don’t recall the same measure of concern in that relatively brief period when there was an oversupply of ministers, I have to wonder if the ministerial college isn’t expected to sacrifice too much again. Having a rich pool of ministers for parishes to choose presents huge costs for those preparing for the ministry and a huge financial and professional cost for those who have to necessarily “sit out” this year or that, and take whatever other employment is available.
Good people have left parish ministry, but not the ministry itself. The ecosystem will have to adjust, and congregations seeking ministers will have step up, or adjust.
Judith Sargent Murray, Universalist author and catechist, died this day in 1820. Married to “Father” John Murray, Mother Murray was esteemed among the founders of Universalism, and — with the rediscovery of her letter books in the 1980s — the subject of study in her own right.
A quick #sustainministry follow-on. Is it little wonder that there’s so much wishful and whistful thinking about having monasteries “somewhere”? It’s easy to picture some small, leafy town. Easier certainly that imagining the same in a leafy stretch of Greenwich Village.
Considering the high cost of living and property — purchased or rental — and the cultural and community alternatives found in the large coastal cities, and the high rates of practical secularism, what kind of future is there for churches?
I once read (not long ago) that once a church or synagogue is demolished in New York it is almost impossible to replace it elsewhere. That is, the peak number of houses of worship has past. I would believe the same is true for the District of Columbia. Perhaps that’s fine. But does it imply that we have as many churches as we will ever have in these same coastal cities. And that’s remembering that much of the denominational growth was in the post-WWII housing boom outside those cities. Even with alternative modes of ministry, it’s not hard to imagine that cities will be a special challenge.
I normally write blog posts in the evening for morning publication, but I wanted to sleep another night before writing about the Economics of Ministry Summit, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association, and hosted this week in St. Louis. So far as I know, its only live presence was by Twitter, with the hashtag #sustainministry, so you should revisit those tweets for context.
This isn’t about that meeting’s outcomes, but how I want to approach the enterprise. I’m not going to start by being appreciative, by saying how wonderful the opportunity is and how talented and dedicated the participants. This has been a norm of communication among Unitarian Universalists, often repeated, for several years now and a response to our long-cultivated habit of minute criticism. An over-correction, I think, because it telegraphs an unwholesome cheeriness, softball responses and lowered expectations. That’s hardly respectful, or useful. It’s as if adults can’t be trusted with the truth. So I won’t question the sincerity, intelligence or diligence of the parties of this or any similar conference, but you can have all of these and still end poorly.
At root, the would-be leadership of the UUA has a trust problem with the would-be follower-ship. With each passing year, the UUA does less to justify its existence. What are the high marks for the last few years? Board governance? A property shift? These are internal matters, not missional ones. Are we building or redeveloping churches? No. But worse, we still have a model of ministerial formation that treats people like expensive, yet disposable, liabilities. And a raft of churches — and few will speak of this — that chew up and ruin the ministers they get with impunity. As for our external, missional successes, these come in the form of partnerships, formal and informal. Easy enough to ask, “why not affiliate with whomever’s leading?” If there are successes, they’re in local settings and perhaps informal networks. Again, a challenge to a national body. Unitarian Universalist structures have historically been hard to use, with little money offered. Sluggish, a bit haughty. You learn not to ask for much, and expect less.
At the risk of being cheerful, let me hold out some hope. When you look at the summit in tandem with the emerging communities pilot, I do see a willingness to entertain options and lower the opportunity costs of working within the UUA, and that’s good.
No: it’s better than good. It’s essential, because this work will take place somewhere, and without some structural change it will take place elsewhere.
I got an aside from a Well-Respected Minister who liked “that little book video insert piece” in my last blog post. It’s the BookReader of Internet Archive, the source of the book.
I think it’s the best desktop or laptop interface for reading books, and since the Internet Archives has a large number of public-domain Universalist and other works, I will sometimes read books this way, even if I have the actual book. But you can’t just drop other books into it.
Now, here’s how to share the books they do have on your site. First, of course you find one, like this 2003 Massachusetts Conference of the UCC directory.
When you click on the page, not only does it become larger, but you get added controls. I’ve pointed out the “share” link, which looks a bit like a sideways V. Click that.
Now you have links for sharing and embedding. The fault imbed is one page at a time, and the first page. I usually want it to look like a book open to the title page, so I select that, as in this example.
Wouldn’t it be helpful and useful if the Unitarian Universalist Association could host its old Commission on Appraisal reports, Board minutes, classic guides, and pre-consolidation AUA and UCA directories the same way. Our twentieth-century history is hard to access first hand, unless you’re old enough or well-connected enough — or close enough to Boston — to get paper copies of what you want.
The prospect of job automation is more than a bit scary. Everyone likes a bit of help, provided that bit doesn’t help them out of a job. NPR ran a feature (“Will Your Job Be Done by a Machine?,” May 21)
While some professions will almost certainly be automated to some degree, there’s only a 0.8% chance that the clergy will be automated.
This made me think of a particularly odd episode in Universalist history where it wasn’t the clergy that was to be automated, but the works of divinity.
To be fair, John Murray Spear had left the Universalist ministry in 1852 for Spiritualism, which was intensely popular (and controversial) among Universalists.
In Lynn, Massachusetts, he gathered a group of followers to “[create] the ‘New Motive Power’, a mechanical Messiah which was intended to herald a new era of Utopia.” [citation] Like made of machinery.
It didn’t work. But it is an intensely weird and wonderful episode that deserves a read. (One version of the story.) But in re-reading the story today I discovered that Spear channelled Universalist founder (and namesake) John Murray, and published his revelations in Messages from the superior state: communicated by John Murray.
“Important instruction to the inhabitants of the earth”? That’s something I’ll have to read!
Union was in the air, then. Indeed, contemporaneously, the Congregationalists were making overtures to the Christian Church, leading to a merger. Most of the Congregational Christians then merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (itself merged) to create the United Church of Christ. The Universalists were also talking to the Unitarians; years ago I published a Universalist report from the same commission in 1927. And now I want to see what else they reported out.
Some loose thoughts:
I’ve heard it suggested that the relative size of the Congregationalists would have made organic union an absorption, rather than a merger.
It makes the later, if minor, Universalist participation with the “continuing” Congregationalists make more sense.
There are words the joint statement that echo in the 1935 Universalist Washington Declaration, namely in the second paragraph. “The kingdom for which he lived and died” for instance.
I hope this sparks interest in the history of Universalist polity…
A Joint Statement on Interchurch Relations from the Commissions of the Congregational and Universalist Churches
The National Council of Congregational Churches and the Universalist General Convention, at their sessions held in October, 1925, referred to the Congregational Commission on Interchurch Relations and to the Universalist Commission on Christian Comity and Unity certain proposals looking toward closer fellowship. The members of these commissions, after fraternal conference and discussion, join in issuing the following statement:
We believe that the basis of vital Christian unity is a common acceptance of Christianity as primarily a way of life. It is faith in Christ expressed in a supreme purpose to do the will of God as revealed in Him and to co-operate as servants of the Kingdom for which He lived and died. Assent to an official creed is not essential. Within the circle of fellowship created by loyalty to the common Master, there may exist differences of theological opinion. With that primary loyalty affirmed, such differences need not separate; rather, indeed, if the mind of the Master controls, they may enrich the content of faith and experience; and if it does not control, theological agreements will not advance the Christian cause. “Religion to-day does not grow in the soil of creeds.”
The unity of a common loyalty to the Christian way of life is already a fact, to which the high task in which we are now engaged is witness. Not only Congregationalists and Universalists, but multitudes of other forward-looking Christians, share this unity of faith and endeavour. It is not something to be artificially formed, but a growing relationship to be recognized and afforded ways of practical expression. None of us would advocate, as none of us could enter, a fellowship that would compromise loyalty to the truth as any one of us may see it, or would stifle freedom to bear testimony to its worth and power. What appeals to us is the challenge of a great adventure to prove that a common purpose to share the faith of Christ is a power strong enough to break the fetters of custom and timidity and sectarian jealousy that hitherto have put asunder Christian brethren who at heart are one, and who can better serve the Kingdom of God together than apart.
The Protestant churches of America are learning to work together. By so doing they honour their heritage and fulfil their mission. The Congregational and Universalist Churches are branches of the same parent stock. They grew out of the same soil and are bearing the same kind of fruit. The historic reasons for their separation have practically disappeared and new and stronger reasons for union have arisen. In statement of faith, in form of worship, in organization for work, and in standards of life, these two branches of Protestantism differ now in no essential respects. They can accordingly begin at once to co-operate in the heartiest way. If the prayer of our Lord is ever to be fulfilled, the beginning will be made by the mutual approach of denominations between which there is no longer any reason for separation.
In the judgment of the commissions, the time has arrived for the Congregational and Universalist Churches to seek the closest practicable fellowship. Their activities are proceeding already along lines closely parallel. They can do many things together to advantage which they are now doing separately. Each church will be quickened through this free fellowship.
We therefore recommend:
First: That the ministers and representatives of each denomination be invited to sit as corresponding members in the local, state, and national associations of the other denomination and to participate in their deliberations.
Second: That the agencies of each denomination in the realms of religious education, social service, evangelism, rural church development, and similar problems, be urged to arrange for joint programmes for promotion as far as practicable.
Third: That in each community where churches of both denominations are found they be urged to study what they can do together with mutual profit by way of union services, the interchange of pulpits, and the promotion of common enterprises.
Fourth: That there be a mutual interchange of representative speakers at national, state, and local gatherings.
Fifth: That the denominational journals be urged to make the largest practicable interchange of editorials and of printed matter of common interest, in order that each constituency may be kept fully informed regarding the other and of the progress made in the direction of closer fellowship.
Sixth: That, in order to secure more thoroughly co-ordinated movements, no actual steps toward the organization of local Congregational and Universalist churches be made without consulting their respective commissions.
Seventh: Wherever the problem of an adequate church constituency presses for solution, and in any community where denominational divisions work for wastefulness, those responsible are urged to co-operate in organizing for more effective service.
We believe that from these and similar joint undertakings increased effectiveness in common tasks and even more will result. Comradeship in a common faith and loyalty will be its finest and most prophetic grace. That quickened sense of comradeship will fashion its own ecclesiastical instrumentalities. None of us can yet foresee clearly what sort of organized fellowship will arise to give form and coherence to the spiritual unity that Christians of the open mind gladly confess. We are convinced that it will be something larger and more inclusive than anything that now exists. What we do see, with a profound feeling of gratitude and responsibility, is that, in the providence of God, these communions which we represent have been led by their respective historic traditions and spiritual development to a common faith in the Christian way of life as their supreme concern. They would travel it not only as friends but as allies, with a spirit as inclusive as the mind of the Master.
In such a larger fellowship Congregationalists and Universalists alike, both as churches and individuals, may find fresh incentive to service and sacrifice. The Kingdom of God requires the uttermost loyalty and devotion of both and the mutual recognition of what each may contribute to the common endeavour. The stirring challenge to forward-looking Christians of whatever name to-day is to make their churches vitalizing centers of the Christianity that is in Christ, and so to promote the broader fellowship through which alone the mighty task of winning the world by the Master shall be accomplished. To that we commit ourselves. The event is in the hand of God.
One set of people suggests liberal religion, and Unitarian Universalism particularly, is easy, insincere and a mental or spiritual plaything because of its inherent looseness and high regard for personal autonomy.
Another set of people — that’s us — seems to take that that as a challenge, rather than opportunity to correct our behavior or refute the premise. (Or not care about the challenge.) The conventional answer is that Unitarian Universalism is the most difficult religion (because of all the decisions and so forth) and thus very sincere and serious and so forth. There’s a mountain of sermons like that. Cue the rueful laughter in the background.
This approach should die a quick death. It makes our religion look like a crashing bore, and without the payoff of grand institutions, a mass movement or a corps of spiritually exhalted leaders. It’s all the burden of our Puritan heritage with none of the value.
One of the things that makes religion appealing is its capacity for joy — sometimes spiritual, sometimes material, often unseen or unappreciated by outsiders. The grinding, scolding earnestness that you so commonly find when two or three Unitarian Universalists are gathered makes me want to hide. Usually hide with friends at General Assembly.
Last night, reading the program guide for this month’s General Assembly was the proximate cause of this blog post. Reading it to stay informed, as I’ll not be there. (For the reduced number of workshop slots, don’t some people show up over and over?) Family comes first; see you in Columbus in 2016. I’m sure there will be good parts, but the earnestness leaps off the page. Even the fun doesn’t sound so fun.
I spent the rest of my evening improving my Esperanto skills. Now, Esperantists are a people who have the earnest-fun balance down pat. A group created well-game-ified lessons on the Duolingo site. I spent the evening taking little game-like tests, tracking my progress, and earning immaterial rewards. The subtext was “this is fun, this is possible, you can do it.” And so I kept doing it.
I only had time to scan a ton of Universalist polity documents when I was at the Harvard-Andover archive last year, and I’ve still not transcribed them. And it would be nice to have in an easy to read and search format some of the rules and procedures of how Universalists operated — hints of which, and sometimes more — are still in use today. Here’s a taste.
I’m no Tom Sawyer, but Universalist polity documents aren’t whitewash, either. Can anyone commit to typing or editing for an hour? Seminarians, especially, who might find a tidbit for unexplored research.
So, I was talking with a couple of people: what would we do if the Unitarian Universalist Association ceased to exist? Not a death wish, but contingency planning. And a way of identifying what’s a must-have and not just a might-want.
Someone mulled, “what does the NACCC do?” That’s the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, made up of churches that did not join the United Church of Christ on polity grounds. I’ve been long interested in them, as some of the Universalist churches that didn’t join the UUA “went NA”. Also, First Parish, Plymouth, and Universalist National Memorial Church, both members of the UUA have honorary membership. And the Council of Christian Churches in the UUA has — I believe — “fraternal relations.” In short, they’re close to us. Sorta.
And famous (or infamous) for having a lean administration. The kind that the UUA might back into, or be replaced-by.
So I was just browsing their site and noticed they have a single easy-to-find page with helpful handbooks ready to download.
So, my dear Unitarian Universalist Christians, see if this sounds familiar. You let your Christian faith be known at church or fellowship or what-have-you and someone asks “how does that work?” or “have you considered the United Church of Christ?” — or something actively negative, suggesting that you shouldn’t be there at all, as if Unitarian Universalism was a refuge for a mix of non-Christians. I thought about all of these after reading “More than just a starter church” at The Widow’s Mite-y Blog. Like her, I became a Christian when a Unitarian Universalist.
Anecdotally. there’s less of the overt hostility out there than there once was. Whether that’s true or not, and if so, whether that’s due to fewer hostile non-Christians, fewer Christians to be hostile to, or a real change of attitude is for others to discern. Plus, I’m a member of one of a handful of Christian churches in the Unitarian Universalist Association, so it’s not really a problem anymore.
But what remains isn’t acceptable. And it starts with the questions that together can but put under the heading, “Demonstrate that you really exist.” Unitarian Universalist Christians are a small part of a small denomination, and particularly outside New England you may not meet one in person. And there is decades of preaching and identity formation — again, especially outside of New England — that liberal religion was becoming something greater than Christianity, first incorporating it, and later transcending it. The actual reference to Christianity in the UUA Principles and Purposes was a political process — and a bit before my time — and not a given. Some people really, honestly believe that Christianity is beyond the pale.
Mix this with a “question everything (that’s convenient)” ethos and it’s no wonder that that people, both the kind and unkind, can ask some terribly corrosive questions.
When I was younger, I felt a responsibility to spread the word and be a patient, agreeable, non-threatening, cheerful ambassador. When this did nothing than embolden the passive-aggressive, I stopped being apologetic, and started to enjoy my faith, stopping only to challenge side-lining, red-lining comments however made. (Unitarian Universalist rhetoric still distinguishes between good and bad Christians in a way that other religions aren’t.)
About ten or fifteen years ago, the zeitgeist turned from defense and apology to joy, communication and personal representation. My friends and I chuckled about rueful complaints — overheard at General Assembly and online — about “the Christians taking over” and “the Christians being everywhere.”
This change of self-conception means that I won’t be told I’m welcome, but only if I act in a way others aren’t expected to keep. Or if I tone it down. Or if it means answering petty, barb-filled, conspiracy-seeking questions.
I won’t leave. I just won’t comply. And, my dear Unitarian Universalist Christian friends, you need not comply — or leave — either.
Having non-biblical readings has become such a canon among mainline Unitarian Universalists that Unitarian Universalist Christians face a crisis on the subject of readings. Is it proper to have non-biblical readings in worship?
The question of authority isn’t clear-cut. My home library has several works of daily readings: selected sections meant to be read regularly to enrich one’s faith, and not just in private reflection. Robert Atwell, the compiler of one such work (Celebrating the Seasons) notes in the introduction (page iii.) that
In monastic custom… the Scriptural reading at Vigils was supplemented by a non-Biblical lection. In the words of St. Benedict’s Rule: ‘In addition to the inspired words of the Old and New Testaments, the works read at Vigils should include explanations of Scripture by reputable and orthodox writers.’ The reading of commentaries (presumably on what had just been read) enabled the monk not only to engage with Scripture more intelligently, but also to place his personal meditation within the context of those of other Christians from different ages and traditions.
We’re not monks praying Vigils, but in our liberal-Reformed tradition we insist on the considered and thoughtful expounding on the lessons in the sermon. The lesson does not disclose itself, and we rely on the preacher to unfold its meaning.
In this sense, the non-biblical reading acts — or could act — as a replacement for the sermon, not the revealed word. But current Unitarian Universalist practice is far removed from this. When — about a century ago — Unitarian and (to a lesser degree) Universalist ministers cast abroad for non-biblical preaching texts, they drew from weighty stuff: often the classics, or a work of philosophy, or — as a standby — a bit of Shakespeare.
But today, it’s not uncommon for a liturgical element from the back of the gray hymnal, or a segment from a ministerial contemporary to be pressed into the role of scripture. It an odd thought that a minister might visit a church and hear her or his words — not unjustly quoted within the sermon — elevated to the role scripture once held. It’s hard to shake off our flippant and shallow reputation if that’s the norm.
So, there may be a place for non-biblical readings in Christian worship, but to help us hear and understand the word of God: not to become it.
A cautionary tale. I’ve worshipped with Micah here in D.C. so I sawa little of what he described but I’m certainly no Quaker, and (happily) have since gone back to my old church. But the critical mass issue is one that Unitarian and Universalist Christians are going to have to grapple with, in part because we’re probably too radioactive to attract ecumenical partners. Which is its own shame.
If Quakers don’t have the strength or inclination to seed new congregations, perhaps it’s time to partner with those who do.
At the risk of austerity-mongering, it’s worth asking what a small, or new, or fragile church can do without in its worship to make worship sustainable, and to free up money and energy for other parts of church life.
Some things come to mind; here I’m thinking of middle-of-the-road mainline Protestantism. You could have worship
without a meeting-place you own
even without a fixed meeting-place
without a full-time or resident minister
without a sermon, or at least a long, originally-composed sermon every week
without an organ, and probably without a piano
without a choir
without hymns
The list goes on, but you may already have experienced one or more of these “deprivations” in your own church. You might not even consider it a deprivation.
I’ll be looking at some of these options on and off for the next few weeks under the banner of “doing what you can, but doing it well.”
Burnout is a real risk under diminishing resources and opportunities. Burning out the leadership, leaving them hopeless, is not an option. Or else you’ll be
This is a blog-beg for preachers and ministers of any denomination who preach or have preached in churches that meet less than weekly, and who use a lectionary or observe a traditional church calendar. I appreciate your sharing this with anyone who has experience.
In short, how do you make it work? Do you use the lessons or propers of the day however it may fall? Do you pick from one of the Sunday lessons since the last worship service? Or before the next? And what about major holidays?
For a church that meets once a month or so, do you transfer Easter and Christmas (and Pentecost, today) to the nearest service, or rely on members worshipping with another congregation at the proper time? And if you do transfer the holiday, is it a kind of Lent-Easter/Advent-Christmas service? And how does that work?
Churches that meet infrequently probably aren’t high on anyone’s list, so it would be a great help to share ideas and resources. I’d appreciate details in the comments.
Submitted without comment. An unlikely circumstance, given the fact there are far more ministers in Unitarian Universalist Association fellowship than settlements. But there you are.
We are in an unprecedented situation with regards to the interim ministerial search this year, one that has not occurred in the recent history of Unitarian Universalism. In the broadest description, the issue is that there are significantly more congregations this year looking for interim ministries than there are ministers available to fulfill those interim ministries. Not Interim Ministers… ministers.
A little lunchtime Googling led me to this page, which has a large selection of United Methodist worship resources.
Welcome to the collection of resources from The United Methodist Book of Worship (1992) owned by The United Methodist Publishing House. These are offered on our website by written agreement between The United Methodist Publishing House and Discipleship Ministries. Congregations and other worshiping or church-related educational communities are free…
I’ve written about the option of organizing churches as unincorporated nonprofit associations in states that provided for them by law. That provides structure and protections more like what you have in a nonprofit corporation but with fewer complications. Unfortunately, that’s not too many states. Last month, Kentucky joined the club.
Gov. Steve Beshear signed into law new regulations making the governance of nonprofits and the management of small associations easier.
Saw this today. Will examine later and hope to come up with creative ways to make use of this new UUA status.
Emerging Ministries are any new group or project that is grounded in Unitarian Universalism and brings people together in covenanted and intentional ways.
How many [Universalists] there are who pray in the voiceless secrecy of their communion with God, it is for no human pen to assume to say. But the custom of family, social, or stated private prayer does not, to any considerable extent, prevail among us, because there is no prevailing sense of duty in these directions; and how rare it is to find those in our congregations who can be called to lead in public prayer, we all know. We have opinion rather than faith; more nominal assent than spiritual impulse or purpose.
from page 176
Since I entered the ministry, it was not usual to find family prayer even in the homes of our ministers, while a family altar in a Universalist layman’s home was a thing almost unheard of. The home in which I was reared — reared most tenderly and carefully — was a fair type of the best Universalist homes in this respect, my mother being a church-member, of devout mind and heart, and my father, though not a church-member, a most upright and scrupulously conscientious man, whom, to the last, nothing but serious illness could keep from his place at church, so long as he could get there. The children were trained to revere and read the Bible, to honor the Sabbath, to love and practise goodness, and to ‘go to meeting’ with punctilious regularity. But — saving that we children, in our earliest days, were taught to ‘say our prayers’ every night on going to our pillows — the voice of prayer was never heard in our home, except when the minister was with us to ‘say grace’ at table. And this, so far as my knowledge extended, was the universal rule among us as a people.
from pages 176-177
The propriety of prayer — at least to some extent — is not open to debate. They would not see it dispensed with in our Sabbath services, at the marriage altar, in the chamber of the sick, or at the burial of the dead. They not only recognize, but, if need be, would insist upon, its fitness on these and various special occasions.… For if we should pray at all, it can only be because there is, for some reason, use and power in prayer. What mummery all praying is if so much as this be not true? And if there be use or power in praying at all, then the more we have of prayer of the right sort, under suitable circumstances, the larger the measure of use it will serve, — the greater the degree of power it will impart. Public prayer being well, then why not private prayer? If prayer in the church, why not in the home? if prayer in the pulpit, why not in the closet? if prayer on special occasions, why not as the habit of life?
There is a view of the subject which seeks to avoid the difficulty of this question, How? presents, by affecting to affirm the use of prayer, and at the same time alleging that it avails nothing with God, — only does us good on the same principle that religious meditation serves to strengthen, soothe and uplift us. This theory has found some advocates among us. But it seems to me — and I think I may say, to nearly all of us — a theory most unsatisfactory, and every way open to objection. No really devout mind can fail instinctively to shrink from it, and protest against it. Not only does it deny the Psalmist’s statement that God heareth prayer, — i.e. hears in some sympathizing and responsive sense, — and equally deny Christ’s repeated assurances to the same effect, but it makes prayer a travesty of devotion as actually as though there were no God.
From page 179, a bit of humor
Or, still more like perhaps, it is as if one, desiring to scale a mountain, should stand in a basket, trying to lift himself by going through the motions of pulling at a rope which he knows does not exist, but which he plays is dangling from the sky and fastened to the basket, all the while invoking the aid of some deaf or helpless friend!
From page 180
It is important that we should duly keep in mind the fact of man’s freedom; but it is even more important that we should take care not to overlook or compromise the grander fact of God’s freedom. Because this fact fails to be properly taken into account, there is, in the habits of thinking quite too widely prevalent touching this whole matter of God’s connection with us, not a little virtual Atheism. We hear a great deal about the laws of nature, and the established chain of causation, and the inviolable order of things; and there are those who never weary in insisting that it is not at all probable that this machine-like fixity and succession of events ever has been, or ever will be, intermitted in answer to anybody’s prayers.
One concern I have is the cultural norm, among Unitarian Universalists, for creating and finding the right words for every service: weddings, funerals, dedications, Sunday services, the lot. The right words, and lots of them.
This tendency comes from the laudable standard of speaking to the context of the ministry you’re in, and the liturgical tradition of the centerpiece sermon and the long prayer, composed by the minister.
I’m not saying we should abandon either, but we should count the cost, not only in the salaries of those who draft them, but on the dependence the words create. And this has spread to new compositions to open worship, close worship, kindling flames, talking to children — even reaching to preaching texts.
Dependence? We like to think of ourselves as a laity-driven religious movement, but that’s only true in certain constrained ways. If our religious experience relies on an endless stream of original composition, or at least curated selection, then someone has to produce it or find it. And that speaks of specialized skills — or haphazard results. Is this creative output our most pressing need?
While traditions with liturgical textual traditions seem restrictive, the access to a reliable, common language of faith can also be very liberating.
Brooks’s writing style was rather stilted, making his habilitation as theological influence unlikely. But I thought a few edited quotes might help — here, from his chapter “Experimental Religion” — largely made readable by unknotting the negatives and restating (in square brackets) some of his unwieldly dependent clauses.
[The Universalist] conception of religion… still prevalent among us, is that it is a good conscious towards man, rather than a pious heart towards God.
Protesting against Catholicism and Episcopacy, and reacting from them and their abuses, the Puritans renounced many things which are now seen to have been not only desirable, but, in a sense, essential. The result was a most austere religious life and a singularly barren worship, fitly symbolized in the bleak and rocky coast and the inhospitable soil to which the Plymouth pilgrims.
Moral faithfulness is indispensable. But nothing is farther from the truth than the idea, however or by whomsoever held, that we are religious enough when we are morally faithful. It virtually ignores God. It fails to take a whole half of our nature into account.
Made to be religious, we can never wholly rid ourselves of this tendency, and are sure at some time to come back to the recognition of God, however we may have lapsed from it.
Recognizing in us needs and capacities which crave something deeper than any intellectual solution of the universe, and something more interior and vital than any mould for our outward life, it comes to us a Religion, seeking not only to inform the understanding and instruct the conscience, but to take possession of every faculty, pervading it with the required sense of God, and so putting our whole being into time and tune with Him.
Opinions will change. Forms will perish. Interpretations will pass away. But man will never outgrow God. Religion there will always be the necessity of souls; the support and handmaid of the intellectual and moral elements of our being, whatever the progress possible to them.
It is one of the chief misfortunes of Universalism that it is so widely supposed to be fatally wanting in religious efficacy. This impression it is our duty immediately to correct; but it can be corrected only as we bear in mind the Master’s test, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” One life demonstrating that Universalism has power to infuse a sense of God into souls, and to make His life theirs, will do more than whole libraries of books, or any amount of argument.
I’d love some feedback from my readers — anonymous with a legitimate email address is fine in this case — to find out what supply preachers are getting paid, if anything. A denominational identification and a general sense of the area (region and relative cost of living) would also be very helpful.
Why? Because supply preachers — paid per service or sermon — is likely to continue as a solution for churches, particularly as the decline of the influence of churches in the United States escalates. But I worry that the rate is too low. And if it’s too low, the people who will preach supply will be students, retirees, plus perhaps those who have well-paying work (and may not have much opportunity to preach) or who are desperate for every penny. Too low for what? Putting together a living with part-item gig. That itself isn’t ideal, but is probably going to become more common as the United States economy also changes. Supply preaching will have to pay as well as other casual opportunities. This is all the more complicated since prospective mission churches are the ones more likely to need supply services, and they’re less able to afford them.
For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to understand the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Church of the East: Christian churches that have an early history of divergence from the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic and Protestant churches in the West. The Coptic Christians I’ve recently written about are in this group. So were the Eritrean Orthodox who worshipped downstairs at Universalist National Memorial Church so many years ago. Also the British Orthodox I’ve cited on this blog. Originally, I was interested in them because some nineteenth-century Universalists saw a kind of pro-universalist apostolic purity in them; a history ripe for the reclaiming. But lately I’ve been more interested in their approach to mission.
For one thing, they’re not bashful about missions, and why should they be? Most come from parts of the world where Christianity isn’t a majority faith. To survive you have to have a strong sense of identity that corresponds well with missions. But you’ll forgive me if I suggest that their approach to the faith isn’t Mod or particularly attuned to contemporary culture. But, as they say in the software world, “that’s a feature, not a bug.” They work, or seem to work on a different timeline than your garden-variety mainline Protestant (Overstatements follow, but follow me.)
So I was a bit shocked to see that so many of the mission churches meet only once or twice a month. And many, perhaps most, of those — with English-language websites anyway — meet on Saturday morning.
The reason is pretty obvious. It allows the priests to serve more congregations. Some of the Copts travel several hours from their home parishes to serve missions, something that wouldn’t be practical if the mission had a Sunday evening liturgy following a liturgy at home.
This, too, is something those nineteenth-century Universalists would have understood, and also I’ve done my rounds of supply and circuit preaching. But their usual appointments (and mine) were on Sundays, which is also the tight time for church buildings. Few edifices are as well suited for worship as a church building, so why not gather for worship on Saturday mornings.
Because everything is changing so fast, even those of us in the profession can’t keep up with the framework, the lingo or the expectations. The fancy name for all of this is adaptive leadership, which is a nice way of saying that we’re all running like Indiana Jones a few yards ahead of the boulder of cultural change that threatens to flatten us at any moment.
She was speaking from her own observation, but a report that came out this week from Pew Research Center — quantifying the numerical shrinkage of American Christians and a comparably increase of the unaffiliated — alerted people that might otherwise not care so much.
She suggests that I might know how the remaining worshippers of the future will act, and so I’m adjusting some of my previously planned writing to address the question that’s the title of her blog post: “What Happens to Worshipers When The Traditional Church Closes Its Doors”?
The adjustment will come in phases, so let me address what won’t work; that is, doing church more cheaply. This won’t save us. So keep the champagne flowing? No. A cheaper, simpler approach won’t save us, but neither will we have an option. In time, even a deep endowment can dry up.
So the four directions in downsizing the church are taking creative alternatives to
staffing the church work with trained and ordained ministers, in new configurations
staffing the church work with new groupings of people with differing professional interests and accomplishments
making use of space other than conventional church buildings
making different use of the church buildings that exist
So what’s the solution? It’s making the experience of the church more desirable than the cost. The financial cost, true, but also of time, patience, labor, expertise and reputation. This last may be the hardest. Like climate change that melts the permafrost, releasing methane accelerating the warming — mull on that simile for a moment — if someone feels like a sucker for participating in a church, no cost savings, no special programming, no reasoned (or emotional) appeal will make it seem like a good idea.
And overcoming that dilemma is more than the subject of a blog post.
Like so many people, I have an enormous pile of books on my bedside table, and the ones on the bottom will be compressed into diamonds before I get to them. There a Japanese word — tsundoku –to describe the habit of acquiring books without reading them, and I’m guilty of that, too. Being a slow reader doesn’t help. Nor does the vast variety of good books, now in the public domain, that can be had electronically from Archive.org or other places.
But a book list has inspired me to declare tsundoku bankruptcy, restoring the unread books to a shelf, and pulling out those I own. I might even end up buying a book or two. But only after I finish the rest.
Over the last few days, I’ve chatted with some minister friends about the appeal of the Coptic church, particularly with respect to its antiquity, perseverance under genuine persecution (particularly lately) and the beauty of its liturgy.
And I almost decided not to mention these attributes in blog post, and I wondered why I felt that way. Which means that I should write about my hesitance.
I’ve been around Unitarian Universalists long enough to know that we add practices and make decisions without appealing to reasons or traditions. We devalue our internal logic and traditions, and then wonder why we agree on so few things and tend to follow each passing fad. Tired of hearing that Black Lives Matter or about Nepalese relief or even about regionalism of seminarian in-care programs? Wait a while. Is that right? No. Is there a better way we can reply? Perhaps.
Over all, our tendency is to look wide and abroad for answers, resources and solutions. The Copts could easily — well, perhaps not so easily, but you get the paint — join a river of borrowed influences. What we could learn from them is that a church’s history, theology and customs create systems of thought, preferred methods and particular choices. This is what we do, and how we do it. At its best, it provides a matrix to know what’s essential, and what’s not. A recently announced Coptic initiative to plant churches relies on this ability to make choices. It’s anticipating the transition from immigrant Copts to their American-born children, and possible converts. The faith, liturgy and music would stay the same, but the name (Coptic means Egyptian) and language of worship (to English) will change. The essential gifts of their church will remain the same, or at least that’s the concept.
As Universalists and Unitarian Universalists, we need a better grasp of the gifts God gives us a church, so that we can apply these to our decision-making and contribute them to others who may benefit from our experience.
I can think of a few.
While most Unitarian Universalist churches are non-Christian, they do somehow create and nurture a small (but not negligible) number of Christians.
We have long histories of women’s ordination, and LGBT* ordination. We have worked out some (not all) of the cultural and professional details that churches that have made this decision more recently have not.
We take cues from nature, time and seasons more seriously in our worship than many. This is not my original opinion, but that of an Episcopalian musician I met who had strong opinions on the subject.
Yes, well, congregational polity, which is not the sell it once was. But it’s easy to underestimate it when there’s no bishop trying to shutter your church. And with it come some skills and resources for self-reliance.
And there are surely other gifts we should own up to.
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the share of Americans who do not identify with any organized religion is growing. These changes affect all regions in the country and many demographic groups.
So, tomorrow is Mother’s Day. And I’m glad I’m not preaching. It’s an impossible gig. I’m really glad I’m not preaching.
You need to talk about Mother’s Day, as if it were traditional for churches and not a civil and cultural observance, so lacking many of the liturgical hooks that makes worship manageable.
You need to show how important motherhood is, particularly for those who have dedicated large parts of their lives to it, without minimizing those who did not or could not have children, or suggesting that this is the main end of womanhood.
You need to extol maternal love, but also recognize that some mothers are or were hurtful, abusive, or otherwise harmful.
You need to acknowledge the deathlessness of the love that often did exist without hurting those still mourning their mothers.
You may need to talk about the fact that we are all someone’s child, without harming those who lost their children.
You may recognize that some people grow up with no mother, but perhaps not without one or more fathers, at the risk of making motherhood a vague concept.
You can point out that Mother’s Day began as a peace action, but not without addressing the other points.
And you need to balance all these conflicts, and pray that this careful act isn’t undercut by some well meaning custom, like rose corsages. A custom that may be very well-loved by some.
Several years ago I sent you a link informing you of the sad demise of the Gardiner, Maine Congregational Church (UCC), formerly the First Universalist Church — one of the handful of congregations that elected to affiliate elsewhere rather than be part of the UUA merger. This article, from [the May 2] Augusta Kennebec Journal, tells of what is about to become of the lovely old meetinghouse.
I appreciate the news. I hate to see churches die, but since the conversion by a cider maker will preserve the attractive building, I can’t complain.
A few days ago I experimented with my Facebook and Twitter feeds. This was about when the crisis in Baltimore was getting hot, and I could already see the signs. Unitarian Universalists — I’m thinking of ministers particularly, because that’s who I know mostly, but I see lay persons do this, too — would bring a particular intensity to, well, I can’t rightly call it a discussion.
It’s more like a frantic, often doctrinaire, echo chamber.
So I started muting people, leaving ministers who are close personal friends, old college mates, former co-workers and the like. Rather than falling into an insulated world of cat videos, the quality of discourse about Baltimore’s situation improved. Deep analysis and more varied voices, particularly from people who live or have lived there. (I do live an hour away by train, so this is also a regional story.)
What vanished was the anxiousness, the agita and the dubious logic of borrowed framing.
There’s a bad lesson in that. And I’m not sure I’m going to unmute the anxious presence. More importantly, who would seek it out?
WWUUD stream 
