When I was in college, a professor began the term by assigning a novel set in a dystopian future, where everything was grim and hope was absent. I diligently read the book, a science fiction story by Ursula LeGuin. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person thinking that the term was already heading in the direction of being a serious downer. But the professor surprised me. When we arrived back at class the next week, he split us into small conversation groups, asking that we reflect on our ideal society. Get as far away as possible from the world the book imagines, he urged. In the utopia of our personal dreams, what would life be like?

We had some interesting conversation. One of the cool ideas I remember being tossed out was free public transportation, locally, and also globally. Can you imagine that? One fellow student in my group had recently interned with a collective that built housing using environmentally sustainable materials like cob (which is a mixture of clay, sand, straw, water and earth that’s similar to adobe). He shared a long convoluted plan about everyone getting to create their own one-room living space that would adjoin huge communal compounds he described as being like beehives. I was 19 and remember thinking it was very sophisticated.

But I have been forever haunted by the comment of a smart, thoughtful young woman. She was very quiet and listened to all the ideas presented. Then she said, “In my version of a perfect and ideal culture, anyone who abused or mistreated anyone, especially children, would be severely punished.” That’s the only contribution she made during that assignment.

I hope I will always be first in line to advocate for accountability when wrong has been committed, especially against another person, let alone a child. But in my dreamland of total bliss and complete equality, people would not be harming other people. Couldn’t we at least even fantasize about what it might mean to inhabit a place where children were not violated? Where we did not have to fear for the safety of our littlest ones?

This experience, of being confronted with an intelligent and worldly person who had so little capacity to dream big and think outside the box when the opportunity presented itself, helped teach me that imagination is complicated. It can be hard to imagine.

In Unitarian Universalism, one of the ways we have access to imagination is through Humanism. The worldview of Humanism can help us imagine. This might seem incongruent, but it’s not! Humanism often gets a bad rap because it can be mistaken for an overly rational perspective, one that is too literal and rigid for expansive beauty and joy. That is one kind of humanism, but I would characterize the flavorless and crotchety kind as secular in nature. In other words, it’s not interested in religious questions, and it can even be a fundamentalist sort of humanism.

By calling it fundamentalist, I mean that it’s an absolutely certain viewpoint, unable to allow for the mystery of the world or the possibility that another truth might be valid in another context or for another person. There’s no imagination in that.

Religious humanism is not confining in this stereotypical way; rather, it’s one of the least limiting forms of religious expression available to us. The reason it’s long been one of the most imaginative religious forces is because it says yes to so much! It asks us to accept that our physical and spiritual lives are the result of vast and diverse influences, including science, history, human thought and natural beauty. It even holds a place for those mysteries that have not yet become known to us. All these perspectives—philosophical, biological, environmental—are resources. They’re tools that we can use to fashion lives of worth and dignity for ourselves.

For the religious humanists (and in the past hundred years religious humanists have also tended to be Unitarians), imagination is the key that provides hope to alleviate suffering. Rather than imagination being rooted in privilege, it’s the opposite. When times are hard (even oppressive), that’s when it’s most important. This was a new idea to me, that suffering could be addressed by imagination.

The Rev. Lewis McGee called this “creative imagination.” Although he was born into an AME (African Methodist Episcopal) family in Pennsylvania in 1893, by 1927 Lewis McGee was connected with the burgeoning humanist movement and its many illustrious Unitarians. These included signers of the first Humanist Manifesto in 1933, which outlined humanist principles in a splashy fifteen-point platform. Here are some highlights in brief:

Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant…. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained…. Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man [we might broaden that language today but I think the fact that all the signers were straight white men somewhat limited their perspective]….

The goal of humanism [it continues] is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. [My favorite part:] Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.

Lewis McGee loved this. He wanted more. But when he eagerly approached a Unitarian minister of his acquaintance about entering the ministry, he was told candidly that he would have to supply his own church since it was of course out of the question for a Black man to serve a white congregation—and there were only white Unitarian congregations in existence.

He bided his time, not giving up on Unitarianism, but not able to move forward with it either. Finally, when he was in his mid-50s, he entered Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago to prepare for the Unitarian ministry. And then, in 1948, he did start his very own Unitarian congregation, a predominately Black but somewhat multiracial congregation called the Free Religious Fellowship, located on Chicago’s South Side.

Imagination is an idea that was central to McGee. This is how he summarized his theological beliefs: “We believe in the creative imagination as a power in promoting the good life.” For him and for other Black humanists of his time, creative imagination wasn’t an abstract, theoretical concept too vague to be pinned down. It was clearly, tangibly, irrevocably located in human capacity. Imagination helps to resist suffering.

So, according to McGee and his contemporaries, here is how the world works: We, flawed yet mighty humans, contain within our minds and bodies the capacity to solve individual and social problems. These African American theologians were understandably motivated to address, in particular, white supremacy and racism. They didn’t see the suffering that resulted from oppression as an opportunity for redemption. Since they didn’t believe in a God who called the shots (and they reasoned that only a twisted, sadistic slave master type of God would force suffering on people for their own good), they blamed white racism and other forms of unfair pain and sorrow on human folly. Instead of participating in what they termed a collective God delusion, humankind should quit shirking the task of righting the wrongs caused by evil behavior.

Human effort and moral struggle are the only ways to alleviate oppressive conditions and rebuild a kinder and more just collective existence. The task of social progress is ours and ours alone, since humans and not God possess the agency to make change happen.

Nor is this a fools’ mission; with imagination, our world can actually get better and more livable. McGee and Black humanism are clear that by dint of human effort and wisdom our world can and will improve. We’ll get there eventually if we are committed. This process itself is important. McGee wrote that inherent in existence is a “continuing search for truth” and so he called life an “adventurous quest.” Our creative imagination is a necessary travel accessory as we embark on the adventure of lifework that must always include addressing suffering. Henry David Thoreau, another Unitarian from a different time, geographical region and social location, put it this way: “The world is but a canvas to our imagination.”

In a way, the dystopian novel I was assigned years ago tells the truth. The world can feel grim, and hope can seem absent because the reality is that many people are suffering, nearby and around the planet. It can be tempting to succumb to the idea that all we could ever hope for is to contain the damage by keeping life from degenerating even more.

We might swiftly impose consequences for unacceptable behavior, but not restructure society so that our children are born into a society where they are safer. The “shared life in a shared world” demanded by religious Humanism will not be easily realized. We are going to have to work for it—and we are.

People all across the globe are striving for it, but the task is immense. It’s so huge that in the meantime, in order that we not forget what it is we’re struggling for, we must imagine it. Lewis McGee reminds us that the creative imagination is a powerful aid in promoting the good life. Our brains and sweat and a whole lot else is required. But without imagination, how will we know where we’re going?

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110172756/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_09/02.mp3