by Rev. Dan Schatz
December 12, 2021
It is not easy being a Unitarian Universalist.
I mean sure, it sounds easy – we don’t kick you out for having the wrong kind of spiritual practice, or holding the wrong theology, or loving the wrong kind of person, or asking the wrong kinds of questions. We’re all about freedom, choice, respect for human worth and dignity. It sounds so simple.
But try telling that to someone else. They’ll have one question – “What do you all believe?”
We can tell them that it’s not about what we all believe, that we have many different theologies amongst us, that what brings us together is a way of life based on questioning, spiritual growth, integrity, community, and diversity – that’s my standard answer – but people don’t always want to hear that.
“Yeah,” they’ll say, “Ok. But what do you believe?”
“It’s not about that,” we reply, and start again. It’s not easy being a Unitarian Universalist.
And if that weren’t bad enough, we have an ironic tendency to take the beliefs we aren’t based on awfully seriously. Some of you know the joke, “Why don’t Unitarian Universalists sing better?” “Because they’re reading ahead to see if they agree with the words.” One thing about COVID, we don’t have to worry about that for awhile.
You may laugh, but I bet some of you have done it. I used to do it. And it’s not that those words never passed my lips. I love old gospel songs. On Saturdays I’d go to folk festivals and concerts and sing-arounds and sing “washed in the blood of the lamb” at the top of my lungs, but on Sunday I’d choke over the word “Lord” in a hymn.
For a religion not based around a common set of beliefs, we can be a little prickly when our beliefs get challenged. Maybe that’s because we worked so hard to come by them. Our theologies, for the most part, are the result of our individual truth-seeking; they weren’t just handed to us. So they’re not boiler plate. They mean something to us. Our faith, as James Luther Adams said, is an examined one. When a Unitarian Universalist says “I believe,” that holds some weight. We’re not just reciting.
That’s good. It isn’t easy, but it’s powerful.
Still, you can overdo a thing like that. It happens when we mistake story, mythology, and symbolism for literal belief. It happens when we get so caught up in the dictionary definitions of words that we forget spiritual language is more complicated than that. Words have emotional meanings as well as scientific ones. We can end up creating caricatures of whole theologies and religions, and we lose something in that process. Maybe we define God as a giant in the sky with a beard and a bass voice and then turn up our noses when people say they believe in God, even though they may be talking about something very different from what we imagine. Or we argue that if you don’t believe in God, it isn’t really theology, and it really isn’t religion. I’ve seen that happen too. Either way is destructive and demeaning to others, and in either case we close ourselves off to wisdom. I’ve even seen people get so caught up in literalism that they can’t see the spiritual power of their own beliefs, and they mistakenly think they have nothing to add to a conversation about religion.
There’s another question that usually follows very soon after “What do you believe?” especially if we haven’t answered very clearly. “Do you believe in God?” or perhaps “But you believe in God, right?”
It sounds like a simple question, but as we know, it isn’t. I don’t believe in God the way most people define the term, and for that reason I don’t think use God language very much in my own spiritual life. I don’t believe in anything supernatural. But when A. Powell Davies talked about God as “the living spiritual reality,” I had to admit, I believe in that. When I read Sallie McFague’s ecofeminist theology of God as everything within us and around us, I had to admit, I believe in the holiness of everything within and around us. When I think of God the way the process theologians do, as the unfolding of the universe from this moment to the next, I believe in that too.
For a non-theist, I’m quite the believer. And I’ve learned over the years that the distance between “nothing is sacred” and “everything is sacred” is often not very far at all.
Getting caught up in our personal “rightness,” or lining up in theological “camps” closes us off from growth, learning, and deepening. It is the opposite of what Unitarian Universalism should be. And it’s such an easy trap to fall into that our whole denomination has gotten caught up in it more than once. Two hundred years ago Universalists argued about whether we all went to Heaven right away or had to be purified for a few thousand years first. A hundred years ago we argued about whether God had a place at all in our services, and sometimes I think we’re still not completely over that one.
When I started seminary, every minister in search and every congregation searching for a minister was asked to identify whether they were Humanist or Christian – as if those were the only two things you could be, and as if that’s what made the difference in good ministry. I still applaud the candidate for one congregation’s pulpit who, when asked by the search committee which category he fell into, responded, “It depends on you. If you’re Humanist, then I’m a Christian. If you’re Christian, I’m a Humanist.” He found his way out of the trap.
I want to make a radical suggestion: maybe it doesn’t matter whether or not we believe in God. Maybe it matters more that we experience the sacredness, beauty, and wonder of this dynamic universe than what we choose to name it. Some might see the holiness and call it God or Goddess or Spirit, and some might simply call it beauty or truth. Maybe it doesn’t matter so long as we are open to being transformed by the experience.
Our beliefs are important. But it would be a mistake to elevate them so much that we forget other values at the core of Unitarian Universalism, like diversity, like human dignity, like the importance of holding our beliefs alongside people who don’t see everything the same way we do.
Now, the right of conscience does not guarantee the right to be comfortable all the time, or to be free from criticism or consequence, or to belittle others, or to express our beliefs in ways that are hurtful, hateful, or dismissive of others’ worth. And yes, that includes what we say on the internet. I know, it’s hard, but it does. In other words – belief isn’t everything.
If our search for truth closes us off from the possibility that other searches may be every bit as reasoned, every bit as thoughtful, every bit as thorough and legitimate as our own, and lead to different results – we’re doing it wrong. We’ve mistaken ego for truth, and it’s time to look beyond belief.
Years ago, when I lived in Maine, I helped organize a civil rights march on behalf of the state’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens, whose rights had been taken away by a divisive ballot measure passed during an off year election. I’m glad to say that time and progress have since erased that legislative mistake.
The evening after the march we held a gala benefit to recoup some of our expenses. Tim Sample, a Maine humorist, hosted the evening, and I will never forget the words with which he began. “I’m here representing a group of people in the state of Maine who care about something more important than what gender you are, or what race you are, and a hell of a lot more important than your sexual preference and orientation,” he said. “I’m here representing a group of people who care about only one thing – do you have jumper cables and will you use them?”
Here are some questions more important to me than “What do you believe?”
Do you care about people who are suffering, and will you do something about it? If you do, than you live a holy life.
Do you listen to people who do not look like you, or speak like you, or share your background? Do you pay attention to people whose voices historically have been silenced? If so, then you honor the values of human worth and dignity and justice.
Are you open to the possibility that you might be wrong? Are you open to changing and growing? If you do, and if you are, than your beliefs mean something, because they are continually made new.
Do you care about your own needs and the needs of others? If so, then you know something about spiritual maturity.
Are you open to be transformed by the wonders of the universe? If you are, than you have a deep and abiding spirituality whether or not you ever use the term.
Do you embrace the journey? If so, then your soul is alive and brimming with possibility.
For that matter, do you have jumper cables and will you use them? Will you help a stranger for no reason other than you are there and you can? If you will, then you know something of service and dare I say it, ministry.
Do you live the life of love? If you do, I respect you deeply and hope we will be friends.
Our beliefs matter, and it does matter what we believe – but other things matter too, and just maybe they matter more. How we live matters, that we love matters, that we are willing to change and grow matters, that we give of ourselves to make things a little better for other people – it all matters.
It isn’t an easy life, being a Unitarian Universalist – it’s one thing to talk about your values; it’s another to live them – but it is a sacred life. It is the heart not just of our religion, but of so many others. It is the heart of humanity. It is love and growth and service. It is goodness and holiness and peace.
And in this season of myth and miracle – it is beauty beyond belief.