What follows is the first in a two-part series of sermons exploring our UU heritage.
For two Sundays this month, today and April 27th, we’ll be exploring the two sides of our Unitarian Universalist heritage: The Unitarians and the Universalists. The two groups merged in 1961, but there’s a long, rich history of each movement before the merger. Today, I want to explore the theology of the Unitarians by looking at the theology of William Ellery Channing, especially as it was delivered his 1819 address “Unitarian Christianity.”
But let’s start from the beginning. Unitarians have been around pretty much since the death of Jesus. Originally, they were Christians who didn’t buy the doctrine of the Trinity. Instead of God in three persons, they preached a God who is one. Arius, around 300 AD, is an example.
Arius was a believer in the Christian God. But, he said, there’s only one God and, pardon me, Jesus ain’t it. Only God is completely original, completely un-created. Jesus, as a created being, can’t then be God. He may be worthy of our respect, even our worship, as a secondary type of being, but he isn’t God. These were the beliefs of Arius and his followers.
But in the year 325, the Christian church called a council in the suburban city of Nicaea. Arius arrived at the Council of Nicaea a Christian and left a heretic after the people in attendance decided against his beliefs. Thereafter, Unitarianism, the belief that God is one, was heresy. Through the ages, people were persecuted and killed for Unitarian beliefs.
Problem was, though the preservers of orthodox Christianity stood with mallet in hand, like the little critters in the whack-a-mole game Unitarianism kept popping up. After the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, it reared its controversial head in Transylvania, in Poland, in England and, not long after, in the congregational churches of the United States.
Forward to the early 1800s. There are no denominations in the United States. Every town has a congregational church which has the power to call and ordain its own minister. But among these churches, there comes to be a great divide. Orthodox versus liberal.
The orthodox Christians in the 1700s and 1800s were mainly Calvinist, believing that human beings are born with a bent toward sin, that the only way for us depraved human beings to escape eternal fiery punishment is to be chosen by God for salvation. We can do nothing to save ourselves.
The liberals said, to hell with that. Human beings are born with the capacity for good and evil, and each of us has the ability to choose. And further, since human beings aren’t born completely bereft of morals or intelligence, we can apply reason to religion. If the teachings of religion, in particular the Bible, don’t jive with human reason, then maybe human reason isn’t always the problem. Maybe those religious teachings need to be rethought.
One of the least acceptable doctrines to these reasoning liberals was the doctrine of the Trinity. God is three in one. One being, three personae, father, son and spirit. Not only does this doctrine make no sense, they said, but it isn’t supported by the Bible itself. The orthodox accused the liberals of being “Unitarian” rather than “Trinitarian.” Heretics, they said.
Into the maelstrom strides William Ellery Channing. Educated at Harvard, a liberal Congregationalist minister, Channing and other liberal ministers decided it was time for them to state their own case rather than allowing their opponents to define them. They looked around for the right place, they contacted the media, and on May 5, 1819, at The First Independent Church of Baltimore on the occasion of the ordination of a young minister named Jared Sparks, William Channing delivered his landmark 90-minute sermon, “Unitarian Christianity.”
Now, if I announced to you that I was going to deliver a 90-minute sermon next Sunday, I’d imagine you would all find yourselves suddenly very busy on that day. I doubt that Betty or any of her journalism colleagues from The Hendricks County Flyer or The Indianapolis Star would show up. But such wasn’t the case with Channing. By naming his address “Unitarian Christianity,” Channing was taking on the name the orthodox were using as slander against the liberals. This was a big deal. He would use this occasion to set out the basic beliefs of this controversial group of ministers. Just hours after he finished his sermon, it was reported in newspapers up and down the East coast.
The Bible verse Channing used as his text was from First Thessalonians in the New Testament: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” I’ve also seen that verse translated, “Question everything; keep the important stuff.” That was the gist of Channing’s address.
It’s important to make one thing clear. Channing was a Christian. In his time, all Unitarians were Christians. But Channing couldn’t abide a Christianity which demands that the believer shut off her brain. So, he argued, the most important thing a Christian can do is look at the Bible with the brain fully engaged. In fact, he said in the address: “Our leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books.”
The Bible, he went on to say, is such a unique collection of books that it actually requires the use of reason. More than a contemporary novel or book of poetry, a person has to understand the history and purpose of the text before really getting its meaning. In other words, for God’s sake don’t just read it and take the thing literally. Channing gave a few examples:
“Take, for example, the style in which they generally speak of God, and observe how habitually they apply to him human passions and organs. Recollect the declarations of Christ, that he came not to send peace, but a sword; that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have no life in us; that we must hate father and mother, and pluck out the right eye; and a vast number of passages equally bold and unlimited.” It takes human thought, reason, study, to get at the meaning of such cryptic and complicated writing, Channing said. And that’s just what we do in sessions like the study on Genesis going on at the church right now. We seek to apply human reason to a religious text.
But not everyone likes that, even today. Some people believe that we are required to simply take the Bible, or the Koran, or other religious texts at face value because our faulty human understanding can’t get at the meaning God intended. To those who argued that human reason was fallen, tainted, inadequate, Channing said 200 years ago: “If reason be so dreadfully darkened by the fall, that its most decisive judgments on religion are unworthy of trust, then Christianity, and even natural theology must be abandoned; for the existence and veracity of God … are conclusions of reason, and must stand or fall with it.” And again, “If God be infinitely wise, he cannot sport with the understandings of his creatures. A wise teacher discovers his wisdom in adapting himself to the capacities of his pupils, not in perplexing them with what is unintelligible, not in distressing them with apparent contradictions, not in filling them with a skeptical district of their own powers.”
This was, again, the most important contribution in Channing’s speech. Use your brain unashamedly in religion. If a doctrine doesn’t make sense, well, scrap it. Apply reason to the doctrine of the Trinity, and see that no being can be both one and three. Apply reason to belief that all human beings are born with a bent toward evil, and see that we all have the potential for both evil and good. Apply reason to the Calvinist doctrine that God chooses some to be saved and some to be damned and see what a cruel, capricious God this God would be. Do not be a slave to tradition, to a literal reading of the Bible. Think about religion.
Channing’s sermon was an enormous success. It was circulated more than any other piece of current literature in its time. It led many ministers to follow Channing in confessing Unitarianism. In his book “Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism, Conrad Wright says: “Channing took the liberal wing of New England Congregationalism, fastened a name to it, and forced it to overcome its reluctance to recognize that it had become, willy-nilly, a separate and distinct Christian body.” Six years after the Baltimore speech, the American Unitarian Association was formed. It existed until the Unitarian Universalist merger in 1961.
Unitarianism has evolved since Channing’s sermon almost 200 years ago. Channing’s Unitarianism was based on the belief that the Bible was inspired and the sole source of Christian truth, though that truth should be filtered through human reason. Today, most Unitarians do not even call themselves Christians. Like so many prophets throughout the eons, Channing steered his movement toward a point beyond his own vision. Unitarianism opened like the first flowers of Spring, petal by petal, to the light from various world religions and philosophies. Today, the word ‘Unitarian’ in our Unitarian Universalist faith reminds us that we work to unite persons with various, sometimes differing, views on God and religion and life in general. Christian, Buddhist, atheist, humanist, and more all together. But our religion has never lost the emphasis that reason should be applied to religious principles, and that human beings are born, not depraved, but full of potential for good and evil alike, the choice being ours, not God’s.
“Forward to the early 1800s. There are no denominations in the United States.”
Presbyterians? Baptists? Anglicans? Quakers? Mennonites? Methodists?
When I made this statement from the pulpit, I added that it needs qualification. I added that the denominations which were forming were in their infancy and weren’t as we would know them today. And I wouldn’t count Quakers and Mennonites as denominations still today, though some do. The early Baptists weren’t sure about denomination, many being come-outers from other movements. For many denominations, ‘founding’ dates are set decades after what come to be seen as the ‘founding meetings,’ and many of their members were originally members of the congregational churches. I asked the congregation’s permission to make a general, blanket statement which could certainly be argued. I know that it can.
I read just recently concerning the Council of Nicaea and the fact that it wasn’t immediately successful in settling this particular debate concerning the Godhead. Just 10 years afterwards the decision to side with the Trinitarian view was reversed. Over the course of some 4 decades after the Council, Athanaius, the Trinitarian proponent, was himself banished and recalled half a dozen times. Such was the discord over this issue. As a matter of fact, it appears this divide paved the way for at least a part of the wild success of the rise of Islam, seeing that Muhammad was a “radical monotheist” and made certain that there was no debate with Muslims concerning the makeup of the Godhead. I first heard of Arius from Richard Crayne (remember him?), but didn’t pay much attention to the issue until many years later. Since delving into Church History more in recent years, I now see why it’s ignored for the most part in the Pentecostal Holiness churches we’ve associated with. Just a little research will show that so much of the “Church” is made up of the pagan religions that preceded Christianity, and that our time would be best spent searching for a way to adhere to the lofty ideals taught by Jesus and not so much time bickering over pointless debates. Which thing, of course, is exactly what would happen if the advice your giving in this sermon were followed, and people would solicit the help of reason a little more frequently. But alas, so many think this a sham, and that to think about religion is like “clipping faith’s wings with reasons scissors.” Peace…
If faith’s wings can’t hold up to those scissors, I wonder what sort of faith it was in the first place.
Peace to you, my brother.
“If a doctrine doesn’t make sense, well, scrap it. ”
The question I have concerning this statement is “sense to whom?” You and I have both met scads of people to whom even the simplest concepts are completely out of there grasp. I have preached to people that the Unitarian or Trinitarian concept would be completely beyond there ability to grasp. We can agree upon this one topic I’m sure, so then who makes the delineation between what makes sense to the teaming huddled masses that can’t seem to think for themselves.
I do not claim to have all the answers, and I feel the great weight of leading my small congregation, but I can’t believe reason can solve every debate or issue. Somewhere, somehow faith must come into play. You can choose to believe reason can effectively be applied to and solve all things or you don’t, but that is still a leap of faith.
As to man having the ability to choose good or evil I totally agree. The free moral agency of man is ,I believe, a tenant of good Bible teaching. The problem I have is that even mans good actions apart from God seem to be self-serving for the most part. If you approach this honestly you will agree that at least in part men do things or make choices on what is best for them and theirs regardless if the outcome be good or bad. The results seem often to be immaterial in a good or evil context, it is more about the benefits to the participant of said action. Later on my friend – RLR
My simple answer is: Who are you to say that your interpretation of the Bible is the one to educated the “teaming huddled masses that can’t seem to think for themselves?”
Believing in reason is less a leap of faith than believing in something no one has ever nor will ever see. I’ve never bought ‘leap of faith’ logic anyway. What sort of God would ask us to ‘leap’ as the only way we can make it into the good side of eternity? What kind of God would give us such a strong sense of reason and then ask us to suspend it over and over and over?
And by the way, what’s the alternative to reason? Ignorance? Willful suspension of common sense? Blind acceptance of anything in one’s own faith tradition?
OK, you’re right. Most human actions are self-serving in one way or another. Kind of like accepting Jesus as your savior to get on God’s good side and make it into heaven. Or so he’ll make you a better person. Or for any other reason than that you supposedly love this man you never met. Christianity is just as self-serving as any other religion or philosophy.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I make no claim to having the interpretation of the Bible that is solely accurate. My point was, whatever the view point there is a vast majority that would come to a conclusion so wildly different from yours or mine that who’s to say what answers reason really provides. Your assuming your brand of reason is better than mine, or other persons whose view point differs from either of us. I agree in applying reason to scripture, I agree that blind faith is never advised, and just because I don’t adhere to exact brand of logic or reason that doesn’t mean I live in ignorance or that I’m uninformed. I just analyze the available data differently that you.
When I analyze the facts, look at society and all its ills, and then look at history I feel I have made the best choice. If I’m wrong so what, nothing lost anyway. My concern is that what about those who lack any moral compass at all. I live in west Tulsa, 14 meth labs in my neighborhood alone. The meth head will give you ample reason on why cooking another batch is the right thing to do. I sit by and watch their families struggle and eventually fade into non existence. I have clothed these people, fed them, filled their tanks with gas and tried to rescue as many as possible. Who has made the right choice me or the misguided meth addict? I have literally walked through waist high mountains of trash, into a hovel not fit for my dog, jus to be told by a no account father and tweaked out mother that they are just fine and need no help. What guides this type of individuals reasoning process?
I have made the decision to follow the teachings of Christ – I teach my congregation, and we actively apply this teaching, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, assist the poor and infirmed, and in general treat our neighbor as ourselves. We have given money, time, food, and other resources to the place and people God has called us to. Even if my life winds up and I have been wrong in some of my core beliefs I feel I’ve still made a positive impact on my community and helped where I could.
I assume most Fundamentalists feel the same way, why does that make us such wicked people. I have come by my conclusions honestly as I assume you have, but not everybody is like us. The majority of people analyze the facts, apply reason, and still make poor choices concerning their beliefs and the path those beliefs take them down. Should we applaud these poor choices or try to help them out of the mire. According to your logic they are fine where they are, they beliefs are as good as mine, and I should let the children go hungry, and their lives crumble around them. Your philosophy might be fine for the intellectual, the elite, and the reasonable – but what about the rest of the world. Later – RLR
I’ve spent time with meth addicts as well, as Jackson County (where I served as minister) is one of the highest-producing counties in the Midwest. I found that many of them have conservative religious backgrounds. What I’m saying is that fundamental Christianity does not solve moral dilemmas, many of which have deeper underlying psychological and physiological roots.
Your outlook on the world is dark. I don’t think most people make ‘bad’ decisions. Some people do, and I’m more than willing to help those folks. But I don’t assume that people who are simply different than me have made poor decisions. Your view of the world as mainly sinful leads you to condemn people before you even meet them. That’s what bothered me about your comment.
My question is what constitutes a “bad” decision? Is getting hooked on drugs a bad decision, and if so who deems it thus? Is handling snakes in a Kentucky church a bad decision, and if so who makes those rules? I really am an upbeat helpful guy most of the time. I try not to judge others, but lets face it we all do it. If someone walks up to you tomorrow and says “I’m a fundamental Christian” you would predetermine certain things about that person that may or may not be true.
You can ask J-Wed or Jable I am probably the most understanding and rational of all us “wacko fundies” as you all are so fond of calling us, but I wonder if we are supposed to be tolerant of all and reason must be applied to everything, then why does it bother you so that my opinion is different that yours. My actually said that I feel you have come by your beliefs honestly and respect you for that, but it seems if anyone who holds my view point is condemned out of hand. We are either uninformed, unintelligent, or just plain stupid, but I just can’t agree with that. Primarily because I am not fond of calling my self stupid, but because I have met so many caring, helpful, and amazing fundamental people.
The real root of the problem for me is who determines what decisions are good and bad. You admitted people made bad decisions, but who makes that call. It is still a matter of us judging people, but we just draw the line different places.
I do take into account the sin nature I feel is inherent in humans, but that really wasn’t issue I was addressing. It was simply if your logic is correct then any choice that has been made who has the right to criticize it. Is it you, is it me? There is no gold standard by which we can view the world – what makes Jeff Dhamer’s decision to kill folks and have for dindin any different than my son’s decision to squish his pet frog (which he got in mucho trouble for). Who’s to say?
Bottom line is everyone chooses to worship something – you have chosen reason and humanity. I can see as many problems with that as you can with the God of Christianity.
Also I may note that I mean no ill will in this little debate, I just enjoy this sort of thing – so if I am in any way angering you let me know and I will back off. Most of these debates I get into are so abstract and meaningless in light of the bigger picture sometimes I go overboard as a creative outlet. I smile the entire time I write such things. Hope all is well with you and yours. RLR
But I don’t worship reason. I see that it has fallen short many times, but it seems to be our most reliable guide to life. Your reason guides your religious faith in many ways. I think that’s fine. I just think you should acknowledge that there really is no ‘gold standard.’
Having said that, honesty about moral relativity does not leave us without any absolutes. It’s not OK to murder, whether you believe in God or not. God changes nothing in that regard. Athiests will share jail cells with Christians who commit mass murder and God won’t put them there. Human beings who reason have decided that it’s bad to murder. I agree with them.
We’ve gotten back to the source of morality, an argument which JA and I have had many times. If God is the source of your morality, wonderful. We need more people who will actually go into the home of a meth addict and do something positive. God is not the source of my morality. Reason, experience and my religious community are. And we’re going to have to share this country, no matter our disagreements.
It is only “not okay to murder” under certain circumstances in our country, and in other cultures in other times murder has been a way of life. Jim Elliot and Nate Saint were killed and eaten and this was not found reprehensible, but normal in the area they lived. I agree that in there are gray areas in the right vrs. wrong debate even in Religious circles, but the issue remains: “who makes the rules?” If we are in mid-evil Europe or 19th century Africa the argument for reason and human morality will turn out somewhat different the ‘08 U.S. version would. It just seems this is the old “inmates running the Asylum” sort of thing where you can rationalize any sort of behavior if you really want to. I’m just not ready to take that step. As for sharing our country, be glad to – it seems you have developed into a man or high moral fiber in spite of your lack of a need for God.
We can both try to accomplish good in our communities and see what comes of it all.