‘The 'Good News' of Unitarianism’ - Rev. Adam Slate

‘We Believe - A Unitarian Psalm’ by Jen Hazel

Of all the things that we believe we believe most in humanity.
In every heart and every mind lies the spark that makes us all divine.

I believe in compassion lifting every living being.
I believe in community lifting everyone in need.
Though it may not seem certain, it’s a living, breathing creed.
But this I know.
This I see.

I believe in my being; all I touch and feel and see.
I believe in my living with the breath that flows through me.
Though I may not feel certain, it’s a living, breathing creed.
But this I know.
This I see

I believe in our presence in each moment passing by.
I believe in connection flowing in and through our lives.
Though our future’s uncertain, it’s a living, breathing creed.
And this I know.
This I see.

I believe in the justice every person strives to find.
I believe in our values that bring liberation wide.
Though the world is uncertain, it’s a living, breathing creed.
And this I know.
This I see.

Introduction

One of the places where I trained for ministry was a wonderful theological seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma. As a Unitarian committed to staying engaged with a radically diverse group of people and beliefs, it was important for me not to attend a programme designed for Unitarians where I would study with people who had a worldview and beliefs similar to mine. So I chose Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, a city that is extremely conservative religiously and socially, that brought people from all sorts of conservative and evangelical religious backgrounds in addition to a smattering of Unitarians, humanists, Jews, and others from more liberal faiths.

It was an amazing experience. I watched people’s theology get challenged as professors deconstructed the Bible and the stories and motivations that underpinned it, and lectured about ways that some Christian theologies have sought to dominate Western culture, stomp on their Jewish roots, and wield their messages to colonise the world. I studied how newer interpretations of Christianity like liberation theology decentre Western assumptions and literally turn the world on its head to incorporate better theologies from the Global South, women, queer people, and others.

My experience showed me that—while it is tempting to separate myself and my Unitarian tradition from other religions and belief systems—there is so much fertile ground for common understanding and a shared sense of human purpose. My fellow students and I discussed Jewish and Christian scripture, ethics, how to teach religious values to children, and other widely-applicable topics; we travelled to Israel and Palestine together; we studied moral leaders including Mary Wollstoncraft; and we learned from each other, shared what we loved about our traditions with each other, and transformed each other. From the beginning, I never really felt out of place among my peers.

The one place where I felt disconnected was in our preaching class. We had to preach a couple of sermons, and I recall after my first one—which was about climate change and how the Biblical story of the flood reframed our relationship to the earth from having dominion over it to being stewards—a friend of mine from the Black Baptist tradition tried to ask me about Unitarian preaching and could not even seem to formulate his question. He was curious about Unitarian preaching, and there was something he clearly seemed not to be able to get his head around but was not even sure how to ask.

Our professor was able to cut to the heart of it. She pointed out that most Christian theologies have built into them some sort of good news. The term ‘Gospel’ literally means ‘good news.’ If you are familiar with Luke’s telling of the Christmas story, when Jesus is born, angels proclaim that his birth brings ‘good news that will bring great joy to all people.’ This is a fundamental element of Christian preaching—that one day the world will be redeemed and we can all live safe, free, and cared for. It is part of many Christian sermons.

My professor wanted to know what kind of good news I include in my messages, or more fundamentally, what is the good news of Unitarianism?

Is There Always Good News?

This was a really great provocative question. What kind of good news do we bring to the world, if any? And what is the obligation for a Unitarian preacher to bring that news?

Other faiths are grounded in the promise of a loving, merciful deity. However, Unitarians are not required to hold that belief, and many of us do not; we do not accept a Divine presence that orchestrates events, and some of us reject God-language entirely.

Our tradition is grounded in reason and respect for science. While we think of these as modern Humanist values, they are even more deeply rooted. For example, during the Enlightenment, the British deist movement called for free rational inquiry in religion, which was one of the supporting arguments for religious tolerance.

So where does a tradition that honours reason and appreciates scientific inquiry find good news in a world that is often unkind and violent?

We Believe

Some weeks, I have an idea for a message and once I start writing, the other elements of the service fall into place around it. Sometimes everything is informed by something that has happened in the world or by a conversation I have had with a congregant or another minister. And sometimes the other elements of the service fall into place first and inform the message. One of the things I love about preparing for and leading Sunday gatherings, other than being here with you all, is that there is no way to script the alchemy that makes this work. The various levers and triggers come together in all sorts of wonderful ways, many of which I could not have predicted.

This week, our Music Director Jen Hazel and I were talking about the music for the service. The choir was planning to sing ‘We Believe,’ what Jen calls a ‘Unitarian psalm,’ and which she wrote. As we talked through it, it began to dawn on me that what makes the piece work is that it lifts up our Unitarian good news, those things we bring to the world around which humans can find hope. And although the song does not promise a happy ending for us or our species—Jen writes that this ‘living, breathing creed’ brings no certainty—it at least holds the assurance that we can be together for support, companionship, and inspiration.

Human Compassion

‘We Believe’ sings of compassion with the potential to lift every being. The deep, deep well of human compassion.

I heard a radio story once about a credit card company who assessed people who bought wild bird seed to be the lowest credit risk because they were willing to spend money to take care of something that is perfectly capable of caring for itself. That we do this kind of thing speaks to the unrestrained compassion that lives within us that sometimes even defies reason. This desire to love and care for others for little to no reward makes us humans worth investing in. Human compassion is not just sweet, or kind. It is good news for us as people. It has allowed us to form communities with each other, overcome differences, make remarkable scientific strides in healing arts, and even learn to build relationships with other species.

Direct Experience

The song sings ‘I believe in all I touch and feel,’ the centring of direct experience in our tradition. This is a broad space theologically. It can refer to respect for science; that what we see, feel, and can measure needs to be considered along with our religious beliefs, and that we must spend time reconciling what we know in our hearts and what we know empirically.

But this call to direct experience does not necessarily mean we prioritise science in all cases. It also invites us to listen to our own mystical and spiritual experiences that cannot be explained even when science points in another direction. Younger generations of Unitarians in particular are looking to alternate spiritualities—and paying attention to inward experiences gained through practices like meditation—to help make sense of the world.

Think of stepping outside on a crisp autumn morning, the impact of a hug right when you need one, or hearing a beautiful song. We feel these moments with our five senses and also may perceive something sacred beyond our senses. We might attribute it to the spiritual or we might consider it part of the wondrous randomness of the universe. Either way, our tradition makes room for this, without us needing to name or understand it. We honour it simply because we experience it.

Connection

This Unitarian psalm Jen has given us invites us to be present and pay attention to the moments of our lives and the connections we have to everything around us.

I think about Mary Oliver, one of the ‘patron saints’ of Unitarianism, whose poetry holds up moments in life that are profoundly personal and also profoundly recognisable. When we read in her poems about birds flying south or the quiet winter moving in, we are called both to see the beauty in the world immediately before us and also to appreciate that we share a human experience: that we all want to be able to sit peacefully and feel safe watching birds around us; that we all think about our mortality, for which winter is a powerful metaphor; and that these needs and experiences connect us with every other person and the world, even when we are not immediately aware of those connections.

Justice

Finally, ‘We Believe’ points us toward the justice we seek in the world, ‘the values that bring liberation wide.’ We are an activist faith. The real legacy of our congregation’s origins in the 16- and 1700s is not that we were dissenters—that we disagreed with the established order—but that we acted on that dissent. That we proclaimed it was unjust to persecute people for what they believed or the way they did or did not worship; that we put ourselves at risk; and that people lost their livelihood, their safety, and sometimes their lives standing up for that freedom.

We continue to work for justice in all sorts of ways, driven by our conscience. We do not always see it because we are a small movement, and there is so much injustice around us requiring our attention, but this core value of seeking to push liberation and justice wider and wider continues to be an aspiration of our faith.

These things the song speaks of—compassion, direct experience, connectedness, and justice—they do not bring certainty to our lives. We still live in a fragile, unpredictable, and sometimes harsh world. But they form the ‘living, breathing’ experience of being human, and they are at the centre of the Unitarian ‘gospel,’ the good news we practice and share with the world.

I am reminded of Mary Oliver again. In her poem ‘Don’t Hesitate’ she writes:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins…

There is something powerful about this honest reckoning that points toward hope without requiring us to look away from the world as it is.

Conclusion

I often highlight for people giving messages at New Unity for the first time that a Sunday gathering message is different from a lecture. It is not intended to be a TED talk. If your main purpose for coming here is for useful and interesting information, you can get that pretty easily without having to get up and come to the Meeting House at 11am on Sunday morning.

What happens here encompasses much more meaning than that. We are called not just to understand the world; we are asked to make sense of it. To exercise compassion, honour our connectedness, and seek justice—and to use our energy, our time, and our storytelling to work toward those.

Unitarianism is full of good news, even as a precariously small faith; even as a questioning, seeking faith; even as a theologically diverse faith. And working to shape the world according to our values can be a source of joy for us.

As my Christian clergy siblings might say: ‘Thus ends the Gospel for this morning.’