Where Do We Come From and How Do We Do It? Now just so there is not any misunderstanding about today’s sermon topic, I will be talking about our Unitarian Universalist faith. Where did we, the Unitarian Universalists come from? And how do we do it, this crazy thing called church? In short, this is a sermon on Unitarian Universalist history and polity. Polity, for those who don’t live and breath church, means how we are organized and how decisions are made. Now before you start your nap, let me tell you that there are some exciting stories in our church history to be sure, even our share of scandal and excitement. After all, anytime we talk about money and power, it is bound to get interesting.

My interest in Unitarian Universalist History and Polity began with class I took a couple of summers ago, a required class for Unitarian Universalist seminarians. I figured it might be a snoozer. The only saving grace was that the instructor was Rev. Dr. Gretchen Woods of the Corvallis UU Fellowship. Perhaps you have heard of her. She is known to be a really really good teacher. And she really really is. The course description in the summer edition of the college catalog was that we would explore the history of our religious movement "including the polity inherent in this story". This description is more accurate than it may seem to the casual reader. Our history is rich with stories of brave men and women with radical ideas and it is from this history that our polity arose. But in addition to our history and polity being swirled together, I found a third ingredient that is vital to who we are. What was that third ingredient in our denomination stew? It is our theology, what we believe at the deepest level. I believe our polity is not only a result of our history but is an expression of our theology. Our history, polity, and theology all blend together as an expression of who we are as a faith tradition. Listen to our history and see what I mean.

The first story in our history takes us back at the council of Nicaea. This new Religious movement called Christianity had just become popular with the leaders of the Roman empire, but there was a whole lot of diversity in terms of what was meant by Christianity. There was no agreed upon doctrine, just a bunch of independent church communities. This council was mentioned in the Davinci Code, if you remember. At the request of the Emperor, the leaders of this new religious movement, the Christian Church, met to unify the tenants of their faith. If anyone grew up saying the Nicene Creed in church, this is where it came from. At this council in the year 325, some members of the group, such as a the followers of a guy named Arius, believed that there was only one God. This was good old monotheism, like the Jews had. Arius was big in to Greek philosophy and he believed that the use of the mind and analysis of religion based on classical philosophy and logic was important. He believed that Jesus was very special, but God created Jesus, just like God created everything else in the universe. If Jesus had existed as divine since the beginning of time, there could not be true monotheism. Most of the early Christian church representatives at that meeting did not agree with the position of Arius and his philosophical monotheism movement. So the emerging Catholic Church based it’s theology the eternal divinity of Jesus, beginning the idea of the trinity. But the monotheists who honored the blessed man named Jesus continued to work in the outskirts of Europe and the Arian movement did not die. Note these Arians are not to be confused the other Aryans so praised by Hitler. They were someone else entirely. Our Youth may find it interesting that many of these radical Christian who hung out with Arius and who did not see eye to eye with the newly formed Roman church moved to Eastern Europe to preach to the Goths. The real Goths, the originals, not the black-clad and studded ones so common in UU youth groups.

About 100 years earlier, a priest named Oreigen was forming his doctrine of Universal Salvation. His study of the Bible led him to believe that "all shall be made sons of God". He proposed that no one would be cursed with eternal damnation and that a loving God cared for and embraced us all. This meant that even those who did not agree in the practice or belief of his faith would all share in salvation. This was a radical theory of inclusiveness that branded Oreigen a heretic. Not a pretty word back then.

Fast forward for a moment…Let us look at these two very old movements and see how they inform our current Unitarian Universalist theology and polity. From the Arians we have our ideas of monotheism and logic. In many ways I see this as the beginning of our reliance on reason. Jesus can not be the Son of God and the Father/Creator God at the same time. We look to evidence in our religious inspiration. From Oreigon we have the idea of universal acceptance in the love of the divine. No one is damned and no one is outside the family of God. If we look at the modern Unitarian Universalist practices these two theologies helped bring to birth, we see the honoring of the questioning mind. We also see a polite lack of willingness to accept a dominant paradigm that just does not fit for us. And we see the modern Unitarian Universalist idea that everyone is valued and accepted. This doctrine of Universal Salvation may be the beginnings of our first principle, that of the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The combination of two historic and heritical concepts, Universal salvation and honoring of the questioner, have contributed to our modern Unitarian Universalist value of listening to all sides of any argument. This is so key to our polity, the way we organize our churches. Though this honoring of all viewpoints can lead to long and tedious congregational discussions, this tradition in our polity is in keeping with our history and our theology.

Now let’s go back again several hundred years or so. During the 1500’s radical ideas were everywhere in Europe. With the advent of the printing press, more and more people had access to the Bible and began to read it for themselves. This was fodder for movements like the Protestant reformation, where people no longer looked for the Church in Rome to give them a connection to God, but believed that their own faith and relationship with God was the key to salvation. Folks like Martin Luther fanned these flames with his 95 theses a few years earlier. Wow, look what happens when people have the idea that they can get the answers themselves… they are no longer so dependent on the church leadership to give them the answers. And when I say fanned the flame, that is not just an expression. Lots of folks, Protestants (same root as protest) died for this idea that folks could find God without he help of the church. I see this as one of the foundations of our Unitarian Universalist tradition. We have individual responsibility for faith formation and we honor the path of education and study. It is in study and education we are given the tools to make our decisions. Only then can we stand up for ourselves and be responsible for our own relationship with a higher power. Today, in our Unitarian Universalist churches, we are all encouraged to learn and study as we walk along our faith journey. After all, "Do you know were Unitarians go when they die? They go to book discussion group about heaven". One of our UU principles includes the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. The Unitarian Universalist minister is a coach and a guide, but does not act as our intermediary between the divine and the congregation.

It is important to note that not all radical ideas in the 1500’s were met with success. After years of intense scriptural study, a Spanish physician named Michael Servetus spoke and wrote his ideas of the one God. He talked of Jesus being born human, but graced by God as he lived his life. This doctrine was too far outside the bounds of the church leadership. Because of his outspoken heresy was burned at the stake for his ideas. We do well to remember that speaking your truth sometimes requires a great deal of bravery and sacrifice. Some things never change.

A fun fact for you…For a few proud years, there was a Unitarian King in Europe. This king had the potential for making Unitarianism the religion demanded for all. That was what was expected. Conversion on demand to the King’s faith was a common practice in most of history. King Sigismund became the king of Transylvania in 1568 and he was a liberal Christian. Remember those Arian types in Eastern Europe centuries earlier….I think there might be some connection… However, the law of the land he decreed was not that everyone needed to believe what the king believed. Rather, the law that was decreed was one of religious tolerance. All faiths were to be allowed. This was a radical move! This was remarkable in Europe where leaders in the religion that differed from the king were often exiled or killed to keep challenges to authority down to a minimum. This would have been astounding at any time in history but think about King Sigismund’s behavior as compared to his neighbors to the west who were caught up in the Spanish Inquisition, the ultimate in religious intolerance. Isn’t it interesting that we have all heard of the Spanish inquisition but so few have ever heard of King Sigismund and his acts of tolerance for all beliefs.

The evolution of Unitarianism, Universalism, and congregational polity are closely linked with the colonization of North America. When the puritans came to this continent they came seeking freedom to practice their form of Christianity. They were radical in their time in that they had unique ways of structuring their churches. In 1648, The Cambridge Platform was written as their statement of polity for their new faith community in America. Polity again means how the leadership and decision making is organized. In the Cambridge platform, Christ was the head of the church in a religious sense, but no man (or woman) on earth could presume to hold the position of leader of all the faithful. The churches were not beholden to a central structure, like the Catholic or Anglican churches in England. They were autonomous congregations that were in voluntary community with one another. No earthly power had more power than that of the congregation. These Christians were not necessarily Unitarian or Universalist in their theology. Some had a strong belief that some people would be saved from Hell and some would not. But they are a part of our heritage in how they organized. They, like the Protestants in Europe, felt they were personally responsible for their relationship with God. They built this personal responsibility into their theology and built it into their polity, where no denominational structure dictates how God is served, but the people of the church and the study of the sacred texts dictate how God is served. This directly relates to how we organize our congregations today in Unitarian Universalism. Though we may not be trying to avoid Hell, like the Puritans, we also feel a personal responsibility for our religious life. We, like the Puritans, see ourselves as brave seekers in new lands. We are not conformable with our past and are striving to make a better place for ourselves. This quest for freedom and the value of personal responsibly contributed to congregational polity among the Puritans. This congregational polity system led to the formations of Modern Congregationalists and Unitarian Universalists.

As our nation grew and democracy became our government’s polity, it is no small wonder that Unitarians and Universalists adopted democracy it as well. It fits with our theology. Everyone is important and has a voice to be heard. This is a Universalist ideal. We are rational beings that can learn what is needed to make decisions. This is a Unitarian ideal. Though I am not sure which came first, it also is convenient that so many of the early leaders of our nation were Unitarian, or Unitarian friendly. Jefferson and Adams were Unitarian. Many of the early power elite of our nation were Unitarian. Freedom, independence, and the value of reason were important in our movement and the building of a nation. Meanwhile, the Universalists were also building their theology of community and universal acceptance into the fabric of our national landscape. All are saved…All men are created equal.

After the American Revolution and before the Civil War, there was a wave of energy in Unitarian faith. It was the Transcendentalist movement. The Transcendentalist philosophy brought a reverence for nature as well as a new way of thinking about God. God was changing out of the traditional Biblical God and into a more Eastern concept of the divine. Followers studied and talked together and again, the mind was the tool to new religious insights. Ideas came out of the structure of the Transcendentalists that have impacted our polity today. One is that the Transcendentalists promoted equal rights for women. They supported the work of Margaret Fuller as the editor of their journal when women were not allowed to publish printed material. In another bold move, Henry David Thoreau took the insights he got from Transcendentalism and decided not to pay his war tax. So not only did Transcendentalists bring a new kind of spirituality and mysticism to our movement, but they inspired a new kind of social action, with members choosing to fly in the face of society to work for larger change. Social action at its best.

Not all of our history is proud. During the 1800’s the Universalists took a public stand against the injustice of slavery and supported the abolition movement, along with the northern branches of the Presbyterians and Methodists. Though the Unitarians had individual heroes in fighting slavery, the Unitarians a group could not agree and were not able to make public stand against this stain on American history. This may have been influenced by the many Boston Unitarians were reaping personal fortunes from the textile industry, fed by cotton plantations. We need to face this truth out our history.

As our movement matured, the values of constant questioning and of reason continued to impact our theology and our polity. As technology advanced in the industrial revolution, and new ideas like Evolution, came into popularity, these struck a chord. The Unitarians especially, but the Universalists as well, began to embrace humanism, and science as their new gods. Though the roots of liberal Christianity continued to exist, this new passion took hold and grew. I believe the values of reason, science and humanism have greatly affected our polity. We don’t necessarily look to God to tell us what to do or be our authority in matters of the church. Unlike our famous religious martyr, Michael Servetus, we do not necessarily look in the Bible for the answers to our big questions. We study many ideas from science, philosophy, history and world religions and then try to make an informed choice. You know I have been in lots of Unitarian Universalist meetings where difficult decisions were being made. Some of these meeting have been at congregations where I have been a member, Wy’east and First Unitarian. Others have been on a denominational level with district and even national leadership. Never once have I found Unitarian Universalists to stop in a meeting and pray for guidance around a tough decision. I find this interesting. This is a common practice in many other faith traditions, liberal as well as conservative, when faced with similarly difficult decisions. Maybe we don’t expect God to help us with decisions, (those of us who believe in God anyway) except perhaps by giving us the tools we need to make the decisions ourselves.

Unfortunately, we have often been so confident in the ability of science and human reason to solve our problems we have lost touch with the holy around us and the lessons we can learn from inspiration. Lighting a chalice at the beginning of a church committee meeting can help us stay focused on our values of love and acceptance. And radical as this idea is, I personally think a prayer for guidance and inspiration at the start of a potentially difficult committee or congregational meeting may not hurt. At least a moment of silence in order to listen to the small voice of inspiration deep inside us.

In my UU History and Polity class Gretchen asked us to put my own beliefs into the context of the larger UU movement. I invite you to do the same. I have to say that I figured out that I am a Populist Unitarian. I have always resonated with the Unitarian side of our heritage and finding my miracles in science and my answers in reason. I taught my children that Unitarian Universalism is a belief that religion needs to make sense to us. I also find comfort in my Liberal Christian heritage and enjoy readings and lectures by the Unitarian Universalists Christians. Yes, such as group does exist. And, to be honest, I am a bit of a snob and I take pride in the Unitarian tradition of respectability and influence. But I am also a serious populist. I have always felt the drive to make sure everyone’s voice is heard. As a congregational and district leader I have often brought up the plight of someone called, "Joe average congregant in the pews". I want him to be informed, to be heard, and to be empowered. This does not mean I don’t believe in structure, accountability, and authority because I do. I strongly believe these are the foundations of good organizational health. But I believe it is a sacred part of our theology and heritage that every member in every congregation feels as if they have a stake in the movement and a voice in how we walk our path. No one is too poor, or too old, or even too annoying to have a voice and a vote in our congregations. That is the gift of our Universalist ancestors. We all have value. The church is for everyone, not just the select elect.

Our holy tradition of congregational polity does not mean that everyone is in charge, or no one is in charge. Both of those are common misunderstandings and can lead to chaos. But I do believe congregational polity means every member in a congregation has the responsibility for their own spiritual path and access to the decision making process in their congregation. It also means that every congregation has a responsibility to support the larger body of the association while maintaining its own responsibility and autonomy. I think one of the best ways to help "Joe average congregant in the pews" to be a good Unitarian Universalist is to teach our history, polity, and theology. I believe when these are well understood congregational polity is less likely to be taken as a license to disrupt. This way all can be proud and informed members of the movement.

No, Unitarian Universalism did not begin in Berkley, California. And the life of our movement goes back much further that the 1960’s when the Unitarian Church and the Universalist Church finely joined after a long courtship. We come from a long line of passionate heretics, who put their reputations and even their lives on the line to stand up for their beliefs. These unique and powerful beliefs of the sacredness of reason, the individual responsibility of us all to consciously walk our own spiritual path, and the inherent value of every person. We are proud descendents of these men and women. Men and women like Michael Serveitus, Margaret Fuller, the King of Transylvania. We are charged to continue their legacy. We are charged to keep their faith alive and we are charged to do the oh so important work of church in a way that honors the values of democracy and community.

So be it.