Unitarian Universalism and the Evolution of Religion

Our UU faith has helped to shape and has been shaped by the unfolding faith traditions around us.


As I reflect on it,
  I feel that all religious traditions evolve in two ways:

One way lives as an open system;
   the other lives as a closed system.

I guess it's obvious from what I have said before
    that I feel an open system
       leads to a more progressive faith,

while a closed system tends to lead
    to a more regressive faith.

Either one can be adaptive in one given situation,
   but overall, open systems are more adaptive
      in the broadest sense, since they can change
         much more easily.

Likewise in natural selection, open systems
    that can change characteristics quickly
         tend to be more able to adapt
              and so are more likely to survive
                   situations of stress and rapid change.

I am saying that overall,
   in various forms of evolution,
       open systems
           including progressive religion
               tend to be favored for survival.

Troubled times such as ours
   make the false security of a closed system
       seem very attractive to masses of people.

I call it a false security
    because experiences of life
        inevitably do not fit
             into closed systems.

People are disappointed and disillusioned
    when their faith systems
         fail to account for the things they experience,

and people of more progressive faith
     are often left to help pick up the pieces
          and welcome the newly disillusioned
               into our own ways of experiencing faith.

Make no mistake about it,
     a progressive faith is still faith,
          even if we are often told that it is not.

One of the best things
    I have ever hear on the subject
         was said by Marlene Walker,
              at the time our interim minister at UUCP.

She said, "The opposite of faith is belief."

At first the statement seems counterintuitive,
      maybe even almost shocking.

Yet some reflection will show it to be
     patently obvious in its truth.

Faith is dynamic and alive,
    always struggling with life and circumstance.

Doubt is a vital part of faith,
     part of the struggle
          that IS faith by definition.

Belief is a frozen certainty,
    brittle in its inability to cope
        with contradiction.

Life itself is often a contradiction in terms.

It is amazingly beautiful and joyful,
                   a great gift,

and yet at times, unbearably painful,
    filled with grief and sorrow.

Belief would tell us,
    "It's all part of God's plan."

Faith can say,
    "Maybe, but even if we knew the plan,
          we might not like it."

Two quips describe the dilemma well:
   (1) My life can be summed up by saying,
              "Things did not go as planned."
                           -and-
   (2) If you want to hear God laugh,
               tell Him your plans.

In the evolution of religion,
    we humans try to grapple
        with important questions of life
             and with our inability to answer them.

How we use our religion to help us cope
   will determine to a large degree
      whether our faith helps us or harms us
           in ourselves and our families
                 or in our culture as a whole.

In North America, an important religious event
    was the arrival of a group of Calvinist settlers
         later referred to as the Pilgrims.

In fact, their objective importance to our history
   has been greatly exaggerated,
      and they are admired far beyond their deserving.

They are important for our consideration today
    because they are among the spiritual ancestors
         of our own UU tradition.

The Puritans were a similar group
     who came to settle in New England
         at about the same time as the Pilgrims,
              but they were different
                   in one important way:

They sought to reform the Church of England.
                        - while -
the Pilgrims had sought to separate from it.

There were many more Puritans than Pilgrims,
     and they came to govern
          the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Their strict religious discipline did not allow
     for any kind of religious freedom.

If you wanted to live in Massachusetts,
      you were a Puritan, period,
            or at least you had to pretend to be one.

It would be almost two hundred years
     before the progressive ideal of religious freedom
          would take shape in the Bill of Rights'
                First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

All of the original colonies had
      State supported Churches.

Even after the adoption of the Constitution in 1783,
    some states kept their State supported Churches,
         disestablishing them in the 19th Century.

There is a powerful movement today
    to weaken the separation of church and state.

We UU's hold as one of our Seven Principles
(4th Principle:
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning)
    the importance of freedom of religion
         and the separation of church and state.

The experience of the impossibility of living
    with a strict State Church
        has contributed to
            our emphasis on religious liberty.

As a Lutheran and as a UU,
   I believe that we must never again
       have a State Church in the U.S.

Of course, if we have to have one,
   it simply must be the UUA,
      because of our connection with
         the Pilgrims and the Puritans
            who have had so much influence
                on our nations' culture and spirituality.
                    (tongue firmly in cheek)

The Calvinist churches of the Puritans
   were strictly congregational;
      there were no bishops and little central authority.

Therefore, they had a lot of religious liberty
    at the level of the congregation,
        they just seem not to have realized what it was!

Like many Calvinists,
    for strict authority in religious matters
        they held to a belief in an infallible Bible,
            disregarding the varieties
                 of experience and belief
                      represented in its pages.

To this day, the belief in the infallibility of the Bible
    (or of the pope, or of one prophet or another)
         is a problem of regressive religion.

Our UU insistence on religious liberty is the antidote.

At the same time, those strict New England pietists
   are direct institutional ancestors of our churches.

Congregational church governance is only one
    of our characteristics we inherited from them.

We can trace our churches' ancestry in the U.S.
    through our sister congregations
        of the United Church of Christ.

Despite their name, many of their congregations
    provide as much religious liberty
         as our own UU congregations.

When one of my professors of Sociology at T.U.
    told me that the UCC and the UU
        were often indistinguishable in New England,
              I could not believe it.

Over the years, I have learned that it is true.

There are plenty of UCC churches
    even in our part of the world,
        although their congregational governance
            can make them a bit difficult to find.

The nearest to us that I could find is off Sullivan Road
                   in Spokane Valley.
                     (Veradale UCC)

Through the UCC, our UU evolution
     even has us closely related to the Lutherans.

Around 1800, the ruling Prince of Prussia
    was Calvinist,
         while is wife was Lutheran.

They could never have Holy Communion together,
     which for Christians is a BIG DEAL.

The Prince published a service book, a liturgy
   to serve both Lutheran and Calvinist congregations,
      and he forced them to merge into one church.

Lutherans were called Evangelical-different meaning.

Calvinists were called Reformed.

The new church was called
    The Evangelical and Reformed Church, ER.

(As an aside... conservative, regressive, closed system Lutheran objected strenuously. Many of their people left and came to the U.S. They sailed up the Mississippi River and founded Zion on the Mississippi in Missouri, and the LCMS - or Misery Synod - was born.)

In the U.S. it merged with the Congregationalist
        (Puritan) churches to form the UCC.

Many of our early UU congregations
   in New England
      did in fact begin as Congregationalists.

Out of their congregational freedom
    our own faith and spiritual life has evolved.

As a reaction against so many excesses
    of funny mentalist religion over the years,
        our religion of ethics without doctrine
             and faith without dogma
                  has evolved.

We are truly in close proximity
    both in religious liberty
         and in social justice concerns
              with many of the churches
                   out of whose backgrounds
                        we have evolved.

As open systems of plants and animals survive
     by sharing the DNA of others
          who are not the same, but similar,

so we as a living faith tradition
     can cross pollinate and even co-mingle
           in our values and work
                with many others
                     who can learn from us
                           and from whom we can learn.

Amen.
So let it be.
Blessed Be.