You Call This a Religion?
Sermon by Stephen D. Edington, May 3, 1998
When the idea of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister first began to suggest itself to me somewhere back in the mid-1970's, I figured one good way to dope out the UUs without committing myself to anything would be to subscribe to their denominational newsletter which was then called the Unitarian Universalist World. Unlike our present, rather slick World magazine, this one was done on newsprint and had more of a "newslettery" look to it. Reading the first few issues that came to my home--then in the Midwest--turned out to be a little like walking in on a family argument; an argument going on in someone else's family, I mean. For several issues, as I recall, there was this great debate taking place with all kinds of UU ministers, educators, and laypeople alike voicing their opinions as only UUs can voice opinions, on the subject: "Is Unitarian Universalism a Religious Alternative or an Alternative to Religion?" At first I was intrigued by it in a disinterested sort of way, thinking "Gee, we Baptists don't have these kinds of arguments. I mean we fight about all sorts of things, but we're pretty sure that we're a religion." Then I found myself getting drawn into it. Like the anecdotal--and admittedly stereotypical-- Irishman who comes upon a street brawl, I wanted to ask, "Is this a private fight or can anybody join in?"
Several years later when I'd finally become a member of the family the debate had pretty well played itself out so I never got in on it at all. I don't think an actual poll was taken on the subject, but the idea that we are a religious alternative rather than an alternative to religion seemed to be the prevailing opinion. But it was this little donnybrook that served as one of my early introductions to Unitarian Universalism, and I remembered it as I went to put some thoughts together on the subject of "You Call This A Religion?"
I actually got the title from some of the occasional slams we get on our church's website where the persons who give us a hit can also leave a response. In truth, a good 90% or more of what gets entered on our Guest Page section is highly positive, and leaves me more convinced that ever that there are great number of people who find our approach to religion very meaningful, and whom we have yet to reach. But every now and then we must hit a raw nerve with some folk who seem to be both offended and distraught that we even exist. Their responses will begin with something like, "You call yourself a religion, but you don't even believe in....." and that is generally followed by a recitation of all the things that the person posting does believe in. What strikes me the most about such posts is not so much the beliefs of the individual who is posting, but the vociferousness with which they are stated. Apparently the fact of our existence and approach to religion comes off as a threat in some quarters.
But the irony here is that we also occasionally receive some of our most vociferous praise for the same perceived reason: "Hey, this is great, a religion that really isn't a religion!" This is followed by expressions of a sense of relief over all that things we allegedly don't believe in or don't do. From both ends of the spectrum, then, there is, first of all, an assumption about what religion is; and, second, an assumption that we're not it. What both ends are not seeing is that to become a Unitarian Universalist is not to take on an alternative to religion, but it is to come to an alternative understanding of what religion is. This is the topic I want to address for a time this morning. I'm probably preaching to the choir by and large, but as we continue to grow in numbers I believe there are some things we need to be reminded of; and I hope to give our newer members some means of response to question of "But is this Unitarian Universalism really a religion?"
Its true that we don't act or behave much like a religion in the generally understood sense of the word. We don't have a specific set of doctrinal beliefs to which we expect all to adhere. We don't have one central, sacred text in which we vest religious authority. We have very little in the way of symbols and ritual. What few symbols and rituals we do have--like chalice lightings and water ceremonies--are not prescribed for all UU congregations. They are done in accordance with the spirit of each UU congregation. Our styles of worship have evolved and changed over the course of my ministry here as we have each shaped and defined each other.
What makes Unitarian Universalism a religious alternative, rather than an alternative to religion however, is because of our alternative treatment of the very the term "religion". We treat it as a verb. Religion is how we respond to life, and how we go about finding meaning, purpose, value, and spiritual depth in the lives that we have been given. It is how we respond to our times of joy and wholeness and fulfillment; and how we respond as well to pain and despair and meaninglessness. It is how we reach out and relate and respond to the call and needs of the larger world around us. The responses we make may well come to include things like joining and participating in a religious community, finding certain texts and writings that are especially true and helpful in the course of one's religious and spiritual journey, defining one's beliefs, and discovering meaningful ceremonies and rituals These are the nouns that flow from the verb.
When I go looking for a definition of religion I find myself coming back to the root meaning of the word itself, which as I'm about to demonstrate, really is a verb. Those of you who ever had to take a high school Latin class may remember how you had to take certain words apart and find the Latin derivative of each part and then put them back together into the one word again and see what you've got. When you do that with "religion" you get "re" and "ligare". "Ligare" means to bind or join together. The word ligament comes from this same term. "Re" means back again, as used in words like return or recall. Religion, in its most literal sense then means "to bind together again." A verb, you will note. Religion therefore is an ongoing process of binding back together oneself, or of "re"-storing personal wholeness. In a more universal or cosmic sense it is the process of restoring one's relationship with the world, with the universe, with Ultimate Reality or God, however conceived: To bind together again.
What the various religions (using the term now as a plural noun) do is to offer their own prescription, and their own set of beliefs, practices, and behaviors which they each believe will accomplish that binding together or binding back. I think that we are each and all religious seekers in this very sense: We each and all do in fact need certain things that bind our often fragmented and sometimes broken lives--and our often fragmented and sometimes broken world--back together into some meaningful whole.
Playing off this kind of understanding, I would say that religion began at those points in human evolution when the earliest human beings sensed that they had an existence apart from, and dependent upon, the world/universe around them; when, that is, they first sensed that split between the "me and the not-me". This is one of the places where I have to respectfully part company with some of my more orthodox religious friends. Religion did not originate with a Supreme Being, with gods or goddesses, or any other transcendent beings reaching out (or down) to human beings. It began when human beings--with most likely a combined sense of awe, wonder, fear, and mystery--began looking beyond themselves. Here's what I mean: Animals, in all likelihood, live in a state or with a sense of unbroken immediacy with their environment. Very young infant children do the same. Neither have a capacity for self-transcendence; that is to say, the ability to step back from oneself and perceive a self/world division or split. At some point in the evolutionary process early homo-sapiens lost his and her sense of immediate relatedness with all that is and saw that its me here and everything else over there and out there and all around me. There is a whole world and realm of existence, that is, that is not me. It was this new level of consciousness which brought on feelings of wonder and awe and fear and mystery; as well as a desire to restore that broken relationship.
The Biblical story of Adam and Eve being cast out of Paradise and cut off from God is actually a mythological retelling of that point in human evolution when we human beings lost our initial innocence. I basically agree with the precept that religion began as an attempt to restore what was sensed as a broken relationship with the world/universe; to bind back together again in other words. Rituals, ceremonies, dances, symbols, stories, mythologies--all were developed to bind certain grouping of human beings to one another and to at least attempt to recapture, restore, re-bind if you will, that relationship they sensed they had with the rest of creation. In time the conducting of the rituals and the keeping of the symbols and the telling of the stories came to be entrusted to certain individuals within the tribe--shamans, priests, priestesses, holy men and holy women. As time went on--and I'm jumping by tens of thousands of years now--and human beings developed a sense of history, and written language, and the need for laws and codes of behavior, religious practices became increasingly sophisticated. In order for religion to be properly adhered to and passed on to succeeding generations it had to be codified and systematized; the beliefs and practices had to be more specifically defined.
What we now call organized religion probably began as human beings acquired a sense of history and the idea that there were truths and practices that needed to be preserved and passed along. As noted, as we realized the need for laws, and codes of behavior to both protect ourselves from ourselves and to enhance the common good, the ultimate appeal for these laws and behavioral codes was through an appeal to religion; i.e. this is what the gods and goddesses desire and decree. But behind all of that, I would still hold, was this basic human need and desire to feel connected or bound up with oneself and connected or bound up with That Which Is Greater or Other Than Oneself, however "That Which Is Greater" or "That Which Is Other" is understood, perceived, or imagined.
When I try to decide whether or not Unitarian Universalism is an "organized" religion, I find myself doing a variation on a well known quote by Will Rogers. Mr. Rogers once quipped, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Sometimes, especially after an exhausting--but still exhilarating--week of a UU General Assembly I come home thinking, "I'm not a member of any organized religion, I'm a Unitarian Universalist!"
Well, most of this sounds pretty straightforward, I would imagine, to most of us. But to suggest, as I strongly am, that religion is a human creation is also disturbing to many religious folk. A not atypical reaction to all I've said is, "Well, if religion just a human creation then how can it have any real value or meaning?" My answer is to say that calling religion a human creation hardly diminishes or demeans it. Art, literature, and music are also human creations or inventions which we human beings have come up with to enhance and elevate our lives. Good art, good music, good literature and poetry can take us to the heights and depths of what it means to be human; with what it means to celebrate, to struggle with, to agonize over, and to ultimately affirm our humanity. The same can be said for religion.
I like what the late Rev. Dana MacLean Greeley had to say along these lines: "Religion is an awareness of the total context of our lives and it is the life we live as a consequence of that awareness...religion is dreams, dreams of a better life and a better world, not in the future but here and now...Religion is affection and compassion and kindness...It is in the light of a smile and the lift of the hand and the bending of a knee. It is in the irrepressible wonder of the human soul." Now that is a quintessentially Unitarian Universalist way of looking at religion, which in this context certainly stands to reason since Dana McLean Greeley was one of the quintessential Unitarian Universalists of the 20th century.
But I know that Dana would agree, were he still amongst us, that just as there is bad art, literature and music, there is also bad religion. I want to work my way into this one by looking at a very well-known characteristic of religion that is really not bad at all in and of itself, but which can still lead to negative outcomes. There is "religion" as I have tried to define, describe, and interpret it; and then there are "religions"--all the various proliferations, variations, and permutations of this phenomenon called "religion."
Staying with our definition of religion as that which gives a person sense of relatedness to and responsibility for oneself, and to the world/universe in which we live, what the various religions offer is their own prescription for achieving that proper and right relationship. Some of these prescriptions go down easier than others. Some prescriptions insist that theirs is the only correct one; while others, in more of a live-and-let-live spirit, are quite content and secure to see themselves as one possibility among many. Some prescriptions are theistic, or monotheistic, centered on one God, as is the case with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Some, like Hinduism, are highly polytheistic with literally thousands of gods. Some, like certain forms of Buddhism, are non-theistic with no God or Supreme Being at all. Some like the pagan or neo-pagan earth-centered religions stress one's relatedness and connection to the earth rather than to a Supreme Being.
My own concept of religion, and I'll probably get some argument on this, is one that encompasses philosophy as well. Philosophy--literally the "love of knowledge" [or wisdom]-- is also an attempt to understand one's relationship to the rest of life. The French philosopher Albert Camus, was a determinately avowed atheist, but he also passionately loved life and passionately sought meaning and relationship in life in the face of what he perceived as an absurd universe with what I can only characterize as a religious intensity. His particular prescription turned out to be atheism, but he came to that prescription through what I feel can quite accurately be regarded as a religious process. Be that as it may, the many religions we have are each and all prescriptions for being related to Life and to the Larger Life that is all around us.
I do not consider this proliferation of religions to be a bad thing at all in and of itself. The human race is much too varied to presume that a single world religion would ever address all of its needs and longings. Religion's shadow side comes forth when certain of these prescriptions, as I'm calling them, come to see themselves as being at odds with each other or threatened in some way by the existence, or when the adherents of one prescription feel that in order for them to be "right" then others have to be "wrong." I feel this is what is behind some of the more accusatory hits we take on our website now and then. The feeling seems to be, "If these UUs are right, then I must be wrong; and since its impossible for me to be wrong then I'd better let them know that they are way off base." There is a basic insecurity underlying such sentiments as these which I actually find a little sad.
But this downside of religion goes way beyond sadness and into deep tragedy when it moves from personal differences of opinion to warfare and bloodshed, and the perpetuation of fear and hatred between groups of people. This past week the nation of Israel celebrated the 50 anniversary of its founding in 1948. In reading the accounts of the celebrations it appeared that both the up and the down side of religion affected the tone of those celebrations. In terms of all the warfare and strife and loss of life that has taken place in that region over the past 50 years and more, there is, in my estimation, plenty enough blame and responsibility to go around. But I just make this one observation here today: The nation of Israel was founded for very noble and necessary purposes, and it has lived out those purposes in many, many ways over the past half-century. It has provided a place where the great moral and ethical values of the Judaic faith could be lived out; and has provided a place where Jewish people world-wide can find both pride and security in their ancient and honorable faith tradition.
At the same time it has also, purposefully or not, provided a voice for a certain element within that faith that demonstrates religion's shadow side. A spokesperson for one of Israel's more aggressive settler movement parties was quoted this past week as saying, "God gave this land to us and to us alone.." as a rationale for displacing anyone else who might also be living on the West Bank or have a claim to it. As it celebrates this well deserved anniversary the Jewish people also find themselves wrestling with the ennobling side and the shadow side of religion itself.
Another shadow side, and most all religions are susceptible to this one, comes when adhering to the rules and practices of the prescription become more important than the well being of the lives that that prescription is supposed to be lifting up and enhancing. I happen to believe that taking on certain prescribed practices, rituals, or disciplines can indeed nurture and enhance one's spiritual life, and I am noticing that an increasing number of UUs are even coming to acknowledge this. At the same time I continue to be dumbfounded by the occasional horror stories I hear--sometimes from persons who have made their way into Unitarian Universalism--about how a religious prescription is used to perpetuate one kind of abuse or another. I continue to be baffled by the amount of useless and destructive guilt that gets generated due to the specifics of a particular prescription not being properly fulfilled. I have great difficulty with any prescription that either puts people in or perpetuates an already existing state of self-hatred or low self-esteem. So when I say that I see a variety of prescriptions as not being a bad thing, this does not mean that I find them all to be equally good. To round out this point, any religion crosses from its "up" side to its "down" side when the preciseness of its prescription--however well conceived and intended--takes precedence over the well being of the lives to whom it is addressed--when it comes to enslave rather than liberate.
You call this a religion? Well, yes, we do. We try to be a religion in the best sense of the term. Our Association's President, Rev. John Buehrens, once observed, "Most religious groups ask the creedal question: 'What do we all believe in common?' We ask instead the covenantal question: 'What are we willing to promise one another and the world?'" That states about as well as it can be put the prescription you take out when you become a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Its not to a common creed, but to the promises you're willing to make--to yourself, to the other members of your religious community, and to the larger world that community seeks to serve. This is our way of being religious, of binding ourselves together and to the Larger Life that exists all around us. To hearken back to the words of the first President of our Unitarian Universalist Association, from whom we've heard already, Dana Greely put it this way, "There is an inextinguishable, divine spark within us that can light our way, and a world-wide understanding and integrety that we can achieve, if we will! Religion and a dream of the future are not dead in the hearts of humanity. We need religion--a free religion for a free world."
Copyright © 1998 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.
