Preaching the Gospel of Unitarian Universalism
October 22, 2000
© 2000 Matthew S. Cockrum
I was sixteen years old and a junior in high school when I first started preaching. Sixteen when I first began to grapple with what it meant to have "good news" to share with the world.
A Christian comedian came to my public high school to share a portion of his show with the student body. Now, I ask that you momentarily suspend questions and judgment about separation of church and state and the appropriateness of having such an event in a public school. For now, I just invite you to listen to my story of how I have come to understand the meaning of "gospel" and how it might apply to our liberal religious movement.
After the show, in which the performer shared with us both comedic and tragic aspects of his life, he invited us to attend his full-length show later that week, which I did, along with some of my classmates. This show was explicitly and intentionally more evangelical in nature. He testified to the saving power of God in his life and to the transformational impact of asking for and accepting a personal relationship with Jesus as Christ, personal lord and savior. At the end of the show, the comedian asked those present to search their hearts and lives and to ask themselves if they were happy, fulfilled and satisfied with the meaning in their lives. He offered what I came to know later as an "altar call". Those of us in the audience or congregation, the distinction blurred somewhere in the midst of the show, were invited to come forward onto the stage and ask Jesus into our hearts. Trembling with excitement, fear and anticipation, I walked on shaky legs up to the stage, accompanied by one of my friends who had already been "saved". I joined others on the stage in praying for Jesus to come into my heart…into my life. I accepted the fact that I had been born into sin, that God had given Jesus as his only son to wipe clean the sins of the world. I vowed to reject the works of Satan as evil and corrupt, to serve God, to live in his light and to share the good news that his son had been sent for me and for all to redeem our sinful race. I was ecstatic. I was overcome. I sobbed. I prayed forgiveness for my evil ways. I opened myself up to whatever positive power and energy I understood God to be at that time and asked it into myself…into my life…into my heart. In short…I was saved.
I left that auditorium with my friend, who advised me that it was easy to experience the ecstasy of salvation, but that living the Christian life was a much more difficult venture. I must not "backslide". I must work to implement and maintain the principles I had just been exposed to. I must study the bible to further and more clearly discern God's plan for me and for the world. I must join a church where I could find Christian fellowship that would provide support and encouragement for me to live the kind of life I was being called to live as a child of God, newly cleaned with the blood of the crucified Christ. I listened to all of this…still high on the rush of opening myself up to that incredibly powerful energy of the holy…and agreed. In order to make this sustainable…in order to hang onto this high and implement the promises and vows I had just made, I needed religious community.
In the months that followed I attended the "First Assembly of God Church" in a large, metal-sided building on the outskirts of town. There I became involved in the youth group. I met and developed friendships with others my age who were struggling with how to live a "Christian" life in this secular and sin-filled world. We prayed together. We played together. We sang together. We worshipped together. In this setting I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues when my spirit moved me beyond words, clapped and danced and shouted, "Hallelujah!" in the rows and in the aisles. And at every service, there was an altar call. Every time we met, we were reminded of the fact that we were sinful, but that God loved us. And, to quote the Christian scriptures, that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus. That whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16). That passage was burned in my brain. This, I was told, this is the gospel. This is the truth that I was called to live, to learn, and to proclaim. And that's exactly what I did.
It was really quite simple, actually. You see, there was a formula. They handed it out to us on cards and in pamphlets. We were to use this formula in "witnessing" to others about the transforming love of God and the power of his son Jesus as a personal savior. There were specific biblical references pointing towards the sinful nature of man (Rom 3:23), the connection between sin and death (Rom 6:23) and that the only way to overcome this was through acceptance and proclamation of Jesus as personal lord and savior (John 3:16, Rom 10:9-10). It was all right there, spelled out - a calling card gospel, of sorts - to be preached, believed and lived.
Eventually, however, I became dissatisfied with my fundamentalist evangelical church home and what I perceived to be some of its inconsistencies, hypocrisies and closed-mindedness. I found my way to Catholicism where I spent most of my time in college. Now things might be changing now, but my experience of Catholicism in the midwest was that it was not an evangelical or proclamatory, testifyin' tradition. Here I was not challenged to proclaim a gospel. Rather, I was challenged to contemplate and to honor ritual. My drive and need to testify - to share good news - abated.
Recently, however, it has been revived.
While reading a text for my RE curriculum course by Catholic religious educator, Maria Harris, I encountered anew the concept of proclamation. Harris, in her arguments regarding the function and life of education within the congregation, posits that proclamation is an essential aspect of the life of Christian communities. Some of my classmates balked at this notion. But I find myself with a renewed curiosity…and a renewed passion for preaching…for testifying…for sharing good news.
In the context of this idea, I have found myself asking a series of questions that are at once critical and informative, I believe, of the tradition in which we stand as religious liberals. What would it be like if we had missionaries that went door to door like the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons? What would an evangelical branch of Unitarian Universalism look like? What if we were called to devote a period of our life to the growth and development of our faith and our religious communities?
I recognize that this line of questioning might begin, immediately, to tread not only upon the sensitivities of those of us who have come from other, more evangelical traditions, but also upon those born and bread UU's or those previously "un-churched", who value the identity of our tradition as one that does not "preach" or "recruit". We seem to place great stock in the idea that ours is a tradition that draws the thinking person who is not be swayed by the emotionalism of revivals, fire and brimstone and fear of eternal damnation. Still, I cannot help but wonder…what if?
And then I come to the point where I realize what appears to me to be the heart of the challenge. What would a gospel of Unitarian Universalism be? What would we claim to be our good news? My own immediate answer to this stems from my original exposure to Unitarian Universalism just five years ago in Lexington, Kentucky. I was seeking a religious community with my partner at that time. He, coming out of the Southern Baptist tradition, and I, most recently Catholic in identification, visited the UU church because we had heard that it was a place where gay folk and religious plurality were welcomed and honored. After a few visits I was hooked.
So is that the gospel of Unitarian Universalism? Inclusion? Making a place at the table for all of the misfits? I've often heard folks refer to our tradition as one in which they felt at home because, "they wouldn't have us anywhere else."
As a friend and colleague of mine has echoed upon hearing this proclamation, "I sat at that lunch table in high school. I don't want to go back."
So…if it's not inclusion and toleration, what is it?
Perhaps our good news is something that's more immediate…more applicable to our time and place? The sticking point that I often reach when discussing scripture with my mother, an evangelical, orthodox Episcopal, is a disagreement about the inerrancy of scripture. She takes the theologically traditional and conservative stance that the Christian scriptures are the verbatim word of God - inspired and written as truth for all time. I, meanwhile, take the theologically liberal and critical stance that the Christian scriptures - and any other document for that matter, religious or otherwise - must be understood within the context in which it was composed. I believe that proclamations are designed and suited for the time and place in which they are proclaimed. Thus, our good news may be construed as something that is specifically applicable to our modern age.
Taken in this light, could our good news be about the anti-racism work of the Unitarian Universalist Association supported Journey Towards Wholeness campaign? Is it about the social justice campaigns leveraged by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in foreign countries and in the United States to fight for the rights of the poor, the oppressed and the under-represented?
Or shall we go back further in our Unitarian and Universalist roots? In the 1800's in the United States, Unitarian and Universalists were actively engaged in battles for theological and social reform. Theologically themed pieces such as Hosea Ballou's "Treatise on Atonement" - arguing the case for Universal salvation - William Ellery Channing's "Unitarian Christianity" and Theodore Parker's "Transient and Permanent in Christianity" stood at the forefront of the formation of our liberal religion on this continent. Their preaching called for new understandings of God and humanity. On the social front were reformers that included numerous Unitarian and Universalist women, such as Margaret Fuller, Susan B. Anthony, Anna Garland Spencer and Judith Sergeant Murray, arguing for such causes as suffrage, abolition, temperance and education.
Yet still…I find myself dissatisfied with these examples. And I find myself on common ground with my mother, the conservative Christian, who believes that the Christian scriptures and the God they portray are enduring and unchanging. I find that I, too, want to know truth with the capital T. I yearn for a good news that I can proclaim and that we can proclaim that is tied to a broader, more inclusive and more enduring vision of ultimate reality…therein lies the complexity of the situation…the gospel that I seek is one that honors the fact that our truth exists eternally but is embodied every generation in a different way…how can I preach this? How can I proclaim this to the world? Must I re-invent?
And then I remember…ah…no…we have principles and purposes. Granted, these were not adopted until the 1984 and 85 General Assemblies. And this is not a creed. We are not bound to these principles or this covenant. It is voluntary. Congregations must not sign on to adopt these when they are formed or when they choose to affiliate with our association of congregations. However, for me, they form the grounding from which I can speak about the good news of Unitarian Universalism. They validate the use of individual conscience and right to free searching and development while holding that within the context of the relational web of existence, protecting against the extreme individualism that pervades our culture today. These principles and purposes acknowledge, name and give voice and weight to what Unitarianism and Universalism seem to have been about since the beginning, while still leaving room for various theologies and ideologies. The original Universalist argument that a loving creator god would never damn any of its creatures to hell opened the door for various permutations of Universalism and the eventual opening to humanistic and non-theistic theological stances within our tradition and eventually to the verbalization of a belief in the "inherent worth and dignity of all persons and a respect for all religious traditions. Both Unitarian and Universalist arguments were grounded in faith in individual conscience and the validity of reason…setting the stage for affirmations of democracy and free searching.
Still, the question echoes in my mind, "Why do we need a gospel, Matt? Or is it just you?"
To be honest, I believe that both are true. In my own life and religious journey, I have been fed and nourished by the good news of many traditions. The explicitly proclaimed good news of love and forgiveness within my Christian roots was and is affirming for me. The good news of Buddhism about relinquishing self feeds me and helps me on my journey. The gospel helps me to get a handle on what I can gain from a tradition.
Which is why I think we as Unitarian Universalists need to be intentional about the gospel we preach. We need to know how to convey the good news that we have for the world. If we are not clear about it, others will be clearly misinformed or just plain wrong. And how do we hope to grow and thrive if we do not act and speak our truths as we know them both globally and locally? We must be not only active in the world but vocal.
So it seems to me that the gospel of Unitarian Universalism is implicit in the purposes and principles that we already have. That gospel is one of inclusion. It is a good news that no one deserves to be shut out of the glory of the global community that we are constructing. As we go about the work of the world, we strive to do it in a way that honors all persons, all beliefs, all faiths and all searches.
Our gospel is that the news is good…that we are good…and that the world is worth living in. May we preach this good news with our lives as well as our mouths.
