SERMONS 

Theology: What Does It Mean for Religious Liberals?

One of the programs at this congregation with which I am involved is our new covenant group program. In a recent meeting of the covenant group facilitators we were discussing our third UU principle, “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” We were reflecting together on exactly what that principle means to us, especially as leaders of this new small group ministry program that seems to us to hold so much potential for deepening the lives of the program’s participants.

Several people commented on what seemed important to them about the idea of “spiritual growth” and how we might foster it. I, being rarely without an opinion, jumped in with my own ideas about spiritual growth. How I felt like it was primarily about deepening one’s relationship with the transcendent perfect love that drives all goodness that some people call God. How I thought we had a responsibility to help our covenant group members question their religious assumptions and to learn to articulate what they believe, to really think through the difficult theological questions that have been the centerpiece of religious dialogue for millennia. To really struggle with the ambiguities of Unitarian Universalism so that we have our place at the table of the American religion. Heart racing and flush with my own excited pontificating, I looked over at one of the facilitators – who also happens to be a friend, Robert Murray. Very calmly and matter-of-factly, as only Robert can, he said something along the lines of: You know, Ben, I think this religion stuff might be a little more interesting to you Divinity School students than it is to rest of the world. I think I recovered well at the time. And, of course, Robert’s point was both well meaning and well taken.

But I’ve decided not to take his advice. So, this morning I have three things I hope to accomplish. First, I want to offer a clear and useful definition of theology, something that all of us can hang our hats on and really work with. Next, I’ll identify what I see as weak spots, or areas for growth within Unitarian Universalist religious life especially as it relates to “thinking theologically.” Then I’ll end with some ideas about how we might construct a workable Unitarian Universalist theology that really does make a difference in our daily lives.

First, what do I mean by the word “theology” anyway? When I say I am convinced that we as Unitarian Universalists need to a better job “thinking theologically” Robert will be happy to know that I don’t mean to suggest that we should be able to recite Kierkegaard’s pneumatological understanding of the Holy Spirit, or the soteriological implications of Schliermacher’s Christology on nineteenth century liberalism….like we do in Divinity School.

The traditional, most narrow definition of theology is “the study of God.” However, in both academic and popular jargon the word has come to mean much more than that. My dictionary at home offered two definitions: 1.) The study of religion; and – this is the one I want to emphasize - 2.) A body of doctrines set forth by a particular church or religious group. Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Morrisson-Reed offers what I found to be a helpful definition of theology in his book, Black Pioneers in a White Denomination. He says this about theology: “The best way to understand theology is to see it, not as the study about God (for there are godless theologies as well as godly ones), but as the investigation of the convictions of a convictional community, discovering its convictions, interpreting them, criticizing them in the light of all that we can know, and creatively transforming them into better one if possible.”

Morrisson-Reed is asking, what difference does your religious beliefs make in your life? How would your life be different if you were not Unitarian Universalist? So the definition of “theology” that I am working with this morning is a sort of “rubber meets the road” theology, an experiential theology. I am interested in how our theology– what we believe about God, humanity, the world – affects the choices we make in our lives.

On to my second point. This is where I want to name some places that seem to me to be spaces where we have room to grow as a congregation in terms of our theological self-understanding. At the outset, I want to be clear that I know that for many of you I am preaching to the proverbial choir. You have prayed, meditated, and thought through your religious convictions and continue to reflect on them in light of your experiences, reading, and discussions with friends and family members. You have then set up a life that reflects those values in a deep way. I am often moved by your acts of kindness and spiritual depth.

So when I speak about room to grow in the context of theological reflection, I don’t mean to suggest that we are all starting from zero. Some of us may have never spent much time thinking about how theology affects our lives and others of us certainly have. What I am suggesting is all of us can improve in this area.

O.K. So where do I see room for us to do better in this context? I have three brief examples. The first has to do with how important we consider our religious faith to be. It seems to me that many of us could take our Unitarian Universalism more seriously. We could be more intentional about connecting our Unitarian Universalism to our daily decisionmaking. I fear that instead of using our religion as a guiding force for how to act from day to day, too much of the time we sell Unitarian Universalism short, thinking it does not have much, if anything, to say in our lives outside of these church walls.

A second area where I see room for growth is around articulating what we believe. One popular response to the question, “What are your religious beliefs as a UU?” goes something like this. Well, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I don’t believe. I totally reject thus and so from my childhood religion, or I think that church’s beliefs about this are ridiculous. But if we push ourselves to say something affirmative – what we do believe as Unitarian Universalists – we too often come up with nothing more than a few pat phrases that feel empty to us even as we say them.

Or another popular answer to that same question is to sort of mist over and say, well, UU’s can really just believe anything they want to. [By the way, this is one of my two pet peeves about our religious tradition. It’s both factually wrong and disrespectful to the men and women in our Unitarian Universalist history who struggled to create a place in the American religious landscape for religious liberals. You’ll have to come to another sermon to hear about my other pet peeve.]

A third area where I think we need to go much deeper in terms of thinking theologically about our faith tradition is in the area of religious education in our congregations. In my nearly three years as Director of Religious Education in this community, youth in this congregation have asked me every year – When are we going to learn what UU’s believe? They tell me they know what other religious traditions believe and they know they about building community, but they feel without a handhold on their own personal religious beliefs. They feel like they’re drifting in some religious no-man’s land. Could this be part of the reason why something like 98% - that’s darn close to 100% - of our UU high school students graduate from our RE program and youth groups never to return to a UU congregation?

Back to how Unitarian Universalists deal with theology. Consider these relatively basic questions for yourself. Do you believe God exists? If so, what are the divine attributes? If you don’t believe in God, what is the image of God you reject and why? How, if at all, does sacred scripture inform your understanding of yourself and the world? Do you identify with a particular world religion in addition to Unitarian Universalism? If so, why? Do your religious sensibilities resonate more with our Unitarian or our Universalist forebears? Do you know the difference?

My point is that it seems to me that we sell ourselves and the potential of liberal religion in the world short when we don’t push ourselves to go further in thinking through our theology. What we have to offer the world really is pretty amazing, and it has been lifechanging for many of us. We are heirs of a rich tradition that is grounded in liberal Christianity and Judaism that is informed by other world religions as well as ethical humanism. I have come to love this tradition deeply and am convinced that it has potential to bring peace and meaning to the lives of many women and men in our society. But we have to know what Unitarian Universalism is before it can make much of a difference in our own individual lives, much less the world at large.

Which brings me to my third and final point this morning. How might we construct a working, on-the-streets sort of Unitarian Universalist theology? Where do we go from here? It seems to me that the easiest and most logical place to start is with our UU Principles. They distill several hundred years of Unitarian and Universalist theology into seven “work a day” tenets that are much more challenging to live by than they appear at first glance. And so when we sit with our Principles, flipping them on their backs to see what is beneath them, applying them to messiness of lives, we are in fact connecting our UU theology to our world in an important way.

Let me give you a few examples of what I mean by really grappling with our Principles and trying to live them out. Do you consider the Principles when you decide for whom you will vote in a political election? How does your belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being inform your political views about war, abortion, or the death penalty? Does your belief in the interdependent web of all existence affect the kind of car you buy? If you don’t recycle regularly, how do you reconcile that decision with our seventh principle? Does your belief in the interdependent web affect whether you buy clothes made in foreign sweatshops - even though they are cheaper for you?

Does the third principle compel you to seriously consider pledging 4 or 5% of your income to this community’s stewardship campaign in the same way that the Board of Directors and staff have promised to do? If not, why not? What does it mean for all of us in this community to encourage each other’s spiritual growth? Have you checked in with anyone else in this community to ask how their spiritual practice is going? Have you asked someone to keep you honest about your own commitment to your practice?

I could go on and on here, and some of you may think I already have. But I want to underscore the fact that the UU Principles are not something to fill up the space on the back of our Orders of Service every week. They are rich with theological and ethical values that drive Unitarian Universalism like nothing else. In a faith community where we don’t require individuals to subscribe to any particular creed or buy into traditional church dogma, our Principles can be an anchor. Then, when we work through the various theological questions about God, humanity, and the world, we have a context within which to experiment, and a loving community that has covenanted together to encourage one another to spiritual growth. May this be a place where do not allow one another to be complacent about our Unitarian Universalism. We need it too much not to take it seriously. Amen.