“Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist
Spiritual Humanist”
A Sermon by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman,
October 23, 2005
I was driving up the hill on Eagle Rock Avenue a couple of mornings ago, when I passed a car with a bumper sticker reading, “Don’t worry: God has everything under control.” If the many hurricanes, earthquakes, mudslides and floods that have reigned devastation on our planet just within the last few weeks are any indication of God’s control, either God is a dreadful sadist or God is losing control. I don’t want anything to do with such a God and it’s hard for me to imagine why anyone would.
A couple of days ago, at the “Y,” a locker-room pal approached me. “I was hoping we could get together for a chat,” he said. “My teenager daughter has been asking me some pretty tough theological questions and I could use some help.”
“Sure,” I said. “What did she ask?”
“She wanted to know how God could allow all of this suffering to go on in Louisiana and India and Pakistan.”
“What did you answer?”
“I told her that I didn’t know. So, I’d like to talk with you to see if there’s something I could know, something that I could tell her, something that I could believe.”
We agreed to get together soon, and I hope we do.
My sermon this morning is the first in what will be an occasional series throughout the course of this year. My intention is to view life as a Unitarian Universalist, through a number of theological perspectives, in ways that I hope will be of value to those of us who claim to be religious liberals embracing diversity and freedom of conscience in religious matters. The idea for this series came about with the realization that, though my religious base is securely anchored to Unitarian Universalism, the particular theological lens that I might engage at different times and in different situations is not always the same. I wondered if that might also be true for some of you. I think our faith tradition encourages us to look through different lenses.
Since the title of each of these sermons will begin with, “Why I am a Unitarian Universalist…” I’ll begin there this morning. I am a Unitarian Universalist because here I am not told what to believe but am asked what I do believe. And moreover, I am asked how that belief matters in my own life and in the world. I am asked here to accept things on faith, but on my faith—not someone else’s. I am a UU because I know my life’s path is a journey, and while I don’t know specifically where it may lead or end, I do know that the content of my life consists of the experiences and choices that I make. And more, I know that the quality of my journey is closely related to the company I keep along the way. I am a Unitarian Universalist because this faith tradition calls me in community to make the most of, to do the best with, and to love the most fully I can with the life I have been given. I am a Unitarian Universalist because I believe in the potential for humans to learn and grow. And with that potential, I believe in the possibility for a better world, rooted more firmly in the ideals of truth, beauty, love and justice.
It’s probably important to say from the start that Unitarian Universalism is a humanist approach to religion in general. Regardless of our cosmology, the prism through which we see the universe, our tradition is based more in human experience, both personal and social, than otherwise. We tend to be more focused on this side of the life/death continuum. The particular theological lens that I most often look through in my religious experience is that of spiritual humanist.
A bit of humanist history is in order. The 16th Century Dutch theologian Erasmus is commonly held as the father of classical humanism. Though he was an ardent Christian, he held that the only understanding of God that humans could perceive was a human understanding, acquired through human experience. He believed that if we were to know, love and honor God, it would be through our human relationships.
Two hundred years later, abolitionist and Unitarian Minister, Theodore Parker planted the seeds of a social gospel in the soil of 18th Century America. He too held that the expression of God could be known only in human relationships. His life was one of service through the promotion of justice and the advancement of the rights of all people, regardless of gender or race.
In 1933, the Humanist Manifesto was signed by 43 individuals, including university academics and a number of Unitarian and Universalist ministers. Preceding the manifesto, the world had just experienced WWI, the war to end all wars. Human inhumanity against humanity had been experienced at its worst on a very grand scale. The manifesto recognized that no God had caused this disaster; it was human-made. It recognized that no God could have stopped the madness; humans had to do that. And it recognized that with continuing advancements in technology, humanity could be saved from itself, only by itself.
God was not seen as irrelevant so much as outside the realm of human responsibility. In the early days following the signing of the Manifesto, Unitarian ministers such as John Dietrich, Curtiss Reese and Charles Potter preached compelling sermons on responsible human relations. That was really the birth of popular or secular humanism, which came to fruition with the 1966 Time Magazine cover that read, “Is God Dead?” in bold letters. Religion became an open field where prophets and pioneers forged ahead into areas where a new sense of natural cause and effect replaced old paradigms of sinister or perhaps even benign deities.
Interestingly and unlike the popular movement, those early humanist ministers did not, at least for the most part, rule out the existence of God. They chose rather to focus on the way in which one lives life as the expression of their religion. They were more agnostic than otherwise. Charles Potter also wrote poetically beautiful sermons about the mystery of life and of the human longings that are engaged and assuaged (or not) by that mystery.
For me, this is the glue that holds spirituality within humanism; it’s the mystery that holds it altogether. It’s impossible for me to believe in an all-knowing, omnipotent God. Such a God could never allow racism, sexism, heterosexism, or oppression of any kind that would favor some people over others. It’s impossible for me to believe in the God of the deists, the super and intelligent master craftsmen who (through some sort of intelligent design, I suppose) created the world and the universe, set them in motion and then left them to spin of their own accord. It’s impossible for me to believe in a god that is so utterly human, even be it a superhuman.
And yet it is just as impossible for me to believe that this – everything, the universe – is here as the result of some kind of cosmic accident. Such accidents have not been a part of the experiences in my life, not in what I’ve experienced personally nor in what I’ve learned about the world. So I can’t believe that an accident is the cause of the universe. Things don’t happen by accident; they happen as the result of other things that precede them. We may not always be aware of the antecedents, but experience tells us that they are there.
So as the basis for my spiritual humanism I have two items to share. One is an observation. The other is a matter of faith in which that observation has led me to believe. The observation is this: life will continue; being will continue. From the slightest micro-level of existence to the grandest cosmic level, life supports the continuation of life; being supports the continuity of being. In the world of science this process is called homeostasis, the process by which every living cell, every living being and every living system constantly adjusts to inner or outer conditions in order to balance the forces of life, so that life can continue. Shouldn’t that mean that we could live for ever? No, but it does mean that during our brief moment of life we will contribute – for good or for ill, and probably for both – to all life that will follow us.
Theologically, the process of homeostasis leads us to the question, why? Why does all life support the continuity of life? Where did it come from the first place? How did it all begin? Of course the answer to these and many questions like them is a very simple one: it’s a mystery. What a perfect answer!
No one can know for sure, but we can imagine all kinds of things. Those things that we imagine inform us about how to act and what to do as we go about living our lives. What I imagine, what makes the most sense to me is that the preceding cause for being was some kind of universal want-to-be. First there was wanting to be, and there was being. And ever since, that drive, that energy, that want-to-be has been a part of the manifestation of what is. It is inspirited there.
We can call it homeostasis; we can call it nature; we can call it the Spirit of life; we can call it the Spirit of love or simply love; we can call it God or not-God; or we can just call it the mystery. We can envision it as pure energy or we can personify it by giving it a face and a name. What we call it does not matter. It matters that we know that individually we did not cause all of this to happen. It matters that we recognize that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves. And it’s what we do with this life force that matters most.
I said that the things that we imagine about the mystery inform us about how to act as we go about living our lives. So if I imagine and believe in the want-to-be, how does that guide my behavior? How does that put me in relationship with my planet and with my fellow travelers? Here’s where the mystery gets even more mysterious, as it interacts in our lives. If I can get my ego and my self-limiting ideas out of the way, the mystery – of which I am a part and which is always moving forward in its fulfillment of being – the mystery invites my participation in that fulfillment. Its energy moves in the direction of life and ours is drawn to join it.
I believe that we are a manifestation of the mystery, of the want-to-be and that we are a part of the process that continues to lead toward being. We are an essential part of what is becoming. Somehow as human beings it is our birthright to make choices and so it is our choice whether or not to be in harmony or in disharmony with the causes of being, with that energy, even though harmony is the greater part of our nature. It is as though the universe is a hand holding us in the balance of being and we are free to support or to antagonize that balance.
If the want-to-be is the cause of my being, then I owe that want the service of my life’s energy. In the words of 19th-century Unitarian minister William Channing Gannett that means: “Ethics thought out is religious thought; ethics felt out is religious feeling; ethics lived is the religious life.” In the words of our Unitarian Universalist principles it means that we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and that we covenant to affirm and promote the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.
Do I always live up to such a charge? Not on your life. But it is the vision and the aspiration. And it does come so naturally from what I can observe and from what I can invest my faith in. I wonder, how it is for you?
Spiritual humanism informs us that the gift of this human experience is a gift from the Spirit of Life, call the mystery what you will. If we value our own lives we are called by them then to recognize that value in all other life. And because we are what we are, we are especially called to recognize that value in all other human life. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it this way: “For all things-proceed out of this same spirit, which is differently named love, justice, temperance, in its applications, just as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes. All things proceed out of the same spirit, and all things conspire with it. Whilst a person seeks good ends, that person is strong by the whole strength of nature.” (Slightly adapted)
So I was thinking about my locker-room friend at the Y and the conversation that he’s having with his daughter. Here are the things that I would want him to know, that I would want her to know, and that I would want you to know, as well: We don’t know if there is another side to all of this, and if there is we don’t know who or what is on it. What we do know is that we exist, that we are the result of life’s longing for itself, that life is a precarious and a most precious gift. We know that life comes with suffering, separation and pain. We know that these difficult and sometimes tragic experiences are not inflicted upon us by any wrathful super-being, but that they are part of the very natural course we take as we enter and exit the stream of life. We know that we can choose to serve ourselves by imposing suffering, separation and pain on others; or we can choose to serve life itself by attempting to mitigate those conditions and experiences.
As a humanist, I know these things are left up to me to choose. As a spiritual humanist, I know why I feel compelled to choose in the direction of the larger service. As a Unitarian Universalist spiritual humanist, I know that I am in good company on the journey. Not just company that is pleasant, which it is, but company that reminds me that I am here on this earth to appreciate, to be inspired by and to serve the Spirit of Life even as it holds me in the balance of this precarious, and this most precious gift of being.
I leave you with this thought from yet another mid-20th Century Unitarian preacher, Eustace Haydon, who wrote: "What the Gods have been expected to do, and have failed to do through the ages, people must find the courage and intelligence to do for themselves. More needful than faith in God is faith that humans can give love, peace and all their beloved moral values embodiment in human relations. Denial of this faith is the only real atheism."
We are a people of faith. We are Unitarian Universalists. We are a people who move together in and through community. There is much in the world around us that calls us to concern. And while we may not have everything under control, we know that if the world is going to become more of the kingdom of any kind of heaven, it will be because we have been a part of creating the changes that our faith calls us to see. And so, from whatever particular theological perspective we see through, may we bid one another to be strong in that faith.
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