A Religion of Me and We
Rev Tim Temerson
UU Church of Akron February 5, 2012
This past week I began teaching a class on Buddhism here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron. I’m curious - how many here are taking that class? I was blown away by the interest in the class and by the attendance at the first class sessions which was almost 70 people. That’s more than ¼ of the total membership of this congregation!
I must say that every time I teach a class I am reminded of why I’m a Unitarian Universalist. Although the students in my classes have very diverse beliefs and come from very different religious backgrounds and experiences, they share a desire to learn, to discover, and to grow. They bring an amazing openness and curiosity about new ideas and perspectives – including those that may be very different from their own. I can’t begin to tell you how moved and inspired I am every time I witness the passion, the commitment, and the energy each and every one of you bring to your spiritual journeys and to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron!
And I think the passion and commitment I witness in my classes and in the many spiritual growth programs we have here at the UU Church of Akron point to one of the great gifts and blessings of Unitarian Universalism. You see, rather than telling you what to believe or demanding that you accept or conform to a particular creed or theology, we affirm and celebrate the freedom of the individual to find their own path, to develop their own beliefs, and to make their own journey of spiritual discovery and growth. Unlike so many other religious traditions and communities, Unitarian Universalism is a religion of individual freedom – the freedom to seek, to explore, to question, to doubt, to believe or not to believe, and to follow a path that brings meaning and hope to your life. We see individual freedom as being essential for leading a life of meaning, purpose, and authenticity. More than anything else, Unitarian Universalism embraces the values at the heart of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s beautiful words in his essay “Self- Reliance” “Trust thyself. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
But I must say that every time I teach a class I am struck by the power and importance of not only freedom but also of community – of our deep-seated hunger to love, to grow, and to journey - together. When I ask students to fill out an evaluation at the end of my classes, they invariably lift up how much they are enriched by having the chance to meet, to listen, and to connect with others in the class. What matters as much if not more than the subject matter of the class is the sense of community and connection it creates – the sense that our individual spiritual journeys are best made together and in community.
And it is the hunger for community and relationship and the recognition that our spiritual lives and journeys are richest when they are shared – it is that hunger and that recognition that I believe are transforming Unitarian Universalism into a religion of both freedom and community, of both me and we – a religion in which the freedom to find one’s own path is essential but which also invites and inspires us to come together, in communities of love and acceptance, to learn together, to grow together, to love one another, and to be part of something greater than ourselves. That’s the Unitarian Universalism that has so enriched my life and that’s the Unitarian Universalism I believe is emerging in the 21st century.
Now I say emerging because until recently, Unitarian Universalism was much more focused on me rather than we. In many ways, I think ours has been a faith tradition out of balance – a faith tradition that valued the individual at the expense of community – a tradition, I would even say, that had come to embrace freedom at the expense of love.
Perhaps no single individual in the history of Unitarian Universalism is more responsible for making individual freedom part of our core values than Ralph Waldo Emerson. Through his many wonderful books and essays, Emerson challenged us to see religion and spirituality as being ultimately about the mind, the heart, and the soul of the individual. Emerson and his fellow Transcendentalists argued passionately for the liberation of the human spirit from what they saw as the deadening influence of dogma, creed, rigid institutions, and, yes, even society as a whole. For Emerson, social institutions like religion and church valued conformity above authenticity and that conformity led so many in his day to lead lives that were spiritually dry, empty, and filled, as his friend and colleague Henry David Thoreau so famously said, with “quiet desperation.”
Although the ideas of Emerson, Thoreau, and other Transcendentalists were radical and caused great controversy in their day, they eventually triumphed and came to dominate the Unitarian and then later the Unitarian Universalist tradition. Having liberated ourselves from anything resembling dogma or creed, we came to see religion in almost purely individual terms. The purpose of religious community, in this view, was to protect the individual not just from creeds and dogma but from anything that might inspire loyalty or allegiance to something beyond our own individual beliefs. Unitarian Universalism became the religion of “You can believe in anything you want” and “you can do your own thing.”
And what were the consequences of our embrace of Emersonian self-reliance and individualism? On the positive side, we became a haven and a home for religious freedom and tolerance. Since merging into one faith tradition in 1961, Unitarian Universalism has become a religion of welcome for those who have been rejected, scorned, and wounded by traditions demanding conformity to a creed or possessing a rigid understanding of what it means to be worthy of acceptance and love.
But our embrace of individual freedom has come, in my view, at a very high cost, a cost that has too often kept us divided and distant from one another. You see, until quite recently, Unitarian Universalism has been what I call a religion of “freedom from” – freedom from creed, freedom from dogma, freedom any ideas or beliefs with which I disagree. And that very negative understanding of freedom has often led us to a kind of close-minded, almost intolerant rejection of anything that is different from our own beliefs or perspectives. What an irony it is that the very freedom which sought to free and open our minds from conformity and dogma has, over the years, led Unitarian Universalists to close their minds to anything that differs from their own beliefs.
Writing in the late 1980s, Forrest Church, who was one of the most influential and well known Unitarian Universalist ministers of the last quarter century, said this about the consequences of negative freedom in Unitarian Universalism.
“Following the precedent of our 19th century forbears, we Unitarian Universalists have come to trust and place great value on freedom and individualism. What we tend to forget is that they emphasized freedom in order to liberate themselves from bondage. Today our problem is not bondage but bondlessness. Most of us are already free. We don’t need more freedom. We need to resolve to employ the freedom we have more responsibly. We need to invest a little of our precious freedom and bond ourselves to others in redemptive community.”
And what happens when Unitarian Universalists emphasize their freedom rather than strengthening those bonds which link us together? According to Forrest Church, we become isolated, defensive, and suspicious of anything that does not reflect or conform to our individual beliefs. Unitarian Universalism becomes little more than a holding vessel for individual beliefs rather than a vibrant tradition with principles and values of its own. And our congregations come to resemble spiritual balancing acts in which different beliefs struggle to coexist while all too often failing to listen or learn from one another.
I know - this all sounds pretty negative and grim. But friends, I’m here to tell you that the Unitarian Universalism Forrest Church experienced and wrote about in the late 1980s is not the Unitarian Universalism I see emerging today and it is most assuredly not the Unitarian Universalism that is at the heart of this congregation. You see, in many ways, I think Unitarian Universalism has “grown up” over the last decade or so. We no longer focus solely on our individual beliefs and differences. We are finding common ground, affirming common values, and working together to build a better world. We are coming to see freedom not as a negative that keeps us apart, but rather as a positive force that leads us to open our hearts and our minds to the beliefs and wisdom of others.
And there is something else happening in Unitarian Universalism that is transforming this faith in wonderful directions. It is the discovery, or should I say the re-discovery of the Universalist half of our tradition. And what Universalism teaches us is that while freedom is essential, so is love. Unitarian Universalism is becoming a religion of freedom and of love – a religion which affirms that the human mind must be free and that the human heart must love and be loved.
And you know why this shift is taking place in Unitarian Universalism? Because of all of you. Like generations before them, the people coming into our congregations value freedom. But they are also hungry for community, for connection, and for love. After decades of focusing almost exclusively on freedom and individualism, congregations like the Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron are discovering that we can come together as one community, that we can be more than merely the sum of our individual beliefs, that we can build a community and a world in which unity emerges out of our diversity, in which difference can be celebrated rather than merely tolerated, and in which the human family can love and care for another while at the same time honoring and respecting our freedom and our individuality. I believe that is the journey Unitarian Universalism will be making over the next 50 years and that is the journey I am so honored and so privileged to be making with all of you. May this journey always be one of me and we, a journey of freedom and of love.
Thank you for listening and blessed be.
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