In Praise of Heresy
Rev. Tim Temerson
UU Church of Akron
August 7, 2011
Good morning again and welcome to this celebration of heresy. Now I’m guessing that many of you, and especially those who are visiting us for the first time, have never heard so much positive and even celebratory talk about heresy, especially in church. But as I hope you will see, heresy is truly at the heart both of Unitarian Universalism and of what I believe it means to live an authentic and meaningful spiritual life.
During my conversation with the children, I talked about the life of Michael Servetus and I’d like to begin this morning by telling you a bit more of his story. Servetus was a Spaniard, born in 1511, a few years before Martin Luther launched what would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation. In the centuries before Servetus’ birth, Spain had experienced an extraordinary period of religious tolerance as Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived side by side, working together and learning from one another. But as monarchs like Ferdinand and Isabella grew more powerful and unified Spain under a single, Christian flag, tolerance gave way to religious oppression and eventually the Spanish Inquisition.
Servetus grew up in a wealthy, Catholic family that still embraced the spirit of toleration and learning that had once characterized all of Spain. He was permitted to read widely and critically, and to explore the ideas of faith traditions like Judaism and Islam. He mastered numerous languages and was able to read the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek and the Koran in Arabic. And what Servetus concluded from his wide ranging studies was that many of the core doctrines of the church, and especially the idea of the Trinity – the idea that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Servetus concluded that the idea of the Trinity is not based in scripture and should, therefore, be rejected. God, according to Servetus’s reading of the Bible, is a unity not a trinity, and it is from this key idea of the unity of God that we derive our name “Unitarian.”
Now it is not my purpose today to delve into the intricacies of Christian theology or to debate the soundness of the doctrine of the Trinity. As I think anyone who has worshiped in this congregation or in most Unitarian Universalist congregations will tell you, our tradition has long since moved beyond a place where we have one overarching perspective on the nature of God. I think it’s safe to say that Unitarian Universalism embodies a broad theological pluralism that welcomes and embraces those who believe in many gods, in one god, and in no god at all.
The story of Michael Servetus took a decisive and dangerous turn in 1531 when his most famous book “On the Errors of the Trinity,” was published. I say dangerous because although Christian Europe was in the midst Reformation in which dramatic changes were being made, there were some things about which traditionalists and reformers could agree. And perhaps the most important of these was the need to maintain the doctrine of the Trinity.
As you can imagine, Servetus’ decidedly anti-Trinitarian ideas were unwelcome throughout most of Europe and he was quickly branded a heretic. Warrants for his arrest were numerous and he was often forced to live in hiding and to travel in disguise. Servetus’s luck eventually ran out in 1553 when religious authorities in Geneva, Switzerland spotted him sitting in church on a Sunday morning. He was arrested, imprisoned, put on trial, convicted of heresy and cruelly burned at the stake in October of 1553. And what was Servetus’s crime? Reading a sacred book, drawing his own conclusions about its meaning and developing his own beliefs, and then sharing those conclusions and beliefs with the world.
While it is certainly true that Michael Servetus’ ideas about the unity or oneness of God greatly influenced the development of the Unitarian side of our tradition, it was really the circumstances surrounding his death that had the greatest impact on Unitarian Universalism. You see, in the aftermath of Servetus’ martyrdom, there emerged in Europe a movement for religious freedom and religious toleration – a movement that challenged the whole concept of heresy and religious persecution, and that eventually led to the formation of the first organized religious communities that called themselves “Unitarian.”
And it is that challenge or re-thinking of the whole idea of heresy that I want to take a moment to consider. I don’t know about you but whenever I hear the words heresy or heretic I take it to mean someone who radically disagrees with the dominant or prevailing beliefs and ideas of the day, especially religious ideas. A heretic is difficult, disagreeable, and generally a pain in the neck. But if one looks into the history of heresy and of the movement for religious toleration I mentioned a minute ago, a very different picture of heresy emerges. You see, as the leaders of that movement pointed out, the term “heresy” is derived from a Greek word that means “to choose.” So a heretic is not a disagreeable and dangerous subversive, but instead someone who chooses, who seeks, who asks questions – someone who searches for those beliefs and values that bring meaning and purpose to their lives. And as those same leaders pointed out so many years ago, if heresy is ultimately about choosing, then shouldn’t we all be heretics, following the light of our hearts and minds to a faith that is meaningful and authentic for us?
Now, I wish I could tell you that this movement for freedom and tolerance succeeded and became the dominant force in human history. At some level, it did succeed. Unitarianism, which as I said before really emerged out of this movement for religious tolerance, became a small but important religious movement, first in Transylvania and Poland and then later in England, North America, and eventually across the world. And those same values of freedom and tolerance played an important role in that period of history known as the enlightenment, which helped introduce democratic values and principles to the modern world, including to our own country.
But as important as these developments were, religious intolerance and hatred has remained a powerful and destructive force. And I’m sorry to say that intolerance and even the charge of heresy periodically found its way into both Unitarianism and Universalism. Some of our most famous and influential thinkers – people like Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Haynes Holmes – were accused and sometimes even sanctioned for deviating too far from conventional religious wisdom.
But thankfully, we failed miserably at silencing our Unitarian and Universalist heretics and we are so fortunate that we did for they taught us just how important freedom of conscience and toleration are for leading a meaningful and authentic spiritual life. In his many important essays and speeches, Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed what he saw as the spiritual emptiness of his time by accusing organized religion of being primarily about conformity to creeds and dogmas rather than the search for truth and meaning. For Emerson, religion must always be about truth and especially about authentic truth - about listening to one’s own heart and mind rather than blindly following a creed or dogma imposed from the outside. Above all else, Emerson and the Transcendentalists believed that the human heart yearns for wholeness and integrity – for living our lives in a way that reflects our deepest convictions and loyalties. The truly religious life, therefore, must be dedicated to an ongoing search for what moves us, what stirs us, what inspires our deepest convictions and commitments. That’s why William Ellery Channing so beautifully states in our reading that liberal religion is not about stamping or imposing, its about stirring up the mind and awakening the soul.
Before leaving you this morning, I want to say a word about heresy and its relationship to Unitarian Universalism today. You see, thanks to the influence of Emerson and others, contemporary Unitarian Universalism has truly embraced the way of the heretic, challenging and inspiring our members to think for themselves, to choose, to seek, and to embody that which brings meaning, purpose, and hope to their lives. But unlike Emerson, Thoreau, and some of their Transcendentalist colleagues, we have also learned that the journey toward authenticity and wholeness is made best in community, with others, surrounded by love, friendship, and acceptance. While one can choose to be a heretic alone, we Unitarian Universalists have found that it is far better to come together, in communities like this one, where we can journey side-by-side, sharing our lives and caring for one another and the world. That is the choice we have made as people of faith. If you are searching for a community where you can grow and live with spiritual integrity, I invite you to journey with us. And wherever your journey takes you, may your lives be filled with great joy, with great beauty, and always with great love.
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