|
Sermon by Leland Bond-Upson,
You come to sit there and squirm, recalling now the number, and the weight of your sins. You sit and wish you could turn back the hands of time, and undo those things you've done, those deadly sins you thought you could hide. Too late, too late! You're all damned! Damned! You come to sit and contemplate the torment that awaits you, quivering, imagining your wretched self stretched out over red-hot grid irons, while demons poke you with pitchforks, mocking your cries, taunting you with visions of cool babbling brooks and gentle grassy meadows. You two [the musician and worship associate], you think by sitting up here with me you'll escape the flames? Bah! You'll burn with the rest! You know what it's like when you burn your finger taking a cake out of the oven, or a burn from one of them godless cigarettes, and you quick run to clap a bit of butter on it, to take away the pain, aye? Well I'll tell ye, there'll be no butter in hell! ------------- That's a parody of a hell-fire preacher, adapted from the movie "Cold Comfort Farm." But it's not that far removed from real-life hell-fire preaching. Consider please the full implication of being condemned to eternal torment in hell. It means that after millions of years of unspeakable suffering, your punishment has not yet even begun. Some of us here may have been raised in faiths that taught this doctrine. Some of you may have had nightmares and daydreams about you-yourself being literally damned to hell. Well, you know you've done bad things. Our churches are populated with refugees from these scary
teachings. It's a big reason why some of us can't abide many
of these words: My dear friend and colleague Jeremy Taylor, the accomplished dream-worker and Unitarian minister, describes Universalism something like this: [In contrast to the Unitarian heresy, which is a phenomenon of the west,] Universalism is a global heresy. There are heretic Christian Universalists, heretic Muslim Universalists, heretic Hindu Universalists, and heretic native shaman Universalists. It appears in all religious traditions, which more or less agree that if you are considering the Divine in its entirety-and now I quote Jeremy's words exactly: "It is impossible to imagine, in good conscience, anything that does not have its origin in the Divine. Anything worthy of the noble name God must by definition be the source and support of all. "And so, say the Universalists, (in all their varied accents and traditions) since it's impossible to imagine anything . . . that does not come from God in the beginning, it is equally impossible . . . to imagine anything that does not return to God in the end. Therefore, all are saved." When I was preparing this talk I ran across a website entitled "God is not a sadist." What I found there was the website of the Universalist Christians Association. It is not associated with the Unitarian-Universalist Association. Here is their statement (and I quote) We believe: 1. That God the Creator loves and cares for each individual
with a Parent's love. So here we have a clear expression of classical Trinitarian Universalism that has survived unto the present. Very similar to what all Universalists believed up until the beginning of the 19th century, when 'our' Universalists began adopting liberal notions. It's time for a little background. Like Unitarianism, Universalism has its roots in Greek philosophy and the early Christian Church. For the first 300 years of the Christian era, universal salvation was accepted by every one, for did not the Apostle Paul write in his Letter to the Romans (5:18): "Therefore as by the offense of one (Adam) judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by the righteous of one (Jesus) the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." That is, all are saved. With the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire, the politicians got involved, and soon universalism was condemned as a heresy. It survived in an underground existence, until the wraps were taken off during the initial openness of the Reformation. Soon it was condemned again, again by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant leaders. Well what should we expect? It went underground again, emerging 200 years later in the safety of the Enlightenment of the 18th century. Unitarianism began in Poland and central Europe and England before being transported to the American colonies. Universalism as we know it, began in America. Although English Presbyterian and Dissenting preachers had inspired some of its pioneers, the first Universalist church was erected in Massachusetts. Here are the three most important names in Universalism: A Frenchman, Dr. George de Benneville, first preached the doctrine of universal salvation in 1741, and he continued until his death in 1793. De Benneville Pines in the San Bernardino mountains, a U-U retreat, honors his name. John Murray, an English Methodist who after a horrific series of personal tragedies, emigrated to America, the next closest thing, it was said, to committing suicide. His ship missed New York harbor, and he waded up onto Jersey shore. By chance the man who took him in was a townsman well enough to do that he had built a church to provide a place for itinerant Universalist preachers. For Murray, this was a Sign. He did preach there, successfully, and traveled up and down the eastern seaboard, finding in Massachusetts-having been ploughed for years by the Congregationalists-the most fertile soil for his message. He founded the first Universalist Church in Gloucester, Mass at New Year's, 1780. Murray Grove, on the Jersey shore, a U-U retreat, honors his name. Hosea Ballou, son of a Calvinistic Baptist preacher, was converted to universal salvation by other preachers in hill country of central New England. Supported by the freedom of the Enlightenment, Universalism was in the air. Ballou is important because it was he who steered Yankee Universalism toward Unitarian ideas, and liberality in general. His most famous work is The Treatise on Atonement, which he wrote in 1805, when he was 34. In it, he emphasized the use of reason, which brought him and the movement alongside the Deists and Unitarians. He rejected the trinity as unscriptural and against reason, likening it to belief in "infinity, multiplied by three." But the core of the book deals with the nature of God and Man. Murray argued, that "as finite creatures, human beings are incapable of offending an infinite God. He replaced the appeasement of an angry God with that of God as being of eternal love who seeks the happiness of his human children. Universalism thrived under his leadership. By the mid-19th century, Universalism was the 5th or 6th largest church in America. After that, the church declined: the mainline Protestant churches had begun to dampen down the hell-fire. Universalism had never attracted the rich, it was always just
getting by, and although its resolute stand in favor of democracy
and freedom accomplished much to separate church and state, it
was so resistant to authority of any kind that it never developed
a strong organization. Throughout the 19th century, despite many similarities and shared interests, the Universalists and Unitarians kept their distance from each other. It was said that the Universalists thought the Unitarians "were insufficiently Christian,' and the Unitarians thought the Universalists "made light of sin." There was another old joke about the difference: the Universalists believe God is too good to damn Mankind, while the Unitarians believe Mankind is too good to be damned. There were also differences in class feeling. The Unitarians were disliked for being associated with high-mindedness, lots of old money, and the superior air of the Boston Brahmin. The Universalists were looked down on for being raggedy, middle class at best, and anti-establishment. After a long courtship with the Congregationalists, the Universalists negotiated a merger with the Unitarians, effective in 1961, and Universalism was never heard from again -or so we thought * * * I have a question to which I don't have the answer. Why did those religions that so successfully terrorized so many people, have more appeal than ones that offers a benign, loving, hope-filled alternative? Of course we know that the promise of heaven and the threat of hell were used for centuries by the authorities to try to keep a rough people on the straight and narrow. Is it our own guilt-the awareness that we truly have fallen short- way short-of the ideal, is that the key? That we are so imperfect, have done so much wrong, we deserve severe punishment? Is it related to the reason why so many people like horror movies? I don't know. * * * Unitarians have relied heavily on reason, on the rational mind, to drive a stake through the heart of superstition, and to correct social ills. It's in their nature to deconstruct, examine, figure out what's right and wrong and what should be done about it. And they've done a ton of good. But Unitarians can and do get into a habit of criticism, and criticize themselves into a kind of depression, where the emphasis is on the bad, the imperfect, the woes of life and woes the world. Universalists put the emphasis on the belief that everyone is blessed. There's a steady optimism based on their faith that it's all going to be OK in the end. The line in the Affirmation we spoke at the beginning: "to the end that all souls may grow into harmony with the Divine," has a strong Universalist flavor. Their emphasis is not so much on head, as on heart. Their beliefs called them to pass on God's love in their lives, here on earth, and they responded in a hands-on way. Clara Barton, the battlefield nurse, is a good example, as is Horace Mann's work on behalf of public education. Universalists were quicker than the Unitarians to welcome women into full participation. They were the first to ordain women, and the first to establish a national women's organization. They became leaders in prison reform, abolition of slavery, mental health, and public-secular- education. The merger of the two in 1961 has been mutually beneficial. The Universalists got to keep their churches and keep their faith alive. They got to partake of and contribute to Unitarian organization and financial strength. And Universalism can uplift a heavy Unitarian heart, bearing witness to joy and wonder. Universalists have always been more about deep feeling, about love and inclusion, with a faith based on intuition more than argument. They responded less to the Deistic-Unitarian idea of God as First Cause, and more to God as an "indwelling life" pervading the scheme of things. In his talk, given at General Assembly in 2001, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Chulak is reported as saying that "in the 1960s and 1970s the Unitarians dominated, as might be expected because there were three times as many Unitarians and twice as many of their churches. We were challenged on all sides, by civil rights, and human rights, the nuclear threat, the need to live in harmony with the natural environment. The religious right was growing stronger. The resources of the Unitarians we found insufficient, said Dr. Chulak, and despite all the earnest activity, membership was down. Universalism to the rescue! "Under the very noses of the Unitarian majority," he said, "were some approaches that hadn't been considered. This new world needed more community, spirituality, inclusiveness, and love, to balance reason, rationality, and individualism." There wasn't anything wrong with the Unitarian approach, he thinks--it was just incomplete. So although we don't hear much about Universalism per se anymore,
it has, like a river that has drawn from many tributaries, has
branched out and reunited, braiding with Christian charity and
rational religion, diving underground repeatedly, only to burst
forth again, unexpectedly, in our time, helping to power the
new Unitarian-Universalist spirituality, an impulse which, many
believe, has much to do with the growth, the revival of liberal
religion in America.  |