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Sermon by Leland Bond-Upson, A year and a half ago, I initiated a series of sermons on the traditions that compose our Unitarian-Universalist faith. The series began with Liberalism, and its emphasis on freedom and generosity, and its grand idea of steady progress toward a goal of betterment for everyone. And then I documented the success of liberal ideas and achievements over the past 200 years. In truth, thanks to liberals, there is hardly any aspect of daily life that has not improved dramatically in the past 50 years, especially for those who were once discarded or ignored: people of color, people of gender, GLBT people, migrant farm workers, poor people, disabled people, retarded people, insane people, homeless people (often one in the same), disfigured people, geeks, ugly people, orphans, abused children, children in general, old people, special education people, even athletes and religious people. There is still much yet to be done, but you've got to admit it's gotten better. My next talk in the series was Unitarianism, with its emphasis on reason and humanity's basic goodness. Then I spoke on Universalism, with its emphasis on God's goodness and mercy and the consequent impossibility of the torment of hellfire. It helps keep the difference in mind by recalling the very old joke about the two, namely, that Universalists believe that God is too good to damn any of us, and the Unitarians believe that we're all too good to be damned. The fourth UU tradition I preached on last year was Spirituality. I think I upset a few people with that one, because though fully honoring the interior work that spirituality requires, and affirming the sense of intimate community that results, I voiced concern that lately, a too-exclusive inward focus threatens to shrink our vision of the liberal, religious, progressive venture that is our great privilege to be a part of, and our great duty to advance. We will explore some of that territory again this morning. Finding the balance between inward and outward is a worthy goal for anyone at any time, not least the 21st century. We seek to have rich spiritual lives, informed by the reality of the larger world-a place far too often bloody, greedy, and cruel-while we seek to act in that world modestly, wisely, discreetly, soberly, and reverently -- informed by an ever-deepening understanding of our selves and our relationship to all For today we take up a fifth tradition, Humanism. Which, except for spirituality, is also the oldest. BTW, the subtitle of today's subject is "What a piece of work are we!" But you know, there's a sarcastic version of this expression that goes like this: "so, uh, why did Bob say that?" "Oh Bob, he's a real piece of work." Meaning, Bob's a jerk, or worse. But that's not the sense for today. I mean it in the most sincere and positive way. However, while I'm talking, you're welcome to hold it in the other sense 'way in the back of your mind. Our denominations (Unitarians and Universalists) were for many years the most welcoming home for religious humanists, and religious humanism dominated our movement up until recently. How many of you here would describe yourselves as Humanists? Humanism goes at least as far back as the Hellenes (the ancient Greeks), although I have heard it said that Confucius was a humanist. But in the west, certainly, it was the Greeks. They were the first to idolize the human body in abstract. They sculpted it, male and female, in myriad ways. In the original athletic games held in Olympia, the young men competed in the nude. The Hellenes were the originators of the "humanities." They exalted the human ability to reason, to utter, and to argue freely. They created alternative political systems designed to draw on the best qualities of humanity. They wrote history. They did mathematics and medicine. They were the first to express the enduring problems of human nature in both philosophy and drama. We still read Socrates and Plato. We still admire the Stoics. And we still go to theatre to see "Oedipus," and "The Trojan Women," where we are once again filled with terror and pity, because the difficulties these Greeks caused or had thrust upon them are the difficulties of our own time. History, as we know, proceeds in waves. Many centuries were to pass before the humanities were once again kindling fire in people's imaginings. Here and there over the next 1500 years we encounter a lonely individual who looks like a humanist, although the term itself was not used. Pelagius, in the 5th century, preached that we are not tainted with original sin. We remember Francis of Assisi in the 13th century because he concentrated not on theology but on creating a kinder world. For more than a century, his Franciscan order was the most-loved, until they too, fell, to avarice and sloth. In The Canterbury Tales, the sorriest specimen was the Franciscan Friar. Then, coincident with the fall of Byzantium to the Turks in 1453, there was a rebirth, The Renaissance. Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic texts lost to the west for centuries were suddenly available, and with them, a burst of interest in the humanities. It was called the New Learning. There was a technological breakthrough at the same time. The printing press-conceived in China-finally set up shop in Europe, just in time to mass-produce the new learning. Erasmus' works became the first best-sellers. Out of this came a renewed sense of the joy of existence, and, it was proclaimed, a new springtime of civilization. The body was once again celebrated, sculpted, painted. Greek and Roman statuary was dug up and admired, instead of being broken into pieces as before. The Pope became the greatest collector and patron of the arts. For the most part, the Dark and Medieval ages were a time of group identity: you thought of yourself not an individual, but as a member of a guild, or of a holy order. You were a villager, or a townsman, or part of the lord of the manor's household, or some other feudal group. Now there was an intense interest and faith in, and exaltation of the individual, and of individual thoughts. The Wars of the Reformation ended this springtime, but the ideas and attitudes now had a life of their own, and ran along quietly half underground, bursting forth from time to time, such as in the works of Shakespeare. The Enlightenment took up these ideas, and bolstered by the new sciences, made them stick. Led by the Unitarians, an informal movement began in the 18th and 19th centuries to forge a new religion, more liberal even than conventional Unitarian Christianity, based as the new movement was on scientific discovery, reason, and rejection of discredited forms, rituals, and especially, superstitions. We have reached our own time. Everyone here knows somebody who was alive in first third of the 20th century. Modernism was everywhere. Picasso was painting and Stravinsky was composing. The Great War came and went, and with it much of the delusions of war as a romantic endeavor. The grip of the old ways was steadily weakening. Certain ministers and religious laypeople began to talk of a new formulation for religion. John Dietrich, Unitarian minister first in Spokane and then in Minneapolis from 1911 to his death in 1957 was the driving force in creating a movement that was religious but not theistic. Religious-not atheist, but without reference to God. Radical! It was too radical even for many Unitarians of the day, including a majority of the Unitarian clergy. But the idea's time had come. In 1933, a group of self-described "humanists" fashioned a faith statement, a two-page document titled The Humanist Manifesto. Thirty-four signed, all men. Almost half, sixteen of the thirty-four, were Universalists or Unitarians, led by Dietrich. The Manifesto consists of an introduction followed by fifteen points. Here are some excerpts. "The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes . . . Religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with the new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience . . . "Religions have always been means for realizing the highest . . . abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life. . . . "Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. [Inclusive language is still 35 years in the future.] . . . Any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age . . . We therefore affirm the following: FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process. [This is an affirmation of evolution.] THIRD: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected. It goes on to affirm cultural evolution and influence, rejects superstition in its many forms, then SEVENTH: . . . Nothing human is alien to the religious . . . The distinction between the sacred and secular can no longer be maintained. [The religious is within us, not "up there."] EIGHTH: Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now. [The basis for humanism's devotion to social action.] NINTH: In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being. TENTH: If follow that there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural. [Nine and Ten combined reveal the humanist belief that religious feeling was only found in low emotions and belief in the supernatural. This, we can now see, was mistaken. FOURTEENTH: The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world. [Hmm. Sounds like a bunch of Commies! We should keep in mind that when these men came together, Roosevelt had just taken over in the middle of the Great Depression, and radical solutions were being widely considered. And still, that all sounds like a pretty good, if distant goal.] Forty years later, in 1973, the American Humanist Association
got together and issued the Humanist Manifesto II. Sadder but
wiser, they made some changes. One big improvement was in recognizing that science and reason are not enough. The rise of dictatorships showed that some of its early Protestant critics were right when they charged that Humanism minimized human sinfulness, and its capacity for evil. Also, the intolerant aspects of the original was replaced with a somewhat more accommodating tone. But though it's chastened in some places, less cock-sure that humanism has all the answers, it still contains some of the old assertions, and remains defiant. In reading it, I detect a tug of war between religious and secular wings of organized humanism. Lengthening the document unbearably are the inclusion of otherwise perfectly good statements on racism, nationalism, gender equality, minority rights, sexual issues, education, and a toning down the call for a socialist economic solution. Last year, in 2003, 70 years after the original appeared, the American Humanist Association published "Humanism and Its Aspirations," the "Humanist Manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933." It doesn't mention the Humanist Manifesto II. Did they want to distance themselves from it? Of the 90 or so signatories to Manifesto III are found the names of at least 10 Unitarian-Universalists, including Lester Mondale, the last surviving of the 34 original signatories. He was a retired Unitarian minister, and half-brother to Walter Mondale, the senator and Presidential candidate. Signing the Manifesto must have been one of his final acts, for Lester Mondale died last August, at the age of 99. This most recent Manifesto is only one page in length, and covers six general topics, which are "Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation,
and rational analysis." "Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of
unguided evolutionary change." "Ethical values are derived from human need and interest
as tested by experience." "Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature's resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life." "Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships." "Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation
in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible
development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose,
finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence,
its challenges and tragedies . . . " This brings us back to the sticky point: the attempt to reconcile the inner and the outer, the mind and the heart, reason and intuition. My own progress is that I rely on reason and scientific method and the evidence of the senses in most things, but I as a religious person am always listening, waiting, for information, truth, and reality from every possible source. I feel we don't have so many such opportunities that we can afford to wall any of them out. For one instance, as the poet and visionary William Blake said, "Everything that can be imagined is an image of the truth." And before him, Erasmus of Rotterdam, the most learned man of the Renaissance, known in his lifetime as "The Prince of Humanists," wrote: "Creep not upon the earth, my brothers, like animals.
As he glories in Greek philosophy and human capability, Erasmus asks us to use our powers to explore other dimensions, for the purpose of a better life and a better world in which to live it.
The religious impulse is worldwide. The non-religious have never been popular. Religious conservatives attack secular humanists for threatening fundamentalism. Religious liberals disdain them for being one-dimensional. But I say, though they may claim they're not religious, in all important ways, their goals are the same as those of the religious humanists, and of ours here. Since ethics, political views, and religion are inseparable, I think of secular humanists as full partners in our movement, but whom I think might ask themselves if maybe they're missing some of the best parts. Even if we are not pure humanists, we are pure humans, and
our dreams are the same-to be empowered, happy, connected, and
working toward that day when, in the words of our old Unitarian
hymn, "Earth shall be fair, and all her people one."  |