The Uncommon Denomination

Dave Weissbard

UURockford

09/21/03

The Reading

Believe It, Or Not

Nicholas Kristof

[This column appeared in the New York Times on August 15th.]

           Today marks the Roman Catholics' Feast of the Assumption, honoring the moment that they believe God brought the Virgin Mary into Heaven. So here's a fact appropriate for the day: Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).

           So this day is an opportunity to look at perhaps the most fundamental divide between America and the rest of the industrialized world: faith. Religion remains central to American life, and is getting more so, in a way that is true of no other industrialized country, with the possible exception of South Korea.

           Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. In contrast, other developed countries overwhelmingly believe that it is not necessary. In France, only 13 percent agree with the U.S. view.

           The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. The percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points in the latest poll.

           My grandfather was fairly typical of his generation: A devout and active Presbyterian elder, he nonetheless believed firmly in evolution and regarded the Virgin Birth as a pious legend. Those kinds of mainline Christians are vanishing, replaced by evangelicals. Since 1960, the number of Pentecostalists has increased fourfold, while the number of Episcopalians has dropped almost in half.

           The result is a gulf not only between America and the rest of the industrialized world, but a growing split at home as well. One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America.

           Some liberals wear T-shirts declaring, "So Many Right-Wing Christians . . . So Few Lions." On the other side, there are attitudes like those on a Web site, dutyisours.com/gwbush.htm, explaining the 2000 election this way:

"God defeated armies of Philistines and others with confusion. Dimpled and hanging chads may also be because of God's intervention on those who were voting incorrectly. Why is GW Bush our president? It was God's choice."

           The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine America's emphasis on faith because most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth, and for Mary's assumption into Heaven (which was proclaimed as Catholic dogma only in 1950), as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith. As the Catholic theologian Hans Küüng puts it in "On Being a Christian," the Virgin Birth is a "collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary" narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were widespread in many parts of the ancient world.

           Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his book Mary Through the Centuries that the earliest references to Mary (like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel).

           Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.

           I'm not denigrating anyone's beliefs. And I don't pretend to know why America is so much more infused with religious faith than the rest of the world. But I do think that we're in the middle of another religious Great Awakening, and that while this may bring spiritual comfort to many, it will also mean a growing polarization within our society.

           But mostly, I'm troubled by the way the great intellectual traditions of Catholic and Protestant churches alike are withering, leaving the scholarly and religious worlds increasingly antagonistic. I worry partly because of the time I've spent with self-satisfied and unquestioning mullahs and imams, for the Islamic world is in crisis today in large part because of a similar drift away from a rich intellectual tradition and toward the mystical. The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain.

THE SERMON

[the marginalized]

           The current issue of the “UU World” magazine has a letter to the editor with which I agree, although I disagree with the writer’s intent. Dean Drake of Fenton, Michigan wrote:

            Fellow Americans

President William G. Sinkford, in his May/June column, felt that by more loudly proclaiming our message we could grow. For the last thirty years, I have tried to do just that. All I accomplished was to attract people to congregations that then turned them away. None of us wants to admit the truth: We do not like very many of our fellow Americans.

A partial list of people and behaviors we do not like includes: Christians, people without college degrees, people who work for large multinational corporations, capitalists, Republicans, moderate Democrats, Jews who support Israel, country music lovers, SUV drivers, people who don’t listen to NPR, white heterosexual males, corporate executives, hunters, and non-vegetarians. In short, we dislike the vast majority of Americans.

We are not shy about pointing this out. We make statements of exclusion on a nearly continuous basis. Until we recast our mission from one of ministering to the marginalized and ostracizing the mainstream to one of bringing the marginalized and mainstream together in community, we will remain the size we are.

           I want to acknowledge that Dean Drake is by no means alone in his view: I’ve heard it before. More than once. There is an element of truth in what he says. Unitarian Universalist leaders keep talking about wanting our movement to grow, but we keep saying and doing things that turn people off. I believe Mr. Drake is right that because we “minister to the marginalized,” by standing up for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people, by speaking out for the Palestinians, by speaking against greed and for economic justice, by standing for the use of reason in religion and not using language that assures some Christians that they are the favorites of a deity, some people feel uncomfortable in our churches.

           I do NOT agree with his contention that we dislike those people or intentionally ostracize them. Some people are not comfortable in an environment in which their prejudices are not supported: they do not welcome challenge, they do not want to be brought together with the marginalized - they want to keep the marginalized on the margins. When our congregation voted to become a Welcoming Congregation, to explicitly include a marginalized population, some members immediately withdrew. When some of us rally for peace, others choose to withdraw. Some withdraw because we do not speak the language they want to hear. This is not exclusion by us: it is their choice because their values are not compatible with our actions.

           The Nicholas Kristof column from the New York Times from which I read earlier makes it clear, 83% of Americans (91% of Christians) claim to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. It matters not that major mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars see that as an archaic mytho-poetic teaching – most Americans don’t want to hear what the scholars say. As Kristof points out, three times as many Americans believe in the virgin birth as believe in Evolution. Surveys show that most Americans still cling to the posture, “My country right or wrong.” Most Americans oppose recognition of marriage between people of the same sex. Most Americans are suspicious of Muslims. Most Americans believe that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 tragedy. Most Americans will not sit tight for sermons which try to apply the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to the modern world, which is why the membership of Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches are declining. Many, many Americans seek the peace of that “old-time religion” that made them comfortable as children. We are on the margins, theologically.

           This summer at Chautauqua, I heard William Sloane Coffin and James Forbes, and other great American Protestant preachers decrying the failure of many of their colleagues to speak out courageously on the issues of our time, and yet enough have spoken out that many people have fled to the security of conservative churches.

[Uncommon Denomination]

           Last year, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the association of which this congregation is a member, undertook a test of a major media campaign in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The theme of that campaign was “The Uncommon Denomination.” The longest television spot from that campaign, which I used on Fusion this morning, says:

Going to church means different things to different people and sometimes for some people, they need something different from what they’ve found. Increasingly, people searching for a liberal religious home are turning to Unitarian Universalist congregations where different people with different beliefs gather as one faith. Join us in our commitment to respect, freedom and justice for all persons. Unitarian Universalists: The Uncommon Denomination.

           The preliminary results, as of General Assembly were very promising, but campaigns like that take time to sink in. It is also true, as the Billy Graham phenomenon demonstrated, that people may get stirred up for a bit, but their enthusiasm may not last long.

[revolving doors]

           Our experience in Rockford is the same as the experience of most Unitarian Universalist churches: there are people who join our church with great enthusiasm – they have found the greatest thing since sliced bread! “Where have you been all my life?” they ask. And then they hear a sermon which challenges a perspective they hold, or someone in coffee hour says something with which they don’t agree, and before long, they discover that this is not the perfect church for them that they thought it was, and they vanish.

           It is not that this church, or other Unitarian Universalist churches, have ever tried to enforce uniformity of beliefs. Some people are uncomfortable dealing with the reality that others have come to different conclusions about important subjects than they have.

           One of the things that makes the Unitarian Universalist Association an “Uncommon Denomination” is that, because of our history, we do not assume that we need all to be in agreement. As that commercial put it, “congregations where different people with different beliefs gather as one faith.”

            There is, however, an unfortunate human trait. People who have felt oppressed have a tendency to feel, when they are in power, that everyone should agree with them. If item “a” in the creed was problematic for them, then they take for granted that everyone should nonetheless agree on b,c, and d. Those who came to the New World seeking religious freedom for themselves, infrequently were prepared to grant the same to others. The Baptist leader, Rogers Williams, was an exception. He could see the generalizing of the proposition that his freedom required granting the same to those who did not agree with him.

           We sometimes welcome new members who want to apply reason to some elements of their religion, but not to others. Or they are happy debating religious issues, but get uncomfortable when people start applying their religious principles to real life. It’s like the familiar story about the woman who loved the new minister’s sermon about the ten commandments, and kept calling out encouragement when he spoke about honoring parents, and adultery, and theft, but then he reached the 9^th commandment on false witness and started relating it to gossip. She grew indignant, “Now he’s moved from preachin’ to meddlin’,” she said. A minister never knows when he or she is going to hit a subject that evokes unanticipated hostility from people who are generally supportive.

           But, I have to tell you how proud of you I felt as I heard the ministers at Chautauqua speak of how fearful most ministers are to tackle the tough issues in their pulpits – the fundamental issues of justice and peace. (And, by the way, those ministers were attacked in letters to the editor of the Chautauqua paper.) Many of the ministers who avoid such subjects do so because they know their congregations will not tolerate it. There are a lot of hardy souls in this congregation – the ones who have stuck it out over the years. Some have stayed because they agreed – those are the easy ones. Others have stayed because of their commitment to the fundamental principles that make this such an “Uncommon Denomination.”

           What are those principles?

[worth and dignity]

           First comes our affirmation of the worth and dignity of every person. By that we do not mean just “the worth and dignity” of people who look like us, or believe like us, or love like us, or live like us. That means that Iraqi lives are as valuable as American lives. That means that nations are not pawns to be played for economic gain for a few corporations. That means that health care for all people comes before imposing a political system of our choice on another nation. [Isn’t it amazing how we are told we “cannot afford” universal health care or quality education in our nation, but we can afford $87 billion for regime change around Middle East oil fields. These are, however, “uncommon” views for Americans.

[justice]

           We affirm our commitment to “justice, equity and compassion in human relations.” We affirm that in the midst of a culture in which privilege prevails. A young man with mediocre grades who gets admitted to an ivy league college only because he received preferential points for the fact that his father and grandfather attended there, fights a system which gives preferential points to those whose father and grandfather were discriminated against. It was announced this week that an additional 1.7 million more Americans are living in poverty while the elite contain to increase their net worth at obscene rates because we reduce services available to the poverty stricken because “we cannot afford them.” It is uncommon for a religious denomination in America to stand for “justice, equity, and compassion.”

[spiritual growth]

           As I have already noted, it is uncommon for a church to affirm that people who follow different spiritual paths are welcome. Unitarian Universalist churches include in our congregations humanists, atheists, pagans, pantheists, theists, deists, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Jews, and people who define themselves as Christians even though Christians would not define them as Christians. It is not that we don’t care what people believe. It is that we care so much what people believe that we insist they must be free to follow the path that works for them, that helps them to be better people, to live richer, fuller lives.

[search for truth & meaning]

           We are, therefore, committed to “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” As Nicholas Kristof said, “The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain.” It is a common religious principle that it is a religious virtue to believe that which is not believable – that which does not make sense. We Unitarians and Universalists have a heritage of being those people who differentiated ourselves from the common religious community by our insistence on applying our brains as well as our hearts in religious affairs. Many of the people sitting here this morning are people who, as children, drove their Sunday School teachers up the wall by asking questions for which the teachers had no good answers. “Don’t go there,” the teachers said, and the questioners found their way to a church from which no question can be excluded.

           It is true that our pendulum has sometimes swung so far in the rationalistic direction that we have been in danger of being convicted of the charge of being “God’s Frozen People.” It is logically consistent to reverse Kristof’s statement and say, “The brain is a wonderful organ, but so is the heart.” While we affirm the need for reason in religion, that is not to say that reason is sufficient. I was fond of the character of Spock in the original Star Trek, and Data in Star Trek: the Next Generation, who were continually puzzled by human emotions that they could not compute. Our faith demands rational consistency, but it does not ask us to be Vulcans or androids, free of human emotion. But our tradition of reason in religion is one of the things that makes ours an “Uncommon Denomination.”

[conscience]

           Unitarian Universalists have a thoroughgoing commitment to “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large.” These are important principles to us, although, in truth, these are not as uncommon as some of the other principles. Jews and many Protestant churches share our commitment to democracy, and most religions honor the conscience, although some would constrain it with rules and regulations because of what they see an inherent flaws in human nature.

[world community]

           I was intrigued last year to discover how many denominations have statements on record favoring the goal of world community. I do believe it is safe to say that word of this has not often filtered down to the pews. The “America First” policies that are, perhaps, more blatant than ever in the present administration in Washington, are not utterly unique to it. The United States does not have an exemplary record as a world citizen, but, then again, what nation does?

           When I was a child, growing up in the First Unitarian Society in Albany, New York, our social hall, which is called “Channing Hall, had a huge mural of a Mercator projection of the world that reached from floor to ceiling. The plaque on Channing Hall said, “Dedicated to One World.” It has long been a Unitarian Universalist principle that we should work toward “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.” That is not a vision of a world community under American domination, with governments appointed to please American corporations. It is not a peace enforced by brigades of American troops on every continent or satellites carrying American weapons at the ready to deal with those who do not see things our way.

           I believe it is fair to say that our vision of “one world” and our commitment to that vision, does make this an “uncommon denomination.”

[interdependent web]

           The last of our principles, which is finding growing acceptance among the American people and within other churches, but that was common among Unitarian Universalists long before it became so popular is “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Concern for pure air and pure water and defense of endangered species are not exactly priorities for the powers that be in Washington at the moment, but there are indications that these are concerns for a large segment of our population. This truly is a fundamental religious issue because it stems from our understanding of our place in the world. There is a significant difference between those who believe that humans were created “ex nihlo,” placed here to dominate and exploit the world, and those who believe that we evolved from it and have the charge to be responsible stewards of it.

[not mainstream]

           It is my belief that these seven principles compel us to relate to the world in a way that is different from how most other religious groups relate, which is to say that it makes ours an “Uncommon Denomination.” I do want to be clear that I know that there are people in other churches, temples or mosques (or in none of the above) who also cherish many, if not all, of these principles, but I believe it is fair to say that they are not the mainstream.

[community]

           And there is something else that I believe it is important to add: these principle are not all that we are about. Commitment to them unites us, but we are, over and above that, a religious community. We are people who care about one another. We share joys and concerns. Who laugh and cry together, who support one another as we deal with the challenges of human life.

             I think, for instance, most powerfully still, of Lyn Rund, a beloved member of this church family who discovered at the beginning of August that she had pancreatic cancer. Lynn died six weeks later. During those six weeks, Lyn reported with love and amazement about the amount of support she received from members of her church. She didn’t understand why, but we did. Lynn was an example of those Unitarian Universalist principles in action. She reaped what she sowed.

[not for everyone]

           Returning to Dean Drake’s letter with which we began, sometimes we are like Thomas Jefferson, who in his enthusiasm for the Unitarian approach to religion, predicted that all Americans would soon find their way to this faith. He was wrong. People differ in their religious needs. People differ in the way they see the world. There are people who do find a religious home in Unitarian Universalist churches – who feel enriched and supported by being with a people who share our principles. There are other good and perfectly nice people for whom what we offer does not do it. It would be theoretically nice to be all things to all people, but that is hardly an option.

           There have always been those who would be more comfortable if we would only be a “little more Christian;” or a little less outspoken; or have more, or less, ritual; or be a little less “uncommon.” Therein lies a trap. I cannot tell you what Unitarian Universalism will look like ten years from now, or even what this congregation will be like in th next decade, because there is a dynamism, a commitment to change, that precludes prediction. It is my hope that we will continue to be driven more by our principles than by a desire for numbers and “acceptablility.” I have been proud to devote my life to contributing what I could to this “Uncommon Denomination.”

           There is no creedal test here. You will not be tested on the degree to which you personally support any of the Unitarian Universalist principles. The only test is the one you apply. Do you feel at home in the midst of a community that affirms these as its core. If you do, you are welcome here. If you do not, we hope you will continue your search until you find a religious community that helps you find security and satisfaction in this often challenging world.

[gifts]

           I mentioned earlier the “Uncommon Denomination” campaign that was tested in Kansas City. Along with billboards and television ads, they also prepared bumper stickers, and the special gifts I promised in our newsletter are these bumper stickers which I hope you will be proud to display on your cars.