Universalism 101
The Rev. Matthew Johnson-Doyle
August 23, 2009

Message: Universalism 101

Note: The sermon is an oral event. This manuscript may not reflect the exact spoken words. © Matthew Johnson-Doyle, 2009.

At a party, talking to friends of friends of ours.
They know I am a minister, but different than most.
They feel they can be honest,
and they say to me
“I just don’t think its right,
when people say that if you don’t believe like them you’re going to hell.
It’s not right.
I mean, I believe in God, and I don’t think God would do that.”

I tell them I agree.
No God worth believing in would do that, I say.
I don’t believe there is a hell, I tell them.

“No hell?”

No hell.

“Well then,” they say, “your church is alright by me.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that conversation.
Often I get that reaction – “your church is alright with me.”
Sometimes they say, “when and where do I show up?”

And sometimes they cry tears of release.
I have sat with people in hospitals
and nursing homes and funeral homes and said,
“there is no hell.
Everyone – every one – you included – is so loved by the holy,
so loved by God,
that they – you – will be – are – welcomed with open arms.
No one gets turned away from the love of the ultimate.
No one.”
I have met people who have been told for a lifetime
that they are unloved by God,
that hell is for them.
But the message: God is Love. There is no hell.
That message makes so much sense that they begin to believe,
begin to heal,
begin to move towards wholeness.

I have good news, my friends:
Universalism is alive and well.
It is needed in our time,
and in this place,
and Universalism is up to the challenge.
Universalism, if you let it, will change your life.
It will heal your wounds,
it will give you hope,
it will inspire justice,
it will motivate mercy.
We, this church and a thousand other Unitarian Universalist congregations in this country,
we are the stewards of this good news of Universalism –
we are the stewards,
and that is a great responsibility and a great gift.

But Universalism isn’t something you keep to yourself.
You are not allowed to keep this good news to yourself.
John Murray, the founder of Universalism in America,
and the author of our chalice lighting words this morning makes it plain:

Give them not Hell, but Hope and Courage.
You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine!
You are not allowed to keep Universalism to yourself –
too many people,
all around the world,
and right here, in Rockford, Illinois,
where tradition sometimes lays like a yoke on the neck,
too many people need this religion.

But what is it?
Universalism, I mean.
Besides that simple message, “there is no hell?”
If we are going to share the good news of Universalism with the world,
we should know what it is,
where it came from,
and what it means today.

Universalism, I should say to begin,
has a lot in common with Unitarianism.
That is why, after all, the two eventually joined forces in 1961
to form our current religious association.
So much of what I say today will resonate with what I said last week.
Universalists also believe,
as Unitarians do,
in the Unity of all that Is,
and Universalists also place value on the use of reason in religion,
and Universalists also believe that our actions
are more important than our doctrines.
But Universalism offers something Unitarianism does not,
Universalism completes Unitarianism by giving it vision:
the vision of all souls in harmony with the divine,
the vision of humanity united as brothers and sisters,
the vision of interconnection and interdependence.
If Unitarianism is the road, Universalism is the destination.
Unitarianism the lyrics, Universalism the score.

Universalism has another thing in common with Unitarianism –
it was declared a heresy by the early Christian church.
The idea of Universalism starts with the early Christian philosopher Origen,
who was born in 185 of the Common Era.
Origen believed that God’s love was so complete
that all beings would be restored to perfection
in the presence of the divine.
His ideas caught on
and many of the new Christians were followers of Origen’s thought.
But if all souls will be restored,
then the emperor cannot use religion to enforce his rule,
he cannot wield the threat of eternal damnation
as a sword to control the people.
So Origen’s thought was declared a heresy.

But it would be back.

The story of Universalism in America is a bramble –
it has three roots, and many twists and turns.
Lots of people come up with the idea all on their own,
and change the budding movement.
For the sake of clarity and for our purposes today,
I’ll keep out most of the names and dates,
and keep it simple.

Universalism, we might say, has five stages.
The first is Origen,
lasting until his ideas are declared a heresy in the fifth century.

The second is the early American and English movement,
which begins in about 1760 and lasts until about 1900.

This second stage of Universalism
is what we might call classic Universalism,
or what I like to call “our old-time religion.”
It refers to the doctrine of Universal Salvation.
John Murray was its most important leader and founder,
but many played a role.
What was the message of this religion?
Once, Murray was in Connecticut visiting a family.
He and the parents sat in the kitchen talking before dinner.
They began to talk about Universalism,
which Murray’s hosts were not so sure of.
How can you be sure, the father asked, that all will be redeemed?
Must not some be punished?

Is not God angry with sinners?
And Murray tried to explain his idea of Universalism,
that, yes, some might be punished, but temporarily, none forever –
that God’s love was infinite,
while our failings,
our mistakes,
were always finite, as are we.
The father did not buy it.

Suddenly, the oven was opened
to check on the baking bread
and the heat overwhelmed the room –
remember this is a large stone fire-fed oven.
Murray said: “if they were to err in your sight,
would you throw your children into this fine?”
The parents, shocked, replied, “Never!”
Murray answered,
“even less will God condemn a single one of his children
to the eternal fires of hell.”
And they were converted.

That’s classic Universalism:
God loves all, his (and back then it was his) mercy is infinite,
all will be welcomed into heaven.
Universalism caught on like wildfire across the United States.
At its peak, right after the Civil War,
Universalism was the sixth largest denomination in the United States.
This was despite widespread persecution:
Universalists were not trusted,
were not allowed to serve on juries or as witnesses,
for, it was thought,
if they did not fear God’s punishment,
what would keep them from doing wrong?
To which Universalists always have answered –
“we do right not from fear, but from love.”

This was the religion of which Olympia Brown spoke
when she said stand by this faith,
which has comforted us in sorrow and made the world beautiful,
when she urged us to trust in the one God
which ever lives and loves.

Well, more and more mainline Christians began to be Universalists.
Hell and damnation was mentioned less and less in sermons,
and the Universalists faced the worst fate of a movement based on an idea:
they won.
By 1900,
almost every Christian church in the United States
was lower-case u universalist
in their preaching and in their message.
The Universalist Church was declining.

But it would be back.

The third stage of Universalism began at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago,
in 1893, and it lasts until the Second World War or so.
The world’s fair would be a watershed for many industries and ideas,
and religion was not excluded.
There was a whole pavilion dedicated to the religions of the world,
and monks and clergy and thinkers came from all over the world,
from India and China and Africa and Europe and America.
The Universalists ministers who were there were changed forever –
for a few things became clear.

It became clear that all the great religions of the world
preached the same essential message:
do onto others as you would have them do onto you.
All men and women are brothers and sisters.

It became clear that what god you prayed to,
what ritual you accomplished,
what book your read did not matter:
good religion made people good,
and bad religion made people bad.

It became clear that all the religious of the world had something to learn,
and something to teach,
each other.

And so began the third stage of Universalism:
where the meaning of the world Universalism
refers to a dream of a Universal Religion.
Kind of like Esparanto for people of faith.
I make fun,
but it was a genuine attempt to strip away all the particulars
and get to the real thing of faith,
a genuine attempt to include the insights and wisdom
of the people of the world.
This stage made Universalism into a more cosmopolitan faith,
it speeded the eventual merger with the Unitarians,
but it also did something more important:
it made heaven a metaphor.

Universalists did not give up on their idea,
or Origen’s idea,
that all beings would be restored to unity with the holy,
but they now knew that heaven was a metaphor,
and so was nirvana,
and so was enlightenment,
and so was resurrection,
and so on – we could not know how the restoration would happen,
but we still knew it would happen.
On that question, we have never wavered.

By the 1940’s and 50’s, Universalism was a changed faith.
It had declined in numbers dramatically,
as people had moved to the cities and away from the small towns
that had been the stronghold of Universalism.
It had risen in education and class,
becoming much more like the Unitarians
who had always had a surplus of graduate degrees and still do.
Universalism had embraced the religions of the world,
and found them to be fruitful and interesting,
but they did not reverse the decline in numbers,
and they did not find that a “Universal Religion” fed their souls
as much as a particular set of practices and prayers,
songs and symbols.
So ends the third state.
It might seem that Universalism had outlived its usefulness,
that it would fade away.

But it would be back.

The fourth stage of Universalism begins in the forties;
it ends shortly after the Unitarians and the Universalists merge in 1961.
Its leader is Ken Patton,
who led an experimental Universalist church in Boston,
called the Charles Street Meeting house.
When you walked in to the meeting house,
there on the walls was a mural,
painted by Patton himself,
of the andromeda galaxy.
Patton was a mystical humanist,
a religious naturalist,
a believer in mystery but not supernaturalism,
a poetic and forceful advocate for human unity.
His church was never very large,
but he published dozens of books of readings and hymns,
including the one from which our first reading was drawn today,
and he moved his colleagues to a new understanding,
an understanding where
Universalism was more than Universal Salvation,
and more than Universal Religion,
it was also Universe Spirituality.
A professor of mine at Seminary,
David Bumbaugh, who has preached in this pulpit,
said of Ken Patton that
"It was he who taught a monotone rationalism how to sing;
it was he who taught a stumble-footed humanism how to dance;
it was he who cried 'Look!'
and taught our eyes to see the glory in the ordinary."

Patton’s meeting house is no less than an attempt to save Universalism,
to give it a new message for a new era.
But in many ways it seems too late –
the leaders of the Universalist Church in America
are concerned that they will fade away,
that Universalism will be lost forever,
if they do not act to save it.
And the Unitarians are, in the late 1950’s, on the rise.
They are thriving in the new suburbs all across America and they are,
after all,
not so far from the Universalists in their thinking.

The two denominations merge,
with the much stronger Unitarians getting to put their name first.
Patton, in the mid-sixties,
will give up on the Charles Street Meeting House
and take up the ministry of a historically Unitarian congregation
in New Jersey,
and thus ends the fourth stage of Universalism.
It seems that Universalism might fade away altogether,
and for a long time, Universalism slumbers.

But it would be back.

The late sixties and the seventies were a rough time for the new Unitarian Universalist Association.
The dramatic growth of the 1950’s was over.
The church was torn by the Vietnam war and by the Black Power movement of the later 60’s.
Finances were not good,
and moral was down.

But in the early eighties,
Unitarian Universalism started a comeback –
the children of the baby-boomers were having children of their own –
and more and more folks starting seeking a church that would embrace all religions,
that would be more about spirituality than traditional religion.
And at the same time, Universalism began its own come-back.
Forrester Church, the son of the famous Idaho Senator,
and minister of Community Church in New York City,
starting preaching about how Universalism was the religion for our time.
This accelerated in the 90’s and now,
without a doubt,
Universalism is experiencing a revival in liberal religion.
This, the fifth stage of Universalism,
includes all the prior stages in a new synthesis.
The new Universalism is the remedy for our times,
it is needed now like it has not been needed in a long time.

In a world where so many are preaching division and hatred,
don’t we need a Universalism that preaches God’s infinite love,
not for some, but for all?

Some say that only evangelical Protestants go to heaven.
We say everyone does.
Some say that only faithful Muslim’s go to heaven.
We say everyone does.
Some say that only straight people go to heaven.
We say everyone does.
Some say that only white people go to heaven.
We say everyone does.

In a world where so many live without basic respect,
without justice,
with too little hope,
don’t we need a Universalism that says heaven is here on earth,
that all men and women are brothers and sisters?

The soldier, far away, fighting a war he no longer knows the reason why, he is my brother.
The prisoner, sitting in a cell, building up her rage,
she is my sister.

The patient, hooked up to the machines, scared for their future,
he is my brother.
Every person, every where, they are our kin,
for we are one human family.

In a world where so many have closed their minds and their hearts,
don’t we need a Universalism that sees wisdom and truth
in all the people of the world?

In the noble path of Buddhism,
the yoga of Hinduism,
the pillars of Islam,
the discipline of Zen,
the ritual of Paganism,
and yes, the great commandment of Jewish and Christian scripture:
you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Don’t we need a religion that sings those words of Rumi:
come, whoever you are,
wander worshiper lover of leaving
this is no caravan of despair.
For this caravan, universalism, is a caravan of love.

In a world where so many treat the earth as a trash can,
dismiss science,
and scoff at wonder,
don’t we need a Universalism that embraces all creation
and lifts our eyes to the stars?

In a world of anxiety and fear,
in a world where we can’t talk about death with civility,
let alone die with dignity,
don’t we need a Universalism that says, be still, don’t worry.

Universalism is a great relief.
You don’t have to worry about after death,
because all is reconciled. We don’t know the details,
but we know all is reconciled.
Mary Oliver says that when death comes she wants to
“step through the door full of curiosity”
and therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood . . .
when it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement . . .
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

And that is the spirit of Universalism.
Because we need not fear, need not be anxious,
then we can love this world, this life,
without hesitation or precondition.
We can live from love, not guilt.
We can do right because of hope and not in avoidance of punishment.

For two millennia now,
Universalism has been growing and changing,
hidden for long periods of time,
but always coming back anew.

Always coming back because Love –
and Universalism is nothing but the religion of Love –
Love cannot be kept down,
not by emperors or by fundamentalists or by fear.
What will Universalism look like in fifty years –
I do not know.
It will be different, I am sure.
But it will still carry it simple, essential message:
All is Holy. No Exceptions. You Included.

Join then the movement of the love that frees,
for this is Universalism: the movement of the love that frees.
till people of whatever race or nation will truly be themselves,
stand on their feet,
see eye to eye with laughter and elation.
This is the spirit of Universalism,
our mission and our joy.

My fellow stewards of Universalism,
remember this is not a religion that allows us to keep the good news
to ourselves.
People need universalism,
and we had better let them know where to find it.
We had better let our light shine.
Not hell, but hope and courage:
that is our task, that is our gift.
May we be worthy, and may be we be glad.