Timothy Sprigge - Lord's Prayer

"O mysterious but glorious universe of matter and of spirit, of which each of us is but a tiny fragment
May the goodness, which we trust is somehow at the heart of things, increasingly prevail over evil on our little earth.
May we learn to organize our life on earth so that the necessities and worth-while pleasures of human existence are more equally shared, and be ready to make what sacrifices this requires from us.
And may we be tolerant of others and love them, when we can, as we hope to be tolerated and sometimes loved ourselves.
So let us seek our own happiness in ways which help rather than hinder others in seeking theirs, and be the happier ourselves for this,
but let us not repine too much at our own inadequacies but make the best of ourselves as we are, neither envying nor despising others.
And let the human species flourish without excessive exploitation of other species, and in a world in which we can still be refreshed by communion with the non-human.
And let us not fret too much about time realizing that everything is eternally there in its own particular place in the eternal consciousness of the universe."

by Timothy Sprigge - 8 October 1997

Meditation on a death

He was every man and no man.
His death was everything
His death was no thing.
His death was the ending of a life,
the negation of all his hopes.
His followers deserted him,
all except the women, that is.
But they didn't count, in most people's eyes.
He was different - to him, they counted.
To him, every sparrow and every lily
was beloved in the sight of the All.
It was his life that meant something,
not his death. How he loved, who he loved,
the things he said, the things he did.
He was just a man, frail and mortal,
but what a man. Of course, he had his off days.
The day he was rude to the Samaritan woman,
and she showed him a better way to love.
The day he cursed the fig tree.
Those are the days where he showed his human side.
We all cast a long shadow behind us,
even as our light shines fitfully,
a flickering flame of love.
His life is what matters, and his love,
not his death. There are so many deaths.
So many brutal and dreadful ways to end a life.
Retelling the story of his death creates brutality,
as if his death mattered more than all others.
All deaths matter, all the lives cut short by cruelty.
No, we should tell stories of life,
of lives lived well, peacefully, joyfully.
Life in abundance, life and love.
Forgiveness in the face of cruelty,
joy and peace in the heart of destruction.
How to keep the flame of hope alive
in the face of despotism and despair.


(written on Good Friday)

Remembrance

This prayer, meditation and address were part of a service that I led at Oxford Unitarians on 13 November 2011.

Prayer:

Divine Spirit, source of all being,

From whom we emerge and to whom we return,

We have gathered today to remember lives lost in war.

For it is written,

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

We are thankful for the great love that gave us freedom and for the sacrifice of those who died that we may live in freedom.

But we wonder sometimes if our freedom was not bought at too dear a cost.

And we pray for peace among the nations, and dialogue between warring factions.

May we always remember those who died in war and persecution – not only the soldiers, but the civilians who were raped and tortured and butchered.

May we honour those who stood as a witness for peace, because they would not turn their hands to killing.

May our lives and our communities be a beacon of justice, peace and hope,

And may our words and deeds be a witness for peace, all the days of our lives.

And when we fall into strife and bitterness, may we forgive ourselves and others, and work for reconciliation and renewed trust.

We would live our own lives in such a manner that we plant seeds of peace, and not seeds of war.

We would work for peace and justice and tolerance, so that war may be prevented.

For we are held in your vast and mysterious love,

Each life a bright thread in the tapestry of being,

And all are one, and one is all, and the divine life shines in each and all.

Amen.

Meditation: Fallen leaves by Yvonne Aburrow

Each year with the falling of the leaves we shall remember them

As the years drift into the silence of longing –

The longing for the ones who never came back.

A photograph, dimmed by time, is all that remains;

A lock of hair, a memory, a name, each evoking

A man that lived and breathed and laughed.

Poets and dreamers, craftsmen and lovers,

Farmers and ploughmen, boys from the shires,

Fallen leaves in the autumn, returning to the soil.

Address: War and peace

War, when you look at it, is a very strange cultural phenomenon. Vast amounts of men and machines are pitted against each other, and it is not moral superiority that ensures victory, but superior tactics and technology. It is odd that the outcome is determined by tactics and technology rather than by who is actually right. One might as well determine the outcome by having politicians engage in single combat in a large stadium, as it would save an awful lot of lives and resources.

Of course faith in the rightness of the cause motivates the combatants, and we would like to think that those who are fighting for the morally superior side actually have a stronger motivation – because they are motivated by love of justice and freedom and humanity, rather than by anger towards a minority, or fear of retribution by their commanders. These ideas hold up reasonably well for the Second World War, because it was fairly obvious that Nazism must be defeated – but America was still racially segregated when it was busy fighting the Nazis, and many people in Britain flirted with far right politics during the Great Depression, so there must have been people fighting the Nazis who supported segregation and right-wing politics, or who were just fighting for nationalistic reasons. The idea that faith in the rightness of the cause determined the outcome of the First World War does not hold up so well, though, because it was the last great war of imperialism, and both sides had made alliances and grabbed territory, and were squabbling over who should have the most land.

I also find it deeply disturbing that if the reparations imposed on Germany after the First World War had not been so punitive, then the Great Depression would not have had such a huge impact on the German economy, and the Nazis might never have got into power. If only the victors of the First World War had read Lao Tsu’s warning to leaders victorious in wars.  He said, “Treat victory like a funeral” – in other words, don’t gloat over your defeated enemy and demand revenge, but treat them well and kindly so that they won’t want to fight you again.

Lao Tsu’s work, written in the 6^th century BCE, is partly intended as a treatise on statecraft, and its ideas are still applicable today.

One politician who might well have been applying similar principles was the much-maligned Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain was a Unitarian, and related to a long-standing Unitarian family. He did everything he could to prevent war (as is well known), but he also built up Britain’s armaments in case war turned out to be inevitable (something that is not so well-known). It was a very practical and balanced approach to the politics of the day.

My own attitude to war is fairly ambivalent. I admire the heroism of warriors, and the camaraderie of regiments, and their colourful and stirring traditions. I admire the craftsmanship and technology that goes into making weapons like swords, bows and arrows, castles and siege engines.  I find people’s personal war stories absolutely fascinating, and never tire of listening to them. On the other hand, I abhor the bloodshed and violence, the blind fury of battle, the slaughter of men, the terrible waste of humanity and talent that is involved, and the sorrow of bereavement on such a vast scale, and the tragedy of the physically maimed and psychologically scarred men that return from war. I often think of Wilfred Owen, whose poems we heard earlier, which often move me to tears. Wilfred Owen was killed in the last week of the First World War, and his mother received the telegram informing her of his death as the church bells announcing the Armistice were ringing out over the Shropshire hills.

And yet, and yet, I am grateful that imperialism and Nazism and other horrors were defeated so that we can live in freedom now. I wear a red poppy in memory of those who gave their lives for our freedom, and a white poppy in the hope that one day no-one will ever have to make that sacrifice again.

One thing that is very striking about the experience of war, is that people never seem to feel so alive as when death is so close to them. People lived more intensely and vividly, as if the saying “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” was never far from their minds. If you have ever read the novels of Mary Wesley, you will be aware of how intensely life was lived during the war – lovers did not know if they would ever see each other again, and so they gave their all. There was camaraderie and a sense of common humanity during the Blitz – although, as someone who lived through that period pointed out to me, there were also a lot of people making a fast buck on the black market and exploiting others.

On the other hand, there are wonderful stories like the Christmas Truce of 1914, and the friendship of JRR Tolkien with his batman in the trenches, which he recreated in literary form in the relationship of Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings – and it is very clear that Frodo would not have succeeded in his quest if it were not for the support of his friend Sam.

I think, however, that what is happening here is the beauty and compassion of humanity asserting itself in spite of the horrors of war, not because of them. Tolkien was one of a group of four close friends at grammar school, and he was the only one to survive the First World War.

If only the heroism and the craftsmanship could be channelled towards peaceful ends. If only the world was a more just and equitable place, where resources were fairly distributed and nobody thought they needed to fight for territory, or try to wipe out people who are different. It’s possible to create camaraderie and fellow-feeling by digging a fire-pit for a weekend camp – there’s no need to go to war to create it.

Imagine a world without war. Instead of money being spent on guns and tanks and fighter planes, it would be spent on improving the lives of ordinary people. There’s a well-known feminist poster that says, imagine if the army had to hold jumble sales to raise money for weapons, and healthcare was properly funded. It’s true, there is something wrong with a world where wars are automatically funded, but hospitals have to fund-raise for essential equipment.

The Quakers talk about the seeds of war. There are ideas and practices prevalent in our society that make war more likely, make it seem inevitable, even. The way boys are discouraged from showing emotion, and encouraged to regard women as objects, so that they could one day be soldiers. The way our taxes go to fund the army and the maintenance of weapons, whether we want them to or not. The way that our industry is geared towards the manufacture and distribution of weapons of war. The way that social inequality is maintained, one result of which is that the army seems like a good career for a working-class lad.

If there are seeds of war, there must also be seeds of peace – seeds that we can plant. There are practices like non-violent communication, meditation, contemplation, community-building, diplomacy, interfaith dialogue, living sustainably, volunteering overseas, all of which promote an understanding of other people and cultures, promote dialogue rather than violence, and contribute towards the creation of a just and peaceful world. But there can be no peace until there is social and environmental justice. Until resources are fairly distributed, there will always be people trying to grab land and resources, or people trying to prevent others from getting them. I am pretty sure that both the Gulf Wars and the Falklands War were about oil, and the reason that no-one has bothered to liberate Tibet from the Chinese is because it has no natural resources worth exploiting, and because China is a major creditor and trading partner of Western countries.

Let us, therefore, seek out and plant the seeds of peace. Let us seek to see things from other people’s point of view. Let us promote interfaith dialogue, non-violent communication and social and environmental justice. And let us practice peace in our own lives, as I know many of you are already doing. For as A J Muste once said, “There is no way to peace: peace is the way”.

Many Names

Paperback, 32 Pages 

     

Preview

Price: £5.99

A book of prayers, meditations and chalice lightings for use in Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist churches, Unitarian Earth Spirit groups, and Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans groups. These prayers reflect diverse understandings of the Divine, including Taoist, Pagan, pantheist, Neo-Platonic, and Unitarian perspectives. There are also prayers and chalice lightings on different themes and for different seasonal festivals.

Inhabiting the paradox

There's a great post by Andrew Brown over at Caute about inhabiting paradox, which addresses the identity of British Unitarianism - is it Christian, post-Christian, pluralist, eclectic...?

I blogged about this in a series of posts last year: The empty path; Is Unitarianism Christian?; Roots hold me close, wings set me free; Golden heresies; Blessed are the poor.

I think it is very important to keep inhabiting the paradox. Places of tension are places of creativity.

I think that in rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, as well as establishing the right to interpret the Bible for themselves, the Socinians did something else important. The doctrine of the Trinity, and Christ's divinity within that, could only be made known to humanity by a particular revelation (and therefore available only via Christianity); whereas the idea that the Divine is either one or many is accessible to reason and experience, and therefore available to all religions.

Andrew pinpoints correctly that there is a debate between "those who would like us to land definitively on the side of our inherited Christian tradition" and "those who would like us to land definitely on the side of open-ended change and to insist that we must let go of our distinctive traditions and roots and move into an undiffentiated pluralistic landscape".

I agree that we should not plump for one side or the other of this debate.

I think there is a third possibility: that we acknowledge that Unitarianism has always divagated between these possibilities, and that the Unitarianisms of the past contained the seeds of the humanist element, the earth spirit element, and the pluralist element. It is not (as I am sure Andrew is aware) that the Unitarianism of the past was uniformly Christian, and that the pluralism is a new thing. Rather, there were the Transcendentalists, deists, theists, pantheists, humanists and nature-lovers (Coleridge, Morganwg, Frank Lloyd Wright, etc). And Servetus was inspired by the religious pluralism of Moorish Spain and by reading Hermetic texts.

I think that it is possible to develop a distinct Unitarian tradition with its own particular traditions and rituals, and that this is what is happening with things like the flower communion, water communion, chalice lighting, and Unitarian ways of celebrating Pagan seasonal festivals, or doing bread and wine communion, or lectio divina, or other spiritual practices. And there are so many excellent Unitarian writers on spirituality and religion who have created a rich and deep culture for us to draw upon.

Recordings

Here's me reading some of my prayers and meditations. These were recorded by James Barry and John Wilkinson at Great Hucklow in February 2012.

• O Genderless Engenderer (prayer)
• Mother Spirit (prayer)
• Inclusive love (prayer)
• Grandfather God (prayer)
• Sometimes we do not hear the call (prayer)
• What is the sacred? (meditation)

A hymn to darkness

8.7.8.7.7.7.

WHEN the day of toil is ended,
And night cometh cool and still,
Clad in starry spangled raiment,
Trailing softly o'er the hill,
Hand and heart and aching brain
In her peace forget their pain.

Grateful presence of the night-time
Soft restraint of sleep so sweet,
Holding still our fervent fingers,
Gently chaining restless feet;—
They who labour in the light
Hail the holy, holy night.

May we rise with hearts more hopeful
For to-morrow and its strife,
With a stronger aspiration
And resolve for nobler life,
Consecrated all anew,
To the good, the pure, the true.

Robert Henry Underwood Bloor (160 in Hymns of Modern Thought)

Robert Henry Underwood Bloor, minister of  Trowbridge Unitarians from 1895 to 1899, was a former Anglican who had adopted Unitarian views. After ministering at Trowbridge, he went on to be minister for Brighton Unitarian Church and Essex Church in Kensington. He was the author of Christianity & the Religious Drama, which he gave as the Essex hall lecture for 1928, and which was published by Beacon Press in 1930. He contributed five hymns (numbers 69, 104, 114, 132, and 160) to the hymn-book of the Leicester Secular Society, Hymns of Modern Thought. Several other Unitarian authors (Sarah Flower Adams, Stopford Brooke, Frederick Lucian Hosmer, Moncure Conway, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel Longfellow) appear on the list of contributors; they were mainly of the Transcendentalist and humanist persuasion. 

Then sings my soul

O Universe! When I in awe-struck wonder
Consider all the beauty of the earth,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
The nebulae where stars are come to birth;

Refrain:
Then sings my soul, o Universe, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, o wondrous mystery,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
and hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze;

[Refrain]

When I behold the wondrous evolution
Of diverse forms, adapted to their place
And know that life, arisen from the ocean
Can love and laugh, and move with fluid grace

[Refrain]

And when I die, and pass into a memory
I know that all my molecules shall be
Part of some life, some bird or flower or tree
For life is change, and death's a mystery.

[Refrain]

And life goes on, in all its splendid rhythm
And love is all the grace we'll ever know
Death yields to birth, and so the wheel turns always:
Love turns the wheel, and makes the dancers go.

[Refrain]

(pantheist version by Yvonne Aburrow)

(tune and original words)

What to call you?

Mother Spirit, Father Spirit, where are you?
In the sky song, in the forest, sounds your cry.
What to give you, what to call you, what am I?

– Norbert Čapek

So who or what is "God"? For me, the Divine (as I prefer to refer to it) is not a person, not a thing, and probably not an energy. For me, the Divine is an experience.

In Pagan religions, deities have specific names. Some people regard them as energies, some regard them as archetypes; some regard them as individual people. This gets complicated by issues like whether Odin and Woden are the same person. And then what about Thor, Perkunas, Jupiter, Taranis, or even Yahweh - they are all thunder gods, but maybe they are distinct from each other (they certainly are culturally distinct).

In monotheist religions, there are plenty of arguments about whether the "one true god" (TM) is the same as someone else's "one true god". Are the gods of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism the same? What about Brahma in Hinduism? What about the Spirit of Life worshipped by many Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists? How far does your concept of "God" extend? If it does not include other deity-forms, should you enlarge your concept? Desmond Tutu has recently written a book, God is not a Christian, making the point that Gandhi's God is the same as Tutu's God.

When I address the Divine in a Unitarian service, I am not addressing Yahweh, or the god of Abraham, Jacob et al (except insofar as subsequent tradition has identified that view of the Divine with the ultimate divine source); I am addressing the Neoplatonic Divine Source, which as far as I am concerned precedes and transcends all other deity-forms.The divine source can be addressed in many ways: "Spirit of Life", "Source of All Life", "Ground of All Being", "Genderless Engenderer", the Tao, "Mother Spirit", "God", "Goddess", "Divine mystery at the heart of all that is" etc. There is even a Unitarian hymn addressed to the God beyond God. These kind of terms can include pantheists, "soft" polytheists, polymorphists, monotheists, theists, Unitarian Christians, non-theists, atheists, agnostics, and maybe a few other theological positions I haven't thought of.

In all of this, I try to keep in mind that the Divine does not exist; it is existence itself, and it's not a person or a thing, but an experience.

I would not use Pagan deity names when leading a prayer in a Unitarian service, because it's not part of the tradition, and because many people join Unitarian churches because they want to get away from viewing the Divine through the lens of personality, whether it's the personality of Jesus or the personality of a Pagan deity. And also, I think it would be difficult for some Unitarian Christians if prayers were addressed to Pagan deities. However, I have addressed prayers to the Shekhinah (the Jewish name for the feminine Divine presence), and read Thunder, Perfect Mind (a Gnostic hymn to Sophia).

I have privately communed with Pagan deities in a Unitarian service from time to time, when I was not leading the service. But mainly, I like the fact that Unitarian liturgy addresses a vague and undefined Divine mystery, and not specific deity-forms. I do think it is important to include feminine imagery as well as masculine and gender-neutral imagery, though.

Does it matter? I hear you ask. Well, it matters to me what I am talking to; and it matters to others, too. I think it is all too easy for people from a monotheist tradition to gloss over these differences.

Lent and Borrowed

Many people are now celebrating Lent, a period of time commemorating Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness before starting his public ministry.

In some ways, his time of testing in the desert resembles a Native American vision quest.

The traditional Western Christian practice during this period is to give something up, usually a luxury. It is a period of penitence.

Pagans and Unitarians have always been a bit suspicious of the notion of penitence - especially when Christianity is so fixated on sexual sin. But perhaps we do need a time of self-audit.

Maybe there is a period in the Pagan wheel of the year, or in more traditional festivals such as those celebrated by Religio Romana, when a period of self-examination would be appropriate. After all, Pagan ethics is all about the cultivation of virtues, rather than the following of commandments, so sometimes the garden of virtues might require a little weeding and pruning. One possible Pagan festival that might serve our purpose here is the Roman festival of Tacita (18 February), sacred to Tacita, goddess of silence and the halting of unfriendly speech and hostile tongues. Just the thing for the internet generation.

Unitarian Universalists have suggested the idea of trying to develop a spiritual practice during this time, or to engage in social justice work.

Danny Crosby has a wonderful reflection on Lent, using a Native American story to illuminate the whole concept.

Alain de Botton, in Religion for Atheists, points out that one of the useful things about religion is that it puts dates in our calendars to remind us to focus on specific aspects of life. I would suggest that Lent is an example of this, in that it reminds us to prune back on excess (whether excess busyness or excess consumption).

I have often joked that I celebrate the festival of Borrowed, but I have just realised that this could be taken seriously to highlight the idea that we do not own the Earth and its finite resources, we only borrow them, and share them with all other life. We would do well to remember this, and to build in times in our lives when we cut back on the excess.

A friend of mine has given up Facebook for Lent - which is an excellent idea, but I just can't quite manage it. So instead I have resolved to slow down and take some time for meditation every day.

Universalism ancient and modern

The earliest form of universalism was universal salvation or apocatastasis (literally 'restoration to the primordial condition') proposed by Origen and others. This was the idea that all would ultimately be reconciled with God, because just as the universe emanated from God, so it would ultimately return to its source, and nothing would be rejected in that final taking-up. This view had its origins in Stoic thought and the idea of cosmic cycles of creation, destruction and re-creation.

The restoration of the world to a primal condition (a sort of prelapsarian unity with the Divine) is also found in Jewish thought, where humanity can participate in the process of restoration by performing acts of kindness (tikkun olam). In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the equivalent Hebrew word has the sense of the return of captives and the restoration of Jerusalem.

In Christianity, apocatastasis came to mean universal salvation, but discussion about it was complicated and incomplete. An anathema was pronounced against Origen's thought at an ecumenical council in 553, but traces of this thinking was found in other early fathers. The extent of salvation varied even in Origen's writings.

Other writers who embraced this view included Johannes Scotus Eriugena, who was an early medieval philosopher who also pointed out that God does not exist, because God is existence, and that communion is a symbolic act.

After the Reformation, the Arminians emerged as a distinct group among Protestants. Arminians rejected the Calvinist doctrine of predestination (the idea that only the elect, those chosen by God, would be saved) and embraced the idea that all who turned to God would be saved - so not actually universal salvation, but a universal offer of salvation. The early General Baptists were mainly Arminian in outlook (and indeed so are modern Evangelicals).

The Universalist denomination (which initially formed based around the belief that salvation applied to everyone unconditionally) existed in both Britain and America, but it was largely absorbed into Unitarianism. Several Unitarian churches started life as Universalist churches.

According to Wikipedia:

Christian Universalist ideas are first undisputedly documented in 17th-century England and 18th-century Europe and America. Gerrard Winstanley (1648), Richard Coppin (1652), Jane Leade (1697), and then George de Benneville in America, taught that God would grant all human beings salvation. Those in America teaching this became known as the Universalists.

 The Glasgow Universalist Church was founded in 1804 by Neil Douglas (Christodoulou, 1997) and had its roots in the Chartist movement. It was the first church in Britain to ordain a woman, Caroline Soule, in 1880. The General Baptists also largely embraced Unitarian views, and the General Baptist Assembly still exists as a distinct body within the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian churches.

Gradually, the Universalist denomination in America came to embrace universalism in its wider sense, that is the idea that all religions have an underlying universal theme; this idea was also known as the perennial philosophy, which was the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, but the term has gained wider currency to mean the inner core of spiritual truth found in all religions.

An attempt to create a universal religion (atheist, secular and scientific) was made by Auguste Comte in the eighteenth century. This is described in a chapter in Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists. Comte called his religion the Religion of Humanity, and it was influential in the development of modern humanism.

There was also a Druid form of universalism (which was more like the Perennial Philosophy). The earliest Druid revival groups were trying to get back to the primordial religion, which was believed to be a form of the ancient Hebrew religion brought to the British Isles by the Phoenicians. Pagan ideas were not really part of the Druid revival till the 20th century.

In 1961, the Universalist church in America merged with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Prior to that, there was significant cross-fertilisation between Unitarianism and Universalism. One instance of such cross-fertilisation was the ministry of Kenneth L Patton. Patton started as a minister in the Disciples of Christ church, was then the minister of a Universalist congregation, and then of a Unitarian church. He was a religious humanist and his spirituality celebrated being alive, human, and the Earth and Nature. He was one of the editors of the 1964 UUA hymnbook, Hymns for the celebration of life, which includes several pieces of liturgy that he wrote.

Another modern proponent of universalism (in the sense of all religions sharing a core truth) was Forrest Church, who came up with the beautiful image of the cathedral of the world, which was an image to express the underlying sanctity of all religions, and their different perspectives on the holy.

One thing to be careful of when embracing universalism in the modern sense, is that a pick and mix approach to religion can be confusing and miss out the subtle nuances of different spiritual traditions. Each religion is like a language, rooted in its own culture, time and space. So perhaps a motto for universalists ought to be "Think global, act local". Acknowledge that the same light illuminates us all; that there is a universal truth; but there is not a universal religion, and that one's own beloved tradition has grown organically in its own particular culture, and that is good.

Tradition and particularity

There is a peculiar tendency in Western thought (probably introduced by deists) to assume that

there is "behind", "underneath" or "at the back" of everything something that is the really real, the real truth, the essence of religion/philosophy etc

as my friend Andrew Brown wrote in a comment in reply to me (and he is rightly critical of and resistant to this tendency).

I think it is possible to draw parallels between, and gain illuminating insights from comparing, different religious traditions, without saying that they are the same or that there is an essential underlying truth which they both fall short of. For instance, it is fruitful to compare Christian contemplative prayer with Buddhist meditation, without saying that they are both imperfect expressions of some lost original. However, I do think that all these practices and ideas are grounded in some actual psychological experience which is common to human beings because we are finite entities in a physical world yearning for epistemological transcendence. I have tried to draw such comparisons in a previous blogpost which was a reflection on a paragraph from his previous blogpost.

I think I still failed, and still fell into the trap of assuming an underlying reality to which different traditions point, though. It's easier to make a distinction between practices than it is between abstract ideas.

However, I know that you can't simply transfer symbolism from one tradition into another. For example, the Unitarian interpretation of Hanukkah seems rather different from the traditional Jewish view of it. Similarly, someone once asked me to "do a service about Wicca", and I found that it was impossible. You can't understand what Wicca is like and why it is attractive without actually participating in it fully, and that means being initiated and really immersing yourself in the symbolism, the mythology and the seasonal festivals. Anyone trying to experience a taste of Wicca through the medium of the Unitarian hymn sandwich would come away sadly perplexed; and if you tried to do a Wiccan ritual in a Unitarian church, you'd end up watering certain things down to the extent that it just wouldn't be Wicca any more.

I get different things out of being a Wiccan than I do out of being a Unitarian. Both are necessary to my spirituality, but in very different ways. And you can't translate the one into the other. In order to enjoy Unitarianism, you have to be immersed in its symbol-systems and assumptions about how the world works. You can find places where Unitarianism and Wicca overlap; you can use ideas from one to illuminate the other - but they are not interchangeable.

Similarly, you can't assume that the Runes are a "Norse version of the Tarot". The Runes are a symbol-system in their own right, with their own cultural and historical background, which is very different from the cultural and historical background of the Tarot. It might, however, be interesting to do a rune-reading and a Tarot-reading on the same issue, and see how the two systems described it.

So I do agree with Andrew - we should not assume that all religions are imperfect views of the same underlying mystery. They are each unique and beautiful symbol systems, and it reduces them to something less than they are to try and shoehorn them into a "Theory of Everything". That's not how religious language works; it is metaphorical and embedded in its particular context.

I think the metaphor of religions as languages is helpful here. Sometimes it is possible to translate from one language to another, but sometimes the metaphor and symbolism is lost. Some authors cannot be translated from their original language because the imagery is lost thereby. Sometimes there is a word or expression in one language which has no satisfactory equivalent in another language. This is because its network of connotations and denotations is different. This is even true for closely-related languages like English and German, and is even more true of distantly-related languages like English and Sanskrit. Words used for complex concepts in Buddhist and Hindu thought have often been mistranslated or poorly expressed in English. The same thing happens when you try to import a practice or a concept from one religion to another. Especially if one of those religions is a conscious attempt to recreate an initiatory mystery tradition, and the other is an heir of the Enlightenment impulse to de-mystify everything. Even if you try to translate the concept of the real presence in the Eucharist, or different models of the atonement, from one form of Christianity to another, confusion and miscommunication can result. In order to understand a concept or practice thoroughly, you really do need to be immersed in the tradition from which it comes. That's not to say that a reasonable level of understanding cannot help to illuminate one's own practice and theology; but we should beware of facile borrowing just for the sake of innovation or "being inclusive". Some attempts at including elements from other traditions can seem patronising or inept, or just plain fluffy. (I've seen this happen.)

Autochthonic, revealed and rational religions

Pagan and indigenous religions are said to be "autochthonic" which literally means "earth-born" or self-generated from the Earth. They are traditional and indigenous practices and folk customs which people develop in order to facilitate their relationship with the land and nature. They are the kind of religions that deal with hunting, farming and fishing. Typically they regard the divine or deities and spirits as immanent in the land; they are either pantheistic or animist.

Revealed religions are those which are revealed by the deity or deities to humanity, and seem to come from a transcendent reality. Most of the religions of the so-called Axial Age (the age of great founder-figures like Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Lao Tsu and Jesus) are revealed, and are characterised by having scriptures and a transcendent view of the divine.

Rational religion is a child of the Enlightenment, and refers to the idea that people should be able to work out for themselves that the divine exists, and apply their reason to scriptures and other revealed ideas. I am not sure if anthropologists and sociologists of religion actually use this category, but it seems to me that Unitarianism doesn't fit in either the revealed religion category or the autochthonous category. It grew out of a revealed religion but it was trying to get back to "natural religion" and often regards the divine as immanent rather than transcendent.

I am strongly drawn to the idea that the experience of divinity should be compatible with reason, and accessible to anyone. However I do not think that the experience of the divine is a rational experience - it is accessed through the subconscious and the collective unconscious, which are associated with dreams and visions, and therefore not rational. What we should do with these promptings from the subconscious is to test them using our reason to see if they are harmful or beneficial, however.

I also believe that when you get to the heart of the religious experience, whatever religious tradition you are in, it is the same experience, albeit with different cultural trappings. The mystics of all traditions have reported similar feelings and developed similar practices.

Blessed are the poor

In previous posts, I have looked at whether Unitarianism is Christian or not, and what kind of Christianity it is heir to. In  my view, it is the heir of Christian heresies. In the ancient world, a heresy was a school of thought, and not a pejorative term implying deviance from the true path.

Some of the earliest Christian heretics were the Ebionites, who were the Church in Jerusalem. They were led by James, the brother of Jesus, who probably knew a thing or two about Jesus' life that did not get into the Gospels. The Ebionites took their name from the Hebrew word for poor; this was derived from the many references to the poor in the Hebrew bible, and from the line in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (which I always assumed meant that the poor were spiritually blessed, not that the poor-in-spirit were blessed). They did not believe in the doctrine of the virgin birth, which was in any case based on a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for a girl or young woman into Greek (parthenos). They also rejected the teachings of Paul of Tarsus. They may have been vegetarians, and they held an adoptionist view of Jesus as the Messiah. They are also said to have denied the pre-existence of Christ, and vicarious atonement (both doctrines which Unitarians have rejected since the Racovian Catechism).

Some Unitarians look to the Gnostics as spiritual fore-runners, but since the Gnostics were world-denying and Unitarianism is world-affirming, I personally do not think that the comparison is helpful, except insofar as the Gnostics denied vicarious atonement, and held that the purpose of Jesus' existence was to bring enlightenment.

Other early Christian groups which broke away from the mainstream were the Miaphysites and the Dyophysites. They rejected the compromise on the nature of Christ which was hammered out at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

The Pelagian heresy is interesting, in that Pelagius rejected the doctrine of original sin. However, the implication of Pelagianism is that since humans are capable of exercising their free will to become good, we ought to be able to live blameless lives, and there is no excuse for not doing so. Pelagius himself was quite puritanical, and expected people to live up to quite high standards. Semipelagianism sounds more manageable than full Pelagianism.

The Arian heresy (see my previous post) was a very important and widespread view, which influenced early Socinians. Arianism was very popular in the early medieval Germanic kingdoms, and for a while, it looked as if it would become the mainstream theology of the church in Northern Europe.

The Racovian Catechism was an important milestone in the development of Socinian thought, though it is by no means the final statement of either Socinian or Unitarian theology, and it was recognised by its authors that it was a provisional statement, and that the church was open to the discovery of new truth.

Why are all these ideas important? Because they show that mainstream Christian doctrine was arrived at by a series of disputes, controversies and compromises, and was not inevitable or obvious. They also show that real Christian theology is a far cry from the simplistic formulations of many modern evangelical churches, which are usually based on penal substitution theology (a combination of the doctrines of total depravity and vicarious atonement).

Golden heresies

Having said in the previous two posts that Unitarianism has its roots in Christianity, we must ask: in what kind of Christianity does it have roots?

It is the heir of Renaissance humanism; of Anabaptists, Socinians, Arians, Lollards, Universalists, Arminians, and other liberal and heretical schools of thought. And it is the child of Enlightenment Deism, and of Enlightenment thought generally.

In ancient Greece, a haeresis was a school of thought, and diversity of ideas was considered valuable; it was only in the Christian era that a definitive version of truth was thought desirable and so heresy became anathema.

The Renaissance humanists were the first to campaign for education in the humanities (grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy), and to improve the understanding and translations of Biblical and early Christian texts, as well as translating classical pagan texts. Unitarianism has, for most of its history as a  movement, been keen on biblical criticism, and using one's reason to work out what the texts mean (not relying on external authority for an interpretation).

The Arian heresy, first propounded at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, is the view that Christ is not "very God of very God" - he is either God's son by adoption or by creation. The Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God did not always exist, but was created by — and is therefore distinct from and inferior to — God the Father. This being so makes him no longer unique, and also has implications for other Christian doctrines.

The Socinians held an Arian view of Christ, and it is arguably they who discovered the principle of tolerance which is such an important part of Unitarian values. At one of their earliest church councils, they discovered that they could not agree on several theological points — so they agreed to differ, rather than create further schism. The Socinians emerged from among the Anabaptists of Northern Italy in the late 16th century; Fausto Sozzini, their founder, had read the works of Servetus on the errors of the Trinity. When they  arrived in Poland, the Socinians started a printing press at Rakow (which town was subsequently razed to the ground by the Catholics) and from Rakow, Socinian and Unitarian ideas spread to England and Transylvania — where, in due course, the Polish Socinians fled, as Poland was caught in the grip of the Counter-Reformation. In due course the Unitarians of Transylvania became a church which still survives today, and Unitarianism was founded in England by Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey.

The Lollards do not, as far as I know, have any direct connection with Unitarianism, but they are interesting as the first group to have translated the Bible into English, and to have looked outside the Catholic Church for the source of religious authority. Some of them were thought to have been non-trinitarians.

The Universalists never formed a formal church in England (although the General Baptists, who were much influenced by Arminianism, did reject the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, and most General Baptist churches joined the Unitarian movement and retain a distinct identity within it). However, the idea of universal reconciliation was popular in England, and was held by many Unitarians, who also rejected vicarious atonement.

Many early Unitarians believed in "salvation by character" and so were interested in books like The Imitation of Christ. So it seems that they drew on mystical and contemplative forms of Christianity as well as the liberal and rational Protestant forms mentioned above. Many Unitarian churches started out as liberal Presbyterian; others were Independents.

But the most important aspect of Unitarianism for me is that it is reasonable, and tolerant, and honours diversity. The famous Unitarian values of freedom, reason and tolerance are said to have emerged because people wanted the freedom to reason about what the Bible meant; but then they found that different people came to different conclusions about what it meant, so then they had to tolerate each others' different opinions. Unitarians have never burnt anyone at the stake or killed them for their beliefs. On the contrary, Unitarians have frequently been killed or burnt for their beliefs.

Another massively important aspect of Unitarianism is its positive attitude to other faiths, which stems partly from the idea that Jesus is an exemplar and not a saviour — if he is not a saviour, there is no need to convert people of other faiths to Christianity; and because Unitarians  believe that the Divine reveals itself to different peoples in different ways, other religions are respected (though might be criticised for harmful practices).

The Unitarian insistence on building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth also appeals to me. And of course the fact that it is inclusive of LGBT people, and has always campaigned for the education and emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, and social justice generally, is really important.  And so is its positive attitude to science. Charles Darwin was the son of a Unitarian, and his wife Emma was a Unitarian as well. Unitarians were probably among the earliest to accept evolution — certainly Barbara Bodichon (Unitarian and Pre-Raphaelite) had accepted it, as she painted controversial geological views of cliffs.

Modern Unitarianism has also been profoundly influenced by Transcendentalism, which grew out of 19th century American Unitarianism, and also influenced the Pagan revival, and much of American and European life and literature. I have written elsewhere on how Ralph Waldo Emerson, and hence Transcendentalism, was influenced by the translation of the Upanishads into English by Rammohun Roy, founder of the Brahmo Samaj and campaigner for the education of women and the abolition of sati. The Transcendentalists believed (among other things) in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.

So these are the kind of ideas of which Unitarianism is the heir — not the narrow and pessimistic doctrines of Calvinists, Evangelicals and scholasticism, but the broad and tolerant strains of the Reformation, which sought freedom and tolerance. The systems of thought which were the forerunners of Unitarianism were optimistic about human and divine nature. They were not world-denying, but world-affirming.

Roots hold me close, wings set me free

Roots hold me close
Every religious tradition needs roots. We need the forebears who shaped our traditions and our thinking. If we were not proud of them, why would we want to be part of our tradition? We need the spiritual practices, rituals and symbolism of our tradition - these are the things that transform us, and help us to cohere as a community.

How does ritual effect transformation? By allowing us to symbolically represent the inner processes of our individual and collective psyche, and change their relationships to each other.

What are the rituals of Unitarianism? There's the hymn sandwich (yes, it is a ritual), the Flower Communion, the Water Communion, the lighting of the flaming chalice.  There's communion. We need these rituals because they are part of our identity as a worshipping community.

But we also need personal spiritual practice, which we have the freedom to choose from many different traditions. However, our roots lie in the Christian tradition, and if we chop off our roots, the plant might die. We can learn about lectio divina, prayer beads, contemplative prayer, and liberal and mystical Christian theology.  All of these practices and traditions were developed by people who were rooted in the same culture that we are, and they fit in with our cultural background. We also have roots - albeit further back - in the pre-Christian polytheist traditions of these islands, and these inform many of our folk customs and festivals.

Of course there's nothing to stop us from learning the spiritual traditions and practices of others, but let's be careful to avoid a shallow engagement with them, one that is not rooted in the philosophical outlook of the tradition being borrowed from. It's worth reading this critique of Pagan UU rituals, which points out that they are often engaging with the fluffy end of Paganism, rather than the full depth of Pagan theology. I have 20 years' experience of Pagan rituals, and they have considerable transformative effect and powerful resonance. I also practice Buddhist meditation (specifically Metta Bhavana), which I find really helpful.

Wings set me free
So I am not by any means arguing that Unitarianism and UUism should only use Christian practices - it could be argued (by those who do not view us as Christian) that this is also a form of cultural appropriation, depending on whether you see Unitarianism as post-Christian, universalist, interfaith, multi-faith, or something else. What I am suggesting is that we should feel free to explore Christian mysticism alongside other spiritualities, and that whatever tradition we are drawn to, a pick and mix approach, or a shallow engagement with it, will most likely not be conducive to spiritual growth.

I think we need to be aware of what we are doing when we borrow any practice, whether it is Pagan, Christian, Buddhist, or whatever. What is the underlying theology and philosophy of the practice? Is it compatible with our values, theology and philosophy? If we adapt the practice to fit our values, theology and philosophy, have we taken the soul out of the practice and made it into something else? If this is the case, should we rename the practice?  If we are going to engage with Buddhist or Jewish or Pagan practices, we need to do so in a mindful way, with an understanding of the underlying philosophical tenets of Buddhism, Judaism or Paganism.

Given the way that the Christian ritual of communion has developed, is it valid for Unitarian communities to practice bread-and-wine communion? (I'd say yes, because we have always done so with our own interpretation of what it means, which is not so far away from other liberal Protestant groups.)

Unitarianism has also developed its own special rituals and symbolism, which help us to form our identity. These are our wings, if you like. Many religious traditions have their own special rituals and prayers and symbolism that make them unique (the Druids have the Awen and the Druid's prayer; Wiccans have cakes and wine; Quakers have Meeting for Worship; Anglicans have their liturgical traditions; and so on). Different Christian denominations do communion differently, and with a slightly different underlying theology.

We can interpret  rituals and symbolism differently from others, but we should be aware of their history and origins, and not lift them out of context without considering the theological and philosophical implications.

Unitarians and UUs cherish our freedom, but let's not use it for a shallow engagement with spiritual practices. Let's use it to engage meaningfully with theology and symbolism and ritual, and to enrich our understanding of both our own tradition and others. If you are not rooted in your own tradition, it's difficult to engage meaningfully with other traditions.

Religions are like languages - you can speak more than one language, but if you don't know the grammar of your own language, it's difficult to learn another one.

I've practised Wicca for 20 years, so I would say that I speak the language of Wicca really well. But I was brought up as a Christian, so I speak that language too. Whether I like it or not, Christianity informs my thinking to a certain extent (even if I am reacting against some aspect of it). Over the last three years, I have immersed myself in Unitarian history and thought, so I would say I speak that language pretty well too. I also see it as a distinct language, rather than as a dialect of Christianity.

One of the things that I really value about Unitarianism is that it allows me to speak in all three languages, and to offer translations between them - as well as bringing in concepts from other religions which may shed some light on the ideas being discussed.

I also find it helpful to interpret and critically evaluate ideas from all three traditions in the light of ideas from other religions. The ideas of Sufism (which was partly derived from Neoplatonism and Gnosticism) are particularly helpful for understanding what Jesus was talking about. The ideas of Hinduism are really helpful for developing a deeper engagement with Pagan theology and philosophy.

Is Unitarianism Christian?

There has been much debate recently about whether Unitarianism (and Unitarian Universalism) is Christian, post-Christian, universalist (in either the modern sense or the 19th century sense), or something else.

In our insistence on being non-creedal, have we adopted an "anything goes" approach?

Many Christians would claim that Unitarianism is not Christian, because most Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity and the doctrine of vicarious atonement. But not all Christians believe in vicarious atonement (at least not in the penal substitution theology version of it). The Orthodox Christian view of Christ's role and function is quite different from that of Western Christians. Early Christians did not believe in the Trinity; the doctrine was finalised at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. So neither of these beliefs are essential to Christianity. It might be argued that certain values (such as forgiveness, social justice and compassion) are unique to Christianity, or promoted by Christianity more than by other faiths - but in fact Roman polytheism listed compassion as a virtue. It is difficult to define any religion by listing its beliefs and values, because religion is about identity and community rather than beliefs and values.

Many Unitarians would claim that Unitarianism is not Christian, sometimes for the same reasons that some Christians would make that claim, and sometimes because Christianity is viewed as exclusivist (in the sense of regarding itself as the sole possessor of truth) - but many Christians take part in interfaith dialogue and study other faiths in a spirit of humility which avoids cultural and theological imperialism.

My own view is that Unitarianism has Christian roots (and that the tree is made of the same wood). We use the Bible in our services. We are rooted in a Christian culture (whether you like it or not, Western Europe has been Christian for centuries - and yes, that religion was imposed by the sword, but it's still part of our culture, rather like the way that British law and morality is part of the culture in post-colonial countries). The values promoted by Christianity (and by other traditions) are still widely valued in our culture, and by Unitarians. We still celebrate Christian festivals, together with all the Pagan trappings that come with them (who doesn't like Christmas presents, Easter eggs, Christmas trees, and all that?) We still think Jesus was a good bloke.

And yet... Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism include some unique traditions of our own: Transcendentalism, Deism, Universalism (in both senses), the Flower Communion, the Water Communion, the flaming chalice. We have the writings of our Unitarian and Universalist forebears. And, inherited from Servetus, some Unitarians have a pantheist understanding of the Divine that was partially informed by Neoplatonic and other hermetic writings, which has fed into the Pagan revival via Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists, and made room for Pagan spirituality in the 20th and 21st century.

So it is true that Unitarianism is both Christian and non-Christian, depending on your understanding of what "Christian" means. Given that mainstream Christians can't agree on what it means, it's hardly surprising that Unitarians can't either.

I think the key to defining whether a group or an individual fits into any particular category is, in the end, about membership and identity. What do you identify as - and do the other people with that identity agree with your self-identification?

I do not identify as a Christian, but I do identify as a Unitarian, because I am accepted as a member of a Unitarian community; I share the views of the majority of Unitarians about the value of the Bible and the Christian tradition; I espouse the values of Unitarianism; and I am pretty well versed in the history and culture of Unitarianism.

But there's nothing to stop a Unitarian from identifying as a Christian. Unitarianism does after all emerge from the Christian tradition, and there's much to value in the Christian tradition (as well as much to criticise). And if we reject the Christian tradition outright, we reject much that is of value.

The empty path

Someone once said to me that Unitarianism is an empty path. They meant it as a criticism, but I thought it sounded rather positive and Taoist. "The way that can be named is not the true Way" (usually written as "The tao that can be named is not the true Tao", but Tao just means "way").

In "Mind your language", Danny Crosby reflects on the view expressed by a character in The Simpsons that Unitarianism is like an empty bowl.  The point about an empty bowl is that you can fill it with whatever you like; it is clean and receptive, and it gives form to whatever fills it.

The point about an empty path is that it is not cluttered up with extraneous symbols, meaningless rituals, and pointless prohibitions.

I like the idea of the empty path, because it reminds me of apophatic theology and the via negativa described by Matthew Fox.

My christology

“The incarnation is true, not of Christ exclusively, but of Man universally, and God everlastingly.” - James Martineau

My christology is neither high nor low,
but broad and deep.

We are all Christ,
emerging wet and shining
from the River Jordan,
with the light of heaven
shining on us.

We are all Buddha,
reborn each moment,
arising dependent,
Buddha-nature unfolding.

We are all John Barleycorn,
cut down in autumn,
ploughed back into the earth each winter,
putting on green shoots in spring.

We are all Aradia,
bringing her subversive message of hope
to an oppressed people.

We are all messiahs,
and we must all save the world
together, like rainbow warriors.

Let us recognise the work
to which we are called,
and open our sacred hearts to the world.


Yvonne Aburrow
2-7-11, 6.01 am

Notes

• Aradia is the messianic figure supposed to have appeared to Italian witches and taught them the mysteries of Diana
• Christology is what you think the nature of Christ is (in relation to God and humanity)
• John Barleycorn is a dying and resurrecting vegetation spirit in  Wiccan mythology
• The Legend of the Rainbow Warriors is a prophecy of the coming of saviours

(part of the Write for your Life practice developed by Merle Feld)

Reclaiming religion-words

Many people have difficulty with words like church, religion, and worship because they have acquired negative connotations through association with evangelicalism and fundamentalism. As Dennis Potter once said, "The trouble with words is that they've been in other people's mouths."

So I would like to suggest some more positive meanings for these words.

Religion - to reconnect with all that is; to connect with one's deeper being in community with others.

Church - a community of people with whom one goes on a spiritual quest or journey.

Worship - a celebration of what is of ultimate worth in our lives

Belief - trusting and loving something greater than yourself (not necessarily something supernatural - it could be humanity or your community)

Faith - a state of openness or trust

God - the experience of connection with other beings, the ultimate mystery, the source of all life, the spirit of life, the ground of all being

Some words might be irredeemable... but let's give them a try:

Christian - someone who follows the teachings of Jesus and tries to live by his values

Salvation - a process of healing and restoring the lost parts of the soul to each other (not undertaken by some strange supernatural means, but by being in loving community with others)

Sin - a state of alienation or separation from the wellsprings of life

The trouble with using these words without carefully qualifying of what you're talking about is that people will hear the original meaning of the word that they were taught, rather than the (new to them) liberal meaning - especially in a culture where people are more interested in the dictionary definition (denotation) of a word than how it is used in different contexts (connotation). So if you're going to use one of these words to mean something other than the accepted view of what it means, it can cause difficulty to newcomers to your liberal religious community.