{"id":230,"date":"2017-12-10T00:22:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T00:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=230"},"modified":"2019-10-30T00:33:04","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T00:33:04","slug":"was-anyone-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=230","title":{"rendered":"Was Anyone Saved?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unitarian Universalism promises that human beings are strong enough, smart enough, and good enough to save ourselves and the world we share.\u00a0 How are we doing?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian Universalists often challenge themselves to come up with their \u201celevator speech.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge is to compose a memorable and attractive way to describe our faith to a stranger, and short enough that you could have the whole conversation within the space of an elevator ride.\u00a0 You\u2019ve only got a few minutes.\u00a0 The stranger steps onto the elevator.\u00a0 They notice your chalice pin, or your \u201cStanding on the Side of Love\u201d tee shirt.\u00a0 And they asks, \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, here\u2019s your chance.\u00a0 This person may be ready to embark on a spiritual journey that will transform their life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what do you say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian Universalism is notoriously difficult to describe.\u00a0 As soon as you mention words like church or faith, you\u2019re off on the wrong track.\u00a0 In our contemporary culture Evangelical Christianity has so perverted the picture of what being religious means that most people can\u2019t imagine that any other form of faith is possible.\u00a0 And in particular, using religious language, when you don\u2019t have time for a deep discussion (for instance, between the rooftop bar and the lobby of the downtown Hilton) is guaranteed to turn off exactly the kinds of people who are the best fit for Unitarian Universalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what I say.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve never actually said this to anyone on an elevator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian Universalists believe that human beings are good enough, smart enough, and strong enough to create healthy, joyful lives for ourselves and others and take care of the planet we share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll say that again<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian Universalists believe that human beings are good enough, smart enough, and strong enough to create healthy, joyful lives for ourselves and others and take care of the planet we share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unitarian Universalism doesn\u2019t preclude theism, I believe in God myself.\u00a0 But Unitarian Universalism is a very Humanist faith.\u00a0 We have deep faith in the power and ability of human beings to save ourselves by our own moral compass, our own logic and reason and our own natural power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are good enough.\u00a0 Meaning that human beings can distinguish right from wrong.\u00a0 We can recognize the right path, choose the right path, and follow the right path.\u00a0 We are good enough, Unitarians believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we are smart enough.\u00a0 Recognizing the good, we can then apply our considerable intelligence to come up with a strategy that moves us toward the good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And lastly, we are strong enough.\u00a0 Having created a smart strategy that leads to the good, we have the power to do the work that gets us there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, through our human goodness, human smarts and human strength, we can save ourselves.\u00a0 Salvation, in some religions is a gift bestowed (or not) by God.\u00a0 And salvation happens somewhere else, not this world, not this life, but a place and time where God\u2019s will is absolute.\u00a0 Salvation for Unitarian Universalists is something we do for ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here on the paths of every day —\u00a0
here on the common human way —\u00a0
is all the stuff the gods would take\u00a0
to build a heaven to mold and make\u00a0
new Edens.\u00a0 Ours the task sublime\u00a0
to build eternity in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Heaven, Eden, Salvation, looks for us not like clouds and robes and harps, Salvation is healthy, joyful lives, for ourselves and others; and a planet respected and protected, or, as the sixth and seventh principle of our faith describes Unitarian Universalist salvation:\u00a0 \u201cthe goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hymn we sang before the sermon is a good summary of our Unitarian Universalist theology.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit long for an elevator speech.\u00a0 But if you\u2019ve got somebody interested enough in Unitarian Universalism to stick around for a longer conversation, pretty soon they are likely to ask the inevitable follow-up questions.\u00a0 This is where deliberately religious language comes in.\u00a0 It gets a little more complicated from here, but that hymn is a pretty useful synopsis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo is it a church?\u201d they ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, we have churches,\u201d you answer, \u201cbut church for us is not a building so much as people coming together to do the work of changing lives and healing the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo do you read the Bible?\u201d they ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, sometimes\u201d you answer.\u00a0 \u201cBut Unitarian Universalists find spiritual truths in any place where good and smart people have engaged with the big questions of existence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat about Jesus?\u201d they ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, he\u2019s a special guy\u201d you answer.\u00a0 \u201cBut not special in a supernatural way.\u00a0 Just in the way that anybody who acts from love, teaches equality, and works for justice is special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then here\u2019s the key question, the question for the day, and the place where Unitarian Universalism really differs from other religions.\u00a0 \u201cWhere is our paradise?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the question where we really show our humanism.\u00a0 Christians and Muslims place paradise in another world, after death.\u00a0 The end of the rounds of reincarnation for Hindus and Buddhists is a seeing behind the veil of the material things of our world including the abandonment of personal identity.\u00a0 But for Unitarian Universalists, paradise is an \u201cearth [made] fair as heaven above\u201d as the hymn says.\u00a0 Paradise is a world we create for ourselves, right here, right now.\u00a0 The hymn says, \u201cin aspiration\u2019s sight.\u201d\u00a0 We are good enough, smart enough and strong enough to \u201cmold and make new Edens.\u201d\u00a0 And once we get it made, it will last.\u00a0 The hymn says, \u201cten thousand years of right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have my doubts about whether the Christian view of Heavenly salvation really exists.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably best to be agnostic about issues like life after death, issues where no one can have any empirical knowledge.\u00a0 But, here\u2019s the thing, I can be pretty certain, because I do have empirical evidence, that Unitarian Universalist salvation doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have no heaven on earth, obviously.\u00a0 In hundreds of years of Unitarian Universalism, we have not achieved a this-worldly salvation here and now.\u00a0 A world community of peace, liberty and justice for all is still our goal, not our reality.\u00a0 Our paradise is still in aspiration\u2019s sight but not within our reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Unitarian Universalism offer only a hope of \u201cten thousand years of right?\u201d but not a promise?\u00a0 Is our goal realistic?\u00a0 Is our hope only a false hope?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, to confound our faith even further, even if we grant that a world community of peace, liberty and justice for all, were possible (I suppose it is possible) does our salvation strategy, based on humans being good enough, smart enough, and strong enough, really give us what we need to get there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are human beings good enough?\u00a0 Because empirically the evidence is that human beings are not all that good.\u00a0 We are selfish.\u00a0 We are fearful.\u00a0 We abuse each other.\u00a0 We tell lies about other people.\u00a0 We hold secret meetings so we don\u2019t have to include people we don\u2019t want to hear from and so we can\u2019t be held accountable for our actions.\u00a0 We manipulate events so that we get our own way.\u00a0 Folks like Milo Yianoppolous say outrageous things just to cause trouble and provoke reactions.\u00a0 Folks like Steve Bannon are happy to trade on racial resentment, and fears of immigrants, in order to pursue their political goals.\u00a0 Folks like Donald Trump promote conspiracy theories to foment distrust of people and institutions he views as threats to his own power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, no, we aren\u2019t very good.\u00a0 Are we good enough<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are we smart enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We take a lot of pride in human intelligence.\u00a0 But sometimes we\u2019re not as wise as we think.\u00a0 Sometimes we\u2019re excited by ideas that sound great at first but then we don\u2019t do the work of thinking them all the way through.\u00a0 It\u2019s a well known psychological principle, called the Dunning-Kruger effect, that people with the least ability are also the ones with the most confidence in their abilities.\u00a0 The history of human smarts is that our technological advances are always a mix of good and bad.\u00a0 Nuclear power is a blessing and a curse.\u00a0 The rise of the internet, amazingly positive in opening up global communication and access to information, also gives us a world in which person-to-person connections are getting rarer and fake news is becoming hard to distinguish from real news.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are we strong enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some problems are simply beyond our ability to solve.\u00a0 That\u2019s the truth.\u00a0 Hurricanes in Texas and Puerto Rico.\u00a0 Wildfires throughout California.\u00a0 Ice shelves dropping off Antarctica and sea levels rising world wide.\u00a0 Human beings have demonstrated we are strong enough to alter the world\u2019s climate, but are we strong enough to reverse the natural processes we have put into motion?\u00a0 Strong enough<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if we haven\u2019t achieved salvation in terms of world community and respect for the interdependent web, how are we doing on the other half of our salvation goal?\u00a0 \u201cWorld community with peace, liberty, and justice for all\u201d means for all of us, individually, as well.\u00a0 I summarize the goal of Unitarian Universalism as creating healthy, joyful lives for ourselves and others and taking care of the planet we share.\u00a0 Our religious work is an earthly paradise, but also the business of saving souls, the goal of transforming people, one by one:\u00a0 healthy, joyful lives for ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are we good enough, smart enough, strong enough, to save ourselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our activities of worship and fellowship and education and social justice, are for the purpose of transformation.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u00a0 To be transformed.\u00a0 We have a personal goal:\u00a0 spiritual health and joyful lives.\u00a0 Our worship is not just theater for entertainment.\u00a0 Our fellowship is not just for friendship but a deliberate community, gathered for personal transformation.\u00a0 We\u2019re not just biding our time between Board meetings and book clubs.\u00a0 We\u2019re not here just to pass a few pleasant hours.\u00a0 We are about salvation. We are here to move ourselves toward better health and more joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how are we doing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are lives actually being transformed?\u00a0 Are people who arrive hurting, fearful, angry; healed, consoled, soothed?\u00a0 Are people who arrive confused about right and wrong, blinded by materialism, slaves to their own pathologies, transformed by what we do here to lives of health and joy?\u00a0 Are they?\u00a0 Was anyone saved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are the strategies that we offer:\u00a0 worship, fellowship, education and so on, actually effective in making transformation or do people sit through our religious programs week after week, year after year, staying pretty much stuck in exactly the narrow lives they\u2019ve always lived?\u00a0 Is the goal of transformation even possible?\u00a0 Do fearful people ever really lose their fears?\u00a0 Can selfish people open their hearts to include the needs and further the dreams of others?\u00a0 Is there anything in our Unitarian Universalist faith that can heal the sick, clothe the naked, feed the spiritually hungry, release the prisoners who live in captivity to their own pathologies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we cannot answer a powerful \u201cYes\u201d to that question, then our work here is called into question.\u00a0 Not having a powerful \u201cYes\u201d to that question throws us into a crisis of faith, a dark night of the soul.\u00a0 Is anyone saved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago the publishing house of the UUA, Skinner House Books published a book called,\u00a0Testimony<\/em>, edited by Meg Riley, who is the minister of our Church of the Larger Fellowship.\u00a0 The subtitle of the book is, \u201cThe Transformative Power of Unitarian Universalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is a collection of first person stories, told by people who felt their lives were saved in some way by our Unitarian Universalist faith.\u00a0 People who found a home here, when they felt spiritually homeless.\u00a0 People who found community here, when they felt alone.\u00a0 People who found strength and purpose.\u00a0 People who found inspiration in poetry and beauty.\u00a0 People who were told, maybe for the first time, that they were a person of inherent worth and dignity, and believed it.\u00a0 People saved from depression.\u00a0 People saved from despair.\u00a0 One story is titled \u201cFrom the Cellblock to Seminary\u201d and is exactly that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a moving collection of stories.\u00a0 It is faith-affirming.\u00a0 It is a little light in a dark night of the soul, if that\u2019s where you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meg Riley writes in her introduction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026truthfully, I have no interest in a faith that isn\u2019t saving people.\u00a0 What\u2019s the point?\u00a0 I know, though, that this language horrifies some Unitarian Universalists.\u00a0 So when we solicited stories for this anthology, we used a variety of words:\u00a0 How did Unitarian Universalism transform you?\u00a0 Heal you?\u00a0 Change you?\u00a0 Help you?\u00a0 I am hungry for these stories \u2026 because every day I forget that healing and redemption is possible.\u00a0 Every day I forget how strong love is.\u00a0 Every day I sink into despair about this precious planet and the greed that is choking out life, and I begin to believe that there is no way forward.\u00a0 Every day I need to know that I\u2019m not alone in my struggle to return to love and to re-center myself in grace and decency.\u00a0 Every day I need to know that I\u2019m part of something much bigger than myself and that, whether or not we can save each other and the planet, my tiny acts of faith matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meg Riley\u2019s words are powerful.\u00a0 That is our situation.\u00a0 That is our truth.\u00a0 That is our desperate need.\u00a0 But eventually, her words end at the same place of agnosticism where I think we must end up, if we are honest, if we are to be, as I say so often, a reality based religion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhether or not we can save each other and the planet, my tiny acts of faith matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meg Riley admits what I think we must admit after hundreds of years of this faith, perhaps we cannot save each other and the planet we share.\u00a0 Perhaps our work for world community and real and lasting respect for the interdependent web will always be \u201cin aspiration\u2019s sight\u201d but forever out of reach.\u00a0 Every day new folks are added to the world community and each must be educated and enlisted into the work.\u00a0 Someone is always just starting on the road to health and joy, and so our work never ends, can never end, will never end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps we are not completely good, entirely smart, all strong.\u00a0 Certainly no one is born that way.\u00a0 And few if any of us reach those standards even by the end of life.\u00a0 So then, are we forever damned?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Forever in need, but not forever condemned.\u00a0 Because perfection isn\u2019t required for salvation.\u00a0 Perfect goodness, wisdom and strength has never been the measure.\u00a0 We must need only be, good enough, smart enough, strong enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must be enough<\/em> to do the work.\u00a0 Even if the final goal is never reached, as Meg Riley says, our \u201ctiny acts of faith matter\u201d nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because surely some people are saved by this faith.\u00a0 Some people are transformed.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a book of those stories.\u00a0 There\u2019s another collection of those stories perhaps right in this room.\u00a0 We could tell a story like these of our own if we took the work of transforming ourselves seriously and devoted our time in church to reaching that goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think of the thousands of people who have passed through this room.\u00a0 Was anyone saved?\u00a0 I\u2019m certain some were.\u00a0 A little better.\u00a0 A little smarter.\u00a0 A little stronger.\u00a0 A person or two or twenty, who through tiny acts of faith won the salvation they required, who went out the same church door they came in, but and a little healthier, a little more joyful a little better prepared to join the movement of saving the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unitarian Universalism promises that human beings are strong enough, smart enough, and good enough to save ourselves and the world… Read more Was Anyone Saved?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","category-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}