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Luther Elmore
August 30, 2009
PRAYER:
Please join me in an attitude of prayer.
On this day at this hour…we pray to remember. We pause to remember those who have led the way for us. We seek to recall their lives…their words…their deeds. We seek to honor their leadership and inspiration.
This day we also pray to remember those in our own lives who have led us to this place… Those teachers…parents…ministers…writers… loved ones… who have safely guided us to be here…now.
We are thankful for their lives and for the path that has led us here.
Today, Let us remember all who have gone before……
Let us remember our past as we look to our future.
Let us remember……
This is our prayer.
Amen.
READINGS:
# 704 by John Murray
# 592 “The Free Mind” by William Ellery Channing
SERMON: American Roots of Unitarian Universalism: William Ellery Channing and John Murray
It is a joy to be here today at the First Unitarian Univeralist Church of Austin.
We are the church of the long and to some confusing name,
We are Unitarian Universalists and one name is not adequate to describe us. The reason for that is, of course, that we spring from 2 religious traditions – Unitarians and Universalists – each having distinctive beliefs, histories, and organizations. The roots for each of these groups began long ago with discussions about the divinity of Jesus, the nature of God, and the afterlife. In America two of our greatest early forefathers along this pathway were John Murray and William Ellery Channing. John Murray brought his universalist theology to the American colonies in the years immediately prior to the American Revolution. Almost 50 years later William Ellery Channing challenged orthodox beliefs regarding the concept of God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and thereby defined Unitarians.
The direct pathway to modern UUs began with the Protestant Reformation of 1517. Martin Luther, a Catholic monk in Wittenburg, Germany, objected to what he saw as the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church. On October 31, 1517, he posted a list of 95 articles for discussion on his cathedral door. These 95 Theses set off a revolution in theology and church history as great as the revolution set off by Christopher Columbus who had discovered the “New World” only 25 years earlier.
Luther’s search for true Christian belief and practice in the scriptures led others to do the same. Nineteen years later John Calvin, a French lawyer and theologian, published his seminal work The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Differing from Luther, Calvin emphasized original sin, the depravity of mankind, and predestination by God.
Followers of John Calvin’s brand of Christianity would establish the most successful of the early English colonies in America – Massachusetts Bay. They were “Puritans” who wanted to purify the church and rid it of all improper doctrine and practices. They came for their own religious freedom, but they did not allow it in others. Dissenters from established beliefs were banished – some were executed.
These Calvinist doctrines of original sin and predestination remained mainstream theological thought in much of colonial America. Both of these ideas would be shaken in 1770 with the arrival in the colonies of John Murray. John Murray had experienced a tortuous early life. Born in England in 1741 into a devout Calvinist family, as a young man he lived what he called a “life of dissipation.” However, he then fell under the spell of the great evangelical preacher George Whitefield and Murray became a lay Methodist minister.
During the 1760s a serious challenge to mainstream Methodists was a former Methodist minister, James Relly, who had come to adopt a view of universal salvation for all mankind. Relly supported his beliefs with selected passages from the Bible.
For instance, 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Colossians 1:19-20 “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of the cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.” And 1 Timothy 2:3-4 “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved.” For Relly the idea of ultimate redemption of all mankind by a loving God was clear. How could a loving Father purposefully condemn the major portion of his creation to eternal damnation in hell?
In the early 1760s Relly had a universalist congregation in London. He was attacked by orthodox ministers as “a man black with crimes; an atrocious offender, both in principle and practice.” John Murray zealously opposed the universalist theology of Relly and once referred to him as a “detestable babbler.”
In order to save a young female follower of Relly from what he saw as the “pernicious errors” of universalism, Murray tried to convince her of the error of her ways. He did not succeed. As a matter of fact, her defense of universalism raised questions in his mind. He later described his feelings at the time as “I myself carefully avoided every universalist and most cordially did I hate them.” Nevertheless, he could not dispel his doubts. Slowly he became that which he had detested – a Universalist. As a result, he was excommunicated from his church. In the meantime he had married, but after about a year his wife gave birth to a son and shortly thereafter both died. Unable to pay his debts, he even spent some time in debtor’s prison. In 1770 at the age of 28 he vowed to never preach again and decided to come to the American colonies for a new start.
Even his voyage to the colonies went amiss. Bound for New York the ship ran aground off the coast of New Jersey. There they waited for high tide to raise the vessel so they could continue the trip. Murray was sent ashore to purchase supplies in the community which was appropriately named Good Luck, New Jersey. He met a local resident, a deeply religious man who had built a chapel of his own and Murray was invited to preach there. On September 30, 1770, John Murray broke his vow to never preach again and delivered his first sermon in America on the theme of Universal salvation. Historian David Bumbaugh – who graced this pulpit last year – referred to this date as “a date which subsequent generations would fix as the beginning of universalism in America.” Shortly after the service ended, Murray was notified that the tide had come in, the ship had been freed and they were preparing to sail to New York. Some have facetiously suggested that this was “perhaps the only miracle in Universalist history.” (Howe)
John Murray then spread his universalist message. For 4 years he was an itinerant preacher, traveling throughout the American colonies, finally settling in Gloucester, Mass. There in 1779, a group of 61 believers in universalism were suspended from the local parish church for failure to attend services. They established a new congregation, the Independent Church of Christ in Gloucester, and called John Murray as their minister. This is recognized as the first universalist church in America. (Howe)
Murray was regularly attacked for his unorthodox beliefs. He was vilified as a “false teacher” who held “corrupt tenets.” Once while preaching in Boston, a rock was thrown through a window, barely missing his head. He responded by picking up the rock and stating, “This is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing.” Another time followers of conservative orthodox minister Rev. Bacon pelted him with eggs. He responded to that assault by proclaiming “These are moving arguments, but I must own at the same time, I have never been so fully treated to Bacon and eggs before in all my life.”
In 1793 Murray became minister of the Universalist Society of Boston where he remained for 15 years. His message of universal salvation had great appeal, as you might imagine, among ordinary people, but not among the highly educated or most wealthy. Like Murray, most early Universalist ministers tended to be emotional, poorly educated, and evangelistic. As a Universalist, Murray remained a Bible-believing Christian who accepted wholeheartedly the doctrine of the Trinity.
By 1790 there were at least 17 Universalist ministers preaching their joyous message in America. That year they held a convention in Philadelphia and adopted a statement of beliefs. These “Articles of Faith” included specific clauses affirming belief in one God, Jesus as the mediator between God and man. Their statement on Universalism proclaimed that they believed that God would “finally restore the whole human race to happiness.” Although there would be differences of opinion as to how God would “restore the whole human race to happiness,” this would remain a core belief for all universalists. For his significant role John Murray is sometimes called “The Father of American Universalism.”
Unlike the Universalists who grew among the common people, the Unitarians grew among the highly educated and well-to-do. Rejecting the dour theology of Calvinism, they would use their minds more than their hearts to reject the concept of the Trinity and hold that “God is One.” In the years immediately before and after the American Revolution some liberal New England ministers led their churches to Unitarian positions. These were independent congregations, accepting and following the leadership of their individual ministers.
Conservative, orthodox ministers denounced this drift away from established acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity. Unitarians, on the other hand, felt they had sound Biblical basis for their position. After all, nowhere in the Bible is there an explicit reference or definition of the Trinity. Therefore, Unitarians rejected this description of God as an illogical, unscriptural invention by men. They selected specific Bible references that supported their position and indicated a distinction between God the Father and Jesus. For instance, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says “Our Father which are in heaven hallowed by thy name” and “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.” (Matthew 6:9) He later is quoted in John 16:32 as stating “I am not alone, but the Father is with me.” At the time of the crucifixion Jesus said “Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22:42 and “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:24), finally, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 24:46) Using such citations, the Unitarians proclaimed that there were numerous Biblical references which made it clear that God the Father and Jesus were not one in the same. Of course, this use of the Bible was not unique to them and they were neither the first nor the last to employ such tactics to support their position.
This controversy between the liberals and conservatives regarding the Trinity would erupt in 1803 over the choosing of a professor of divinity at Harvard. The Harvard Professor, Dr. David Tappan, passed away. The conservatives backed a thoroughly orthodox minister, Rev. Jesse Appleton, the liberals a suspected Unitarian, Henry Ware. After the governing board and Overseers approved the nomination of suspected Unitarian Ware in a very divided vote of 33 to 23, the conservatives raged, attacking Ware as holding secret Unitarian beliefs and claiming that he did not hold “orthodox principles” as the benefactor of the chair had stipulated. In protest, the conservatives resigned and were replaced with liberals, leaving Harvard clearly in control by liberal theological supporters. Only 5 years later the conservatives would establish their own orthodox seminary at Andover to compete with Harvard for the hearts and minds of new students and ministers. For years churches had a clear choice as they called new ministers. They could choose an orthodox, conservative religious leader from Andover or a questionable liberal and Unitarian from Harvard. This controversy at Harvard shattered the union between Trinitarians and Unitarians in New England churches.
One of the conservative overseers who had resigned, Rev. Jedediah Morse, took the controversy to a new level. Rev. Morse established a conservative religious magazine. In an attempt to highlight the orthodox position and challenge the liberals over their position on the Trinity, Morse published a pamphlet entitled “American Unitarianism.” This pamphlet was a reprint of one chapter from the recently London-published Memoirs of Theophilus Lindsey, an English Unitarian. Lindsay had shown a degree of common belief between English and American Unitarians. Having printed this chapter as a pamphlet, Morse then reviewed his pamphlet in his magazine, trying to show that liberal ministers were indeed Unitarians, that they were trying to hide their true beliefs, and that they should be expelled from their pulpits.
Chosen to reply to Morse was the 35 year old minister of Federal Street Church in Boston, William Ellery Channing. Channing denied that the ministers were Unitarian, but also proclaimed that belief or rejection of the Trinity was irrelevant. Such beliefs, according to Channing, did nothing one way or the other to help ministers inspire people to live Christian lives. Channing appealed for tolerance and acceptance of differing viewpoints. Channing now became the primary spokesperson for the liberals and he was well prepared for the task.
Channing had been born into a prominent and prosperous Rhode Island family. His mother’s father, William Ellery, had signed the Declaration of Independence. His father was Attorney General for the state of Rhode Island. At 18 he graduated from Harvard at the head of his class and later studied for the ministry there. Licensed to preach at the age of 23, Channing was called to be minister at Boston’s Federal Street Church, a position he would hold until his death 40 years later.
Thrown into the controversy surrounding the appointment of Henry Ware at Harvard, Channing was soon the intellectual leader and spokesperson for the liberals. The controversy between the liberals and conservatives, the Trinitarians and the alleged Unitarians, became even more divisive. Conservative ministers in the Boston area began to refuse to allow the liberals to speak in their pulpits. Since colonial times, Boston area ministers had regularly swapped pulpits once a month in a “pulpit exchange.” For conservatives this now meant the introduction of unorthodox, liberal viewpoints, so they stopped the practice.
With this controversy as a background, in 1819 William Ellery Channing would deliver the most famous sermon in UU history, “Unitarian Christianity.” Jared Sparks had just been called as minister to Baltimore’s First Independent Church. Channing was invited to deliver the ordination sermon. This sermon of 1819 defined Unitarians.
As his text for the sermon Channing chose 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Prove all things hold fast that which is good.” He began by explaining that he was going to depart from the normal sermon and not talk about the nature and duties of a newly ordained minister. Depart he did!! He mounted a defense of Unitarian beliefs. He defended the Bible as God’s revelation to man, but said that “The Bible is a book written for men in the language of men, and…its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books. We therefore distrust every interpretation which, after deliberate attention seems repugnant to any established truth…God has given has given us a rational nature and will call us to account for it.” He protested against what he called the “irrational and unscriptural doctrine of the Trinity,” declaring “We believe in the doctrine of God’s unity, or that there is one God, and one only. We object to the doctrine of the Trinity.” Jesus’ mission, according to Channing, was to bring about “a moral, or spiritual deliverance of mankind.” He then proclaimed that the true mark of a Christian was a moral life. As he said, “We think that religious warmth is only to be valued when it springs naturally from an improved character…When it is the warmth of a mind which understands God by being like him. We regard the spirit of love, charity, meekness, forgiveness, liberality, and beneficence, as the badge and distinction of Christians, as the highest image we can bear of God, as the best proof of piety.” He closed by admonishing Jared Sparks, “May your life preach more loudly than your lips” and repeated, “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” Channing had boldly denounced the Trinity, called for the use of reason in religion, and proclaimed that a moral life was the true mark of religious people.
Before delivering this sermon on “Unitarian Christianity” Channing had prepared 2,000 copies for print. Within 4 months it went through 8 editions. It was the most widely circulated publication in America since Thomas Paine’s Common Sense which in 1776 had urged independence from England. Now the Unitarians were out in the open; there was no hiding their beliefs. Six years later in 1825 they would establish the American Unitarian Association.
For various reasons Unitarians and Universalists did not come together easily. Those early American Univeralists were generally poorly educated evangelicals who continued to appeal to and represent the common people. One historian has described them as “coming from the wrong side of the tracks.” On the other hand, early American Unitarians were generally highly educated, influential philosophers and writers who represented the well connected and wealthy. One historian has said that the Unitarians believed in “the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston.” A later day Unitarian Universalist would explain the difference between the two groups as the Universalists believing that God was too good to condemn them to hell, while the Unitarians believed that they were too good to be condemned to hell.
Over the years both groups would dwindle in numbers and influence, would drift to more liberal humanist positions, and in 1961 would join together to form the American Unitarian Universalist Association.
So, what do we take from these roots? Few of us these days are much concerned about eternal salvation or the Trinity. We no longer argue about universal salvation; we no longer shout that “God is one.” We no longer debate eternal bliss in a Kingdom paved with streets of gold versus eternal damnation in hell fire and brimstone; we no longer debate the oneness of God versus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, I believe there are lessons to be learned. I would suggest that from those old Universalists we take a broad worldview and concern for others. We are all one humankind. We are all one people, inhabiting one planet. We are all in this together. The Universalists point us to a greater love for everyone and an expansive, yes Universal, regard for all. The Unitarians, on the other hand, show us a tolerance for others, an openness for inquiry, and an encouragement to use our reason. We should not sit upon the beliefs and traditions of the past. We should not rest upon the laurels of long ago. We should as William Ellery Channing encouraged his generation seek to free our mind and use our reason. We should as he said, “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.”
Today that is what we are – Unitarian Universalists. We carry it in our name and we carry it in our beliefs. You need search no further than our Seven Principles to see the presence of Unitarian and Universalist doctrine. The Seven Principles state that we affirm and promote “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”
“The inherent worth and dignity of every person.” That is universal.
The Seven Principles go on to state that we affirm and promote a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”
A “search for truth and meaning”. That strikes at the core of Channing’s Unitarian Christianity to “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.”
In my own personal journey, I did not regularly participate in church services and activities for over 30 years…until I started attending here about 5 years ago.
However, I had continued to read a great deal. One of the many books I read during those years – and I cannot recall exactly why I chose it – was “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum. I found the book filled with folksy, down-to-earth advice, humor, and religious insight. As far as I recall, it did not make a lasting impression on me that on the jacket of the book Mr. Fulghum was described as a “Unitarian Minister.” I should have known. In the first chapter of the book he listed the important life lessons he had learned in kindergarten. These included such gems of wisdom as: “Clean up your own mess,” “Play Fair,” “Don’t hit people,” “Take a nap every afternoon.” And, of course, “Flush.”
He also included this bit of advice: “When you go out into the world, Watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.” I think that is good advice for five year olds… and for adults, as well.
I think we should continue to hold hands, look out for one another, and stick together.
We are not UUs by chance or accident, many have led the way for us as a religious association and as individuals.
Let us remember John Murray and William Ellery Channing. Let us remember who they were and the rich heritage they have passed down to us. Let us remember who we are…and let us work to make our future as meaningful and relevant as our past.
Amen.
