Last preached on December 10th, 2006
I would like to tell you a few stories. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “All history is Biography”, and so behind these stories are real people. It is my hope that through these stories, we can catch a glimpse at the emergence and evolution of a particular set of religious thought, how that thought is different from many other religious theologies, and why it is so important to us as Unitarian Universalists. So, I ask you to open up your imaginations, and see if you can picture how this curious journey of Universalism happened… and continues to happen.
Once upon a time, (somewhere around 1770, to be exact) there was a New Jersey farmer named Thomas Potter. Now, he had no formal education, but he was by all reports a really good farmer, and somewhat successful. He was also a deeply religious man.
In this time, the religious tradition that was most widely held in New England was Calvinism. For those of you not familiar with Calvinism, it was a religious tradition that was formed around the “Doctrine of Pre-destination”. Its central belief was that, before you were born, God had already decided if you were going to heaven or hell. Only a very limited few, “The Elect” were destined for heaven, and everyone else was doomed to hell, no matter what they did, said, or believed in their lives. The way you showed that you were one of “the elect” was by living a perfect, or near perfect life seemingly by instinct. But nothing you did in life could change your fate.
To be blunt, Old Tom Potter thought this was just plain silly. And yet, he had not found any set of religious thought that he liked better. But, he was a proactive man, so he took it upon himself to build a chapel on a small section of his farm. It was not a big chapel, but it soon became the center of entertainment for all of his family and neighbors. This was because, instead of hiring a minister, Potter would con anyone traveling through the area who had ever even considered preaching into holding a service on heaven knew what topic from the pulpit of his little chapel.
Someday, I would like to nominate Thomas Potter to be the Patron Saint of all UU church program committees….. Little could he have known the example he was setting would still be followed centuries later!
One day, a ship from England ran aground off shore at Potter’s farm. On this ship was a man named John Murray. Now, Murray had done some preaching in England, and some of his radical ideas, and an inability to pay back certain debts, had lead to his getting on a ship bound for America. He had actually sworn never to preach again. When the ship ran aground on a sandbar on the way to New York Harbor, Murray volunteered to go ashore with some crewmembers to purchase supplies.
Their boat was met by Thomas Potter, who very quickly ferreted out of John Murray that he had once been a preacher. Over two days of persistent urging, Murray agreed to preach just one more time.
When Thomas Potter and all of his friends and neighbors heard Murray preach, they knew they had found the message they had been looking for. This was the vision of God, God’s love, and human community that they had never even dreamed of. It was wonderful!
Though Murray’s service was entitled “Universal Grace”, the ideas it espoused came to be known as the “Doctrine of Universal Salvation”. In this land of Calvinism, where only certain people were saved and all else destined for hell, Murray preached that a loving God would not send any of his children to hell, or at the very least would not send anyone there forever. All who believed were saved. It was a positive view of the Christian religion, and though Thomas Potter’s involvement in Universalist history mostly ends here, his effect was huge. For after the service was over, his encouragement to John Murray to keep preaching caused the young minister to decide to give it another try when he reached New York. In what was possibly the only ever Universalist Miracle, the winds kept the ship on the sandbar just long enough for Murray to finish his sermon. Right afterward, a sailor rushed in to say the ship was clear, and ready to sail.
The reception to Murray’s teachings in Potter’s chapel lead Murray to continue to preach when he arrived in New York. Calvinism had prepared the ground for him. A positive, loving message about God was such a contrast to the hellfire and damnation that was common fare in New England Churches. After traveling for four years preaching from town to town, John Murray settled in the town of Gloucester. But everywhere he went, he found both supporters and detractors.
Nothing helps spread a new set of religious ideas faster than controversy. This was a lesson that would resound all through Universalist history. But with that controversy came attention… and that was exactly what John Murray needed. Universalist churches began to spring up, young ministers were ordained as Universalists, and this new denomination with a new message spread like wildfire among the lower and middle classes of early American society… because these were the very people that Calvinism said were doomed to hell.
Murray served the Continental Army as a Chaplain, and was later described as “the most popular preacher in America”. John Adams once said that he was “The only preacher who could get Thomas Jefferson into church!” In the space of ten years, Universalism went from one man preaching in a small chapel in a farmer’s field to the fastest growing set of religious ideas in America.
John Murray, taught a doctrine that was undoubtedly Christian. He was a believer in the holy Trinity, but believed that Jesus’ death on the cross wiped out the debt for all sin. He believed that hell, if it existed, was only a temporary stopping place for those who did not believe in Jesus at all… and that once hell had taught someone to believe (probably pretty quickly), then that person was admitted to heaven. He believed in the Bible, but saw the dangers of not using at least some common sense in doing so.
And he loved the spiritual, more charismatic view of Christianity. His was a faith based in love, not fear. Murray believed in a God of love, which over time even evolved into a positive view of human nature.
As the denomination grew, it developed some structure and organization. It began to meet in conventions held once a year. At one such convention, there was in attendance a young, dynamic lay-preacher named Hosea Ballou. Ballou had been, on his own and not ordained, traveling around New England preaching Universalism in any pulpit that would let him. At this convention, another Universalist minister became very enthralled in the spirit of the occasion, pressed a bible against this young dynamic lay-minister’s chest, and declared him ordained by the spirit! (Later, they conducted a more formal ordination, just to be sure)
Hosea Ballou was, different. He had some radical ideas on Universalist theology. It is in the example of Hosea Ballou that we begin to see a unique trend in the development of Universalist thought. Most religions tend to “codify” or “clarify” their religious tradition, tending to whittle away at theology till they arrive at a soon immovable “creed”. The development of the Apostle’s Creed out of the Chaos of the early Christian Church is a good example of this.
Ballou did something different. Instead of “whittling down” Universalist thought, he sought to expand it. He added to Universalism aspects of Deist thought on the nature of God, from examples like Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine. He adopted a Unitarian view of Jesus’ divine nature, deciding that Jesus was a divinely inspired man, but essentially a man, not God. He decided that the Bible was the prime source of religious inspiration, but not the only source. He also set forth a radically new view on atonement, or on the way God forgives sin. Instead of God needing to be appeased in payment for human sin, humankind needed to take responsibility for living more like God. Sin did not offend God as much as it lessened humanity.
And he accepted that Reason must be used in order to understand scripture.
Needless to say, John Murray was not exactly happy. This was a different form of Christianity, and was certainly not what Murray had been preaching. However, Murray invited Ballou to preach in his pulpit in 1798. After one Ballou Sermon, Murray’s wife had someone else stand up and inform everyone that “The doctrine that has been preached here is not the doctrine that is usually preached here.” To which Ballou smiled and agreed. It wasn’t.
While Murray worked hard to solidify the loose coalition of Universalist Ministers into a true denomination, Ballou soon came to be known as the leading Universalist theologian. This set in place a trend of younger ministers feeling free, maybe even required, to continue to evolve Universalist theology. Rather than a theology that codified into an unmovable creed, it became more like a living set of ideas, subtly changing with each new thinker. Universalist ministers continued to focus on the power of God’s love, and not fear of God as the basis for their theology
Universalism came to be known as the “prominent heresy of the times” as it exploded in popularity, specifically among the lower and middle classes. In the tradition of the example set by Murray and Ballou, there was a freedom in the Universalist ministry to explore and develop theology, within reasonable limits. Some Universalist ministers taught that some people might have to spend a short time in hell before they could go to heaven, others taught that there was no hell at all. Some accepted Ballou’s views on atonement, some opposed them. It was in this time period that Ballou said, about the debates over theology between ministers that “If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury. If we do not agree in love, there is no agreement that will do us any good.” This agreement in love speaks directly to the heart of the Unitarian Universalist Association, as we explore what covenant and right relations mean to our faith.
And so, here we find another unique aspect of Universalism, that it was considered not only ok, but beneficial for ministers to disagree on things. It became a form of group brainstorming, with many ministers and lay-members putting forth ideas and debating them. Rather that stagnating, Universalist Theology continued to evolve, even if slowly at times.
I don’t mean to imply that all went smoothly… it didn’t. When Ballou made his comment about “agreeing in love” it was because not everyone was agreeing in love! Some accused Ballou himself of having retained nothing of Christianity but the name. Groups formed within the Universalist movement, like the “Ultra-Universalists” who believed that there was no future punishment or hell, to “restorationist Universalists” who wanted to return to the more traditional Universalism of Murray. These groups waged theological battles in periodicals and in pulpits. One of these periodicals still exists today, with a different name. We know it as “UU World”.
But Universalist theology continued to change and evolve, with each new thinker and minister. It encompassed issues of the day, including Slavery, Civil War, Woman’s Suffrage, poverty, and began a tradition of applying that theology to making positive changes in the world. In fact, the Universalists found themselves often working in these causes with a religious denomination that shared many of the same theological and social ideas, the Unitarians. Near the end of his life, Ballou even took to preaching from a Unitarian pulpit himself. Many Universalist ministers were also ordained as Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. Thomas Starr-King, for whom the UU Starr-King School for the Ministry is named.
For a little while, after Ballou’s death, it looked like Universalism might go the way of other religions, and seek to codify their thought into a creed. In fact, over the coming decades, several such psudo-creeds were written, and accepted by Universalist Conventions. Universalist Seminaries were opened, and a more academic feel was added to this denomination who until then had ordained ministers based more upon experience than schooling. Tufts Collage, Lombard College, and what would later become the California Institute of Technology were founded as Universalist schools, just to name a few.
The Universalists also took a daring step for their time, and before women had gained the right to vote, they began to be ordained as Universalist ministers. Olympia Brown was ordained with full denominational sanction in 1863, with a full seminary education. She was the first of many. In fact, the Universalists were not only first, but they ordained more than twice the number of female ministers the Unitarians did.
It was in this time that the Universalists realized that theology and charity were not enough. Rather than just give aid, they felt called to actively work to make the world a better place. Social Action became linked to their religious impulse, something that survives as a core part of our faith today.
One of the amazing aspects of a look at Universalist theology is that, it has felt free to become alternatively more conservative, and then more liberal several times in its past. Depending on the decade, you would find theology that seemed much closer to modern Christianity than to modern Unitarian Universalist thought, and then ten years later the opposite would be true. But, this is just a sign of the freedom of religious thought, and is in fact a strength of the free pursuit of religious inspiration.
But as each cycle of this theological struggle occurred, the denomination found itself more and more coming to a liberal persuasion. Two schools of thought opened within the denomination, one more Christian centered, and one that began to see Universalism as a more Universal faith. In essence, the question over “Who was saved” gave rise to the opinion that, all peoples of the Earth were God’s children, and so God may have spoken religious truth among other religions, not just Christianity.
As of the 1940’s a new shift began to seriously occur in Universalist thought. Universalism, while retaining the teachings and lessons of Christianity, needed to actively seek out religious truth within other human religions as well. Universalism could indeed become a “world faith”. In a sermon at one of the denominational conventions, Rev. Brainard Gibbons brought this conflict between the wings of the Universalist church to a head when, in the middle of a sermon based upon Jesus turning water into wine, he dropped in the following paragraph:
“Is Universalism a Christian Denomination, or is it something more, a truly universal religion? This issue is the most vital Universalism has ever faced, striking at the very base of its religious foundation, for Christianity and this larger Universalism are irreconcilable. A momentous decision must be made, and soon! Unless Universalism stands for something distinctive and affirmative, it falls in indistinguishable, negative nothingness– Neither loved nor hated, just ignored.”
Why was Universalism being ignored? Because it won, that is why. The doctrine of Universal salvation had been popular in the beginning because it was so obviously different from Calvinism. But by the 1940’s, there were few “fire and brimstone” churches left… all the mainline denominations had, if not gotten rid of hell, they had at least quit talking about it so much. Universalism was loosing members fast, because it was no longer unique.
But the Universalist faith had always maintained the ability to grow theologically, and a way was seen to do that. A group of ministers and lay-leaders formed who believed that the key to the revitalization of Universalism was to move beyond Christianity, and become a World Faith. The champions of this cause, to “Universalize Universalism” were a small group of ministers, most recent graduates of the theological seminary at Tufts, came to be known as the “Humiliati”. It means the “humble ones” but most on the more Christian Universalist side would disagree. They adopted as their symbol a circle with an off-center cross inside the circle… a symbol now widely used by Universalists. Over the next ten years, from 1946 to 1955, the group championed a theological revolution within the Universalist Church. Many of the more Christian members and churches left, and became members of other liberal Christian denominations
The new Universalism began to actively seek to study and understand other faiths, and adopted new liturgy and worship materials. In fact, a new church was built on Charles Street, in Boston, that had as the backdrop to the pulpit not Christian imagery, but rather a starscape of the Andromeda galaxy, and 65 symbols of different world religions. There was a new energy that infused both members and the clergy.
It also became clear in this time that, though they had taken different paths to get there, the Universalists had arrived at similar theological, social, and cultural stands to those taken by the Unitarians. Though merger had been proposed and rejected several times in the past, it was now pursued quite seriously. After extensive negotiations over almost a decade, the two denominations merged into the modern Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961.
Whenever someone asks us what church we go to, it is often our tendency to shorten it and say that we go to the “Unitarian Church” or to say “I’m a Unitarian”. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. And yet, when we look back at it, so much of who we are as a religious movement today is from our Universalist heritage. Our desire to actively explore all the world’s faith traditions is Universalist. The central place of Love within our theology is Universalist. The balancing of reason and revelation is Universalist. Much that forms our modern concept of covenant is Universalist. And our continuing quest to keep our theology, liturgy, ideology, and social witness evolving is Universalist. The way we remain a constantly evolving faith is from the Universalist within us. “We do not stand, we move”.
The current controversy sparked by President Sinkford’s “language of reverence” campaign is a continuation of the theological evolution that traces all the way back to Hosea Ballou’s difference of opinion with John Murray. Whereas Emerson’s differences of opinion caused him to leave the Unitarian Ministry, it is the Universalist in us that causes us to stay and fight for theological change from within, and not from without.
In a Non-creedal faith, change is the only constant. And just as the Universalist church went through cycles of Christian vs. beyond Christian thought throughout its history, perhaps now the modern Unitarian Universalist Association will go through cycles as well. Perhaps we are coming to a time when we will be more Universalist Unitarian than Unitarian Universalist.