"A
RELIGION OF IMMIGRANTS"
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday, April 4, 2004
All
Like the majority of Americans, my ethnic heritage is complex, confusing, and,
well, mixed up. With regard to my ethnic ancestry, there is no consistency, no
systematic order, and no discernable pattern.
Parents of young children who are in the oral stage of development warn
their kids against putting money in their mouths because, they say, "You don't
know where it's been!" Such might be the motto of most of our ethnic
heritages - we don't know where it has been. My own family has one
well-documented lineage, but in tracing my family lines, that is only one path
out of literally hundreds of paths, some of which, I am told, lead to England
and Scotland and Poland and France and Germany and, for all I know, Mercury,
Jupiter and Mars. I also understand that a few generations ago my family tried
to hush up the fact that a New
But I must confess to a certain envy for those people who have a distinct and well-defined ethnic origin. Given my genealogical mixture, if someone inquires into my ethnic background, I am sometimes tempted just to tell them "I'm a Hoosier," and let it go at that. (After all, we Hoosiers have our own peculiar customs just like other ethnics do). But somehow, this just doesn't have the same legitimacy or the same "punch" to it as saying, "I'm a Japanese-American," or "I'm a Greek-American" or "I'm an African-American," or, for that matter, saying, "I'm a Native American."
This is indeed a curious and peculiar country we live in. There are few nations like it. In the mixing of so many different ethnic and cultural traditions, we have created a new kind of society that draws upon the experiences and customs from many world societies. It has not been an easy task, but it has been a rich and rewarding one.
Most, though not all, of our diversity came about through immigration. We should not forget that many were brought here involuntarily, too - forcefully, violently, and against their will. This morning, though, it is the process of voluntary immigration that I will be addressing, and I shall use that metaphor to launch my thoughts.
It seems to me that our Unitarian religion is as curious and peculiar as our
country in this regard. Just as so much of the
The demographic statistics bear this out. It has been ten years since All
Souls did an extensive survey of its members, but at that time one question
that was asked here was, "In what religion were you raised?." Only 9%
were raised Unitarian Universalist. Ninety-one percent, then, emigrated from
some other religion, or no religion. Here are some of the figures of religious
backgrounds of All Souls members at that time:
Methodists..............19%
Catholic................11%
Presbyterian.............11%
Baptist..................5%
Episcopal................4%
Lutheran.................4%
Congregational...........3%
Jewish...................3%
All others (mostly miscellaneous Protestant)..............20%
Refused to answer..........11%
These numbers generally reflect UU backgrounds throughout the denomination.
We have slightly more Catholics and Presbyterians, slightly fewer Baptists and
Episcopalians, and exactly the same percentage of Methodists as surveyed among
all UUs. As the number show, most of us immigrated to Unitarianism from some
other religious tradition. We are to religious demography what the
One can carry this metaphor too far, I suppose, and I'll try not to do so. But some other parallels come to mind. It is felt that most immigrants came to this country seeking greater freedom. This is also true, I think, for religious immigrants to Unitarianism. In surveys of UUs, when people are asked the most important reason for being a Unitarian, the most frequent answer is usually "freedom of belief and thought." I sometimes look at a UU congregation and think of Emma Lazarus' image of "the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
Changing one's country and changing one's religion are both deeply significant choices - as a rule, when they are made voluntarily, they are not made lightly or frivolously. They are made, usually, after a lot of thought, a lot of soul-searching, and such decisions often involve a great deal of risk and courage.
This morning, let's look at the implications of religious immigration - those 90% or so of us at All Souls and among UUs in general who chose to leave something else to come to Unitarianism. For the 9% of you who did not immigrate, but were raised Unitarian, I hope at least you'll find some interesting insights that will help you to better understand us "converts." You birthright UUs may have observed that some of the ideas and behaviors of us religious immigrants are strange, and this might help to explain them.
Immigrants, whether religious or national, actually experience two processes: the process of leaving, called "emigration," and the process of arriving or entering something new, called "immigration." The leaving and the entering have different implications, so I'll look at them separately.
Why do we leave a religious home? I suppose there are many different reasons for many different people, but let me suggest a few reasons based on my own personal experience and on my conversations with many Unitarians about this.
It is usually not an easy thing to leave a religious home, and this is of course more or less true according to the level of commitment of your family of origin.
For many people leaving seems nothing more than a natural evolution of life. The old belief system just doesn't seem to work any more, doesn't seem to "fit." These immigrants are not necessarily opposed to the old religion, they just find that their religious needs and sensitivities have changed, and their former religion doesn't seem to fill those needs.
For other people, the process of emigrating - of leaving - is quite a bit more traumatic. In my experience, I've heard quite a number of stories of damaging experiences from people about the church they were raised in. Typically, these emigrants had no intention of leaving, but when they began asking questions about the faith, they were firmly told not to do so. If they had doubts and expressed those doubts, they were admonished to keep their doubts to themselves. And if they couldn't do that, they were reprimanded.
My own emigration had a different flavor to it. It was a reluctant leaving,
but a necessary one. I was raised in the
My own leaving was not particularly painful, though it wasn't easy either. Like most religious emigrants, though, the first stage in my leaving took the form of doubts - doubts about the doctrines in the church, or more precisely, doubts about what seemed to be a rigidity about doctrines. I cannot say that in asking these questions I felt rejection or admonishment. It did seem to make some folk uncomfortable, but more often than not, most people were quite understanding and tolerant of my questions.
Eventually, though, I set sail on my religious immigration journey because I needed something more than mere tolerance. I needed encouragement. It was not enough for people simply to allow me to ask questions, I longed for a sense of support.
I did not, then, emigrate because of repression in my old religion. Nor did I emigrate simply because I "outgrew" it. I emigrated, like so many who came to this country, in search of freedom. It was not just free thought that I wanted, it was a community that prized freedom above doctrine.
It was not easy to leave. I still harbor an abiding affection and appreciation for "the old country," as it were. There are many people there I still respect and admire, a number of people (including family) with whom I still maintain warm relationships, and within my memories is a wistful longing to affirm what was positive in my life there. In a sense, I have not completely left, nor will I ever completely leave. That experience is part of who I am, and always will be. Like the emigrant who crossed the ocean to seek a future in the new world, there will always remain with me some piece of the religious country I left. I suppose you could say, "you can take the boy out of the Church, but you can't take the Church out of the boy."
And I suppose this is true for most of us, to greater or lesser degrees. Those of us who have deep and significant experiences in our religious past cannot expunge those experiences completely. Nor should we.
I came across a poem by Jean Garrigue which speaks
to me of this truth. I have no idea what the poet intended by these words, but
I see in them this influence of our old religions, much like "the old
country" to immigrants. The poem is entitled "Homage to Ghosts":
Always within me lies
That former form of experience
If suddenly I bare my eyes.
Always dismembering me, although
It is so altered and so changed
I know it and know it not....
In those years it has lain there
I grew different, and my change,
All unknowingly, made it strange.
The image that it lay in me
Was subject as I was to all
Shocks that made my soul grow ill,
Took account of every sorrow,
And of my body did so borrow
Till I think that what was it
Is now, surely, only me.
Still, it has such separate power...
Perhaps it is my tomb as well,
For both of us without conjunction
Lie prison stones on recollection.
But emigration - the leaving - is only half the story. There is also the immigration, the entering something new. The arriving.
Immigrants who have come to this country have often desired easy assimilation, to become "Americanized," and to lose both their linguistic and their cultural accents.
When I was in school, we learned to think of this country as a "melting pot," evoking an image of people completely integrated, where diverse peoples from diverse countries and cultures would be mixed together and the result would be a new creature altogether. It was much like an intricate recipe, where various seasonings are added together with such precision, that the resulting taste was itself unique and exceptional, and the taster could not guess the specific ingredients.
In
Why do Unitarian Universalists have so many religious immigrants? As I've mentioned several times, I think it has something to do with freedom: we are a haven for people who are looking for freedom in religion.
But the answer is often more complex than this. While it is true that people seek a community that encourages freedom in religion, it is also true that some people also are looking for a place to heal the wounds inflicted by past experience.
Someone once described Unitarianism as "a decompression chamber for the Baptist bends." I suppose what is meant by that is that we provide a transition from strictness and rigidity into freedom and openness. This comment also implies that we are, though, a "transition" point.
I confess that for some people we do serve that transitory purpose. We have
a high rate of turnover of membership in our churches, and I think that element
of "transition" has something to do with it. Someone else once
described Unitarian Universalism as the midway point between the
People sometimes seem to "pass through us" on the way to many different places. Sometimes we serve as a therapeutic stopover for people, to help them get over leaving their former religious home. Though I regret it whenever people leave us, sometimes I understand it. Usually. If there is one thing Unitarians are not good at it is guilt, and we try not to make anyone feel guilty about choosing to leave us for some other destination.
But in fact, this formula of "transition" seems to be the
exception, rather than the rule. Statistics show, for example, that few people
come directly to Unitarianism from their former religious home. Most religious
immigrants have spent quite a number of years without any church home before
they immigrate to Unitarianism. The entry into Unitarianism for these people is
not so much a transition out of religion as it is a transition back into a
religion that makes sense and has some value for them.
Not every religious immigrant to Unitarianism finds here what they are looking for, and that is understandable. But many do, and those who do eventually will face a time of identity change - that is, they will begin to think of themselves as part of the Unitarian tradition and community.
If they stay long enough, if they come to us less for therapy and more for a
genuine search, they will engage in a process parallel to the
"Americanization" process, which might be called, "Unitarianizing." It involves learning our history and
values and customs. More deeply, it involves a shift in self-identity, moving
from "I prefer" Unitarian Universalism, to "I am a Unitarian
Universalist." Unitarian Universalism, after all, is not just a religious
option, it is a long tradition of people and events and ideas.
Wherever you fall on a continuum, with one end representing
"multi-cultural diversity," and the other end representing the
"melting pot," it cannot be denied that our society has gained a
richness of texture precisely because its origins extend to Africa and
So also, I urge religious immigrants to Unitarianism not to forsake the rich inheritance of their "old religion." Regardless of our reasons for having left, we are each, I think, bound to identify quite a number of valuable gifts and traditions from the religion that we left. And this is the thought I'd like to leave us with this morning.
It is not always easy to avoid transporting some of the less desirable inheritances from the old religion. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes I hear a UU judging others about what they should or should not believe about God to be a good UU, or judging others about their views of mystical or psychic experience, for example, saying they are not "good" UUs. Then I know the "old" religion of judgment is still there. Sometimes I hear a Unitarian discourage others from raising questions about the predominant UU perspective, and I know the "old" religion of discouraging doubts is still there.
Still, there is much of great value from the "old" religions that is worthy of being transported to this "new" one. I would urge Unitarians, from time to time, to look back at their religion of origin and reflect on the things of value that were given them: ideas and values and meanings that they have brought from the old into the new. Unitarianism, I hope, is not just a religious "melting pot" (which it is), but also a place where diverse people can bring their distinct customs and traditions, from which the rest of us can benefit and learn to appreciate.
Looking back with appreciation is a healthy practice for most of us, I think.
If your background is Baptist, for example, I hope you can appreciate the legacy they offer - they have been more successful that most other religions in declaring the "priesthood of all believers." If you unwrap the ecclesiastical garb surrounding these words, you discover a very radical notion that each individual has direct access to divine truth, not requiring mediation through church councils or clerical authority. Baptist affirmation of individual autonomy in matters of belief is a precious treasure that enriches the immigrant who comes to us from that tradition.
If you were raised Catholic, I hope you can honor the unparalleled tradition of human service that has been part of the Catholic tradition for centuries. No other religious movement has made as significant an impact in creating hospitals, schools, orphanages, homeless shelters, and all manner of support for human needs. Regardless of what you may now think of specific doctrines, we can at least acknowledge that this tradition has inspired impressive good works in the world, more than most other religious legacies. Those of you from a Catholic tradition can also bring into your new religious home an understanding of the mysteries of ritual that underlie so many religious practices.
If you were raised Jewish, in your immigration to Unitarian Universalism you
can bring with you a great love for the value of tradition, an appreciation for
scholarship and learning, and an abiding sense of continuity in history. All of
these are treasures to be found in the Jewish religious territory.
I am, of course, not the best judge of other peoples' religions of origin. My observations are based simply on my study of other religions, such as Baptist, Catholic, and Jewish. Each one of us has to make these evaluations based on our own personal experiences, but my challenge this morning is that we may each look to our religious roots, the religion of our own childhood, and find there something of lasting value that we retain in our journey across religious territory. This task is not meant to exclude those who were raised Unitarian Universalist, either, for you know more than most of us how this tradition has changed so much over a generation, and surely you can examine its changes and find the values which were given you as you were growing up.
Religious immigration is an adventure, but its value is enhanced to the
extent that we don't forget, we don't deny, where we began. In his book, A
Generation of Seekers, Wade Clark Roof underscores this truth when he
begins and ends the book about religious explorers by citing T.S. Eliot's
famous poem:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
In my own case, it took me quite a while to recognize some of the positive inheritance I brought from my religion of origin. For some time, I was too intent on the "Unitarianizing" process to take time to remember "the old country." But I now can appreciate a number of gifts it has given me, not the least of which are the very values that led me to Unitarianism in the first place. Let me explain.
The one doctrine that distinguishes the
I now realize that this doctrine underlies my journey to Unitarianism. I
believe the
In the Statement of Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association,
the very first of seven principles is an affirmation of "The inherent
worth and dignity of every person." I now know this principle is the
logical extension of a doctrine I learned in the
All religious immigrants to Unitarian Universalism can and should look back,
from time to time, to the "old country," and identify those
experiences of value they bring with them into their new religion. In the words
of the poet Garrigue, we pay "Homage to
Ghosts":
Always within me lies
That former form of experience
If suddenly I bare my eyes....
In those years it has lain there
I grew different, and my change,
All unknowingly, made it strange....
Still, it has such separate power...
But in our Unitarian Universalist tradition and principles, we should,
equally and identically:
· "Honor the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and
·
"Have respect for the sources from which we
draw our principles,"
and in the words of this church's covenant:
"Dwell together in peace
Seek the truth in love, and"
whatever our heritage or religious journey:
"To help one another."