“UNIVERSALISM FOR TODAY”
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday,
All
Someone said that Unitarian
Universalists use words for communion.
Almost any conversation within these walls includes a statement, “well,
it depends on how you define that word.”
Las week and this week I am looking at nuances in a couple of words.
I spoke last week of the deeper
meaning of the name “Unitarian.” The
name caught on as a way of identifying those who opposed the orthodox doctrine
of the Trinity, but in fact its meaning is much broader than that, pointing not
only to the unity rather than trinity of the Godhead, but also the unity of
humanity, the unity of existence.
Today, I find a similar situation
with the name “Universalist,” the twin movement in our religious
tradition. Like the name
"Unitarian," the name "Universalist" has an original
meaning that seems antiquated today -- quaint, perhaps, but irrelevant.
The name
"Universalist" arose out of a theological squabble that also today
seems somewhat unimportant to most of us.
But as I tried to show last week with regard to the name
"Unitarian," the meaning of the word is deeper, richer and more
profound than is identified simply through the original reason for the
name. This is equally true, if not more
true, with the name, "Universalist."
In his book on the
history of American Universalism, Elmo Robinson quotes Stephen Pearl Andrews,
a non-universalist who was speaking before a Universalist gathering, as
saying, "You Universalists have squatted on the largest word in the
English language." "Universalism,"
he is right, is the biggest word we can imagine. It's not the longest of course, but one
cannot broaden what it seeks to embrace.
It embraces all. There is nothing
bigger than a universe, and there is no "ism" more all-encompassing
than a "universalism."
The original
meaning, as I say, had a more narrow purpose.
It identified a particular heresy within the Christian tradition. It referred to the doctrine of
"universal salvation." What that
meant, to be precise, was that every soul is saved. And what that meant, and what it
entailed, was that there is no eternal damnation in hell, no endless torment
or punishment. In fact, as the doctrine
became articulated, it meant there is no hell.
And that, you can well imagine, was a heresy in some powerful
circles.
Universalism, as
it began, was a sect within Christianity, dating back to the first century,
before the New Testament was codified, before the church was established as an
institution. Universalism denied the
doctrine of hell. Put more positively,
it believed that God accepted everyone.
Why did it teach this?
I can list the
arguments for you, and I will list some of them, but I won't give much
detail. As with the Unitarian arguments
against the Trinity, Universalist arguments against the doctrine of eternal
punishment aren't all that important to us today. The doctrine of hell is no longer a living
issue.
One argument for
Universalism was biblical. The Bible
speaks of hell only metaphorically. Tradition
has turned metaphor into a literal reality.
Jesus, for example, said almost nothing on the subject – certainly
nothing that can be taken literally.
Another argument
the early Universalists used is solid deductive logic. If you accept the
premises, you must concede the conclusion.
The simple argument goes like this:
1. God is all powerful, and therefore cannot fail.
2. God wants everyone to be saved.
3. If everyone isn't saved, then God doesn't succeed in getting
what God wants.
4. In other words, if everyone isn't saved, God has failed.
5. Therefore, since God can't fail, and wants everyone saved,
then everyone must, ultimately, be saved.
It is
incontrovertible logic, if you accept the premise that God can't fail. The problem is that so much of Christianity
at the time wasn't interested in logic.
Many early Christians (particularly those who won the creedal debates)
were far more interested in doctrine than in logic.
But I've saved the
most important argument of the Universalists for last. The Universalists did not know at the time
how important this argument was, but all the other arguments they gave depended
on it. This argument is the heart of the
Universalist ethos. This argument, as I
shall show, points to what is the broader meaning of Universalism. The argument is simply this:
Jesus taught love.
Jesus taught about
a loving God. Now, that’s an heretical
statement, if ever there was one, but there can be no more stunning counter to
an insidious doctrine of eternal punishment than a simple belief in a loving
God. Could a loving God devise a system
whereby people are condemned to spend eternity in excruciating torment? Could a loving God, even without creating
such a system, tolerate it? Would a
loving God who, presumably, knows everything that is to happen to each of us,
allow us to be born knowing, at the time of our birth, that our destiny is to
undergo ceaseless and unrelenting anguish and suffering?
This is, to my
mind, an irrefutable argument: "God is love." No God of love would tolerate such a
diabolical and fiendish scheme. In fact,
I would go so far as to say, that any God who would design or permit such a
system is far from worthy of our worship, and is far more an adversary and
enemy to human beings, and ought to be opposed at every opportunity. The traditional doctrine of hell introduces
us to a cruel rather than loving God.
"God is
love," is the simple insight that inspired Universalist thinking in the
first place, two thousand years ago and two hundred years ago. "God is love," is the starting
point from which Universalism was born, but it did not, of course, end there.
By this point, you
may be wondering what this theological debate has to do with contemporary
Unitarian Universalism. Today we spend
little effort quibbling about the nature of God, especially since so many of us
find the whole idea too speculative. But
to understand the deeper meaning of Universalism, we must begin where
they did, with the conviction about divine love, and from there discover the
greater meanings of that conviction.
Love, whether
divine or human, became the center point of all Universalist thought, and by
that principle, Universalism has expanded far beyond its theological origin, concerning
the love of God.
From that central
point, Universalist thinking expanded this way:
To say that God
loves all people is to say, simply that all people are worthy of being
loved. What is important for religion,
then, is to teach the acceptance and caring of all people. It is here that Universalism really made its
distinctive mark.
Earlier, I quoted
a non-Universalist speaking to a Universalist gathering a century or so
ago. I didn't complete the quote; let
me do so now. Stephen Pearl Andrews
said, "You Universalists have squatted on the largest word in the English
language." Then he added,
"You ought to improve on the property or get off the premises."
And they did
improve on the property. What began as a
doctrine of universal salvation was broadened into a vision of universal
love. It became a broader concept
concerning universal human worth and dignity.
As can be seen by the history of the Universalist tradition, this became
directly translated into action – it was not just talk and ideas. But before explaining how people acted upon
Universalist principles, let me show in words how they "improved the
property" they inherited.
In 1993, at the
400th anniversary of
What I am about to
read is a statement given by Stephen Crane, who presented the ideas of
Universalism to the assembled delegates at the 1893 World Parliament of
Religions. I will quote at some length
because I think it shows how the simple insight of universal salvation was
broadened, even by 1893, into a profound belief in a universal doctrine of
love:
"Every system of theology has one
bas[ic] idea, one central and fundamental principle that gives unity and
consistency to the whole system.
"The bas(ic) idea of Universalism is
the love of God. It postulates an
infinite, active benevolence as the foundation of all. It puts a boundless love at the heart of
things, and with this love it makes all things harmonize, and in the light of
[love], it seeks to interpret all things.
It conceives of this love, not as mere sentiment, but as a principle of
action.
"Postulating love, then, as the source
and fountain of all, Universalism proceeds to relate the universe
thereto. It conceives of the physical
universe as an expression of this love.
It is the visible outflow of infinite goodness.
"Every soul is a child of God and bound
to (God) by the closest relations...
Every soul is therefore in constant touch with the great Soul of the
universe. Love is the divine principle
that seeks the highest good of the beings loved....
"Universalism, therefore, is a system. It is a logical structure of related
ideas. Its architecture is symmetrical
and complete. Its foundation is laid
deep in the love of God, and its dome pierces the heavens in the glory of universal
redemption. This love unifies all of
its parts, and binds them into a harmonious whole."
Here, it seems to
me, we can see an improvement on the property of Universalism, "the
largest word in the language." For
we begin with an insight on love of God and expand to a principle of universal
love: that all people are inherently worthy of love. It expands further, though, to
"love" as a principle binding all people to creation.
This is not just
words. As Stephen Crane said, love is
"not mere sentiment, but a principle of action." Any survey of Universalist history in
society demonstrated the translation of universal love into policy.
Let me mention
just a few.
Universalists,
even far more than Unitarians, were adamantly opposed, from the beginning,
to the policy of slavery. This opposition
to slavery arose directly out of the great doctrine of universal love -- that
all people have inherent worth.
One of the
earliest examples of this was Benjamin Rush, a physician in colonial
"We believe
[slavery] to be inconsistent with...the obligations to mutual and universal
love."
"Universal
love." There, in 1770, is that
phrase, "universal love." The
words are at the center of his crusade against slavery. But that is the tip of his iceberg of
universal love. Rush founded the first
medical clinic for the poor in this country, the first school to educate poor
children, and the first hospital for the mentally ill. When the U.S. Constitution was written and
the government established a Secretary of War, Rush lobbied, unsuccessfully,
it must be noted, also for a Secretary of Peace. His dedication to universal love flowed to
all human concerns. When the Universalists
in the new United States joined together in 1790 to plan the denomination
known as the Universalist Church in America, Rush was the author of its
statement of principles.
Rush is just one
example, because from its formal inception in 1793 up to the Civil War, the
Universalist Church was formally on record opposing slavery. Prominent lay members, such as the
abolitionist newspaper publisher, Horace Greeley, were also active in ending
this beastly practice.
The teaching of
universal love extended to all disenfranchised people, and it is no surprise
that Universalists were prominently in the forefront of the crusade for women's
rights and women's suffrage: more
active, again, than Unitarians as a whole.
The early women's movement was led by a number of Universalist women,
such as Mary Livermore, and the Universalist church was the first denomination
in the
The Universalist
seminary accepted Olympia Brown after the Unitarian seminary turned her
down. After accepting a call to the
On issues of
slavery and women's rights, the Universalists were far ahead of every other
denomination, including the Unitarians.
The reason, it seems to me, is the central doctrine of universal love
and acceptance of all people.
This is just the
beginning of the list of activities which turned love into action for the
Universalists. We all know, for example,
of Clara Barton, the Universalist who founded the Red Cross as a means of
healing the tragedy of the Civil War.
Throughout its
history, Universalism has inspired those who seek to give voice to the
disenfranchised -- it has been active in reform movements to humanize treatment
of prisoners, of the mentally ill, of the diseased. Universalists have championed the cause of
education and of liberty.
In all of this
they have been motivated with a vision of universal love. What began as a doctrinal dispute -- a
heretical movement -- that denied the prevailing dogma about eternal
damnation, with confidence in the ultimate redemption of all souls in the
hereafter, evolved over the years into a broader and deeper vision about the
dignity of all people in this world.
The Universalist
spirit of universal human love remains central in our day. The issues we wrestle with these days tend to
be issues far more of the heart. We
struggle over what we call "inclusivity" issues: the respect and acceptance of all, whether
male or female, black or white, Asian or European, homosexual or heterosexual,
old or young.
The Universalists
took claim to the largest word in our language, and I think it is clear they improved
upon the property over the years.
In 1961, the
Unitarians and the Universalists merged into a single denominational movement:
the Unitarian Universalist Association.
I am often asked
to explain the difference between these two movements. Historically, the difference is far more sociological
than it is theological. Unitarians, who
believed in the unity of all things, including God, also accepted the Universalist
faith that God would not condone eternal torture. The Universalists, by and large, also questioned
the prevailing doctrine of the Trinity, which was a key Unitarian issue.
But it took two
centuries for these two groups to join together. The Unitarians were the upper-class
intellectuals, who spun vast scholarly thoughts about arcane philosophical
matters. The Universalists, by contrast,
were unassuming and modest people, common folk with a simple and straight-forward
faith: a confidence that God is love, and that love is the essence of religion.
Over the years,
both movements, which began in debates about the nature of God, have opened up
and deepened their interests beyond doctrines of God. No longer attached exclusively to theistic
controversy, the deeper principles that shaped their original views of God have
remained and informed their present religious ideas. In the case of Universalism, the radical idea
of God as an embodiment of love has led over the years to a deeper commitment
to love as the fundamental principle of live.
It is to our
benefit that these two great traditions and perspectives, Unitarianism and
Universalism, are now joined together.
If Unitarianism is our "head", then Universalism is our
"heart.”
If I were asked
who was the greatest teacher of this universalist doctrine of love, the
answer would have to be Jesus of Nazareth.
When Jesus was asked directly to define his religion, he did so with
these words: To "love God and to
love your neighbor." Nowhere in
his answer is there any theological formula of belief. Intricate systems of dogma came from others
after Jesus. Jesus taught love --
purely, simply, and universally.
There can be no more important
lesson as we enter into the season that celebrates he birth of Jesus. Jesus was the prophet who taught the doctrine
of Universal love, and if a “Christian “can be defined as a person who lives
the religion that Jesus taught, it seems to me there is no religion closer to
it than Universalism: the religion of universal love. And just as Jesus' ministry reached out to
the disenfranchised of his day, that spirit remains in the Universalist
tradition today.
Clarence Skinner
was one of the great leaders of Universalism in the twentieth century. I'll close with his words which summarize the
spirit and essence of this tradition.
"The Universalist idea of God [has become]
that of a universal, impartial, immanent spirit whose nature is
love. It is the largest thought the
world has ever known; it is the most revolutionary doctrine ever proclaimed;
it is the most expansive hope ever dreamed....
"This is no tribal deity of ancient divisive
civilization, this is no God of the nation or of a chosen people, but the
democratic creator of the solid, indivisible world of rich and poor, black and
white, good and bad, strong and weak, Jew and Gentile, bond and free....
"Religion is a sense of the vital, meaningful
relationship between the self and the universe, the outreach of people to
something beyond themselves. It affirms
that we each touch infinity: our home is in immensity; we live, move, and have
our being in an eternity.
"The essential core of religion is the
seeking after and the finding of our relationship to the unities and the universals."
The "unities" and the
"universals." For these last
two weeks, I have tried to look beyond the historical meaning of these two
words -- "unitarian" and "universalist" -- and locate their
deeper meaning.
These names, and
the deeper meaning behind them, link us to the unities and the universals that
enrich life.