THE ESSENCE OF OUR RELIGION Ronald J. Glossop I. Introduction A. A question often asked of each of us is, "What is a Unitarian-Universalist?" B. That question is usually followed by another, "What do Unitarian-Universalists believe?" The questioner asking this usually has in mind questions such as, "What do UUs believe about God, about Jesus, about miracles and answered prayers, and about life-after-death", questions whose answers are typically used to differentiate one religion or philosophical view from another. C. Our answer to this question about what UUs believe usually makes reference to our commitment to freedom of belief and to the fact that various UUs may have different answers to these questions. We don't have a creed. In fact, one of our primary commitments is to have no creeds. D. To this the questioner is likely to respond with another question, "Then what holds you together?" E. At this point we are likely to refer to the seven purposes and principles adopted by the UUA and which we print on the back of our Sunday bulletins. They are also incorporated into responsive reading #594 in our hymnal. These seven purposes and principles are to affirm and promote: 1. the inherent worth and dignity of every person; 2. justice, equity, and compassion in human relations; 3. acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations; 4. a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; 5. the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; 6. the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all; and 7. respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. F. I think that at this point many of us have heard the response, "That doesn't sound like what I mean by religion." G. This response should make us realize that our UU religion is something quite new and different in the history of humanity. We are on the cutting edge of a very significant new development in human society, one that is a very necessary part of the centuries-long shift from a pre-scientific age to a scientific age. Ours is a new kind of religion for the post-Enlgihtenment age in human history. H. The main religions of society--and especially the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--have been bequeathed to us by pre-scientific agricultural societies. They are based on scriptures written mostly between 800 BCE and 800 CE, that is, in a period when people thought that the Earth was the center of the universe, when things like disease and draught were viewed as having supernatural causes because the natural causes were unknown, and when it was widely believed that after death people would continue to exist either somewhere up there in heaven (a word which is synonymous with "sky" in most languages) or somewhere down there in hell. I. As scientific knowledge has developed in various areas such as astronomy, phyics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, psychology, and the medical sciences, it has become more and more difficult to accept much of what is written in the sacred scriptures of these religions. At the same time, the religious institutions and religious traditions based on these pre-scientific scriptures have tried to preserve themselves. J. The most extreme way of reacting to the challenge of new knowledge has been "fundamentalism," the notion that the scriptures of one's own religion are literally true and that one must continue to believe them on faith, even when the scientic evidence of their falsity is overwhelming. Such fundamentalist reactions are found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as well as other religions. K. A less extreme reaction, and one that has been going on for a long time, is to reinterpret the words handed down from antiquity so that they are not contradicted by new knowledge from science. But this becomes more and more difficult to do as modern knowledge develops. For example, modifying the time required for the creation of the world from seven days to 7,000 years to seven million years still isn't enough. Furthermore, one cannot eliminate from the scriptures basic ideas such as that the Earth was created before the sun, that the sun goes round the Earth, and that disease and natural disasters are the result of supernatual powers. L. Especially significant psychologically is change of place of humans in the universe as a whole. As scriptures are undermined by new scientific knowledge, we see humans going from being the most important beings on the Earth (which is the center of everything) to being evolved beings not all that different from chimpanzees (as demonstrated not only from paleontology but results of DNA reseach) living on one planet going around an insignificant star in an expanding universe which has existed for about 13 billion years. That huge change of position is a real blow to the human ego, both individually and collectively, and the traditional religions are trying very hard to protect us from it by suppressing acknowledgement of its reality. Even the non-fundamentalists go on holding worship services addressed to "God the Almighty King" and conducting funerals where the attendees are assured that death is not really the end of this person's life. M. But, it is argued by traditional religionists, If we break away from the scriptures and their supernaturalistic metaphysical views as well as the ethical principles found in them, where will we be? Won't we all be lost in a world without foundations? Don't we need traditional religion as a basis for hope in dire circumstances and to support morality in society? Is there another way? N. Well, that is what our new kind of religion is all about. There is another way, and we are in the forefront of the movement to develop it and spread it. II. Let me shift the focus now to my own experiences, the relevance of which I think will become evident. A. I was brought up in the Lutheran Church, in its most liberal branch, but still it was the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church is a creedal church, which means that what you believe is very important to your salvation. Every Sunday as part of the service we would recite The Apostle's Creed, and for Communion services we would express our faith by use of the more extensive Nicene Creed. B. As important as believing what the creeds said, however, was accepting the Bible as the Word of God. Remember that Martin Luther had broken from the Roman Catholic Church on grounds that the Bible rather than the Church was the authority to be followed in matters of faith. That particular branch of the Lutheran Church, unlike the Missouri Synod, did not insist on the literal acceptance of every word in the Bible, but still the basic faith of the writers of the Bible was to be accepted as the Truth. C. As an undergraduate student in a Lutheran college, I changed my vocational goal from becoming a high school teacher to wanting to become a minister in the Church. I thought that this would be the best way of encouraging people to live good lives, but even then I was having trouble accepting some parts of the creeds such as the Virgin Birth of Jesus as well as some of the miracle stories in both Old and New Testaments. D. By the time I neared graduation, I was really beginning to doubt whether I wanted to go into the ministry. Would I be able to persuade others to believe things about which I myself was skeptical? But one of my professors whom I very much respected persuaded me that I should go to seminary for at least one year to get a better idea of whether I might find a place in the Lutheran Church, as he had done. E. I went to seminary for a year, and I'm glad I did because I had two experiences that convinced me that I didn't want to be a minister, or even a Christian. 1. The first was during the first week of a class on "Religious Education." The issue was, What is the goal of Christian education? Most of the class said that the goal of Christian education was to make people Christians. My response was that if that was the goal it should be called "Christian propaganda" rather than "Christian education." But it was at that point that I realized I wanted to be an educator, not a minister trying to persuade people to accept certain ideas without informing them about the other side of the issue. There is no doubt in my own mind that my experience debating in high school and college and that my study of philosophy in college influenced me to respond in this way. 2. The other crucial experience had to do with my own beliefs in the area of religion. Even if I was not going to be a minister in the Church, I needed to figure out whether I should be a Christian or not. The crucial question, it seemed to me, was whether the Easter story, the story of the resurrection of Jesus, was true or not. If that story was indeed true, then it would show (1) that Jesus was not just an ordinary human being, (2) that miracles are possible, & (3) that there can be life-after-death. On the other hand, if the resurrection of Jesus did NOT really occur as an actual historical event, then one could doubt whether Jesus was really all that different from other human beings, whether miracles really occur, and whether there was any kind of life after death. a. Consequently, I embarked on an intensive study of the Resurrection Story. My conclusion was that one just could not be sure but that most modern Biblican scholars wanted to focus on what was called "the Resurrection faith" rather than on whether the historical event really occurred. The fact that a few first-century not-too-well-educated persons believed that such a miracle occurred did not persuade me that it did. It probably didn't, but nevertheless I couldn't be absolutely sure. b. But at this point an even more important thought occurred to me. I was interested in this issue of the Resurrection as a basis for how I would live my life, what I would commit myself to. I asked myself, Why should I be deciding how to live my whole life on the basis of a commitment to believing that some past event did or did not occur? Evidence may show up at any time in the future to make it very improbable that the event occurred. I concluded that my life had to be based on some other kind of commitment. It had to be based on a commitment to what was good rather than on the commitment to the truth of a statement about a past event. Furthermore, I saw that this insight applied to the role of religion for everyone. c. I realized of course that one's beliefs about what is good can change as well as one's beliefs about what is true, but in fact the former are more stable and less subject to revolutionary change brought about by new scientific knowledge. Therefore, I had to commit myself to whatever would make life better, to what seems good rather than what seems true. Some particular commitments I could make were that knowledge is better than ignorance, that educating people is better than propagandizing for some particular point of view, and that concern for a broader community (all of humanity) is better than concern for only some smaller community such as the religion I happened to have been taught or the nation where I happen to have been born. d. After that year at the seminary, I decided that I would study philosophy with the aim of becoming a professor and that I would join the Unitarian church, which I had just begun to learn about. Having received a scholarship, I came to Washington University in the fall of 1956. III. So what does all this have to do with the essence of Unitarian-Universalism? A. The traditional religions have their moral teachings, but typically they focus as much on their ideas about what is true as on what they think is good. In fact, they usually suppose that accepting their moral teachings depends on accepting their ideas about what is true. B. They seem to say that as a basis for morality one must accept certain ideas about what is true, namely, theistic supernaturalism (that there is a God who can perform miracles, especially in answer to prayers, and who guarantees that in the end good will prevail over evil) as well as the notion that there is a life-after-death where people will enjoy paradise or suffer eternal damnation. Without that latter belief, all the talk about salvation and being saved from one's sins means nothing. C. There seems to be a supposition that without certain ideas about the existence of God and the everlasting nature of human life there would be no basis for moral behavior, but philosophers and life experiences have challenged this supposition. 1. Many philosophers such as Aristotle, Spinoza, and David Hume have shown how one can have a very complete and satisfactory moral philosophy without basing it on the existence of a theistic God. 2. Furthermore, the morally admirable lives they as well as others--including many modern-day UUs--have lived show that moral behavior does not require belief in a theistic God. 3. We can also observe whole societies where a high level of moral behavior continues during centuries even though they do not accept the existence of a theistic God. A very good example of this is the enduring Chinese society that was based on the non-theistic teachings of Confucianism. D. When we UUs are challenged to answer the question "Do you believe in God?", we should reply that questioners must first explain what they mean by the word "God" since it has many different possible meanings. 1. The questionner usually has in mind what is called the theistic view of God, the view that God is a non-physical being (kind of a mind without a body or physical brain) who has created the universe and who can intervene in the course of nature to cause events to occur which are not the causal consequences of other natural events, events which we call "miracles." There is no doubt that this is the concept of God which we find in the Western religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but we also find a similar idea of gods in many other religions including more popular versions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, & Shintoism as well as primitve religions. It is just this theistic concept of God which is being undermined by modern science and critical thinking. How can there be a mind without a brain? Even if that were possible, how could a God who created the huge universe 13 billion years ago have any particular interest in what is happening to individuals of one life-form on one planet going around one insignificant star during the last 100,000 years? Belief that there could be such a being seems to say more about the almost unimaginable egoism of the person who believes it than it does about the objective truth of the way the world is. 2. Another view of God, popular in the 18th century with some of the founders of Unitarianism such as Thomas Jefferson, is called "deism," the view that there is a non-physical being who created the universe but who no longer intervenes in nature to cause miracles. This view can claim to be more in accord with a scientific view since the idea of miracles has been dropped, but some of the questions presented for the theistic view are still relevant. For example, we can still ask, How could there be a mind without a brain? A rationale which is sometimes put forth for this deistic view is that there seems to be some purpose at work in the existence and evolution of life forms on the Earth. But if one takes into account the size and age of the universe and its increasingly rapid expansion, that supposed bit of purposefulness seems to be rather insignificant in the bigger picture. 3. A third view about the nature of God, exemplified by the view of the ancient Stoics and the 17th-century philosopher Spinoza, is called "pantheism." According to this way of thinking the word "God" and the word "Nature" are synonymous. God is the universe and the universe is God. This view permits a non-supernaturalist to continue using the word "God" and even accept the philosophical argument that "God" must exist because "God" is defined as the necessary being, the being which cannot possibly not exist. The pantheist can also undercut the usual theistic argument that a supernatural God must exist in order to provide an explanation of why the universe exists. If the universe is God, there is no need to posit the existence of some other being to cause its existence. The universe, as God, is the cause of its own existence. But a pantheist's God does not answer prayers. Despite using the word "God," a pantheist is for all practical purposes actually a naturalist. 4. A fourth view about the nature of God is "humanism." The humanist begins by defining "God" as a "force working for good. " Then an empirical investigation must be conducted. Where in the universe is there something working for good? The only place where God, this good force, can be found is in humans as they work for peace, justice, compassion, and the increase of knowledge. 5. A fifth view about God is "atheism," the view that there is no God such as the theist believes there is and it is best to just stop using the word "God" altogether. 6. A sixth view about God is "agnosticism." The agnostic maintains that neither he nor anyone else knows anything about the existence or nature of God. 7. So we have surveyed several different views about the nature of God. UUs are not obliged to accept any of these views or others that could be mentioned. We can philosophically consider the various possibilities, but this issue of the existence and nature of God is just not a critical question for us. We do not believe that our salvation (whatever that term means) depends on our deciding correctly about what is true. It may be a big issue for other religions, but not for us. E. The belief of traditional religions in the existence of life-after-death is just as questionable as the belief in the existence of some kind of God, and again there are different views that might be advanced. 1. The traditional Christian view is that after death at least some persons will be resurrected and will be given a "spiritual body." The general belief is that this will not take place until the Second Coming of Christ, partly because there is a difficulty of conceiving when and where such a thing could occur before then. Of course, it is also difficult to imagine what would occur even if it occurs after the Second Coming. How could people who lived at different times and in different places communicate with one another? How would they be able to recognize one another? Would those who died young and injured appear different from those who died old and uninjured? What kind of world would it be? Would anything change? What would people be doing with all the time available to them? Would they have problems to deal with? 2. Another view on life-after-death is that there is an immortal, immaterial soul that goes on living even after the body dies. But if this soul does not have any body, how could it have new experiences and how could it do anything after the death of the body? Where and how would it exist? What would be the point of its existence? 3. Another view on life-after-death is the idea of reincarnation, the notion that there is an immaterial soul that takes on one body after another much as the physical body can take on one garment after another. Is there any carry over of memory from one incarnation to the next? If I can't remember past incarnations and I won't be able to remember this existence in my next incarnation, what is the point of saying that it is me that is being incarnated again? 4. We have surveyed some different views about life-after-death. UUs do not need to accept any of these views or others that could be mentioned. We can philosophically consider the various possibilities, but these issues of whether there is life-after-death and what it is like are just not a critical questions for us where our salvation (whatever that means) depends on deciding correctly what is true. These may be big issues for other religions, but not for us. F. So we must return to our basic thesis, that religion must be a commitment to something other than beliefs about what is true. Beliefs about what is true must be based on evidence, and new evidence is being discovered all the time. Therefore our religion must be a commitment to promote goodness. IV. We need to recognize also, that although religion can be an individual thing, it is usually also a collective thing. Religion is not only committing one's life to promoting what is good. It also means belonging to a community that is similarly committed. We are part of a church committed to making the world better. Our UUA Purposes and Principles indicate our present views about how to do that, but we realize that we are not limited to these, that these may change for us both as individuals and as a group, and that not everyone in our religious community has to be committed to any one of them. V. So what is the essence of our religion? It is being part of a community which is committed to goodness (which includes a continuing commitment to try to believe what is true even as new evidence is acquired). We are a new kind of religious community, a community committed to assisting one another in promoting what is good while allowing a diversity of opinion both about what is good and what is true. We believe that a commitment to promoting what we believe is good is fundamental and that we need to be so committed whether or not there is a God (a force working for good) helping us and whether or not there is any guarantee that good will prevail in the end. We intend to be a force for good even if there is no other anywhere. This is the essence of our religion as well as of the religion of the future.