Presentations by Craig Beam

Defining Ourselves: Six Sources of Unitarianism

Craig Beam (c) (January 7, 2007)

Description: What is unique and distinctive about the Unitarian approach to religion? Probably the best answers can be found in our pluralism, our history, and the six sources of our tradition.

About the Author: Craig Beam is a member of the First Unitarian Congregation of Waterloo, where he is chair of the Sunday Program Committee. He completed his Ph.D in Philosophy in 1999 and currently teaches Wilfrid Laurier University. Craig's research interests include ethics, religion, and the history of ideas. He can be reached at .

The challenge of defining Unitarian identity is not an easy one. We don't fit the stereotype of what a "religion" is. We don't have a creed or an authoritative scripture. We aren't much concerned with the supernatural. Even the name "Unitarian" is something of a misnomer. We owe it to our radical Protestant ancestors who did not accept the Trinity. Today, however, most of us no longer define ourselves as Christians. It has been said: "Unitarians believe that there is, at most, one God." With the arrival of pagans on our denominational scene, even this is no longer true. If one thinks of the deity in terms of psychological archetypes or human ideals, perhaps one should say that deity is multiple.

Moreover, our religion is not widely known. According to one author, 60 percent Americans have never heard of Unitarianism.(1) This figure is probably higher in Canada, where the number of us is proportionally smaller. This means that one is more likely to encounter puzzled queries if one identifies oneself as a Unitarian than as a Catholic or Baptist. It also means that we have a more legitimate need to publicize our approach to religion than the more traditional faiths, many of which - like Coke and Pepsi - offer a religious product that everyone has heard about and which is pretty much indistinguishable from its main competitors.

And how do those who are aware of us see us? A 1967 Newsweek article described Unitarians as "atheists who have not shaken the church habit." A 1990 article, in the same publication, described us as "the quintessential baby boomer church" with appeal to the well-educated and spiritually individualistic.(2) One wit has written that if you are a Unitarian, "bigots burn a question mark on your lawn."(3) A church consultant, writing in the World, had the impression that the Unitarian church appeals to people who are restless, one might say "marginal," or "a little odd." He went on to speak highly of our "capacity to disagree agreeably."(4)

Defining Our Path

So what is Unitarianism? What is the best way of defining our approach to religion? Curtis Reese, an early 20th century Humanist, said that "historically the basic content of liberal religion is spiritual freedom."(5) This seems to be a good place to begin. As Unitarians, we insist on the right of defining our own beliefs. Such freedom is not just something to be tolerated, but something to be nurtured and affirmed. This is the premise of such Unitarian Adult Religious Education programs as Building Your Own Theology.

In defining ourselves - or in defining any religion, for that matter - it is important to avoid a couple of pitfalls. First, a good definition must be properly inclusive - it must not exclude any people or things which ought to be included. In our case, there must be room for atheists and theists, rationalists and mystics, and religious liberals of every sort. The principles of freedom and tolerance implore us to draw our circle as broadly as possible.

However, a useful definition must not be so broad and vague that it fails to bring out what makes us unique. As examples of poor definitions of this type, I would cite some ultra-inclusive definitions of Christianity. Suppose Christianity, for example, is defined simply in terms of the best of Jesus' teachings - love of neighbour, forgiveness, compassion for the poor, and so on. If this is all that Christianity is, then the essential teachings of the Buddha and many secular humanists are really "Christian," while many of the most well-known tenets of Christian orthodoxy are quite anti-Christian. Or, to take an example a bit further from home, consider the following ultra-inclusive definition of the Moslim religion (given by a Moslim):

I don't know about the date palms of the Middle East, but I'd like to think that the tree outside my bedroom window is a Unitarian tree - if for no other reason than since I'm the one who looks at it, I'm entitled to project whatever I want! Whatever sort of "divine law" my tree follows seems to be immanent or implicit in its nature. So if we humans are intended to follow a similar law, I don't see why we shouldn't think of it as being immanent or implicit in our nature. Why should we, alone among the creatures of the earth, need a special revelation from Mohammed to tell us what to do? But without this revelation - without the Koran - what remains of traditional Islam?

Seven Principles

Let us return now to our own religion. If there is a currently authoritative expression of Unitarianism, it is our statement of Principles and Sources. It lists seven principles and six sources of our living tradition. The seven principles are ethical not theological. They do not tell us what we must believe, like most church creeds. They are not a list of prohibitions, like the Ten Commandments. Rather, they are a series of general guidelines, which are likely to be revised at some future General Assembly.

These principles, I think, are not as helpful in defining Unitarianism as are the six sources. For they are very general. Consider the first two principles. It is hard to think of any major religion that would reject the principle of "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." Or be opposed to "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations." (Whether they live up to them in practice is another matter.) People may read into such principles many different things. Justice is the most deeply contested term in political theory. And in the name of the worth of the human person, people may take diametrically opposing positions on issues such as abortion and euthanasia.

My point here is not to criticize. Rather, it is to point out that ethical principles, when stated in very broad terms, are likely to attract support across all lines, and when stated in very specific terms, are likely to open up disagreements within every camp. Some of the other principles do a better job of defining what we - as opposed to other religions - do stand for. The fourth principle, our commitment to "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning," seems to distinguish us from all Bible-based churches. And the sixth and seventh principles, which refer to "the goal of world community" and "respect for the interdependent web of all existence," have implications that are radical and prophetic.

Six Sources

Let us move on to the six sources of our living tradition. These sources are a good place to start in explaining Unitarianism. The book Our Chosen Faith (co-authored by John Buehrens, former President of the UUA) is organized in terms of them, and so is much of the material in our hymnal. The six sources bring to mind some of the things that are most unique about the Unitarian path. For they speak of our religious pluralism and our historical tradition.

Being pluralists means that we are happy to draw on many spiritual sources - not just one sacred book which is the product of a culture very much unlike our own. Being pluralists means that there is no single Unitarian religious identity, no standard way of amalgamating the different sources of our tradition. Harvey Joyner, a UU minister, makes this point rather well:

For pluralism to work, we each must feel free to be spiritually ourselves, and must grant others the same right. We must be willing to entertain religious ideas and practices with which we may not agree, closing the door only to the various fundamentalisms which claim that they are the One True Way, and that everyone outside the fold is going to hell.

Such pluralism is mirrored in our history. Unitarian history in North America is a story of a variety of movements - from the original Unitarian Christians, to Transcendentalists like Emerson, to the Religious Humanists, and so on. It is a story of continuous revolution, with each development adding new spiritual sources to the mix. Institutionally, we are the direct descendants of the Puritans of New England. What is most unique about our tradition is how, generation by generation, it has evolved - from Calvinism, to liberal Christianity, to a movement in which even science-minded atheists and Goddess-worshipping pagans have a place in the circle. And as one historian has noted, very often the radicals of one generation have come to be regarded as 100�nitarians by their successors.(8)

Unitarian Christianity

Let us now consider the six sources of our tradition in rough historical sequence. The faith of the original Unitarians was rooted in one source - the "Jewish and Christian teachings" of the Bible (source #4). In North America, it arose out of a liberal movement within the established Puritan churches of New England.(9) The liberals took a sunny view of human nature and emphasized the role of reason in interpreting scripture. Their orthodox opponents made an issue of their rejection of the Trinity and labelled them Unitarians - a label which they reluctantly came to accept. The liberal Christians were not all that eager to found a new sect. It was only when the orthodox forced the issue that the Puritan churches split, with the liberals forming the American Unitarian Association in 1825.

Our subsequent history is a story of the gradual taking on board of new sources, and the gradual jettisoning of much of the doctrinal content of Christianity, until little more was left of it than the belief in a higher power and the injunction to love our neighbour. Along the way, there were many heated controversies, with conservatives wanting to define Unitarianism in strictly Christian terms, and radicals wanting to push the envelope of religious freedom. In 1866, some of the radicals even felt the need to form their own Free Religious Association. According to the Fifty Affirmations of Free Religion:

Although supported by a small minority in their own time, the principles of Free Religion eventually won out over those of sectarian Christianity within our movement.

Direct Experience

Another source of Unitarianism (#1 on our list) is the "direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder" - a source which has not always been affirmed by Christian orthodoxy. For when religious authority is invested in the Bible and the Church, non-authorized religious experience may become a dangerous source of heresy.

The prominence of this source within Unitarian tradition owes a lot to the Transcendentalists - a group of ministers and literary figures, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker, who challenged the newly-emerging Unitarian Christian orthodoxy of their day. Emerson upheld the importance of personal religious experience in a way that led him to undercut the special authority of the Bible. In his famous Divinity School Address (in 1838), he said that we should not think of revelation as something long ago given and done, as if God were dead (109). Rather, our age is in need of its own revelations (110). And he said that "the very word Miracle, as pronounced by the Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (107).(11) This means, I think, that we should learn to appreciate the mystery and wonder in the everyday course of nature, rather than look for special miracles (such as those allegedly performed by Jesus). Thus, for Unitarians, there is nothing necessarily supernatural about religious experience, just as there is no reason why "spirituality" cannot refer simply to the human spirit.

Prophetic Women and Men

Source #2 reflects Unitarian concern with social action and reform. It refers to "words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love." The word "prophetic" here invokes the example of the Old Testament prophets, who spoke out for justice and against the powers that be. Such a focus was largely absent from historical Christianity. It was only in the later part of the 19th century that the social gospel began to emerge within liberal Protestantism - in response, at least in part, to left-wing critiques of religion from figures like Karl Marx.

Within Unitarianism, a fine exemplar of this source was a man by the name of John Haynes Holmes. Holmes was a minister in New York City from 1907-1949. He was a socialist who wanted to shift the focus of religion from God to humanity, and from the individual soul to the community. He ended the practice of pew rental at his church and changed its name from the Church of the Messiah to the Community Church. He helped establish the American Civil Liberties Union and was a leading champion of Margaret Sanger and the Planned Parenthood movement. During World War I, he took a very unpopular stand as a pacifist, and in later years he became a great admirer and interpreter of Gandhi.(12) For many people, Gandhi and Martin Luther King represent what it means to confront powers of evil - not self-righteously, in a spirit of bitterness and revenge, but "with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love."

Humanist Teachings

Source #5 is Humanism, which only became influential among Unitarians in the 20th century, although its roots go back to Greek philosophy and the Enlightenment. Humanism counsels us "to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science," and warns us "against idolatries of the mind and spirit." For Humanists, it is important to affirm independent and critical thinking as a spiritual value, and to encourage people to "cherish their doubts." One of the most repugnant aspects of biblical religion is its message that faith is righteous and doubt is sinful. Thus, Father Abraham is held up as a hero of faith because he blindly accepted the word of Jehovah and was willing to sacrifice his son (Gen 22). And in the New Testament, "doubting Thomas" is ridiculed because he would not believe in the resurrection until he had confirmed it by touching the marks of the nails in Jesus' hands (Jn 20). The moral lesson here is clear: "Blessed are those who believe without evidence. To want to check things out for yourself is bad. To question religious authority is bad." Such teachings, of course, are completely opposed to the spirit of science and critical thinking.

Source #5 also warns us against idolatry. For those Sunday-schooled in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), the word "idolatry" may bring to mind images of heathens worshipping a block of wood or a golden calf as their god. However, the term has been redefined by modern liberal theologians, such as Paul Tillich. For Tillich, faith is idolatrous when it fixes on something partial, limited, or finite, worshipping it to the exclusion of all other expressions of the ultimate.(13) An example of such partial devotion is the attitude of many fundamentalists to their Bibles - an attitude that one might call "Bibliolatry." However, even such things as Reason, Science, and Social Justice may become idols, if one defines them narrowly, worships them exclusively, and demands the sacrifice of all other values in their name. Idolatry in this sense breeds black-and-white thinking. It urges us to equate one narrow tradition with the Word of God, or one partial ideal with The Good.

The Unitarian tradition, on the other hand, offers us many sources to draw upon. The challenge it leaves us with is not so much one of crusading for the triumph of light over darkness, but of finding a way to balance a variety of ideals.

Alternative Spiritualities

What about the third and the sixth sources? I haven't said much about "wisdom from the world's religions"or "spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions." It is only in the last few decades that these sources have made a big impact on Unitarianism. Our movement has long attracted people looking for an alternative to traditional Christianity. Until the 1960's, the main alternative to Biblical religion seemed to be reason, science, and building the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. A large number of those seeking a home in our congregations were skeptics and atheists. Humanism came to be the leading outlook among Unitarians. Since then, there has arisen an increasing hunger for alternative modes of spirituality. Hence there are now growing numbers of Unitarian Buddhists and Unitarian Pagans. The appeal of Pagan or Earth-based spirituality is now second only to Humanism.(14) This has led to conflicts in some congregations between what we might call the rationalists and the mystics. Ultimately, however, if religious liberals are to develop a vital and compelling alternative to old-time religion, we must draw on both head and heart, reason and ritual, science and poetry, our critical intellect and our deepest intuitions. The yin and the yang of our faith must be encouraged to balance and enrich one another. I myself am a UU Humanist, a person who is very much committed to the life of reason. But from a UU Pagan perspective, Margot Adler has said much the same thing:

Alternative Concepts of God

Craig Beam (c) 1999 (February 2007)

John Buehrens (UUA President), Our Chosen Faith, pp.35-36

"I'm not religious," people sometimes claim. "Then tell me about your experience," I say in return. We may not be conventionally pious, but we all experience life, and there are religious dimensions to explore within that experience.

I make the same point to those who tell me, "I don't believe in God." "Tell me about the God that you don't believe in," I often reply. "The chances are that I don't believe in 'Him' either."

A thought-provoking response. For everyone in our culture has some concept of God, whether they believe in such a being or not. And the God that one rejects can be as emotionally alive to the atheist as it is to any believer. For 15 years I defined myself as an atheist, and my views remain non-theistic. Yet all this time a certain concept of God has remained with me, a concept which in all essentials has its origin in my childhood. So, to begin with this morning, I will take up Buehrens' challenge and tell you about the God I don't believe in.

There are many ways to imagine God. One person may relate to a visual image (an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne); another might relate to a symbol (like the Taoist yin-yang circle), or conceptualize deity in terms of various metaphysical attributes. Christian philosophers and theologians have traditionally described God as a perfect being, who is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, transcendent, etc. All this is rather abstract. For many ordinary believers - and certainly for me as a child - God is related to mainly as a personality with certain ethical traits. God's character and personality are revealed through his acts in biblical history, or they can be inferred from what we are taught about him and how he is worshipped in church.

The God I don't believe in should be given a name. I will call him Jehovah, both in honour of the role of the Bible in shaping my image of him, and because calling him by a name (as his Witnesses' do) reminds us that he is only one god-concept among many. Jehovah is, for me, an authoritarian Lord - not a loving god. Looking back on my childhood, I do not remember ever feeling that Jehovah loved me - or, for that matter, that he really loved human beings or his creation. Consider some of his characteristics:

1. Jehovah is an ill-tempered god, easily offended, easily angered. These traits reveal psychological weakness and insecurity.

2. Jehovah is the ultimate Lawgiver, Judge, and Punisher. He can be tough and vindictive, especially towards those who disobey his laws or question his authority.

3. He is obsessed with regulating our sexuality, to a degree that borders on the pathological.

4. He has absolutely no sense of humour, he is not playful, and he takes himself very seriously.

5. He demands weekly worship; he likes it when his servants flatter him with praise, kneel down before him, and beg for favours.

6. He is jealous of other gods, and even jealous of the interest that we take in the material world.

7. He says he loves us and demands to be loved, but he is a harsh and distant figure. It is not for nothing that his devotees are referred to as "God-fearing," not "God-loving" people.

8. Because he claims to be a perfect being, he can never admit mistakes; thus before him we are always in the wrong; before him we are always to blame. This is the meaning of original sin.

9. Such a God is, in the end, a bit like Big Brother in 1984. He is forever watching and scrutinizing us. He requires that we practice doublethink so that we may believe all the theologically correct doctrines and creeds. And as our Cosmic Overlord he demands, not merely an outward show of obedience, but inward love, faith, and worship. He does not seem to realize that such things cannot be commanded without violating our spirit to the core.

10. My feelings about Jehovah are expressed in the following poem by William Blake, entitled To Nobodaddy (nobody's daddy):
    

This is the God I don't believe in. In describing him, I have attempted to sum up the things that troubled me most about the God of my childhood, and the things that I most wanted to reject when I called myself an atheist. If you were raised in a creed that you have now outgrown, you too have a God that you don't believe in. Perhaps he was a more benign and loving God than mine. Perhaps you find my account alien to your experience, or suspect that I have been unfair to the God of biblical religion. If so, I ask only that you not dismiss my experience of Jehovah. For my background was not bizarrely fundamentalist - I was raised United Church. My father may not have been perfect, but he was nothing like the Patriarchal Godfather that I have been describing. And the more I have read about religion, the more I have discovered that I am not alone, that my experience of Jehovah was not unique, and that it has been shared by any number of sensitive and intelligent people. Indeed, when in leading "Building Your Own Theology" I asked the group to a draw the God of their childhood, one person drew a picture of himself with a big, dark cloud hanging over his head. And despite the best efforts of liberal Christians to re-interpret the tradition, the archetype of Jehovah continues to cast a long shadow over the religious imagination of our culture.

When I ceased believing in God at age 14, I did not experience any feeling of loss. More like a liberation. In this way I differ from the sort of atheist who has warm feelings about God and the church, but is driven to doubt, and ultimately to abandon, their faith because it does not fit with modern science. An example of this is the philosopher Santayana, a materialist who had such a love for the Catholic tradition that one of his critics jokingly accused him of believing "that there is no God, but the Virgin Mary is his mother." Others are driven to atheism by the problem of evil, because they are unable to reconcile belief in a loving, personal God with the reality of suffering in the world. This problem never arose for me at a gut level, because deep down I never felt that Jehovah was a loving god. Of course, I eagerly embraced such arguments because they gave me reason not to believe. For similar reasons, I embraced the world-view of science, in which everything has a natural, physical, rational explanation. Science became for me, as it is for many humanists, the great liberator of the human mind from superstition and darkness. In one rebellious teenage phase, I even used to refer to my parents' church as "the house of superstition."

Metaphysics has been defined as "the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct." A cynical remark, but applicable to many efforts to prove the tenets of traditional theism. However, in the same way, I first approached the subject in order to find good reasons for what I reject on instinct. I rejected the very idea of a God with vehemence because I equated God with Jehovah, and I did not want to believe in any such being. And because I equated religion with Jehovah-worship, I had no use for it either.

Over the years, my views have evolved, and in some ways mellowed. I have come to realize (1) that my deepest problem with biblical religion is ethical rather than metaphysical; (2) that there are more plausible and life-affirming concepts of deity beyond Jehovah; and (3) that a person need not believe in God to be a spiritual (or religious) person, any more than one need believe in God to be an ethical person. In other words, I have come to separate three things - biblical faith, the concept of God, and spirituality - from one another.

My topic today is alternative concepts of God. By this I mean, not just alternatives to Jehovah, but alternatives to theism. In a UUA pamphlet, a "theist" is described as someone who believes in a personal God, worthy of adoration, who is active in the world and transcendent (Barbara Merritt, The Faith of a Theist). Generally, theism is understood to mean monotheism - that is, belief that there is only one such god. Of course, if you are willing to think unorthodox thoughts, you could also believe that there are many such gods. Our minister at Waterloo, Anne Treadwell, has a sermon entitled "Confessions of a Polytheist" in which she defends such an idea. I'm inclined to think that - if there can be such an thing as a personal god - it is just as plausible to believe that there are many such entities as to insist that there is only one. Polytheism also seems more in keeping with pluralism and diversity - the fact that there is such a variety of faiths and ideals in the world.

In moving away from theism, one chips away at the attributes of theistic divinity - particularly the idea that God is a personal and transcendent being. Thus, one may deny that God is active in the world, or cares about our destiny, or cares about our religious practices. In denying this, one denies the God of revelation - the God who acts in history, performs miracles, and writes books for our edification. The view one is left with is known as deism, a view popular in the 18th century (e.g. with the American Founders). The deistic god is a creator, who sets the laws of motion in place and then removes himself from the scene. He is distant from our concerns, like the sort of father whose interest in his offspring begins and ends with conception.

Pantheism - the idea that All is God and God is All - departs further from theism. For in identifying God with Nature, or with some principle within the world, pantheism generally involves a denial (1) that God is a person, and (2) that God is transcendent. Pantheism is an umbrella term rather than the name of a particular religion. Taoism can be classed as pantheistic, as can certain kinds of Buddhism, the philosophy of Spinoza and Hegel, and many versions of Goddess and Earth-based spirituality. No doubt, many Unitarians fall within this spectrum of belief - more, I suspect, than would be willing to call themselves "theists" or "atheists."

How pantheism is different from theism is fairly clear. A more difficult question is how, in practice, it differs from atheism. It has been said by the critics of pantheism "that everything God, and no God, are identical positions." (Michael Levine, Pantheism, p.3). If God is identical with the universe, it is merely another name for the universe, so that pantheism and atheism are really the same. When I first encountered this line of argument, I found it convincing. Pantheism seemed like just a peculiar way of keeping god-talk going in the absence of God. But now I am not so sure.

First, we might compare the relation between "God" and "world" in pantheism to the relation between the "mental" and "physical" aspects of a human person. This analogy has been developed in some detail by the pantheist philosopher Grace Jantzen (God's World, God's Body). She suggests, first, that we think of the world as God's body, and second, that we reject mind-body dualism and view God's relation to the world in holistic terms. Our mental life may not be able to exist apart from our body, but that does not imply that "mind" and "body" are merely synonyms. Having a mind or conscious self is made possible by a certain order within the body - respiration, the beating of the heart, and the functioning of the brain and other vital organs. In the absence of these processes, the body is good for little more than compost. In the same way, pantheists tend to think that what makes the natural world divine are certain processes and cycles which enable it to evolve and sustain life. To deny that God transcends the world does not mean that divinity is to be reduced to brute matter, any more than the denial that our mental life is inseparable from its bodily basis need imply that a human person is nothing but a bunch of chemicals.

Second, it has been said that a optimist is a person who sees the glass as half full, while the pessimist sees the glass as half empty. There is a big psychological gap between these perspectives, even though the facts they describe are identical. In the same way, I think it is significant whether we see the world as sacred or profane, enchanted or disenchanted, meaningful or empty of meaning. One of my main quarrels with Jehovah-worship is that it is usually dualistic, bidding us to direct our spiritual attention away from the earth. An image of divinity is upheld which is disembodied and otherworldly. Pantheistic ideas, on the other hand, help us to accept that the earth is our true and only home and to see everyday things as sacred. This may be especially important when it comes to environmental issues. Pantheistic divinity is not an entity that we can look to for salvation. Rather, it is up to us to protect and actualize it - to refrain from destroying the Matrix of Life, and to continue the Process of Evolution towards ever richer and more complex forms of Being.

So in the end, am I a pantheist? At this point I prefer to say that it is a possibility that I entertain, rather than a belief that I hold. Pantheism is, for me, both more plausible and more life-affirming than classical theism. As someone whose spirit revolts against the idea of worshipping a Jehovah-like god, pantheism also helps to make god-language (inescapable in our culture and our UU hymnal) more palatable.

I will finish up with a story. In the fall of 1997, I went for a walk in the woods. As I contemplated the reds and yellows of the leaves, and listened to the buzzing of the last few insects of the season, I become lost in reverie. I begin to think that I too am like the trees and the insects, participating in cycles of birth and death, growth and decay. As a human I may differ from trees and insects, for it is through us that nature has become self-aware, intelligent, and caring. I began to imagine that the cosmos is more than just a bunch of atoms obeying the laws of physics. I began to wonder if nature is in some sense alive. The idea seemed attractive and comforting. Finally, I stepped back and reflected upon the whole train of thought. I realized that perhaps for the first time, I had envisioned a god for which I felt affection.