Unitarian Universalists are fond of the joke that if you put thirteen Unitarian Universalists in a room and asked them to define Unitarian Universalism you would get thirteen different answers.  Do it with the same people next week and they will give you different answers.  We all have different and constantly shifting ways of saying what is important to us.  Last week you got Ken’s version this week you get mine at least mine for this week.

Sometimes when being asked to say what a Unitarian Universalist believes we feel a bit like David up against Goliath.  We don’t have the armament of a Book or eons of tradition that we still adhere to. We have only our little rocks; our short 600-year history, a few guys on the fringes that wrote great stuff and lots of experience with change and new ideas.  We may even find it hard to explain to other Uus why we are here or what it means to be a UU.  It’s not easy being a UU.  But like David we need to pick up our stones and do the best we can.

My favorite UU theologian is James Luther Adams, one of those fringe people who wrote great stuff about liberal religion.  Ken mentioned last week that we all have our guides and Dr. Adams is one of mine.  This morning I would like to use his essay "Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism" as a jumping off spot to give each of us some stones we can carry in our pockets.  Stones to fight outside giants and those we find as critical insiders.

That sounds a bit more adversarial than I intend.  Let me say it this way, it is helpful to have some words in our kit bag when we start to explain what Unitarian Universalism is to anyone, including ourselves.  I often use the principles.  Starting with our valuing of the individual, moving through our use of reason and the democratic process, making a quick stop at individual search for meaning, pointing out our desire to make the world and more just and peaceful place and ending up with our understanding of the world as being an interdependent place.

Yet, as good as those are I still like to come back to James Luther Adams for more in-depth conversations. In part I like his work because he doesn’t come to the faith uncritically.  He sees the flaws as clearly as anyone does. In the essay he does a great job of naming our internal Goliath and giving us the stones we can use to slay it.  He spends time explaining where the idea of liberalism came from and how we have gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle because of our internal inconsistencies. His concerns are particularly relevant for today’s churches.  They are our current struggles.

Adams talks about our wonderful ambiguity, which is part of our struggle between the individual and the community.  He traces this struggle back to Thomas Jefferson on the one hand and "the Radical Reformation" on the other.  Jefferson had great faith in the individual, which lead to the elimination of such religious ideas as the devil and hell. Sin was eventually removed as well as the individual was defined as one who possessed innate purity.  The radical reformation on the other hand grounded its form of religion in the protest of authoritarian figures in the church.  The church was not to be controlled by individuals, like priests.[1]   The Left Wind of the Reformation (from which many of our founders come) is grounded in democratic community and life with others.  You can see how these two friendly ideas could eventually come into conflict.  You can see how the emphasis on the individual could lead to an authoritarianism while emphasis on a free community can lead to anti-individualism.

We see these trends in our churches today.  Many of our congregations are struggling with how to put limits on behavior to protect the community yet not become a rigid group that denies the value of individual voices.  How do we met the individual needs of our varied congregations and still have a collective that takes strong stands on certain issues?  How do we teach all the various angles in our religious education classes while presenting to our children a definable center that they can lean on all their lives? These are good questions and ones we must continue to ask..

Dr. Adam’s final criticism that I will address this morning is his concern that we have lost our depth.  In the name of expediency and under the influence of utilitarianism we have let our faith become about the "good life".  Perhaps as we rid ourselves of sin, hell and the devil we also rid ourselves of the "shadowed" side of life.  We have celebrated the joy of humanity, the glory of our progress, the strength of our creations and paid little attention to tragedy.  In this same vein he complains that the liberal has been too attracted to openness and tolerance.  Unchecked he explains how this leads to a mind "that is simply open at both ends."[2]

Given all these criticisms; our inconstancies between the individual and the community, and our lack of religious depth Adams still finds the faith worthy of his allegiance.  He offers us five stones that we can use to combat these giants in our path.

The first of the stones he offers is that religious liberals depend on the concept that revelation is not sealed.  Truth is a constantly evolving and changing process.  Thus everything has meaning.  "Every blade of grass, every work of art, every scientific endeavor, every striving for righteousness bears witness to some meaning. Indeed, every frustration or perversion of truth, beauty or goodness also bears this witness, as the shadow points round to the sun. "[3]  We are constant seekers for truths and thus all we experience has meaning and worth.

The second of his stones is a deep understanding that all relations between people "ought ideally to rest on mutual, free consent and not coercion."[4]  Now this one is not always possible.  There is necessity for certain restrictions on individual freedoms.  Nevertheless, free choice is a central part of our religion.  It stems from the understanding that we are all children of the same God.  We all have the capacity for discovering truth and right.  Free choice and mutuality are the only way to honor human dignity while acknowledging our limitations.  We are not all perfect yet with choice and open inquiry we can get the maximum benefits of our humanity. Choice to speak our minds, choice to change our minds, the right to leave a group if we wish, but more importantly because of choice and mutuality the right to stay and not be coerced.  By extension, the community as a whole also rests on these same values of choice and free consent .

Thirdly we have the moral obligation to direct our efforts toward making the world a more just and loving place. This is my favorite of Dr. Adam’s points. I am particularly fond of Adam’s words here:

"A faith that is not the sister of justice is bound to bring men (Sic.) to grief.  It thwarts creation…; it robs man (sic.) of his birthright of freedom; it robs the community of the spiritual riches latent in its member; it reduces man (sic.) to a beast of burden in slavish subservience to a state, a church or a party."[5]

We have a faith that is a sister with justice. Some times we get bottled up in words or bogged down in institutions but generally we use our power to transform injustice with love.  This keeps our faith from being a purely spiritual one disconnected from the body and the world.  You see its evidence here in this church, each newsletter is filled with examples of our efforts to make the world a more just and loving place. We are a faith of words but we are also a faith of deeds.

Fourth, our faith demands that we express it in social terms. There is no virtue simply given.  This point is connected to the last.  We take seriously the world in which we strive to create more love and justice. It is not enough for us to create families that are more just, although that is a step.  It is not enough for us to create a church community that is more loving, although that is a step.  We are faith whose goodness is shaped in the social realm.  This requires of us that we shape history.  We form institutions and create structures in which put our faith. Our faith is not merely in individual virtue.  We see this in operation at the social action committee meetings, where everyone asks "How do we do more than Band-Aids?"  We hear about it in the work done on non-profit boards, and organizations that strive to use power to create more justice. We are a faith expressed in social terms not just individual.

Finally Adams sees that resources, human and beyond human, are available for the achievement of positive change.  We see this all around us. This gives us reason to have optimism - maybe not immediate optimism, but a long reaching optimism that human existence has been, can be and will continue to be life affirming. Which is not to deny that there are forces working toward destruction.  But even amidst the destruction and evil there is reason for hope for humanity.  In the recent wars and terrible tragedies we have witnessed there is certainly horror, but also there is heroism, strength of character and will, liberation, love and high ideals.  This is where liberal religion finds its fifth stone in a positive spirit that builds hope for the future.

Thus according to James Luther Adams liberalism is grounded in the open book of revelation, relationships based on mutuality, a striving for a more just and loving world, being connected to society and because there is evidence, maintaining an optimistic view.  These stones of liberalism do not easily slay our difficulties of ambiguity, being too open, or our tendency toward antitradtionalism.  Nor do they make it easy for us to see clearly through the conflicts between the individual and the group. But they do give us a ground to stand on.

Who are Unitarian Universalists?  We are people who will keep learning and changing because revelation is not sealed.  We are people who build our relationships on mutuality and freedom of choice. We are a people who work for a more just and loving world because we are optimistic that we can and will have a positive effect on society and history.  We understand there is more to life than just our individual part in it.  Thus with all the realism and tough-mindedness we can muster we will use our intellectual integrity, our social relevance and varied perspective to continue to create a religion that is based in the spirit of freedom . [6]

References
1. Adams, James Luther On Being Human Religiously: Selected Essays in Religion and Society. Edited by Max Stackhouse. Beacon Press 1976 pp. 7-9
2.  Ibid. p. 11
3.  Ibid. p. 13
4.  Ibid. p. 14
5.  Ibid. p. 16
6.  Ibid. p. 21
 

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