After Fifty Years

Today’s service offered a rousing call to risk a leap of faith – in ourselves as a church community and in the promise of our religious movement. Parisa passionately connected our sense of urgency to the heroic story of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a rural village in south-central France that offered shelter to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Although the contexts differ dramatically, we Unitarian Universalists would do well to draw inspiration from their stories of radical hospitality and communal care. And indeed, our denomination has time and again demonstrated an audacious commitment to historically marginalized groups. We have extended an invitation of beloved community to women seeking ordination, to LGBTQ persons and, more recently, to racial and ethnic minorities.

Nevertheless, Unitarian Universalism has been largely relegated to by-stander at the parade of American religiosity. Consider: how often do you encounter someone who has actually heard of, let alone is familiar with, our faith tradition? I know that for me, as a minister in formation, I often spend more time describing the religion in which I hope one day to minister than I do relaying my calling to that ministry. Demographically, though, this inconvenient truth should not surprise us. In fact, this country claims more Neo-Nazi sympathizers than it does Unitarian Universalists.    

Our history holds fast to the dream of greatness, however. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of what former Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) president Robert N. West called the ‘Unitarian Council of Nicea.’ Foreshadowed and rehearsed by youth in the 1954 decision to join Unitarian and Universalist young adult ministry into the Liberal Religious Youth, the process of birthing our two-headed theological nomenclature reached an emotional climax in 1960. That year, at the annual meeting in Boston, hundreds of robed ministers joined with lay delegates to sing the processional hymn:

As tranquil streams that meet and merge

And flow as one to seek the sea,

Our kindred fellowships unite

To build a church that shall be free.

The blessing and the curse of a free church, of course, is that we have to choose our direction. In no uncertain terms, we are the ones who may choose to be relevant by opening ourselves to difference and thereby expanding our inter-connectedness. When the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of American took the leap of faith to consolidate, they risked partisanship for the greater cause of relevancy. They opted for a united institution of power that could wield the power of institution for the cause of justice-making and community-building. Preaching the homily at the annual worship service in 1960, Donald Harrington described the milestone event as “partly a new birth, partly a commencement, partly a kind of marriage [but also] … a degree of death.” Fifty years later, we are the ones charged with the task of writing the occasion’s legacy. Was consolidation the beginning of a new and vibrant faith journey, or the beginning of that journey’s end?

Walking through the Harvard campus, climbing the stairs of Widener Library and cutting through the Yard, I cannot help but notice my sense of smallness – a wave of humility routinely washes over me on such wanderings. The walkways I regularly travel once carried those courageous individuals, some popularly known and others lost to history, who made profound contributions to human knowledge and the shape of our society today. I catch myself, from time to time, asking that infamous question: do I really deserve to be here, studying for the ministry at Harvard Divinity School?

This question is one that we Unitarian Universalists might consider asking as well: do we deserve our historical legacy, as spotted and imperfect as it may be? Or even more poignantly, do we deserve to survive? Do we deserve relevancy?

It is tempting, of course, to rattle off a litany of justifications for our enduring existence as a faith tradition, much as it is tempting for me to dig through my résumé or transcript to validate my studies at Harvard. But I wonder whether there’s another way.

I want to believe that our justification lies less in our past and more in our future. The question ‘do I deserve this’ can only be answered retrospectively. After all, I am studying at Harvard and Unitarian Universalism, while peripheral, is still relevant. Thank God! Thus, the deeper question becomes: so what? How will my actions today and tomorrow validate the privileges I have already been granted?

It is a blessing to call oneself a Unitarian Universalist. Now, what are we going to do about it?

Reflection for the week: Our actions tomorrow sanctify our being today.