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| Michael Servetus |
Today, though, heresy is definitely "in." As Rev. Alison Wohler exhorts: "We remain heretics for yet a while longer, and I say, Blessings on us all." It's hip, admittedly, to go against the religious grain, to swim spiritually upstream. But, as Harris also advises, "we are heretics because we want to choose our faith, not because we desire to be rebellious. Heresy in Greek means choice."
I am reminded of the adage: "Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely." The freedom of choice can be as dangerous as it is emancipatory.
This past Sunday, Robin cautioned against protesting our way entirely out of Christianity, thereby losing our seat at the table and with it: our influence, our identity, our memory. One cannot be a heretic, she argued, without a tradition to push up against, or within which to "choose." And religious dilettantism doesn't count.
Ironically, hers has since become the heretical position within Unitarian Universalism writ large.
I invite your thoughts: do we need more Unitarian Universalist "heretics" choosing to reclaim our Christian heritage and its accompanying symbols, aesthetics and theological richness? What do we lose as a tradition when we protest our way out of Christianity altogether? Or, is this intentional "historical amnesia" a necessary strategy for growing in a new direction?
Either way, let us "choose wisely."
Please: continue the conversation.
We often think that if we acknowledge the Christian roots of Unitarianism we are admitting to being Christian in our personal beliefs. I do not consider myself a Christian, since I don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but I do embrace the Christian history of the Unitarians as well as many of the teachings of the Christian religions.
ReplyDeleteAndy: I think you're on to something here.
ReplyDeleteThere are often two assumptions at play: (1) that acknowledging our Christian past necessarily means confessing a Christian present; (2) that Christianity equates to belief in Jesus as the Son of God.
The former you rightly address, by clearing space for the ability to "embrace the Christian history" without feeling obliged to "believe that Jesus is the Son of God," and by extension, consider yourself a Christian.
As for the second assumption, I would lift up the many Unitarians and Universalists who challenged the conflation of a Christian identity with belief in Jesus' divinity. For example (and there are many), Rev. Dana McLean Greeley argued that Unitarians would do well to believe in Jesus not as the Son of God, but as the Son of Man (i.e. Humanity): "He was a product of the race that has been, and a prophecy of the race that is to come."
I am in no way insinuating that you should change your religious self-identification. But know that your reluctance to divinize Christ is deeply rooted in the audacious heritage of our tradition.