Tomorrow's Unitarian Universalism
by Rev. Colin Bossen, June 7, 2009
It was the first Unitarian Bishop of Transylvania, Francis David, who said "We need not think alike to love alike." If our liberal religious tradition had a creed this would be it, "we need not think alike to love alike." This common sentiment unites practitioners of liberal religion across the centuries. It was present in the earliest Unitarian congregations in Poland and Transylvania, operative among our Puritan and Pilgrim ancestors in New England and can be witnessed today in the tender interchanges of our congregation.
"We need not think alike to love alike." So much is packed into that one sentence. Embedded in it we find the two core principles of our religious tradition--a commitment to individual freedom of belief and the organization of our religious communities upon the basis of mutual love. We are bound together by covenant--agreements as to how, in the words of Conrad Wright, we will "walk together in mutual fellowship"--not creed because we understand that how we treat each other is far more important than what we believe. You and I might believe very different things but we can agree that in order to build a strong religious community we must strive to live together in love.
"We need not think alike to love alike." I want you to keep this phrase and this idea in mind today as I talk with you about the future of our Unitarian Universalist faith. The forms and cultures of Unitarian Universalism may be quite different from our own a hundred, fifty or even ten years in the future. However, no matter how strange the expressions of our liberal religious faith become it is certain that the core will remain untrammeled and unchanged.
Historically, people who think about the future of our liberal religion can be epitomized by two extremes. The first camp might be labeled the optimists. They believe that the future of our free faith is bright. So very bright, in fact, that one day we might, in the words of the 20th century Universalist minister Brainard Gibbons, offer the world a "unifying universal religion." Such advocates claim, as Gibbons did, that our faith could mature to represent "a synthesis of all religious knowledge which passes the test of human intelligence." Upon reaching its maturity religious liberalism could not but sweep up the world in its enthusiasm and truly make sisters and brothers of us all.
The other extreme is inhabited by those, such as the contemporary Unitarian Universalist minister Davidson Loehr, who claim to "hear [the] noise of the death of Unitarian Universalism." These pessimists point out that over the last forty year the growth of Unitarian Universalism has not kept up with the overall growth of the population. Many of them suggest that the primary reason for our decline is that for much of the twentieth century Unitarians, Universalists and Unitarian Universalists focused on politics instead of religion. According to Loehr our religious movement owes as much to secular liberalism as it does any theological tradition. Our problem, he argues, is that, on a corporate level, "we lack anything worth believing." We do not have "a religious center" and do not offer religious seekers the sort of "narrow way" that leads, take your pick, to enlightenment, salvation or right living. Instead of challenging people to raise their sights to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" we offer platitudes and suggest that everyone is welcome in our communities. Following the lead of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, such critics continue that not only is Unitarian Universalism too secular and not spiritually rigorous enough it also lacks an adequate understanding of the darker side of human nature--which many call evil.
Such cynics offer a variety of prognoses for the future of our movement. Some, like Loehr, believe that it is too late to save Unitarian Universalism. We should direct ourselves to salvaging what is worthwhile from our tradition--in Loehr's view the lives and teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing and Theodore Parker--and either "plant seeds for a noble religious future" that understands "the way is...narrow and few...are those who find the path" or move onto greener pastures. Others, such as Peter Morales, a candidate for President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, believe that all we need to do to reverse our decline is "get religion." In other words, our salvation will come when we find more "heart, spirituality, depth, [and] mystery." Congregations that have religion, in Morales's view, practice radical hospitality and can measure their success by their numerical growth.
My own view about the future of our religious movement lies somewhere between the deep pessimists and the over optimists. The diagnosis of fatal illness is premature. It is true that we have not grown significantly in North America over the last forty years. It is also true that, unlike almost every other liberal or moderate Protestant church, we have not lost significant numbers of members. In fact, over the last twenty-five years Unitarian Universalism has grown. It has just grown more slowly than the population of the United States but it has grown. During the same period the membership of the United Church of Christ has fallen by more than half. The Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists and most Baptists have also declined. In the face of trends like these we must be something right. And this leads me to disagree with those who, like Loehr, say we lack a religious center. As a Unitarian Universalist all of my life I have found our faith to be challenging and provoking. It calls me to both seek my better angel and confront the ills of the world.
The question, then, is not will we survive but we will thrive? How that question is answered, and what we must do to thrive, depends upon whether we try to answer the question internationally, nationally or locally. Our movement is global in nature, something the pessimists tend to forget, and when we discuss the future of Unitarian Universalism we need to consider it on more than just on a congregational or national level.
If Unitarian Universalism is to thrive at any level in the future two things are required. We must become more racially and culturally diverse. And we must become more tolerant of our own theologically diversity. Both of these are, o some level, simple matters of demographics.
Internationally, it appears that much of the future of Unitarian Universalism may lie in Africa. According to a recent article in the UU World, this is the continent where our faith is growing most rapidly. In some communities people are rebelling against orthodox Christianity--with its emphasis on sin and hell fire--by turning towards liberal religion. This follows a pattern long established in our movement's history. Unitarianism developed America, Poland and the Khasi Hills of India as reaction to orthodox Christianity. Today history is repeating itself in Africa. In the last ten years as many as sixty-eight Unitarian Universalist congregations have emerged in the Kenyan province of Kisii. Several dozen more have emerged in Nairobi and central Kenya. African Unitarian Universalist leaders claim that their movement includes several thousand people.
The theology of these congregations is closer to that of our religious ancestors than it is to many of ours. Joseph Nyangau, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Kenya describes it, "We take the Bible literally, but we only believe in one God. Others talk about three Gods, but we talk about one God." He continues, "We try to teach them to think for themselves..." In a preceding sentence he notes, "We stand as a family of love, peace, unity, and justice." "We are all sons of God," another Kenyan Unitarian Universalist says. "I felt it was a church with freedom," a third said to explain her attraction to the faith. Behind these words I can hear Francis David proclaim, "We need not think alike to love alike."
The growth of Unitarian Universalism in Africa presents several challenges. With the exception of a few aborted efforts in Japan and India neither our Unitarian nor our Universalists ancestors had much success with or commitment to missionary work. Often they were skeptical of the paternalism that it implied. Some, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, were racist and doubted the ability of non-Europeans to grasp the rational intricacies of liberal religion. Our long lack of interest in missionary work has left our movement unprepared to support the growth of Unitarian Universalism in developing countries. Unlike the Presbyterians, Mormons or Seventh-Day Adventists we do not have the institutional infrastructure to nurture congregations, ministers, schools, clinics and economic development efforts. The Unitarian Universalist Association, perhaps because of this history, has not yet figured out how to relate to emerging African congregations.
It is not clear that the survival and growth of our congregations in Africa is dependent upon a strong relationship between North American and African Unitarian Universalists. Many of our co-religionists discovered Unitarian Universalism through the internet. All of them started their congregations independent of the instigation, support or even knowledge of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
These new congregations will change Unitarian Universalism. They will broaden our racial and cultural diversity and geographic reach; challenge, for many of us, our theological comfort zones; and call us to consider the relationship between our North American communities and some of the world's poorest peoples.
The future of Unitarian Universalism in North America is murky. On some levels the skeptics are right. We must change in order to thrive. In other ways the time has never been riper for liberal religion. Consider that according to a recent Pew survey a majority of American Christians now "think that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life." This is a position that is reminiscent of some 19th century Universalists. It suggests a growing tolerance for religious plurality and the ability to find spiritual truths from among a variety of the world's religions, two hallmarks of our liberal faith.
There is a spiritual hunger among many today that our faith can help to meet. It has widely reported that Americans are lonely and looking for meaning and meaningful relationships in their lives. According to one study, as many as one in four Americans has no close personal relationship and most people have two or less close personal relationships. People are isolated and they are often looking for a community with which to connect.
Many of these people are looking for ways to find meaning in their lives. They are trying, in the words of Unitarian Universalist minister Christine Robinson, "to quench a thirst, to have an authentic experience...to connect with mystery, to see themselves...to deepen their souls." Our congregations grow when we meet those needs. When we do not our communities either stagnate or shrivel.
Long-term future growth of our congregations, of course, lies with future generations. My parents generation are the Baby Boomers. I am part of Generation X. The generation after mine, to which my daughter and many of the children currently in our religious education program belong, is the Millennial Generation. They were born between 1982 and 2003. They are different from both my generation and from that of my parents. Just as the current growth of Unitarian Universalism lies largely with the Baby Boomers and Generation X, future growth lies with the Millennial Generation.
Laurel Hallman, another candidate for President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, argues that "Millennials are a generation perfectly suited to Unitarian Universalism." She notes that the Millennial Generation is the largest generation this country has ever produced. It numbers as many as a hundred million and it differs from preceding generations in some important ways. It is the most racially diverse generation in our history. It is composed of almost forty percent people of color. This diversity has meant Millennials tend to hold more progressive views about gender roles and sexual orientation than their parents or grandparents. They are better educated than previous generations. And they tend be value institutions more than either the Baby Boomers or the Generation Xers. They are more engaged with volunteer work and community service than other generations. And, in general, they are conscious of the large scale problems our society faces over the next decades.
Importantly, in Hallman's words, they "are...hungry for wholeness" because they grew up "in an era of fragmentation, from a soaring divorce and blended family rates, to a soaring number of channels on their TV sets." Their tendency to search for wholeness mixed with their commitment to social justice, progressive social values, openness and support of institutions make them a good fit for our free faith.
If, or perhaps as, the Millennials join our congregations they will change our communities. Their racial diversity will force us to realize that if we cannot become better integrated as faith in North America we are destined for marginalization. Their institutionalism means that they often are more traditional religiously than their parents and grandparents generations. This is witnessed, according to Unitarian Universalist minister Nancy McDonald Ladd, by their movement away from "amorphous non-theological post-denominational forms of worship and toward religious communities with form, scope, theological clarity, and proudly historic identities." This means that Millennials can be more comfortable with God language and traditional worship services than Baby Boomers or Generation Xers. They "come to church," again according to Ladd, "to have one single place in their lives where they know they're part of a story that is inclusive of and greater than themselves." We can offer that story and when we do, if we bring Millennials into our congregations, we will find that our communities change. Twentieth century forms of religious liberalism might be challenged or even replaced by twenty first century forms. And this will make some of us uncomfortable. When we feel that discomfort I hope we will remember the words of Francis David, "we need not think alike to love alike," and see that underneath the form the core of religious liberalism remains intact.
During this these times of change and transition I suspect that the future of our own congregation is bright. Over the last four years we have more than doubled in membership. We attract young adults, both from Generation X and the Millennial Generation, and have an ever clearer sense of our mission and vision. We are considering a capital campaign to renovate our building and ultimately foster further growth. We are shifting our congregational decision making culture from informal to formal and building the necessary institutional framework for the future.
Yet, this growth presents us with challenges and change. Different generations have different needs and express theological ideas somewhat differently. Seekers from one generation might be more inclined to search for a religious community that is comfortable with metaphoric language than seekers from another who might be uncomfortable with it. Finding a comfort level with this theological diversity and this change may be challenging. It might even cause some to wonder if they still belong in this liberal religious community. They do. Even as the forms and expressions of liberal religion change the core remains the same, "we need not think alike to love alike."
The greatest challenge to our long term growth is whether or not, as our proposed mission statement suggests, we can strive to mirror the diversity of our local community. The neighborhoods surrounding our congregation are extraordinarily racially diverse. With each passing year they become more, rather than less, so. At Turtle Park, where I play with my son down the corner, I regularly encounter African American, Chinese, European, Latino and South East Asian families. If over the next many years we cannot figure out how to reach out to the full diversity of our wider community than I suspect that our congregation will consign itself to self-marginalization.
This challenge may present us with a crisis and a need to change. We can rise to meet it. The Unitarian Universalist experience in Africa should prove that our free faith truly has room for, and appeal to, all people. This knowledge and that challenge may make some of us uncomfortable. In that discomfort we should find solace with the knowledge that, as Michael Hogue has written, "Liberal religion is in crisis! It always has been and always will be, for crisis is part of the essence of liberalism..." I do not doubt that we will rise to meet the crisis and remember, with L. B. Fisher, that we Unitarian Universalists "do not stand at all, we move." As we move let us carry with us those wise words of Francis David, "we need not think alike to love alike."
May it be so.
Amen.