Beliefs of a 21st Century Unitarian

Wednesday 28 May 2014

The Imperative to Think Things Through

[this post appeared in a slightly different form over on Still I Am One in April 2011]

Unitarians generally place a lot of importance on thinking things through for themselves, rather than blindly following a path that another has laid down for them. But it can get very complicated ...



For example, one day I took my son out to lunch at Pizza Hut. We had the all-you-can-eat buffet, and I was looking idly at the bill (you know the way they leave it on the table part way through the meal) and noticed that they had only charged us for one buffet (i.e. £6.99 instead of £13.98). So I pointed this out the next time the waitress came over to see if we were OK, and she took the bill away and amended it.

So far, so simple. My son commended me on my honesty, and I said something about not being able to do anything else. This led, I cannot say how, to a long and involved discussion about comparative approaches to ethics, deontological versus teleological, which he said meant according different degrees of significance to principles or consequences. I argued that there were some things that were always right or wrong, regardless of consequences, and he proceeded to pick very large holes in my arguments by giving specific examples.

For example, I have always maintained that the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was inexcusable and unforgiveable, and that nuclear weapons should never be used under any circumstances. He argued that if those bombs had not been dropped, many more thousands of people on both sides would have died in a war which would have lasted until 1950. In other words, the consequences of dropping the bombs were less bad overall than not dropping them. I still don't agree with him, but he has a point.

Why is our world so complicated? Why aren't ethical decisions simple and straightforward and obvious? Wouldn't it be a much better world if they were - if there was an obvious right and wrong decision to make? My inner child would love things to be that simple; if there were only one obvious source of evil (like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings) and all the "goodies" would be on the other side, and good would always triumph over evil. That would be so much more satisfying, and easy to pontificate about. We (my son and I) are watching Game of Thrones, at the moment, which is much more complex, and I get very upset every time a "goodie" gets bumped off, which seems to happened with distressing regularity.

But our world is not simple (thank goodness). There are no black and white answers to any complex questions - there are always and only shades of grey. The problem with seeing things in black and white is that it is such a narrow point of view; in order to judge wisely (notice I don't say "to judge rightly") you have to look at all sides of a question and use what Karen Armstrong calls empathic compassion - putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Maybe if more of us tried to do this for more of the time, there would be less anger and hatred and misunderstanding and deprivation in the world.

The Charter for Compassion is an important step in the right direction. And if supporting it means always seeing the other person's point of view and acting according to the Golden Rule, then maybe my son was right and I was wrong, and consequences are more important than principles.

But then why are we taught that some things are right and some are wrong? I still could not have walked out of Pizza Hut without saying anything about the bill, because that would have been dishonest and that is wrong. (Even though, as he pointed out, Pizza Hut makes massive profits and wouldn't have missed my £6.99). But in another circumstance, would dishonesty be right? My son gave me the example of Robin Hood, who robbed the rich to give to the poor, (which was technically a dishonest crime) and many of us today (including me) support the Robin Hood Tax. But isn't that condoning legalised theft? My brain is hurting already.

I think that the biggest wrong that we can do is not to think about these things, but to judge hastily and without thought, according to what someone else tells us. I think that in most cases there are no absolute right or wrong answers, but that our absolute duty is to consider each individual case carefully and empathically, on its merits. That is perhaps the best we can do.


Friday 23 May 2014

Deeds Not Creeds

 My favourite definition of faith is that by Clarence Jordan, author of the Cotton Patch translations of the New Testament: "Faith is not belief in spite of evidence; but a life in scorn of the consequences." It means living your beliefs, regardless of what it may cost. It means having integrity; it means "walking the talk". Our free-thinking, independent-minded way of approaching life is poles apart from accepting a creed because someone higher up the religious hierarchy tells us to. I would like to share the statement of faith from the website of my home congregation, Northampton, which was cobbled together from a variety of other Unitarian sources (General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches leaflet A Faith Worth Thinking About, and Rev. Cliff Reed):

Our Faith

Unitarianism is a religious movement in which individuals are free to follow their reason and conscience; there is no pressure from creed or scripture. We are open to change in the light of new thought and discoveries.

We believe that:
  • everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves.
  • the fundamental tools for doing this are your own life experience, your reflection upon it, your intuitive understanding and the promptings of your own conscience.
  • the best place to do this is a community that welcomes you for who you are, complete with your beliefs, doubts and questions.
We offer:
  • liberty of conscience and freedom from imposed creed, confessions and dogmas.
  • a fellowship where people come together to worship; to share times of celebration and trial; and to help each other in the quest for a faith to live by.
We affirm the universal values of love and compassion, peace, truth and justice.

We welcome all who come to us in the spirit of goodwill and enquiry, regardless of ethnic or religious background, age, gender, or sexual orientation."


I think that's quite something. That statement of faith places a very high value on personal integrity - on finding your own way to the best that you know. It is not something that we do for one hour on a Sunday; it is a way of living - not only affirming the universal values of love and compassion, peace, truth and justice, but also doing our best to make them matter in the world, and in our own lives. It is something on which I can rest, in the assurance that if I try to live up to those ideals, I will be faith-fully working towards becoming the best person I can be.

Thursday 15 May 2014

Unitarian Spiritualities

Unitarian minister Cliff Reed provides a succint summary about Unitarian spiritualities in his book Unitarian? What's That? He writes: "Within the Unitarian historical tradition there have been many strands. These include deeply devotional Christian and Theistic forms, as well as a strong belief in the necessity of reason. Religious humanism has also played its part, by locating the focus of spiritual concern wholly in our life in this world rather than in realms or beings deemed supernatural. Another long-standing, and now resurgent theme, is that of nature or the creation as replete with spiritual significance." 


In other words, Unitarians are free to recognise the Spirit or the path to the Spirit where they will - in God, in other human beings, or in the natural world. Or in all of them. In the first half of the 20th century, following on from Martineau, much emphasis was laid on the primacy of reason and conscience. But in the last 50 or 60 years, many Unitarians have moved away from this purely rational approach to the Spirit, and towards a more right-brain, intuitive, mystical approach. Meditation has become much more commonplace among us, both in church services, and also for personal devotion. Workshops are held to explain and allow people to experience different spiritual practices - prayer beads, lectio divina, journalling, different kinds of prayer, Taizé chanting, Dances of Universal Peace - the list is endless. A certain amount of ritual has crept back into our services, which the Rational Dissenters of another age would have frowned upon. Some churches hold short communion services at particular times of the year; others celebrate the Pagan festivals connected to the wheel of the year - the solstices, the equinoxes, and Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas and Samhain. I believe that this has added immeasurably to the richness of Unitarian worship.

One ritual which the vast majority of Unitarian chapels and churches observe weekly is the lighting of the chalice flame. The chalice represents the Unitarian community, and the flame can represent various things: freedom, truth, liberty, spirit. Some also light Candles of Joy and Concern regularly, which give the congregation a chance to participate in the service. And there are special Unitarian communion services, which we have imported from Unitarian traditions elsewhere in the world. Many British congregations hold an annual Flower Communion service, for example, which involves bringing a flower with you, that has some meaning for you, and taking home another, that someone else has brought.

John Midgley explains: "The Flower Communion Service originated in the Czechoslovak Republic before the Second World War. Rev. Dr. Norbert Capek, a former Baptist minister and journalist, who founded the Unitarian Church in Prague in 1921, felt that the traditional Christian Communion Service, with bread and wine, was unacceptable to many of the members of his congregation because of their strong reaction against the Catholic faith. So he turned to the native beauty of their countryside for elements of a new communion, which would be genuine to them. It became one of their most significant services and was soon introduced in other Unitarian congregations."


So these days, it may be said with some truth that Unitarians connect with the Spirit in many different ways. And that is good.

Wednesday 7 May 2014

Grace and Salvation

The traditional Christian doctrine of grace is that it is an act of God reaching out to sinful humankind, enabling them to do good. In the Early Church, there were two main views, as propounded by Augustine and Pelagius.

image: charlottecora.com
Pelagius’ view was that we are responsible for our own actions, which we have freely chosen to do, because God has made us in such a way that we can respond to him. His doctrine of grace is that it is seen in this God-given ability, and in the forgiveness of sins. The giving of the law, the teachings of the gospel and the act of baptism are, for Pelagius, gifts of grace.

To Augustine, this view was heretical, as he believed that without God’s redeeming grace, “mankind is a lump of perdition, incapable … of any act of pure good will, and all the virtues of the good pagan are vitiated by sin.” For Augustine, God’s gift of grace is much more significant; it is the inward working of the Spirit, which is necessary for everything, as it enables us to turn to God. It is a divine gift, which cannot be earned by humans.

As a Unitarian, I am firmly opposed to Augustine and in favour of Pelagius. As Cliff Reed explains in Unitarian? What's That?, for Unitarians, sin is “the failure to act, speak or think in ways that one knows to be right. Or … to fall short of the standards of conduct that one’s own faith or ethical system regards as ideal.”   

Unitarians are also opposed to the Augustinian view of grace as something without which humankind can achieve nothing good. The traditional Unitarian view, as explained by Alfred Hall, is that “the grace of God encircles all, nevertheless … man has to do something to lift himself, even if it is only to accept the proffered grace of God.” We believe like Pelagius that “salvation is to be found in growth of character towards perfection [and that] salvation depends not on the intellectual acceptance of any dogma, but on living a true and noble life.” 

A very beautiful and more contemporary Unitarian view of grace is that of Jane Barraclough: "Grace is a gift. It comes from outside ourselves. It has nothing to do with how virtuous we are, or aren't. ... The world is simply here for us as a gift. We can choose to receive the gift with gratitude ... To experience grace we have to be open to the possibility of its existence. The winds of grace may always be blowing but we need to have our sails up if we are to make any headway."

Unitarians also, when they believe in salvation, believe that it is universal. In other words, everyone can potentially be "saved". They would disagree strongly with the Calvinist ideas of there being an 'elect' - a certain portion of humankind chosen by God to be saved, whereas the rest will be damned, and would also disagree with the idea of predestination - that God has decided before we are born, who should be saved and who should be damned. Unitarians believe that everyone has the potential to be saved, through their own actions.