A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer, delivered November 7, 2004
at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor



THE ABC'S OF LIBERAL RELIGION

The words to the song Sarah just
played for us go something like this:
A, you're adorable,
B, you're so beautiful,
C, you're a cutie full of charm.

D, you're a darling, and
E, you're exciting, and
F, you're a feather in my arms.

G, you look good to me,
H, you're so heavenly,
I, you're the one I idolize.

J, we're like Jack and Jill,
K, you're so kissable,
L is for the love-light in your eyes.

M, N, O, P, I could go on all day.
Q, R, S, T, alphabetically speaking, you're okay!

U made my life complete,
V means you're very sweet,
W,X,Y,Z.

It's fun to go right through
The alphabet with you
To tell you what you mean to me.

What is alphabetically good for a lover is also good for those of
us who love our liberal religion.  One way of understanding who we
are and what we stand for is to take a trip through the alphabet
to meet some of the great men and women and reflect on some
of the great principles and events at the heart of our faith.

I will begin, as they say, at the beginning, with the letter A.

A stands for John Adams, second president of the United States,
and a man of Unitarian sympathies.  Adams had little time to be a
formal Unitarian because the American Unitarian Association was
only formed the year before he died in 1826.  But it was clear
from various letters he wrote to his wife, Abigail, and to his
one-time foe and later intimate friend, Thomas Jefferson, that
he did not believe in a Trinitarian God.  His membership in the
United First Parish Church (Unitarian) in Quincy, Massachusetts,
where he is buried, has led to that church being called
The Presidents' Church.  His son, John Quincy Adams,
was also a president and a member of that congregation.

The Adams men were two of five Unitarian presidents--we have
had one king, John Sigismund of Transylvania.  Thomas Jefferson,
Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft were the other three.

Other A words that have played and now play a role in UU circles
include atheism, Lyman Abbott, Bronson Alcott, Jane Addams,
and Susan B.  Anthony.

B stands for Bible, both the Tanakh of the Jews and the Old and New
Testaments of the Christians.  The latter was the source of the
furious arguments engaged in by the Unitarians in the 16th century
and the Universalists in the 18th century.

Did the Bible proclaim a Trinitarian Deity or not?  The early
Unitarians said it did not, and they were right.  It is only by
inference and supposition that a Trinity is found in the Bible.

The Universalists likewise had the Bible on their side in asserting
that all human beings would be swept up in the loving grace of God.
There are numerous passages that state this, ranging from the subtle
argument that humanity is created in the image of God and surely God
would not destroy the divine image (see Genesis 1) to the prophetic
utterances of Isaiah about a time when the earth will be full of the
knowledge of the Lord (Isaiah 11) and the Lord's house will be a
house of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56) to the New Testament
assertion that "God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the
world, but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:17).

The Bible was the foundation of both the heritages
from which we have come.

Some other good UU B words, actually names, are Hosea Ballou,
John Biddle, P.T. Barnum, Clara Barton, Henry Bellows,
Olympia Brown, and Antoinette Brown Blackwell.

C is for congregation, the key structure in our movement's
organization.  We are not organized top-down, but bottom-up.
The individual is responsible for her/his own beliefs and practices,
but in our communities the authority rests with the congregation.
Like the UCC denomination, the Baptists, Jews and some others, each
of our congregations is autonomous.  We each draft our own By-Laws,
determine our own governing structure, elect our own lay leaders,
call our own ministers, determine our own policies.  We are part of
not a denomination but an association, the Unitarian Universalist
Association of Congregations.

Unlike many other religious movements, our congregations do not have
to meet any doctrinal standard.  So most of our congregations have
a mix of theological views interacting with one another.  Sometimes
congregations, because of the make-up of their membership, follow
one theological path more than any other.  The Christian emphasis
of the Fenton UU church is an example, and the humanist emphasis
of the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis another.

The strength of our movement rises and falls with the strength
of our congregations.

For other C words that help us to understand our faith, see
William Ellery Channing, Norbert Capek, James Freeman Clarke, the
Charles Street Meeting House, Sebastian Castellio, celebration,
caring, creativity, the Church of the Larger Fellowship, the
Christian Register, Maria Cook, and Lydia Maria Child.

D is for David, Francis David, the brilliant, courageous founder of
Transylvanian Unitarianism.  He was born in 1510 and first worked
as a Catholic educator.  Then he became a Lutheran, a Calvinist,
and finally a Unitarian.  In each of these religious communities,
he was one of the leaders.

Among the Unitarians, he was the one most responsible for influencing
King John Sigismund to issue the Decree of Toleration of 1568, the
first such decree in the western world.  It said that all versions of
Christianity could practice their religion according to their own
lights.  The symbol of that moment is the image of David preaching
atop a rock in Koloszvar to tell the Unitarians gathered there what
had been achieved for their religious liberty.

Sadly, when the King died, David was imprisoned by the new ruler and
died there a decade later.  But the movement he founded is the oldest
continuous Unitarian movement in the world, to which we are now
related through our Partner Church arrangement with the congregation
in Kezdivasarhely.

There is a plaque honoring Francis David just outside the sanctuary
and to your behind the doors, given to us in 1956 in the wake of
the Hungarian Revolution.

Democracy, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, and diversity
are some UU D words.

E is for ethics, the most important aspect of our religious
understanding.  Jews focus on the Torah and what it teaches.
Christians center their devotions on Christ, the cross, and on
the belief that Jesus was the Saviour of the World.  Unitarian
Universalists have always believed that what really matters is what
we do, and that we have an obligation to do good in the world.
As a member of the search committee in my first congregation
said when I asked her what it meant to be a UU, "It means that
we have to try to make the world a better place for everybody."

English Unitarians like John Biddle and John Locke and John Milton
and Theophilus Lindsey fought for freedom of religion in the 17th
and 18th centuries.  George de Benneville worked on behalf of the
native tribes of the Pennsylvania colony in the mid-18th century,
William Ellery Channing struggled against the currents of militarism
in the early 19th century.  Susan B. Anthony and Olympia Brown and
Maria Cook engaged the issue of women's rights at the ballot box,
in the pulpit, and in the home later in that same century.

In the 20th century, John Haynes Holmes and James Reeb and
Viola Liuzzo battled racism, our whole movement has been pushing
for fair play for sexual minorities, and this congregation has
worked diligently for a woman's right to the control of her
own body and against homelessness and for affordable housing.

To be a UU means to be a do-gooder!

E words that are part of our way of looking at things
are Ralph Waldo Emerson, earth-centered, education,
empowerment, equity, and Frederick May Eliot.

F is for freedom, the sine qua non of our faith.  Without freedom,
our way of religion makes no sense.  We have always been convinced
that each individual has the right, the responsibility, and the
capability of making religious decisions for herself.  No religion
is worthy that is not derived freely from an individual's thought,
feelings, and experiences.  That is why there are no creeds in
our movement and why people of widely diverse theological views
gather--not always comfortably, for differences can be sharp and
pointed and hard to accept--in our congregations.  Reading the
annual CREDO booklet printed in June in which members and friends
of the congregation share their beliefs, it is easy to see where
freedom leads: to some very different, very exciting, very
wonderful places.

F also stands for the remarkable religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs,
who taught us more than anyone else ever has to value each child
and what that child is experiencing and thinking and asking about,
an approach that to this day is the guiding philosophy of our
religious education programming.  F is for fairness and for faith,
for forgiveness and for family, and for our intellectual forebear
Ludwig Fueurbach.


G is for God.  God is the Great Question of human existence,
far beyond our capacity ever to answer in any definitive way,
but always there to nag at us in one form or another:
        Does God exist?
        Can we know anything about this God?
        Is God a Person?
        Is God Three Persons (the Unitarian answer was always No,
but some Universalists into the 20th century said Yes)?
        Is God Good?  If so, why is there so much suffering
and misery and just plain unfairness in the world?
        Should we worship God, or is that an antiquated
notion of a Deity imagined as an Oriental Potentate
selfishly demanding our obeisance?
        Is God transcendent to the universe or
immanent within it or both?
        Is God a projection of our own possibilities thrust outward
and away from ourselves so that we do not feel responsible for love
and justice and kindness and compassion?
In UU circles the God Question is never answered finally, but it is
always being asked, even when the asking takes place with no mention
of that three letter word that is arguably the most divisive word
in human language:  no violence is more cruel, passionate, and
unremitting than the violence generated by our understanding of what
God's will is.

G is for gay, to which we say Hooray!, and generosity, a synonym
for liberal, and growth, a major reason for being a UU.

Horace Greeley and Dana McLean Greeley and Erwin Gaede, minister in
this congregation 1961-1979, and the General Convention join God and
the other G words in helping us to understand our liberal faith.

H is for honesty.  It was religious education that drew me into
the UU movement, but being able to speak the truth of my life
without the fear of being excommunicated has played a huge role in
keeping me here.  For a preacher, this is of enormous importance.
I prepare sermons by trying to think as clearly, feel as deeply,
and reflect as honestly as I am able.  If I could not then speak
the truths that I perceive, of what use would my preaching be?

I like being a part of a movement where if our theology changes,
we do not have to change our religion.  Two colleague-friends of
mine made remarkable transitions in their theology in the midst
of ministries which they continued for some years after their
change of mind and heart and soul.  Openness to change enables
us to be honest, and being honest enables us to live more
worthy lives because we are not hiding the truth of who we are.

Honesty is a wonderful H word for UU's, as are hope and history and
home and John Haynes Holmes and Julia Ward Howe and the Holdeen Fund
and the Humanist Manifesto.

I is for interdependence, like the interdependent web of all
existence, the seventh and last of the UUA Principles.  It is for
individualism, which is a companion to freedom, stressing the duty
we have to chart responsibly the course of our own lives.  I is
for interfaith, a commitment we have been making since the World
Parliament of Religions in 1893, recognizing that no one religion
stands above all others.  All religions have truth and beauty and
goodness.  All religions can inspire us with wisdom and moral
insight.  All religions have practices that can be helpful to us.
All religions have weak points and ghastly events in their histories,
and foolish teachings.  Interfaith activity enables us to have a
conversation not a conflict.

I is also for the International Association for Religious Freedom.

J is for Jesus, who taught some good lessons we still need to learn:
judge not that you be not judged; love your neighbor as yourself,
love even your enemy; be a peacemaker for they are blessed of God;
remember that the love of money is the root of all evil; forgive
people, even those who harm us.

J is for justice, which UU's pursue with a passion.  J is for
journey, the metaphor most UU's use for the spiritual adventure of
living.  And J is for Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who was so critically
important a player in the old Midwest Unitarian Conference, of which
this congregation was a member.

K stands for Khasi Hills, located in the northeast corner of India,
a hearty and hardy band of some 10,000 Indian Unitarians with whom we
have a bond of partnership.  Some ten years ago I received a letter
from the Khasi Hills, advising me of their plans to celebrate the
centennial of Jabez Sunderland coming to them.  Sunderland was the
minister of this congregation from 1878-1898.  Eva Cameron, then the
assistant minister here, took up the correspondence with them and
several years later spent a six months sabbatical there.

For the past several years we have sponsored a number of their
children in school.  We send what to us is a small amount of
money--$35 per child--that has great value for them.  We also
exchange letters with our students.

The Khasi Hills Unitarians have many theological notions and
religious practices that are different from ours, the very
differences pointing to the global possibilities of our faith.

K is also for Kolozsvar and King's Chapel and Thomas Starr King.

L is for liberal, our way of being religious.  Duncan Howlett once
suggested that there are only two fundamental attitudes in religion:
the ecclesiastical and the critical.  The former is about dogmatism,
authoritarianism, a religion of fear and rules.  The latter is about
open minds, open hearts, and hard-working hands.  The critical way is
about relying on evidence to establish our beliefs, the evidence of
science and the natural world, the evidence of history, the evidence
of our own experience.  The liberal way is the critical way.

The liberal has a generous spirit with regard to those who disagree
with us.  Every one has lessons to teach the world.  Liberals seek
always to be learning, to be growing, to be enlarging our faith.
Liberals share, believing that life functions best when everybody has
a fair share of the earth's resources and each of us bears a fair
share of the burdens of living.

I cannot imagine a worthier religious posture than that!

Liberal religion includes love and laughter and life in all its
fullness, strangeness, and surprises.

M brings us meaning, which is why we struggle with religion in
the first place, not so much a Meaning Written In The Stars as a
meaning or meanings we discover and create as we live our lives.

M brings us the reminder that we are a tiny minority in the nation
and in the world.  There are at most 250,000 UU's in this land,
where Baptists number close to 20 million and Roman Catholics
nearly 70 million.  World wide, Christianity has some two billion
adherents, Islam a little more than half that number, Hinduism
similar numbers to Islam, and UU's maybe half a million.
We are small in numbers, though large in influence
because we are both smart and active people.

M is for John and Judith Sargent Murray, 18th century leaders of
Universalism in this country.  M is for music, so important a part
of our celebrations of life in this congregation and throughout
the movement.  We are singers, dancers, appreciative listeners,
a musical people.

M is for morality, for the way we try to do the right thing.

M is for money, about which we feel reluctant to talk, which some
UU's feel reluctant to share.  Nonetheless, like all organizations
in the modern world anywhere on the globe, we need money in order to
function.  It really matters right now, as we are going through our
Pledge Drive for the 2005 Annual Budget, that we are all thinking
about money, what it can do to keep us strong as a congregation,
what the lack of it will do to weaken our liberal voice.

M is for Horace Mann and James Martineau and Jack Mendelsohn.  It is
for Massachusetts, cradle state of both Unitarianism and Universalism
in this land, and for Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary.
M is even for ministers, about whom I hope you will think kindly.

N is for the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland.  These
people are affiliated with the English Unitarians and are clearly
Arian (Unitarian) in their theological understanding.  Their name
comes from the fact that they were originally Presbyterians who
refused to subscribe to, or affirm, the Westminster Confession.
This creed has since 1667 defined what it means to be a Presbyterian,
supplemented by a new Confession in 1970.  Reading it persuaded me
not to pursue ministry in the Presbyterian denomination.

I have attended a service at their church in Dublin, on St. Stephens
Green, and found it to be very much like a theistically or Christian
oriented UU service in this country.  Their people were like all our
congregations, warmly welcoming to the strangers in their midst,
bright and interesting and from a wide variety of occupations,
and involved in many social justice causes.

O is for ON THE ERRORS OF THE TRINITY, the book that brought such
trouble to Michael Servetus.  Generally honored as the first modern
Unitarian, Servetus began life as a Catholic.  He read the Bible and
found nothing about a Trinity there.  Proclaiming this, he was
accused of heresy and had to go into hiding.  He worked under an
assumed name as a translator, a cartographer, and a medical
researcher--he discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood.
Betrayed, he was imprisoned, but he escaped and then, bewilderingly,
he showed up in Geneva, ruled by John Calvin, his passionate enemy.
He was seized, interrogated, and, refusing to admit he was wrong,
he was duly executed for failing to believe in the Trinity,
burned to death as slowly as possible along with his writings.
His death was the inspiration for others to carry on his theological
work.  Far more importantly, his death inspired liberals in the
Reformation to begin living and defending religious liberty, the
separation of religion and government, and congregational autonomy.

P is for Theodore Parker, the great 19th century Unitarian minister
who taught us that the only permanent elements of religion are the
love of God/Good and the love of humanity; the rest is transient.
Parker was a brilliant and fervent abolitionist whom the federal
government was afraid to put on trial for helping an escaped slave
to remain free lest they give him a national audience for his views.

P is for Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen, more important
to him were the contributions he made to the coming legality of
Unitarianism in England (1813).  P is for pluralism, one of our
central values, and for play, which we like to do and do well.
P is for prayer, which is probably understood in our ranks in
as many different ways as God is.  It is a rich part of our UU
heritage, and for many people still part of their private devotions.

P is for paganism, which has found a home within the UU movement
because of its recognition that we must honor the earth if we are to
survive.

Q is for question, as in "to question is the answer," a slogan that
as well as any other expresses a major motif in our common life.
Being unafraid to ask questions is part of the way UU's live, and
what could be more important.  If we know the right questions to ask,
we are a lot more likely to be able to come up with answers that
make sense and that can help us.  It's a good reason to be a UU.

R is for reason, one of the three great principles of our faith.
Reason is about being willing to think at all times, being willing
to make the effort to become knowledgeable before forming opinions,
being willing to consider all of the available evidence before
making a decision, being willing to change one's mind in the face
of compelling evidence, and being willing to be reasonable with
people who disagree with us.

R is also for Benjamin Rush, the early Universalist, and James Reeb,
who gave his life for the cause of racial justice.  R is for the
Racovian Catechism, which kept Socinian beliefs and their spirit of
tolerance alive for a century and a half.  R is for James Relly, who
taught John Murray universalism, and for Ed Redman, minister of this
congregation from 1943-1960.

S is for spirituality, that most capacious word so popular in UU
ranks over the last 20 years.  It is defined in several dozen ways,
but at bottom always points to a central truth of our humanity:
that we are more than just the flesh we inhabit.  The human spirit
yearns for and creates meanings that render each person sacred;
we are slowly understanding that there is a spirit in all living
things that renders them sacred.  The human spirit remarkably
transcends death in at least one way, that our loved ones stay with
us in memory when they have died.  Across great gulfs of difference,
love finds a way.  All these things and so much more are what we
mean by spirituality.

S also points to Eliza Sunderland, non-ordained, unofficial
co-minister with her husband Jabez of this congregation in the late
19th century, often taking over the work of the congregation when
he was absent on the work of the American Unitarian Association or
the Western Unitarian Conference.  S calls up sanctuary, which we
were for the Rodriguez family for many years, and sexuality, which
we enjoy and try to teach responsibly to our young people in the
OWL (Our Whole Lives) program.  S is about science, which we deeply
appreciate, the Sanitary Commission, which saved so many lives in
the Civil War, and stewardship, our responsibility for the vast
land site that is ours.

T is for tolerance, the third of the three great principles that
have guided us through the centuries.  Tolerance means that even
if I think you are wrong, I will give you space to work out
your own way of thinking and believing.  Even more importantly,
tolerance means the willingness to listen to views other than
our own in order to learn from them.  This aspect of tolerance
is shown in the many religious traditions that inform our
services and in the fact that ministers being interviewed for
Fellowship into the UUA are required to answer questions
about many religions, not just Unitarian Universalism.

T is for Transylvania and for truth.  It is also for theology.  Many
people do not realize that UU's have a theology, but we do.  It is
not arcane and exotic, wildly irrational and suppositional as so many
theologies are.  It is found in a simple story told by a colleague.

He was approached at a conference by a sweet and gentle man who kept
asking him to read his book.  He said God was the author of his book.
He was a mere channel for the divine.  Dreading what he was about to
receive, my colleague nonetheless accepted the book.  It proved to
be very short, about 30 pages in very large print, maybe three pages
in 12 point type.  My colleague described its contents this way.

"God wants us to be nice.  That's it.  Oh, he isn't fond of all the
killing stuff going on, either.  But mostly, he wants us to be nice.
There are no rewards for this and of course there is no punishment,
because that wouldn't be nice--and Niceness is God's Essence.
He would just be happier if, you know, we were, like, nice."

When I think back on THE COSMIC CHRIST and THE DOGMATICS OF
KARL BARTH and THE METAPHYSIC AND ETHIC OF PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS
AREOPAGITA and other amazingly uninteresting tomes I had to
read in order to complete my graduate education, how I wish
this sweet and gentle fellow had been there to boil it down
to its essence:  Be Nice!  If we all lived that way,
UU theology could save the world.

U is, naturally, Unitarianism and Universalism, about which
I have been speaking all morning so will say no more here.

V is for the Veatch Fund and the woman who made it possible, Caroline
Veatch.  In her will, she donated to her UU church on Long Island a
large quantity of North Sea oil stocks.  In the late 1960's, they
began to return huge sums of money.  The Veatch Committee has given
tens of millions of dollars to the UUA and tens of millions more in
special grants to individuals and congregations and organizations
doing the work of liberal religion and social justice.  That includes
this congregation some 23 years ago when we were in need of funds for
major repair work.  V is for Veatch!

W is for Katherine Weigel, burned at the stake as a Unitarian in 1539
and Roger Williams, who taught this country about religious liberty
and church-state separation.  It is for words, which we truly love,
and for wonder, which comes to us in such abundance, and for the
wholeness we pursue in our religious efforts.

X is for Mystery, for the Unexplainable Universe, for the Absolute,
for the Really Real, for God.  It is the preferred symbol because
most UU's are now and always have been at heart agnostic.  We know
we do not know even as we sometimes make faith claims.  The symbol
of our Unknowing is X.

Y is for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, observed in most
UU congregations because it is a powerful recognition of our need
to repent of our misdeeds, find a way to atone for them, and also
be forgiven as we forgive others.

Y is for Yin and Yang, the essential truth of the Tao that black
is always within white and white is always within black, that the
feminine is always within the masculine and the masculine always
within the feminine, that one way of looking at life is to see
its two-sidedness.  On the one hand...but on the other hand can
almost always be spoken truthfully about any situation.

Z is for Zero, Nothing, the Abyss, the opposite of Something, the
Void within which the Creative Process moves until something emerges
out of Nothing, the Great Unknown that may lie the other side of
death, and the Great Unknown that certainly precedes our being
born, Nothing.  Zero is part of the Wonderful Mystery of Life.

A to Z, that is our liberal religion.  This is, of course, just a
primer, the ABC's.  The hope is that you will be inspired to take up
the words the letters point to--and so many not mentioned--and learn
more of this remarkable liberal religion of which we are a part.



CLOSING WORDS

A, you're so avant-garde
B, you're so brave and bold
C, you're so caring--here's applause!

D, you're devoted to
E, every principle
F, fundamental to our cause.

G, you're a sharing bunch,
H, you're so helpful too,
I, you are folks I idolize.

J, I could jump for joy
Just knowing all of you.
L is for the laughter in your eyes.

M,N,O,P, I could go on all day.
Q,R,S,T, alphabetically speaking, you're okay!

You sure make life complete,
With virtue you're replete,
W,X,Y,Z.

It's fun to go right through
The alphabet with you
To tell you what you mean to me!



Copyright 2004, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved