OUR HERITAGE OF HUMANISM
A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer
Delivered at The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor
June 6, 2004


Unitarian Universalism is a religion with many sources.  The By-Laws of the
Unitarian Universalist Association identify the major ones of these as direct
experience that individuals have with life's Mystery, the inspiration of
prophetic voices in all cultures, the wisdom in the world's religions, most
directly the teachings of Judaism and Christianity, most recently the
learnings drawn from earth-centered spiritualities, and, possibly the most
important, the humanist tradition.

That the humanist tradition deserves this place of prominence is suggested
by the various surveys of Unitarian Universalists across the past 75 years,
in every one of which a large majority of our religious companions described
themselves as humanists or as humanistic or as humanitarian.  That includes
the survey taken at the time of the congregational search for a minister that
resulted in my being called here and the survey taken at the time of our
previous assistant minister, Eva Cameron, being called to that newly created
position.

Humanism also merits such a prominent place because above all other
factors, humanism is the standard of unity for us in the midst of our
pluralism.  For a century we have been congregations where people of
theistic and atheistic, agnostic and Christian, Jewish and pagan,
Buddhist and Hindu, Native American and Islamic and other spiritual
beliefs and practices have been able to celebrate life together, work
with each other for a variety of socially worthy goals, learn from each
other in our diversity, and try to model for the world how life might
be lived harmoniously even when people do not agree with each other
about important matters.

What we believe is something Father Vernon Ruland, a friend and a Jesuit
scholar, has pointed out in his splendid book on the world religions,
IMAGINING THE SACRED: SOUNDINGS IN WORLD RELIGIONS.  In
his chapter on humanism, Father Ruland notes, "one remarkable feature of
the seven major religious traditions discussed in previous chapters is
that each claims its own distinctive form of Humanism."  He quotes Gandhi:
"I cannot find God apart from humanity" and Kenneth Kaunda, leader of the
movement that established Zambia, " We discover all that is worth knowing
about God through our fellow human beings."

I would add as well the verses in Matthew 25 where Jesus says that even as
we give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger
and clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison, we are honoring
and worshipping God.

That is the essence of humanism: whatever may be true theologically, if it
is not grounded in ethics, in simple human kindness, it is meaningless.

Our differing ritual practices, our different theological understandings,
our different spiritualities co-exist in harmony and in mutual learning
because we UU's stand on the firm rock of our common humanity.

Humanism is the way liberal religious people confront the riddle of
existence and try to learn how to live and to live together.  Whatever
our views on the questions of God, life after death, the meaning of
life and other important concerns, we who are Unitarian Universalists
agree on the value of this principle, even those of us reluctant to
name it as such or unknowing that it has a name.

Humanism functions in at least four ways in our liberal religion.

First of all, the principle of humanism is found in the recognition that our
vantage point is the human vantage point.  We might imagine but we cannot
know what it is like to exist as a cockroach or a cougar, a grain of sand or
a brilliant star, as a daisy, a devil, or a deity.  We know only what it is
like to live as a human being, with all that that means in madness, glory,
and puzzlement.

Historically this recognition began in the first challenges to Biblical
inerrancy in the 16th century, most notably by Faustus Socinus.  Socinus,
and his successors in the Socinian movement in Poland, argued for the use of
reason in reading Scripture.  They asserted that where Scripture violates
reason--Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, for example--it is
Scripture not reason that must be corrected.

Christian orthodoxy at the time believed that nothing can be true that is not
in conformity with the Bible.  Many fundamentalists still hold to this view.
Facts and well-grounded theories that contradict Scripture cannot be right
because God wrote, or as most say, God inspired, every word of the Bible.
This led and still leads people of this persuasion to think they have the key
to God's ways.  Anyone who thinks they have a direct pipeline to the deity
can be dangerous: Jewish religious fanatics in Israel, Christian creationists
and those who hold to the dangerous lunacies of apocalyptic prediction in
this country, and Islamic militants of the bin Laden kind.

UU's pursued the path of reason and by the 19th century had seen that the
Bible really belongs on the same footing as any other book.  Like all other
writings, the Bible is the product of human endeavor.  Whatever wisdom is
contained therein--and there is a rich treasure of such wisdom--it is based
on human experience.  There is also much of foolishness and mischief that
needs to be culled or at least ignored.

In other words, we cannot read the Bible to discover God's will.  As
Lawrence Block observed, the only way we can know God's will is after the
fact.  Wait and see what happens.  That's it, the will of God.

We are human beings not deities.  Our knowledge is limited.

Realizing this, UU's try to learn from many sources in order to broaden our
perspective.

We look for truth and meaningfulness and moral guidance in all of
humanity's religious and philosophical expressions.  We see them all
properly as human not divine manifestations.  We find in them the same
agonizing questions that we ourselves are asking.  Beneath the theological
differences and the different languages and practices, we discover common
human bonds.

We look to science and mathematics for their lessons as well.  Einstein and
Heisenberg and Bohr and Goedel and Feynman teach us that we cannot
know everything, that we are only microscopic dots in a vast universe, that
we are only human beings.

Humanism as a principle of Unitarian Universalism means first of all that we
see reality from the human perspective.  It means that whatever affirmations
or denials of God or the gods we make, we so do based on our experience,
without claiming to speak for others or to know what the ultimate truth
really is.

A second part of the principle of humanism is the emphasis we place on this
life, in direct contrast to the parent religion--and many other religions as
well--out of which we emerged.

The central thrust of the Christian religion is about salvation, almost
always defined as the hope of transcending death through one's belief in
Jesus Christ.  For most Christians to this day, this life is a prelude to
eternal life where good folk live in heaven, bad folk suffer in hell, and
those who do not seem to belong in either place languish for a while in
purgatory till God makes up Her mind where they belong.

Incorrect belief or improperly performed rituals or immoral deeds have
infinite consequences.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and other religions have also laid great stress on
the next life, sometimes to the exclusion of an interest in this one.

From the very beginning of both Unitarianism and Universalism, we have
rejected that approach.  Unitarianism began with Michael Servetus, whose
burning at the stake inspired a brilliant treatise on tolerance by Sebastian
Castellio.  You don't kill people to save their souls, he said.

Part of what Castellio and so many later Unitarians were getting at was the
point made so tartly by Henry David Thoreau on his deathbed.  Asked if he
was not worried about the hereafter, about meeting his Maker, about
judgment, he calmly replied, "One world at a time."

The Universalists in the 18th century took the sting out of the arguments
about life beyond this one by asserting that the destiny of every one was the
same.  Our task in this world, if we would be saved from misery and despair
and guilt here and now, is to live with as much courage and kindness as we
can discover within ourselves.  All will be well in the next world.  Our task
is to make this world a good place.

The reason Unitarians and Universalists believed so firmly in focusing on
this life is found in something the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote:
"What madness, to distract us to a beyond, when we are surrounded right
here by tasks and expectations and futures.  What fraud, to steal images of
earthly rapture and sell them in heaven behind our backs.  It is high time
for the impoverished earth to claim back all those loans which have been
raised on her bliss to furnish some future-beyond."

I do not know if Rilke was a UU, but he wrote like one.  That is precisely
the argument UU's made, that earth could be fair and all people wise and
good, if we would pay attention to the task of providing justice and
living kindly.

Another reason to focus on this life is that we are flat-out ignorant of any
life there might be beyond this one.  We each have our views, but such views
can only be termed faith, not knowledge.  There is nothing wrong with faith,
except when it poses as knowledge.

The world's religions have devised elaborate models of life after death,
Buddhists and Christians and Muslims and Hindus and Zoroastrians among
them.  From the standpoint of imagination, of literary flair, these models
are brilliant.  Whether any one or several of them is true is not and
cannot be known.

William Ellery Channing's advice is best: on matters of great and lasting
obscurity, do not quarrel.  Take care of what can be taken care of, the
burdens, the responsibilities, the injustices of this world.  In time,
perhaps we shall all know the truth of life hereafter or no life hereafter.
If not, we shall not know the difference.

One world at a time! That is the second part of humanism as it functions in
our movement.

Thirdly, humanism asserts that we should believe in human beings and have
confidence in our capabilities.

The earliest source of our faith in humanity is the Renaissance, whose
leading thinkers were busy re-discovering the ancient texts of the Greeks
and the Romans.  For all their polytheism, the Greeks and the Romans were a
self-reliant bunch.  That spirit was brought forward into the 14th and 15th
and 16th centuries.  That spirit was manifested as a belief in human
abilities and human goodness.

In these centuries, the authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic Church was
challenged by free thinkers who read the Bible themselves rather than rely
on what priests told them was in the Scripture.  In these years, literature
was revived, and we are still reading Chaucer, Rabelais, Shakespeare, and
the several brilliant translations of the Bible into English and German.

In these centuries, men set sail to far distant shores to explore the world,
ignoring cries that they would drop off the edge of the world, be eaten by
savage monsters, or be rebuked by God.

We learned to believe in ourselves, and that confidence has made all the
difference in the world over the last 700 years.

That confidence is grounded in the belief in the potential moral equality of
all human beings.  Every one of us has the capacity to be good, to be useful,
to be loving, to be in charge of our own lives.  Unlike Christian theology
that taught that because of our original sin only God could save us,
humanism asserts that we have the power to overcome our moral flaws
and our emotional weaknesses.

One of the leading humanists of the 20th century, Erich Fromm, put it this
way: God is "a symbol of all that is in humanity and yet which humanity is
not, the symbol of a spiritual reality you can strive to realize in yourself
and yet never describe or define.  God is like a horizon which sets the
limitations of your sight."

Such freedom as this respect for humanity calls for is not absolute, nor does
the humanist principle posit human beings as perfect creatures.  Humanism is
well aware of formative factors that bind us in certain ways and of human
folly.

Our genetic inheritance establishes certain parameters within which we are
constrained to operate.  Our social milieu in childhood will shape us in ways
that may be lasting, damaging, frustrating.  Where we are born, whether
poverty or war rule the land, and all the unforeseen accidents of nature that
can thwart our desires are all factors that can limit our freedom or make its
choices malign.

We can choose to be cruel, stupid, ignorant, selfish, or greedy.  We can mess
up royally!

We can also use our freedom with courage.  Based on his experiences in a
concentration camp, Viktor Frankl pointed out that the one thing we can
always control is the attitude we take to whatever circumstances we are in.

We can use our freedom with wisdom, as we did when we established law as
a better principle for social organization and justice than brute force.

The confidence we have in human beings is well illustrated by the 97 year
old UU woman who applied for a life insurance policy.  The agent warned
her that her chances were very poor of getting the policy, and he was right.
She was rejected.  Told of this, she said to the agent, "You folks are making
a big mistake.  If you look over your statistics, you'll find mighty few
people who have died after 97."

Part of the principle of humanism is confidence in human beings.  This is not
because we do not know that we will die, that the earth and the universe are
full of dire happenings, that freedom is at best limited by our biological
and social inheritance, and that human beings are capable of great evil.
We UU's know all these things.

The humanistic element in our religious movement still has faith in human
beings because it recognizes that we are blessed with minds, feelings,
spirit, and physical abilities that can make life very sweet.

Why waste time bemoaning the harshness and brevity of life? Why waste
time pleading for divine salvation? Why allow the weakness and malignity
of others to spoil the goodness of life?

Better to spend the time we have usefully, happily, engaged with life and
striving to make it better.  There is so much we can do: seek justice;
relieve despair; make life more comfortable and convenient; spread laughter.

If we ground our lives in the humanistic principle of confidence in humanity,
this is the way we can live.

Love is the fourth aspect of UU humanism.

Love is that huge array of affectionate feelings and behaviours by which
we connect to other people, from the romantic to the parental to the
friendly to the kind to the affectionate.  Love is about our ability and
need to transcend selfish desires in order to be involved meaningfully
in the lives of others.

Love is a treasuring the good, respecting ourselves, and sharing with others.

Love is Francis David helping King John Sigismund of Transylvania draft
an Act of Toleration to prevent people from being thrown in jail for their
religious views.

Love is Georges de Benneville working as a medical doctor among the
native tribes of the Pennsylvania colony, striving to protect them from the
encroachments of white settlers.

Love is Margaret Sanger laboring to make knowledge about sexuality
widely available so that people could enjoy and not dread sexual experience,
in order that children would always be wanted and therefore cared for.

Love is opening our hearts and our arms and our wallets to address need.
It is a condolence note, a hospital visit, a meal brought to a family under
stress, a gentle word spoken to someone who has shared a sorrow in our
service, a congratulations to someone who has shared a joy here, legs
marching for hunger or medical research, time spent in a vigil for peace,
and hundreds of other actions large and small that are part of the common
life of this congregation.

Love is treating the stranger with respect, even the disreputable and
disgusting stranger.

A man who reeked of alcohol flopped on a subway seat next to a priest.
The man's suit was stained, his face plastered with red lipstick, and
a half empty bottle of rum was sticking out of his ripped jacket pocket.

He opened his newspaper and started reading.  After a few minutes, this
disheveled representative of humanity turned to the priest and asked, "Say,
Father, do you know what causes arthritis?"

The priest, disgusted by the man's appearance and behaviour, snapped, " It's
caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol,
and a contempt for your fellow man!"

"Well, I'll be," the man muttered and returned to his newspaper.

The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized.
"I'm sorry to have come on so strong.  I didn't mean it.  How long have you
been suffering from arthritis?"

"Oh, I don't have it, Father.  I was just reading here that the Pope does."

Love is recognizing our common humanity in whatever forms it may appear.

The 19th century philosopher Ludwig Fueurbach taught us that western
theology had thrust the god that is love out of the human spirit
onto a supernatural canvass beyond our reach, thus relieving us
of the responsibility of loving.  Only the grace of God, these
theologies say, allows us to love.

Feuerbach argued for us to bring love back into the human spirit where it
belongs.  What humanism teaches each of us in the UU movement and in
every corner of the earth is that it is we who are responsible for love.  Men
and women and boys and girls love one another and make families, love one
another and justice is done, love one another so that burdens are lighter and
happiness more enjoyable, love one another so that even when we do not
know each other we can be courteous and respectful and kind.

The ultimate expression of love is when we see the humanity in those we
think of as enemies--when George W. Bush and his neo-conservative
ideologues see the humanity in their Islamic foes and when all the Bush-
haters see the humanity in George W. Bush and his colleagues.

Love is the fourth dimension of UU humanism.

I do not know if there is a God or Gods, I do not know if we survive beyond
this life, I do not know why there is a universe or if there is some Ultimate
Meaning to existence.  I have suspicions, notions, wishes, hopes, but no
knowledge.

What UU humanism teaches me is this: that whatever theologies I may
embrace, whatever philosophies may seem just right to me, whatever faith I
have about this world and the next one, there is no better way to live than
by always remembering that I can only see things from a human point of view,
that there are challenges and opportunities enough in this life without
taking on the cares of other worlds, that I and all my fellow human beings
have tremendous potential for doing good, and that nothing, absolutely
nothing, matters more than love in all its many and splendid forms.

This is the heritage of humanism in our UU religious movement.
It is a blessing and an inspiration to us all.


                                         POSTSCRIPT

There is, of course, a theological form of humanism, which played a role in
bringing us to our current status.  This humanism began in the late 19th
century when various Unitarian ministers objected to some of the more
liberal theological ideas of members of their congregations and a few
ministers as well.  In 1894, in Saratoga, New York, the assembled Unitarians
turned their back on such exclusivism and declared that our tradition did not
demand any kind of theological uniformity from our members or our
ministers.

As we began meeting people from other faiths, at the first World Parliament
of Religions and in other venues, and as we felt ourselves being pushed out
of the Christian fold because we categorically rejected any creedal
affirmations, a new emphasis on a humanistic faith began to develop.

In the early 1930's it was decided to draft a statement of what this
humanistic faith was all about.  Roy Wood Sellars, a member of this
congregation and a philosophy professor at the University of Michigan,
was asked to write the first draft.  It was circulated to other people of
humanistic inclinations and signed by 34 ministers, professors, educators,
editors, and others.  Its most noteworthy features were a rejection of
supernaturalism and an understanding of religion as embracing all of
life not just a small realm defined as that, which is not secular.

Since that time, there have been a second Manifesto, a Secular Humanist
Declaration, and a third Humanist Manifesto.  Given that this theological
humanist movement has never had more than 10,000 members, its founding
and successor documents have attained an importance out of all proportion
to their size.  Indeed, for a quarter of a century these humanists have been
one of the main targets of blame of fundamentalist Christians.  A day or so
after 9/11, Jerry Falwell identified humanists among others as responsible
for this "judgment from God" on our sinful ways.

As Suzanne Paul, our UU minister in Brighton and a long-time Humanist
leader, made clear in the Klein Lecture several years ago, the future of this
kind of humanism is not very optimistic.  The numbers are small.  The appeal
is limited.  The average age is close to retirement age.  The world has moved
on and these people have not, by and large, moved on with it.
 
                                           BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.  Daniel C. Dennett, DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA: EVOLUTION
AND THE MEANINGS OF LIFE, Simon and Schuster, 1995.
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THE HUMAN PROSPECT, Shearwater books, 2000.
3.  Ludwig Feuerbach, Translated by George Eliot, THE ESSENCE OF
CHRISTIANITY, Harper Torchbooks, 1957 (1841).
4.  Sigmund Freud, Translated by Joan Riviere, A GENERAL
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS, Permabooks, 1953
(1920).
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1941.
6.  HUMANIST MANIFESTOS I AND II, Prometheus Books, 1973.
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DEFINITIONS OF HUMANISM, Prometheus Books, 1973.
8.  Corliss Lamont, THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMANISM, Frederick
Ungar Publishing Co., 1982 (1949).
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Volturna Press, 1973.
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Books, 1973.
12.  J. Wesley Robb, THE REVERENT SKEPTIC, Philosophical Library,
1979.
13.  Vernon Ruland, S.J., IMAGINING THE SACRED: SOUNDINGS
IN WORLD RELIGIONS, Orbis Books, 1998.
14.  Paul Kurttz, A SECULAR HUMANIST DECLARATION,
Prometheus Books, 1980.
15.  Edward O. Wilson, ON HUMAN NATURE, Bantam Books, 1979.
16.  Edwin H. Wilson, edited by Teresa Maciocha, THE GENESIS OF A
HUMANIST MANIFESTO, Humanist Press, 1995.

Copyright 2004, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved