Author Archives: unitarian reform

01/14/08

Homosexuality and What Paul’s Letter to the Romans Really Says

There are numerous scriptural arguments against homosexuality, but none as commonly used as Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which describes the apostle’s vision of the Gospel for the mixed Jew/Gentile church in Rome. Paul wrote it in the 1st Century, long before the idea of “sexuality,” when people spoke merely of various sexual acts. Even so, we’ll take a look at this proof text to see what it says about God’s attitude toward what we call homosexuality today. Continue reading →

01/12/08

John Hancock Day

Why celebrate John Hancock’s birthday?  Wasn’t John Hancock a smuggler, a rancorous extremist whose stubborn personality caused schisms between himelf and other Patriots like Samuel Adams?  And why should a political figure be celebrated by a religious movement anyway? Continue reading →

01/7/08

The Meaning of Love, Faith, and Hope

Our English word “faith” comes from the Latin fides, meaning “fidelity” or “loyalty,” and in Christian usage it was employed to translate the Hebrew emunah (אמונה) which carried a meaning of security, supportiveness, and firmness.

Faith originally did not mean credulity, believing something simply because someone tells you to believe. It meant being secure in what you know, a meaning closer to “confidence,” although there is an element of non-thinking: emun means “craftsman” in Hebrew, someone who is confident of his ability without having to think about it.

Many Christians derive their conception of faith from the Letter to the Hebrews:

11:1 And faith is confidence in things hoped for, a conviction in matters not seen, 2 the elders were recognized for this; 3 by faith we understand the universe to have been caused by the Word of God, that visible things did not arise from something visible.

Far from justifying blind acceptance of dogma, this definition of faith merely distinguishes the “invisible God” (Letter to the Colossians 1:15) from created things, which we can detect with our senses, and establishes faith as applying specifically to the former. Even so, there is a much richer vision of faith in AUR, giving it an integral meaning in the Christian idiom beyond merely justifying belief in the unseen.

Faith has been described as one of the three “theological virtues” alongside love and hope, and it helps to think of it in relation to the other two. Continue reading →

01/5/08

The Interval Calendar

AUR recognizes the space between the end of Christmas season (Epiphany) and the beginning of the Easter season (Carnival) as an important Interval marking the mid-point of the life of Jesus, which is undocumented in the canonical Gospels and shrouded in mystery, and the mid-point of Winter.

12 Days of Defiance begin on the 7th, celebrated with the colors blue and green.
Feast of St. Lucian, commemorating the martyrdom of the teacher of Arius, on January 7th
John Hancock Day, birthday of this Unitarian signer of the American Declaration of Independence, on the 12th
Nika Week, commemorating the Nika riots and massacre, from January 13th to 18th. In 532, two previously warring religious/political/sports factions (the Blues and the Greens) joined together to rise against Emperor Justinian, shouting “Nika!” (victory) in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. The Blues had joined the Greens even though they were supported by Justinian. In the massacres that followed, thirty thousand Blues and Greens were murdered by Justinian’s forces.

12 Days of Action begin on the 19th with the colors of red and white.
Feast of the International Family, on the 19th, commemorating the family of Maris and Martha, aristocratic Persians who emigrated to Rome to assist Christians being persecuted there. These two and their sons were tortured and executed for their good deeds.
(Earliest possible date for the 12 Days of Carnival, the 23rd)
Sleds and Cannons, on the 24th, commemorating the remarkably speedy arrival in Cambridge, Mass., of Henry Knox and the cannons of Fort Ticonderoga in just 56 days. After a heavy snowfall threatened to slow the transport, Knox’s patriots resorted to sleds, transforming a seeming setback into a boon by accomodating providence rather than resisting it.
Spear King’s Day, on the 25th, commemorates the death of Arian king Geiseric who, despite persecution of Unitarian Arians, gave Catholics freedom of religion under his reign and established a progressive tax system, providing relief to the common people.
Day of the Spark, on the 30th, commemorates the delivery of the Discourse on Submission by proto-Unitarian minister Jonathan Mayhew on the 100th anniversary of the execution of King Charles I in 1649. This sermon, called the spark that ignited the American Revolution by John Adams, unravelled the scriptural underpinning of the divine right of kings.
(Latest possible day for the 12 Days of Carnival, 26th of February)

12/31/07

Resolution Day – Finding Comfort Through Spiritual Strength

One key distinction of AUR is the commitment not to offer false consolation on the cheap, whether its the sort of “bow to dogma and your soul will be spared” comfort of conservative churches or the “I’m okay, you’re okay, nothing we believe really matters” comfort of liberal churches.

Spiritual peace is not won by reciting a confession or catechism as if it were a magic spell, or by impulsively tossing your life over to God like a hot potato for which you can abdicate all responsibility.

Nor is spiritual peace achieved through conflict-averse relativism or laissez-faire creedlessness, what Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams described unflatteringly as religion “you can’t flunk.”

Spiritual peace is achieved only through a resolute struggle, by committing of one’s character to moral growth and accepting a higher Good beyond one’s individual interests. Continue reading →

12/27/07

Enjoying the Holidays All the Way Through

Yesterday and today, several people have asked me “how was your holidays?” using the polite, non-sectarian term. 

Which, by the way, is fine by me.  I have no idea why some people get bent out of shape, drumming up a “War on Christmas” because strangers refuse to assume each other’s religious affiliation.  Since when did respecting other people’s religious freedom equal war?  I guess, among those who don’t agree with the idea of religious freedom, holiday ettiquette constitutes an act of sedition.

But, I’m getting off point.  I’m writing because of the word “was” not the word “holidays.”

Although I don’t go into uncomfortable detail with every cashier and co-worker who asks how my holiday “went,” my Yuletide is not over.  I think our attitude toward Christmas is too much of a buildup/letdown approach.  We think of nothing but the day itself all through December, and after it’s over we go over the emotional cataract into the blahs of January. 

That’s why I like the AUR calendar’s step-by-step approach to Advent, and observing the traditional “12 Days of Christmas” afterward leading up to Epiphany.  I mark this gradual rolling out of the Christmas story with my Nativity scene, meditating on the images one by one. 

On December 1st, when I put up the unlit decorations for the 12 Days of Gold, I set Mary and the Angel alone in the stable to signify the Annunciation.  On the 6th I add Joseph and the donkey. 

On the 13th, with the beginning of the 12 Days of Light, I add the ox and the light representing the Star of Bethlehem, along with all of my other lighted decorations. 

Last thing Christmas Eve, I add the manger and Baby Jesus.  And, on New Year’s Eve, in preparation for the last days leading up to Epiphany, I add the shepherd, sheep, camels, and Magi to complete the image.

But, even for those of us who aren’t Epiphany-observing Christians, are the holidays already in the past?  We have New Year’s ahead of us!  Why start mourning the end of the holidays with the most exciting (if certainly not the most solemn) still ahead?

12/26/07

Bibliolatry – Why Scriptural Sufficiency and Literalism are Wrong

Do you believe that Jesus was a baby sheep or a cat with a tawny mane?  Do you think that a ten-headed dragon is going to crawl onto the beach at the end of time?

If you answer No, then you do not believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture.  Each of those are symbols used by the Bible: the Lamb of God, the Lion of Judah, and the Dragon of the Apocalypse.  Dedication to a truly literalist interpretation would force you to answer Yes to the questions above.

Even so, many leaders of the Christian community who would certainly answer No to the above questions still insist that their interpretation of the Bible is “literal.”  Clearly their claims are either dishonest or deluded.  Even worse, the fact that Jesus taught with fictional parables clearly shows that stories do not need to be literally true in order to be spiritually valuable, which means that the attitude of some church leaders that religion requires the Bible to be historically and materially factual implies that Jesus was a fraud.

So why do so many insist on scriptural literalism and bibliolatry?  Continue reading →

12/15/07

Unitarian vs. Anti-Christ

Many Unitarians have asserted the unity of God merely as a means of distancing themselves from uncomfortable Christological issues, including the “Father and Son” language used to describe Christ’s relationship with God. Sadly, for many American Unitarians in the 1800s, this developed to the point of dismissing Jesus and declaring themselves non-Christians.

It is particularly ironic that Muslims take the Christhood of Jesus more seriously than many who continue to call themselves Unitarian, a theological term that makes little sense outside of the context of post-Nicene Christianity.

Still, the Reform understands the difficulties that Christology has posed for rationalist Unitarians, and particularly the difficulty that the Father-Son relationship creates for those dedicated to worship of One God.  AUR also sympathizes with the monotheistic impulse in Islám to condemn the easily misinterpreted Father-Son Christology, even as Islám recognizes Jesus as the Christ/Messiah (مسيح) and the Word of God, or Kalimat-Alláh (كلمة أﷲ ) in Arabic.

Talking about the relationship of God and Christ in such creaturely biological terms as “Father and Son” carries with it the danger of confusing the ignorant and diminishing the Creator.

However, Reform Unitarianism does not stand in rejection of Father-Son Christology, but in defense of its underlying meaning.  The theological purpose behind describing the link between God and Christ in terms of a Father and His Son is to establish an intimate but vertical relationship between the two as the very definition of Christhood.

Fathers and sons are not equals; fathers are above and sons are below. Continue reading →

12/13/07

The Advent Calendar

This being St. Lucia’s day, and the beginning of the 12 Days of Light, AUR thought that we should post the Reform Advent Calendar.

Advent Eve, or the Feast of St. Andrew, falls on November 30.
12 Days of Gold begin on December 1, celebrating Mary’s Motherhood and putting up unlit Christmas decorations.
     Advent/Annunciation (or the Feast of St. Eligius, patron of goldsmiths) on the 1st
     Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the 12th
12 Days of Light begin on December 13, celebrating the Star of Bethlehem and putting up lit Christmas decorations and candles.
     Feast of St. Lucia, matron of light and sight, on the 13th
     Christmas Eve on the 24th
Christmas Day on the 25th
12 Days of Christmas begin on December 26th and last through January 6th
     Feast of St. Stephen (from “Good King Wenceslas”) on the 26th
     New Year’s Eve (the 6th Day of Christmas) on the 31st
     Resolution Day (the 7th Day of Christmas) on the 1st of January
     Epiphany, celebrating the Adoration of the Magi and interfaith communion, on the 6th

12/11/07

Mixing Politics and Religion?

The other day, I saw a bumper sticker that read: “The last time we mixed politics and religion, people were burned at the stake!”

 I think the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would beg to differ.

 The fact that AUR discusses American political history in the context of religion might make some uncomfortable, but if we insist that religion have no moral vision for its own society  and civilization, what then is the purpose of religious liberty? 

The recognition that both Dr. King and his racist opponents appealed to religious principles might bring some to the conclusion that religion makes no difference, but the real lesson is that there is difference within religion.  Some religion burns people at the stake, and some religion sets people free.

It is time to move beyond the bigotry and prejudice that insists (against evidence to the contrary) that “religion poisons everything,” and open our eyes to the reality that the content and character of a religion—indeed also the content and character of non-religious worldviews—makes an enormous difference that we should not simply brush aside with the willful ignorance of poorly-informed cynicism.  The difference within religion is the difference between right and wrong, piety and autolatry, justice and injustice, Abolition and Inquisition.

The obsession with indictment and condemnation that leads some to reject all religious involvement in political matters is  precisely the sort of biased and corrupted thought process that drove the stake-burnings of centuries past.  Progressives from all worldviews, religious and otherwise, have a moral obligation to stay involved in politics to keep this sort of prejudice and bigotry from becoming the very tone and language of Civilization.