Category Archives: teachings

01/12/10

Notional American Unitarian Reform Church No. 7

This is the seventh in a series of light-hearted signs for hypothetical American Unitarian Reform churches, created using an online image generator. We hope to show a range of attitudes and ideas all possible within the scope of AUR.

The sign for today’s notional church, First Church of Riverside, focuses on the universality of Christhood as explained in the Gospel of John.  The “Name” of God, understood not as a puff of air in the mouth of a humans but as a Divine theological entity, is key to this verse.  Promises to be an interesting sermon.

12/30/09

Resolution Day

New Year’s Day is a day for resolutions, often taking the form of freeing ourselves from slavery to addictions, obsessions, and other bad habits.  This renewal through promises to be stronger, healthier, and wiser celebrates one of the cornerstones of American Unitarian Reform: commitment of character.

AUR strives not to promote false salvation, moral justification, and consolation on the cheap, whether its the sort of “bow to dogma and your soul will be spared” comfort of many conservative churches or the “I’m okay, you’re okay, nothing we believe really matters” comfort of many liberal churches.

Spiritual peace and strength are not won by reciting a confession or catechism as if they were magic spells, 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.

Peace, strength, and freedom are achieved only through a resolute struggle, by committing of one’s character to moral growth and accepting a higher Good beyond one’s desires and instincts.  New Year’s Day, what AUR calls Resolution Day, provides a unique opportunity to stamp these commitments into our memory at the turning of the calendar.
Continue reading →

12/13/09

The Importance of Christmas

Today is St. Lucia’s Day, the first of the 12 Days of Light honoring the Star of Bethlehem.  Time to put up the lit decorations!  But, also a good time to reflect on the importance of Christmas.

A celebration of the Nativity was never a foregone conclusion in Christianity. Tertullian’s list of major holidays among North African Christians in the 2nd Century makes no mention of Jesus’s birthday. Origen specifically denounced the idea of celebrating the birth of Jesus in the 3rd Century as something more fitting to the followers of a “pharaonic king.”

Despite this evidence that the earliest Christians did not observe Christmas, ironically some have used the December 25th celebration of the Nativity as “proof” that Jesus was a fictional character, invented as the last in a long series of sun gods considered by ancient mystics to be born/reborn on the Winter Solstice.

While this absurd and counter-factual argument holds no water historically, the evidence certainly does demonstrate that aspects of this pre-existing Middle Eastern holiday were added to Christian worship just as northern European traditions associated with Yuletide—including the tree—were also later adapted to Christianity.

Indeed, Christmas continues to accrete moving imagery and morally-instructive traditions (like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) even today.

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12/12/09

Unitarian Reform’s Lady of Guadalupe

The AUR liturgical year opens with a series of holidays emphasizing the multi-cultural, multi-faith nature of American Reform Unitarian Christianity.

All Corners Day on November 12 honors “Pious Outsiders” from other nations and faiths.  The Thanksgiving season is famously devoted to peaceful cooperation between different ethnic and religious communities.  And, these holidays culminate on January 6 with Epiphany — the epitome of Christian syncretism — which commemorates the adoration of infant Jesus by the Magi, who were foreigners to Judea and members of a non-Abrahamic religion.

December 12, which is the last of the 12 Days of Gold commemorating Mary’s motherhood, is also in the tradition of inter-faith community.  On this day, in conjunction with Roman Catholics we honor the Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is believed by many scholars to be an exaptation of Aztec devotion to Tonantzin, meaning “Our Mother,” a title bestowed upon various divine female figures, similar to the Hindu term “Devi.”

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12/6/09

We Forgive You, Saint Nicholas

Nicholas of Myra punching Bishop Arius at the Council of Nicaea

Nicholas of Myra punching Bishop Arius at the Council of Nicaea

Today is Saint Nicholas Day!

While it is widely known that the Santa Claus of Christmas is derived from St. Nicholas, few know much about the original Saint Nick beyond the fact that he did not live at the North Pole, own flying reindeer, or employ a workshop full of elves.

Nicholas of Myra was a political ally of Athanasius of Alexandria during the Church intrigues of the 4th Century and, like Athanasius, he is rumored to have come into power at an absurdly young age through dubious means.

Fast Track to Bishop

The legend begins with Nicholas as a young man on his way back home to Asia Minor (what we now call Turkey) either from studying in Egypt at Alexandria or from visiting Jerusalem.  While still at sea, as the tale goes, he rescued an overboard sailor.  Or, perhaps he calmed a sea storm with his prayers.  To put it mildly, the stories differ.   His ship then made port in the city of Myra.

Just before Nicholas arrived, the bishop of Myra had died and one of the city’s church leaders was instructed in a dream to choose a “conqueror” as the next bishop.  You or I might be suspicious of such an instruction, not necessarily assuming its Divine origin even if we did accept it as a message from a supernatural source.  But, the church leaders of Myra were not so cynical.

The root of the Greek name Nicholas (Νικόλαος) is nike, meaning “conquest” or “victory,” so when sailors astounded at the exploits of this youth spread the name Nicholas around Myra, the leaders of the church felt they had no choice but to elect the young Nicholas as bishop.

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06/4/09

Post-Cynical Religion Part Two – Smashing the Iconoclasm

Part one of this sermon (posted last Thursday) reflected on the rational cynicism that is evident in the ministry of Jesus, and necessary for genuine Faith, Hope, and Christian Love.

While many churches — all along the political spectrum from conservative to liberal — offer a naïve comfort that turns a blind eye to the cynical realities of the world, AUR refuses to offer “salvation on the cheap” through the false faith of sin-dumping confessional conformism or the false hope of sin-denying celebratory relativism.

Reform Unitarianism recognizes that true Christianity (and, indeed, true religion regardless of its sectarian idiom) is post-cynical, and its comforting truths lie on the other side of a blood-sweating struggle against instincts of self-preservation and sociability, and the “unchallengeable” sacred cows of culture. Continue reading →

05/28/09

Post-Cynical Religion Part One – Christian Cynicism

While many churches — all along the political spectrum from conservative to liberal — offer a naïve comfort that turns a blind eye to the cynical realities of the world, AUR refuses to offer “salvation on the cheap” through sin-dumping confessional conformism or sin-denying celebratory relativism.

Reform Unitarianism recognizes that true Christianity (and, indeed, true religion regardless of its sectarian idiom) is post-cynical, and its comforting truths lie on the other side of a blood-sweating struggle with self-preservation, social/psychological instinct, and the “unchallengeable” sacred cows of culture.
Continue reading →

05/7/09

Notional American Unitarian Reform Church No. 2

This is the second in a series of light-hearted signs for hypothetical American Unitarian Reform churches, created using an online image generator. We hope to show a range of attitudes and ideas all possible within the scope of AUR.

Today’s notional church is named in honor of the Councils of Tyre (335) and Antioch (327) which defended traditional Christianity against the conflationism of Hosius and Athanasius.  Its message — appropriately, a gentle poke at the conflationist Trinitarian doctrine of coeval personae — is modeled on the humorous moral rhetoric found in many Protestant Trinitarian church signs.

02tyreantioch

04/30/09

There is no Plan C – Conquering False Hope with Faith

Today is Loyal Thursday, and during these 12 Days of Trust — celebrating the virtue of Faith — it is important to remember the fallibility of Hope.  Faith is the complement of Hope, and its antidote when Hope becomes false:

Faith, rather than meaning credulous obedience to dogmatic authority, is simply what we modern Americans would call “stick-to-it-iveness”: a confidence that is not shaken by contest and competition, or lured away by fleeting temptations. It is the same faith as that found in a “faithful” husband or wife, the same faith in the military oath “to bear true faith and allegiance.”

Faith is a virtue in marriage and the military not because one’s spouse is the best partner on Earth or because every battle can be won but because, without faith, the reality supported by that faith crumbles to dust. Faith is the virtue of focus … Hope is the virtue of open-mindedness.

Without Faith focusing on the nitty-gritty particulars … Hope becomes mere naïveté.

In order to to act as virtues rather than vices, clear-minded Faith and open-minded Hope must be reconciled with each other. Continue reading →

04/20/09

AUR FAQ Page Posted

Some time ago, a FAQ was promised to address the basic AUR issues better than the Introduction page.  The following questions are now up on the AUR FAQ page, clickable in the sidebar.

1. What does it mean to be Unitarian?
1.1 What significance is Jesus Christ to (Reform) Unitarians?

2. Do Unitarians reject the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Trinitarians claim?
2.1 Why is the Reform Unitarian view more correct than the Trinitarian view?
2.2 How did the early Church view the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
2.3 Why do so many modern Christians believe that Trinitarianism is central to Christianity?

3. Don’t Unitarians not really have any specific beliefs any more?
3.1 What does it matter if the word “Unitarianism” is used for groups that no longer believe in Unitarianism?

4. What does it mean to be a Reform Unitarian?
4.1 What is Reform Unitarianism restoring and improving?
4.2 Is Reform Unitarianism only concerned with restoring and improving Christianity?

5. What is American about American Unitarian Reform?
5.1 Does American Unitarian Reform violate the Separation of Church and State?

6. What is the Reform Unitarian attitude toward Scripture?