Is Unitarian Universalism a Religion?

By Marguerite Robbins

Reading

…Religion for us is no insulated segment of life. It is our entire being in search of meaning. We are respectful of the history out of which we have come and through which we have endured for more than four hundred years. But we are bound by no historic model. We continue to evolve by the light of our growing understanding of ourselves and our world.
Rev. Jack Mendelsohn, Being Liberal In An Illiberal Age
(Ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1945)

Sermon

Our topic for today's sermon is a question, "Is Unitarian Universalism a religion?" As I thought about this question, it reminded me of an interaction between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in the Alice in Wonderland story. Alice says to the Cheshire Cat, "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" To which the Cheshire Cat responds - while displaying his enormous toothy grin - "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." The answer to the question "Is Unitarian Universalism a religion?" depends a good deal, I suspect, on where you want to get to regarding the definition of "religion."

While I do want to talk about the definition of "religion" today, I feel compelled to first address a related question. WHY does the question "Is Unitarian Universalism a religion?" even come up? I have not heard anyone ask, "Is Catholicism a religion?" Or, "Is Judaism a religion?" Or, "Is Islam a religion?"

Well, you may say, all of those faith traditions have to do with God. And I would respond by saying, "Well, what about Hinduism?" Hinduism is considered a religion and it isn't about God. It is fundamentally about viewing all existence as a living organism, called Brahman, which manifests itself in all of the forms of existence. And what about Buddhism? Buddhism is considered a religion and it is not about God. Buddhism is fundamentally about the transformation of consciousness, about finding the Middle Way, about detaching from suffering.

Well, what about the Baptist tradition, the Anglican tradition, the United tradition? Are they religions? Well yes, sort of, perhaps once or twice removed. The religion Christianity has a subset called Protestantism, and Protestantism is broken down into denominations. The Baptist, Anglican, and United traditions are examples of Christian Protestant denominations. But isn't Unitarian Universalism called a denomination? Yes, Unitarian Universalism is called a denomination. In fact on some bumper stickers I have seen in the United States, it is called "the uncommon denomination." And I believe that it is this uncommonness that bears witness to Unitarian Universalism's amazing spiritual evolution. Now spiritual evolution, by its very nature, involves transformation. So let's take a look together at a few of the transformational milestones that Unitarian Universalism has experienced in its spiritual journey.

UU history acknowledges the 16th century as the beginning of Unitarianism and Universalism in Europe. I would like to append to that information the fact that Unitarian and Universalist thinking actually occurred during the very early years of Christianity, around the year 300 of the Common Era. At that time, an early Christian theologian by the name of Arius taught that the Son of God was not eternal and was subordinate to God the Father. Arius believed that Jesus was a divine being but not the same as God. This view was challenged by other early Christian theologians including Athanasius. And the debate among these theologians was so troubling to Constantine, the emperor of the Roman Empire at that time, that he called the Council of Nicea in the year 325 to settle the dispute. The result was the creation of the Nicene Creed which endorsed the concept of the Trinity, a belief in the triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This Nicene Creed still exists today as a foundational belief in Catholicism and in the Christian Protestant denominations, excluding Unitarian Universalism. It is important to note, that Arius's religious questioning and reasoning resulted in his exile.

About 50 years after Arius, a theological debate which foreshadowed Universalism occurred between Augustine and Pelagius. Their debate was about the concept of "original sin." Augustine believed in the concept of original sin, that God created Adam (the first human being according to the Hebrew Bible) who had sinned and had therefore condemned all other human beings to mortal lives. Augustine also believed in total dependence on God for salvation. Pelagius, on the other hand, believed that human beings are neither good nor bad but simply mortal, and that they have the ability to choose for themselves whether they will lead a sinful or sinless life, thus determining there own salvation. In the year 409 at the Synod of Epheus, Pelagius's ideas were condemned as heretical. Once again, questioning and rational thinking, coupled with daring to express new ideas, resulted in silencing and punishment.

But the story of Augustine and Pelagius didn't end there. Several years later, Augustine's views came to be recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as too negative. Therefore, a Semi-Pelagianism came into being and actually became the official doctrine of the Church of Rome. The new Semi-Pelagianism endorsed the following beliefs: (1) that human nature is sick (not good or bad), (2) that freewill remained after the fall of Adam but was weakened by the fall, (3) that man can decide if he wants to do God's will, (4) that salvation includes both God's grace and man's acceptance of God's grace. Bringing about change takes time and requires courageous people to put their new thinking "out there" as seeds for future growth and catalysts for evolution.

So keeping in mind those early Unitarian and Universalist expressions of questioning, reasoning, being authentic, imagining one God, believing that salvation is for all and that newborns are sin less, let us now fast forward to 16th century Europe where the Protestant Reformation was occurring. The Reformation was a movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe. The issue that triggered the Reformation was Martin Luther's condemnation of the practice of "indulgences." Indulgences were essentially pardons that were sold to parishioners for their sins in this life with the promised reward that they would not have to suffer in the afterlife. So with the Jeanie let out of the bottle, so to speak, over the indulgences issue, more issues related to Catholic theology began to surface.

Calvinism, the prevailing theology of the time, taught that God was sovereign, judgmental, and all about condemning sinners. It also said that human beings are innately depraved. It was amidst this Calvinistic environment that the Protestant denominations got their start. It was also at this time that the European Unitarian movement was born in Poland when independent congregations of the Polish Brethren, also known as Unitarians or Socinians, were established. These congregations enthusiastically supported the position of Faustus Socinus, who believed that Jesus was a human being, no more divine than any other human being. The new Unitarian congregations wanted to follow Jesus' teachings but not deify him. In a few years, these congregations were banished from Poland because they were identified as heretics. They moved to Holland, Transylvania, and Germany until the 1800s. In Transylvania, the King whose name was John Sigismund, converted to Unitarianism because he could find no Biblical basis for the Trinity. He also issued the first-ever edict of religious toleration in 1568. So the Unitarian idea of one God became a group's identity in 16th century Europe, and the "Unitarian" name was established. Included in this Unitarian identity was the new concept of religious tolerance, in the form of permission for the Unitarian minister to speak his mind from the pulpit without danger of banishment.

At about the same time across the ocean in North America, Christian settlers who called themselves Puritans were arriving in hopes of finding a land where free religious expression could be practiced. They were orthodox Christians who did not want to be tied to a Pope or to any other hierarchical religious structure. So to ensure their religious freedom, in 1648 they authored a document called The Cambridge Platform. This document established the congregation as the place of authority for their religion. Their religious leader was to be "called" by the congregation and was to be responsible to only the congregation, not to some other external entity. This arrangement, called Congregational Polity, remains a key feature in Unitarian Universalism today and has been a critical element in the evolution of North American Unitarian Universalism from the 17th century to the present.

For many years, the Puritans - who were Trinitarians and Calvinists - lived in relative harmony. Then the time came when the doctrines of original sin, predetermined salvation, and a triune God became contentious issues between the more orthodox Puritans and the more liberal Puritans. Finally, after many painful disputes over many years, the original Puritan congregations split into two groups: the Congregationalists (who became the religious ancestors of the current United Church) and the Unitarians. In 1819, the Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing preached a sermon titled "Unitarian Christianity." This sermon was a milestone for North American Unitarianism, recognizing and declaring the new Unitarian perspective on Christianity. The Puritan experience in North America saw questioning, rational thinking, authenticity, courageous expression and debate, all of which were not silenced and did bring about change. On the other hand, there was much pain involved and there was not a spirit of religious tolerance.

The next decades brought many issues which became grist for the mill regarding how a questioning and changing faith could establish and maintain an enduring denomination. In the early 1800s, Theodore Parker began to challenge the supreme authority of Scripture. In the 1830s, when the British and Americans were founding the first Unitarian Churches in Montreal and Toronto, Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalists in New England began to look to nature and intuition for their source of religious authority. The "Transcendentalist Controversy" ensued, lasting for over thirty years. Then in the 1900s, the Humanist Debate began. This debate, from the Humanists' side, questioned the reality of a supernatural or transcendent being. Perhaps, some Humanists suggested, God could be thought of as a "name or symbol for the aspiring religious sensibility of humanity" rather than as a being. The Humanist Debate also went on for thirty years.

Both the Transcendentalist Controversy and the Humanist Debate involved countless, passionate arguments. The option of ostracism from the denomination waited in the wings as these and other contentious issues played out their dramas over the years. But unlike the Puritan scenario in which separation was the choice, the challenges which came after facilitated the spiritual transformation of Unitarian Universalism in several significant ways: (1) A core value evolved that prioritized keeping the "beloved community" together - within each autonomous congregation and across the movement (2) The mentality of religious pluralism, honoring the inherent worth, dignity, and faith choice of each human being was affirmed and promoted (3) Comprehensive religious tolerance coupled with the behaviors of inclusiveness and sincere hospitality became a congregational and movement-wide value. These three transformations were spiritual transformations. They were, and are, life-enhancing for all involved. They were, and are, rooted in love, not fear. They clearly differentiated Unitarian Universalism from the other Christian denominations.

Is Unitarian Universalism a religion? What is my definition of "religion"? For me, religion is a system - of beliefs, values, and behaviors that facilitate meaning-making and direction in the lives of human beings. And to my way of thinking, Unitarian Universalism is no longer a Christian denomination. That is why the question for today keeps coming up. Instead, Unitarian Universalism has evolved into a full-blown, mature religion, a pluralistic religion that promotes wholeness - wholeness within individual human beings and wholeness within the interdependent web of all existence. Now that is a religion I can devote my life to. It is a religion to celebrate!

Marguerite Robbins

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.

added October 3, 2006 & updated March 22, 2007