Heroes and Heretics: Our UU Story

First Unitarian Universalist Church
Heroes and Heretics: Our UU Story
Rev. Sandra Fees
October 7, 2007
Page 1 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
Unitarians and Univeralists are people who choose their faith. Ours is a
chosen faith. We are people who want a religious tradition that matches
our thinking, rather than adopting the faith of our ancestors.
We are not willing to have our choices made for us and to have our
beliefs dictated to us. Even those raised Unitarian Universalist are
encouraged to explore other faiths, to learn about this one, and within it to formulate their own
theology.
I learned what it means to choose my faith from my ancestors. My ancestry on my mother’s side
stretches back to the Mennonite tradition in Switzerland. My forbearers arrived in this country in
the 17th century, settled their homes near the Susquehanna River, and became River Brethren.
In Europe, they were persecuted for their unconventional beliefs and driven from their homeland.
Why? Because they were pacifists. They also believed in adult baptism and re-baptized converts
who had been baptized as infants in other faiths. And beyond that they practiced trine baptism in
which the believer is submerged three times, once for each person of the Trinity.
While I grew up United Methodist, the stories of my great grandparents were the stories of
people who chose their own faith. I thought that’s what people were supposed to do. And I still
do.
This became part of my understanding of who I am as a religious person. The idea that we
choose our faith seems to me to be the most natural thing in the world. Unitarian Universalism is
both my religion of choice, and the religion that lets me choose. I credit my ancestors with
making it possible for me to choose Unitarian Universalism.
The adherence to choice in matters of faith does not come without its share of private and public
struggles. I know many of you have experienced this. Telling family members and friends that
we have left the faith of our childhood can be scary. It can strain relationships to the near
breaking point. Family members and friends can have trouble accepting choices that do not
conform to their own beliefs.
Though my ancestors planted in me the seeds of choice, family members of that same lineage
have not inherited the same perspective. One relative has voiced concerns about the fate of my
soul. She wanted to know whether I profess Jesus as Lord and Savior and believe he died for my
sins. My answer fell painfully short of what she hoped for. She died disappointed by my choice.
Disappointing people we care about because of our religious choices can be painful – to us and
to them.
Unitarian Universalist Denise Davidoff tells how hard it was for her to become a Unitarian
Universalist because of her family history. In the 1960s she and her husband discovered a
Unitarian Universalist church in Connecticut.
Heroes and Heretics: Our UU Story (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 2 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
She says “it was a perfect fit.” But she continues, “Sounds easy, you say. But it wasn’t. Signing
the membership book in a Unitarian church was scary beyond belief for me even to contemplate.
How would I tell my parents I was rejecting the faith of my forefathers?”
For her, it meant a rejection of the faith of her Jewish grandfathers who had emigrated from the
Ukraine. She also worried about telling friends in her Jewish community. It took her six and a
half years to sign the membership book. (from Our Chosen Faith)
The concept of choice is deeply embedded in our liberal religious history. Our tradition was
named for two heresies: Unitarianism and Universalism. Heretic means choice. Ours is a
heretical faith.
The Unitarian heresy held there is one God. The Universalist heresy held that everyone is saved.
Unitarian and Universalist beliefs not only disagreed with the Trinity and rejected predestination.
They also saw Jesus as other than God. They did not adopt the Augustinian and Calvinist
doctrine that human nature is corrupted by sin from birth. And they questioned the idea that
Jesus’ death provided salvation for humanity by paying the price for our sins. On at least five
counts, they fell outside the religious conventions of their day.
In the early centuries of the Christian era, after the establishment of the Nicene Creed in 325,
these choices were not only unacceptable, but also incredibly dangerous. Anyone who openly
disputed orthodox beliefs was branded a heretic and in danger of persecution.
Those who held Unitarian and Universalist opinions were among them. They were burned at the
stake, ex-communicated from the church, or run out of town on threat of violence. This strain of
violent persecution “runs through all the early history of liberal religious impulse within the
Christian fold.” As Jack Mendelsohn explains, “Tragedy and death stalked those who first laid
the foundations in Europe of the movement that was to bear the Unitarian and Universalist
names.”
We see it in the early centuries of Christianity. Arius, for example, came to the Council of Nicea
to argue that Jesus was not of the same essence as God. He lost his case. His punishment was
exile.
Over the centuries that followed Unitarian ideas would emerge from time to time in different
places. But it wasn’t until the Reformation that Unitarianism began to emerge in a defining way.
During the Reformation, the Spaniard Michael Servetus spoke out in opposition to the Trinity.
He was accused of the heresy of anti-Trinitarianism. For choosing a different way and spreading
his heresy, he was burned at the stake.
Around the same time, similar ideas were springing up in Poland and Transylvania. The Polish
Unitarians flourished briefly before being completely suppressed. In Transylvania, however,
there was a period of religious toleration under the only Unitarian King in history, John
Sigismund.
Heroes and Heretics: Our UU Story (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 3 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
It was in Transylvania that we find the institutional roots of Unitarianism and the first official use
of the word Unitarian. Toleration did not last in Transylvania. Francis David, who was the king’s
court preacher, died in prison as a martyr. It is worth noting, however, that Unitarianism
continues in Transylvania to this day.
In England, dissenters found things a bit more merciful, though still not ideal. They also had
reason to worry. Joseph Priestley, for example, was chased out of England. Priestley was a
Unitarian minister and the noted scientist who discovered oxygen. In 1791, a Birmingham mob,
inflamed by leaders of the Established Church, burned down his laboratory.
He fled to London. He was soon invited by his friend Thomas Jefferson to sail to the United
States. It was in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, that Priestley gathered the first Unitarian
congregation in this country. (from Mendelsohn)
The Universalist side of our tradition also marks its earliest heretical roots in the first centuries of
Christianity. It was Origen of Alexandria, a great scholar, who promoted the idea that “all souls”
would be saved. His Universalist convictions were vilified by the church.
But the seeds planted by Origen, just like the early seeds of Unitarian thought, resurfaced at
various times. They resurfaced in a defining way for Universalism with the arrival of John
Murray in America. John Murray barely escaped from England with his life. Upon arriving in
this country, Murray founded the Universalist movement.
In this country, Unitarian and Univeralist ideas still raised eyebrows and earned some
recriminations. But rather than finding themselves the target of violence, the Unitarians and
Universalists began to find themselves engaged instead in serious theological debate. Religious
debate became a form of entertainment in 19th century America. These debates continued the
theological disputes begun in the early centuries of Christianity.
One 19th century debate involved the great Universalist Hosea Ballou. He was arguing the point
of damnation and salvation with an orthodox minister. Ballou quoted Bible passages that
supported the love of God for everyone. But the other minister was unconvinced. He said,
“Brother Ballou, if I were a Universalist, and feared not the fires of hell, I could hit you over the
head, steal your horse and saddle, and ride away, and I’d still go to heaven!” Ballou, not easily
set off course, said, “If you were a Universalist, that idea would never occur to you.”
As Ballou suggests, our religious choice has meant following a path of religious integrity and
conviction. It has not given us license to do or think whatever we will. It has, if anything,
increased the demands upon us to be responsible to and for one another.
Our religious story is filled with the names of Unitarians and Universalists who chose their own
faith. These individuals were both heroes and heretics. They were reformers, questioners, and
seekers. They defied the religious conventions of their times. They blazed new paths and made
possible greater choices for us today.
Heroes and Heretics: Our UU Story (cont’d.)
Rev. Sandra Fees
Page 4 of 4
© 2007, Rev. Sandra Fees
Excerpts may be quoted with attribution.
We build upon the foundation laid by these religious ancestors. We too choose our own faith. We
too are heretics. We are modern day heretics seeking a living and real faith - a faith of integrity,
courage, and compassion.
There is a t-shirt that reads, “Heretic in good company.” We are indeed in good company with
the heretics of our past. But look around you. Look to one another. We continue to be heretics in
good company. I can’t imagine it any other way.
Amen.