Respect for Persons (PDF)

Address by David Crossley, October 19, 2008

September Homily (PDF)

Address by Gary Groot, September 7, 2008

A_Woman_Alone_and_Spirituality (PDF)

Address by Wendy Weseen, July 27, 2008

Address by Ann Coxworth, January 6, 2008

A few weeks ago, during the response period in a service about the roots of North American Unitarianism, Ivan raised the issue of our use of the word “faith” in Unitarian circles. It’s one of those words borrowed from traditional religion – words like “church”, “worship”, “reverend” – that we have tended to try to re-define to have meaning for us. I share Ivan’s discomfort with much of this re-definition, but at the same time I have often found myself wondering what to do about the gap that’s left when we cut these rather loaded words out of our vocabulary. This has prompted me to dig out a talk that I delivered two and a half years ago, at a time when we, as a congregation, had been going through a period of attempting to re-define ourselves by creating a new statement of mission.

I had been browsing through the McNally Robinson bookstore newsletter and my attention was caught by the title of a book, “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris.  I hadn’t read the book, and I didn’t know anything about it or its author – but this is how the bookstore promotion started its comments:

“The End of Faith – In the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, Harris argues that we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another.  Even moderate lip service to religion blinds us to the perils of fundamentalism.”

Hmmm! While I find myself agreeing that the kind of faith that pits one true god against another is fraught with danger, I’m not sure whether that does indeed imply the need for the end of faith. When I was a kid in Britain, during the war, there used to be a very popular radio program on the BBC called The Brains Trust. The format was that a panel of very brainy and very articulate people would discuss philosophical, ethical, scientific, cultural questions sent in by listeners. My parents used to listen to The Brains Trust all the time, so I got exposed to it well before I could really appreciate the discussion. What I remember about it is one of the panelists, a Professor Joad.  Professor Joad was famous for starting each response to a philosophical or ethical question with the preamble, “Well, it all depends what you mean by…….”. So, the question “Does God exist?” would elicit the initial response, “Well, it all depends what you mean by God.”  I think if we were to ask Professor Joad, who is doubtless long dead by now, whether faith is still valid, or useful, or desirable, he would start off by saying, “Well, it all depends what you mean by faith”.

So, in memory of Professor Joad, whoever he was and wherever he is now, I’d like to have us spend this morning thinking about what we mean by faith, and whether it is a word that can have relevance for us.  It’s a word people still use a lot, and it’s a strong, heavy-duty kind of word. It’s often loaded with feeling. But also, it’s sometimes used very mechanically. So where do we start?

Well, one place that I’ve run up against the term “faith” is in my environmental work.  As environmental activists we often think about how to communicate with various influential sectors of the community, sectors whose concerns may overlap with ours. The same, I’m sure, is true of peace activists, or anti-poverty activists, or of any group that has a message that it wants to communicate to the larger society. Rather than thinking about the larger society around us as being homogenous, we find it useful to  mentally divide society into sub-groups that are more homogeneous. As activists we talk, for example, about the labour movement as a sector within society as a whole.  We assume that people within that sector have certain common interests and concerns, and we have to think about how to most effectively communicate our message to people with those particular concerns and interests. What is the kind of language to which they will pay attention? Similarly we talk about the business community, the academic community, the Aboriginal community. These are ways of sub-dividing society as a whole into sub-groups who should perhaps be approached in different ways. And amongst those sub-groups, we recognize that there is an important sector of the community made up of people who are, in the broad sense of the word, religious –  people who are significantly influenced by their church, their synagogue, temple or mosque, by their scriptures, their group’s ethical concepts, or their spiritual leaders – and because several religious organizations have something to say about the sacredness of the earth, or about man’s relationship to nature – this seems like an important sector for environmentalists to communicate with. The generic, inclusive term that we use to refer to this sector is “the faith community”, which is supposed to embrace all kinds of groups that fit into that tax-exempt, religious organization status that we Unitarians enjoy. As Unitarians, we are often lumped in with traditionally religious organizations under this generic heading of “faith communities”. So I find myself wondering whether we really belong there, and if so, what that term might mean to us.
We feel we sort of know what to say when we are asked what faith we belong to. Have you ever been asked, for example, on a hospital admission form, what your faith is?
When we’re asked that question, we tend to assume that the correct answer is “Unitarian” (or possibly humanist or Buddhist or atheist or something else that defines our specific take on Unitarianism). But what do we mean if we say Unitarianism is our faith?  Does it mean more than just a label to define where we spend Sunday morning?

Here’s another way in which some use the word faith. Some Unitarians have taken to using the expression “in faith” as a way of signing letters. Instead of “yours sincerely”, we sometimes see “in faith”. I’ve often meant to ask people who use this expression just what it is they are trying to communicate through these two little words.

Then there’s the expression “Keeping the faith”. Keeping the faith implies loyalty; “Being faithful” implies sticking exclusively with your mate, or, if you are a dog, sticking with your master, whatever the circumstances.  Interestingly, Faithfulness, or loyalty is generally perceived as a virtue, regardless of the object of faith.  Do we see it that way?

For traditional Christians, faith seems to mean much the same as belief. I took a look at Billy Graham’s website – there’s a question and answer section there where Graham’s staff respond to queries from the public: For example:

Question: Aren’t there many good religious writings and religions that can show us the way to know god and experience eternal life?

Answer: Mr. Graham believes there is only one infallible standard – the Bible, God’s word.  In it God has revealed all we need to know and all we can know about Himself.  A true faith is based on the word of God, while a faith that is based only on the ideas of men is not reliable……We believe that Jesus Christ alone gave us the full truth about God.   Was Jesus whom he claimed to be? Yes! How do we know? Because he rose again from the dead.  This act forever sets Jesus apart from all the religious leaders of the world.  And it also means that He alone can forgive us and save us.

This is a statement of faith, and an example of the Fundamentalist Christian belief that sinners can be saved from damnation only by faith in God’s grace. A faith, or a belief, that forgiveness has been purchased by the death of Jesus. What you believe determines whether or not you are one of the saved. “Those who believe in me shall have everlasting life”, Jesus is reputed to have said. This means that an ability to believe, in the absence of physical evidence, is the requirement for salvation. There is no place for doubt. So if belief really were so darned important, we’d need to be very clear about just what it is that we believe.

Some years ago, we had a service here in which several of us were asked to speak briefly about, “What I believe”. I was one of the people on this panel.  And in preparing for it, I came to realize that there is hardly anything that I believe absolutely, other than abstract mathematical truths. I do not have absolute faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, although I will be extremely surprised if it doesn’t. I regularly gamble my life on the probability that the force of gravity works the same way at all times, everywhere, but yet I can entertain the possibility that this may sometime, somewhere, be shown to be invalid. The sliver of doubt is always there – not necessarily causing any discomfort. On more metaphysical questions such as “Is there life after death?” I can do no more than speculate in the absence of scientific evidence. I find it extremely interesting to speculate about such questions, but I am not even looking for absolute answers. So I am not a believer. I don’t think there is anything which I believe so strongly that I would refuse to consider contrary evidence or ideas. But as a non-believer, does that automatically mean that I don’t have a faith?

The thing that got me started thinking about this again was the publication of a book by Michael Ruse called “The Evolution-Creation Struggle”.  Ruse is a confirmed evolutionist, very involved in the American argument about the teaching of creationism in schools. His book is not so much designed to convince the world of the correctness of the theory of evolution and the errors of creationism, but rather to expose the dangers of taking “faith positions” on such an issue. His book has provoked a number of very interesting reviews that investigate this whole confusion between belief and faith. For example, Richard Dawkins, in his review, describes faith as one of the world’s great evils, “comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate”.  He defines faith as “belief that isn’t based on evidence”, as distinct from science that is based on verifiable facts.

But another reviewer, Karen Armstrong, an ex-Roman Catholic nun, says that the popular conviction that science and faith are diametrically opposed is based on an erroneous assumption, that is, the assumption that faith is synonymous with belief, and that to be religious, people must accept certain belief positions. On the contrary, she says, in most of the great religions theology is regarded at best as a kind of poetry about matters that must, by their very nature, elude definition.  The Koran, she says, regards theological speculation as self-indulgent guesswork about matters that nobody can prove one way or the other.  Every single verse, every story told in the Koran, she says, is a parable, because it is only possible to talk about the indescribable god in terms of signs and symbols. We’re not intended to interpret these stories literally. Hence, she says, Darwin and his evolutionary theory have raised scarcely a ripple of concern in the Muslim world.

Moreover, she claims, the creation myths in the Judeo-Christian bible were never intended as definitive dogma either. She thinks they were written to serve a social purpose at the time. The Genesis story imagines Yahweh, the God of the old testament, summoning all things into being with a mere word of command.  At the time this creation story is believed to have been written, in the 6th century BC, most other Middle Eastern cosmologies were extremely violent.  Genesis Chapter I was revolutionary in its time in omitting all violence from the act of creation. This calm creation story was intended, says Karen Armstrong, as a healing vision, designed, she claims, to console the traumatized deportees for whom it was written. Cosmologies, she says, were originally therapeutic in function. In the pre-modern world, it was generally understood that there were two ways of arriving at truth.  Plato called them mythos and logos. Logos (what we call reason or science) was exact, practical and testable.  To be effective it had to correspond to external reality. Myth, on the other hand, expressed the more puzzling, elusive aspects of human experience.  It has often been called a form of psychology, a tool which helped people negotiate their inner world.  If you became a refugee, or witnessed a terrible natural catastrophe, you did not simply want a logical explanation; you also wanted myth to show you how to manage your grief. With the advent of our scientific modernity, however, logos, the scientific approach, has achieved such spectacular results that myth has become discredited, and now, in common speech, myth is something that didn’t happen, an untrue story.  The problem comes when some religious people, such as the Christian fundamentalists, began to read religious myths as though they were logos. So belief in the literal truth of the myth has, for them, become the basis of a faith. Armstrong suggests that it’s very important to distinguish between belief and faith.

So if faith is not the same as belief, what else can it be?  An interesting insight for me came in an article in New Scientist about suicide bombers, specifically suicide bombers who had grown up in Britain. The writer, Michael Bond, was thinking about the fact that studies of the personalities of suicide bombers has shown that they are generally not what we would regard as crazy people.  They are apparently better off than average for their community, and better educated.  They are also rarely suicidal in the pathological sense. Few have symptoms of mental illness or drug abuse. They don’t even have to be religious extremists. So, Michael Bond wondered, how can comfortably-off, well-educated young men, born and brought up in Britain, be turned into people who end up sacrificing themselves and killing civilians for a cause that seems a long way from their daily life? The answer, he says, is, it happens much more easily than you might imagine. Suicide attacks in modern times are all conceived and organized by militant groups, and they all use the same methods.  First, they find people, usually young and male, who are sympathetic to the group’s cause, and they organize them into small units. Secondly they exploit their motivation to fight for the cause, using religious or political indoctrination, emphasizing the nobility of self-sacrifice.  Thirdly, and this is the key point, they have all the members of the unit make a pact declaring their commitment to what they are about to do, their commitment to die and to kill the innocent.  Beyond this point of mutual commitment, it’s psychologically very hard for them to back out. The sense of commitment to a small group of peers can turn just about anybody into a potential suicide bomber; the crucial factor is not the psychology of the individual but that of the group. Faith, life-changing faith, here is based on loyalty and commitment to the group, rather than to an ideology.

So perhaps faith can more accurately be defined as “that to which I give my heart”.  Faith may not really be a matter of what I believe, what version of the origin of the universe I prefer to work with, or whether I find it more helpful to think of Jesus as born of a virgin or as having a biological father. Or even, whether I find the concept of salvation through the cross as a useful way of governing my behaviour.  What you may or may not believe about such concepts may have no relevance for your real faith, in the sense of what you give your heart to.  Personally, I think that one of the things that I have given my heart to is the ideal of protecting the earth from further degradation. I live with hope that it is possible to change human society into ways of living and interacting that are more earth-friendly. I am committed to trying to live on the basis of such hope. Perhaps hope and commitment together make up faith. Most importantly, I experience a personal commitment to a group of people who share that ideal, and to some extent my behaviour is shaped by a sense of loyalty to that group. My faith, if you will, is defined and strengthened by the group.  But it’s not a faith that is dependant on a specific belief. Rather it’s a bond that comes from a shared hope and shared commitment. For me as an individual, I could interpret this as my faith.

But what about us as Unitarians, as a group that is regarded as a “faith community”? I think one of our challenges as a congregation or as a movement is that we have difficulty defining a common hope, a common commitment, a common faith, using the word faith in the sense of “what we give our hearts to”. As individuals, I think most of us could be described as people of commitment – we each have values to which we are committed, we have groups to whom we are very loyal. Our mission statement process three years ago was an attempt to get at this question as a whole congregation. What is it that we collectively give our hearts to? In that process of developing our mission statement we came to a fairly strong consensus that we are committed to dialogue across differences. Our mission statement says “We are a community, founded on freedom of religious thought and exploration , which strives to speak with honesty, listen with respect, reason with compassion, and live our principles.” And let’s also read those principles, which we say we strive to live by:

“We affirm and promote our principles:
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregation
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our Congregation and in society at large
- The goal of community with peace, liberty and justice for all, and
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part.”

This is a pretty important commitment in a world that is torn apart by ideologies, by differing priorities, cultural expectations, values and aspirations. Is this common commitment our faith? And is it enough to allow us to call ourselves a faith community?

Address by Bryan Carroll, November 25, 2007

The Unitarian tradition has existed for more than five centuries. The Universalist tradition is historically younger. Both traditions, at least until the twentieth century, were clearly religious. Today, North American Unitarians and Universalists recognize as one source of knowledge and insight, “Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life.” You can read these words inside the front cover of our hymnbook, as one of seven sources of our living tradition.
So we have historical credentials as a religious tradition and institution, and we acknowledge the relevance of religious teachings today. The question this morning is: Are the messages taught by the world’s religions essentially the same message expressed in different words and symbols? Before we can attempt to answer this question, we have to ask, what are these religious teachings? Since I’m the person asking this question today, I want to begin by introducing myself. You know my name; I’m Bryan Carroll. I’m currently President of this Congregation, I’m one of our Youth Advisors, and you see and hear me playing the piano in the Sunday Service once a month. By most definitions I can be called an atheist. I also appear to lack what some writers have called “the religion gene”. This should be understood as an ironic term. I’m sure that there’s no single gene that causes a person to be religious; however, there is evidence to suggest that many individuals have a strong religious or spiritual orientation that doesn’t appear to be explained by their environment and upbringing, while others whom you might expect to be very religious, if you know their personal history, simply aren’t. I’m an example of the latter.
What do I mean by religious? When I use words that can have many possible meanings, I always try to define how I’m using particular words. By religious, I mean holding personal beliefs that explain the universe in terms of supernatural beings, forces, or connections, and are ultimately based on faith. And by religious faith, I mean a strong emotional certainty that a particular idea is true, a certainty that either does not require or actively rejects the evidence of our senses, of scientific discovery, and of the record of history.
Now I’m going to ask a question that some of you may be thinking. If I’m an atheist who isn’t religious and rejects knowledge by faith, what business do I have asking you to listen to me talk about religious teachings? Good question! This is my answer to you. I’ve never been a professional scholar of religion; however, I rejected the belief system that I grew up in when I was in my teens, and ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by the variety of religious beliefs and the ways in which they affect people. This is an enormous subject and without doubt there are many gaps in my knowledge and experience. For 40 years, I’ve been reading books about religious belief at the breakfast table, in restaurants, on airplanes, subway cars, and buses. I’ve attended religious services, had many conversations with individuals from various faith traditions, listened to lectures and discussions on the CBC, read hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, watched religious programs on TV, and listened to Evangelical Christian radio programming.

Since I don’t believe any theology, including Unitarian Universalist theologies, I don’t have any emotional vested interest in promoting or discrediting any particular tradition. I have my own understanding of spirituality and my own non-religious definitions of sacred. It’s true that some religious traditions and teachings feel more compatible to me than others, but I believe that this is a matter of what I call temperament. I think that we do have psychological differences that are shaped by our genetic inheritance and by very early childhood experiences, and this is what I mean by temperament For a long time now, I’ve also had a habit of seeking out people whose ideas, opinions, and perspectives are different from mine. I often listen to and read books and articles written by people with whom I expect to strongly disagree. These are the credentials that I offer you this morning. As a Unitarian, I have a personal commitment to respect everyone’s freedom to find and choose his or her own personal beliefs. I’m not trying to convert anyone to my viewpoint, although I’m aware that some of what I say may cause you to re-examine some of your own beliefs. I’ve talked this much about myself because I want my personal bias to be out in the open before I go any further.
Most people’s understanding of religious teaching is based on limited knowledge and experience. I’m sometimes asked why I spend so much time putting ideas into historical contexts, why I talk so much about ancestors. People often say to me something like, “I’m a unique individual; I don’t define myself in terms of my biological or cultural ancestry”. I find that the more I learn about nature and history, the stronger is my belief that most of what we are is our history. In my understanding, our evolutionary history is recorded in our DNA, our social history is recorded in our cultures, and our personal history shapes what we call our personality.
Only a few thousand years ago, what we call religion didn’t exist. That is to say, I know of no evidence that it existed. If we begin by accepting the premise that humans evolved like other living beings (which is what I believe), and depending on how you define “human”, it appears that our ancestors all lived in small tribal groups for a time that lasted for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. No one claims to know when our ancestors evolved the capacity that all modern people share to speak and imagine. However, there are no historical records of any tribe of people who did not have language and belief. These tribal belief systems and languages must have existed in tens of thousands of variations. Each tribal group was aware of only a few other tribes and had no knowledge of the world outside of their immediate experience. Through contact between tribal people and people who kept written records, we do have some understanding of the belief systems of our ancestors. Every one that I know of is focused on survival. The world is perceived as being full of many helpful and benevolent, and many hostile and dangerous, forces and spirits. Daily life is filled with rules, prohibitions, and rituals that are intended to gain the benefits of the benevolent forces and turn away the dangers of the hostile spirits. Stories are told that explain everything that is known and give examples of possible and likely outcomes of different responses to real situations.

All tribal people, to my knowledge, perceive themselves as part of nature. There is no clear line dividing the lives of people from the lives of other animals, or plants, or the forces of nature. In fact all things – wind, water, fire, trees, birds, spiders, insects – are usually believed to have personalities and motivations similar to those of people. Everything is inter-connected, not as an abstract philosophical idea, but as a literal reality. If a person drowns in a river, it is assumed that they had offended the river-spirit. If someone is sick, then they must be bewitched, or possessed, or out of balance with some natural force. When you encounter these belief systems, they often seem to be full of bizarre superstitions intermingled with acute observation, practical problem solving, naïve beliefs, violent passions, and profound insights. The similar stories and mythological beings that appear and reappear within the amazing diversity of aboriginal belief systems may be a response to a universal spiritual reality, or perhaps they are the result of people with essentially the same DNA responding to living on the same planet. I can say with considerable confidence that the tribal people who lived these beliefs knew how they understood the world, but knew very little about other people’s beliefs.
Inventing civilization seems to be as characteristically human as making tools. Many people who have studied the history of civilization (two examples are Ronald Wright, who wrote “A Short History of Progress” and Jared Diamond, who wrote “Collapse” and  “Guns, Germs, and Steel”) have concluded that civilization has been independently invented at least five times and that many other groups of people were on this course (which takes many generations to complete) when they were conquered and absorbed into larger and more powerful civilizations. Another definition, if I may. Please understand that when I refer to “civilized people”, I mean ‘people living in large and complex societies that are centred around cities’, not ‘people who are morally superior to ignorant savages’. When we look at the historical records of civilized people, we see in every civilized society religious institutions and traditions, priests and priestesses, public and private religious rituals, and collective religious beliefs. Here we meet the famous goddesses and gods with names, personalities, and histories. I don’t think that there can be any doubt that people worshipped these deities, acknowledged their power, and believed that they were real and intimately involved in human existence when they chose to be. So what were the teachings of these old religions?
The first thing that catches my attention is that in the religions of the ancient city-states and empires, most religious practices were rituals to be observed rather than abstract moral or ethical principles to be contemplated and incorporated into one’s life. Here are burnt offerings, household altars, bloody ritual sacrifices, mystical cults, fertility rites, sacred orgies, scapegoats (human or animal) carrying the wrong-doings of the community into the wilderness. Everything was spiritually clean or unclean. Every city belonged to a deity. Every craft, art, and technology had its goddess or god. Other deities lived in sacred groves or caves or ponds. People chose their personal god or goddess and worshipped at their temples. Now I return to our question. Were there religious teachings as we understand them and were they essentially the same?

I think not. There were certainly many similarities in the world views of the old religions, and values and standards of behaviour were taught; however, they seem to have been specific to each god and goddess rather than universal. People were taught to live as their gods and goddesses wished them to live. That might be to practice compassion, honesty and fairness, but it might just as well be ruthless extermination of one’s enemies, deceitfulness, or enforcement of slavery. An individual could practise sexual abstinence or sexual excess and everything in between; he or she might renounce wealth and power or value them above all else; they would find a deity to serve and worship. The gods and goddesses of cities were conquering deities and prayers to them usually translate to a variation of, “My god’s bigger than your god.” If one city successfully conquered another, the people on both sides probably believed that the conquering god was stronger, or that his (or her) people had been more scrupulous in their religious rituals. Everyone knew that deities sometimes withdrew their support from those who didn’t worship them properly. The losers, whether in war or economic competition or the caste of their birth, were clearly out of divine favour; and since the goddesses and gods who controlled and ruled the world knew more than any human, what person dared to question their judgments?
At different times and in different places, new religious cultures came into being: Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and others. These were new ways of thinking and living, each teaching a single world view and a single moral code. As far as I know, they all claimed to understand ultimate reality and truth; at least to the extent that this is possible for any human. Each of these new religions has expanded far beyond its origins and all have tended to be hostile to any beliefs other than its own, although some have restricted most of their threats about the suffering and punishment of non-believers to the spiritual realm. Where did these religious movements come from? Was it a growing understanding of an ultimate spiritual reality? Are we watching God guide humanity along a path of spiritual evolution? Are we seeing a highly social and adaptive primate continually changing its environment and then being forced to change its internal belief systems and external social structures in order to survive? These are all legitimate theories and I could describe others. You may be able to guess which theory appeals to me, but my purpose today isn’t to explain what I believe and why.
All of the world religions clearly grew out of older religious traditions. And here I think that I can explain one of the sources of confusion about what these religions actually teach. You see, some of the new religions abandoned most of the old beliefs and traditions and rapidly replaced them with new ones, while others kept large parts of the older tradition and added to it. So in some instances, there is a new religion with only traces of the older religion, while in other instances, you essentially have two religions in one. Now, anyone who believes that sacred texts are, at least in one language, a perfect text dictated by God and written verbatim by humans is not going to agree with me. But for the rest of us, this explains why, in some religious traditions, it’s possible to support almost any point of view by quoting sacred texts.

The Christian Bible is a classic example. Christians, who were originally Jews, kept the entire Hebrew Bible and added their own to it. If you read them separately, I think it’s impossible to see them as anything but two separate religious traditions except by an act of faith. Wherever this mixing of old and new religious traditions has taken place, much effort has been expended to explain why the apparent contradictions aren’t in fact contradictions. I’ve read a lot of it and I have to tell you that I remain unconvinced. I think that the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible is a description of sexual love, not the love of Christ for his Church. I think that the Bhagavad-Gita is about fighting a bloody battle. I think that Islamic jihad is tribal conquest. I think that the ancient Chinese texts that explain how to use an understanding of the Tao to succeed at warfare are about how to use an understanding of the Tao to succeed at warfare. I’m not saying that you can’t use sacred texts as allegory or that the allegorical meaning can’t also be true, only that I don’t believe they were written originally as purely allegorical texts. I think that we should be very cautious when we try to understand any traditional teaching outside of its original cultural context. After all, the Greek marble statues that we display in museums and admire for their beauty and simplicity of form would be seen as ugly by any Greek from the time when they were carved. The ancient Greeks painted their marble statues with bright colours.
Now we’ve arrived at the teachings of world religions. I hope you understand why I can’t talk about living religions as if they just appeared fully formed out of nothing, as if human culture and civilization have no history, as if humanity itself has no history. To this point, I honestly can’t see any consistent message. World view, yes; but not message. Talking about what world religions teach is in some ways the easiest part of answering our question, because the teaching within each tradition is fairly consistent. When I talk about this teaching, I’m going to be doing a lot of summarizing. Every traditional idea and value has been challenged at some time by dissenting minorities and individuals. I’m not claiming to speak absolute truths. My statements should be understood as my best understanding of what I’ve learned. The readings that you heard earlier were chosen to give some sense of the actual teaching. When we look more closely at the religious traditions, there are several areas of strong agreement. Some of them may surprise you.

WHAT IS ULTIMATE TRUTH?

I’m not going to talk about the everyday virtues – compassion, generosity, honesty, integrity, moderation, and other similar qualities. These values are not exclusive to religious teaching and religious traditions do not see virtuous behaviour as an end in itself. I want to examine more fundamental values. Regarding the nature of truth: yes, religious teaching is in fundamental agreement. This is what we are told:
The world that we experience – the universe of light and sound, of water and gravity, of pain, need, desire, and fulfillment – isn’t reality.
Ultimate reality is spiritual and eternal.
It doesn’t function by matter, energy, space, or time, although it controls them.
It is connected to the temporal universe in some mysterious way, but is utterly different.
We are not ourselves; we are actually spiritual entities temporarily inhabiting or identifying with a physical body.

Some religions teach that spiritual reality is perfect and exists as pure goodness, some that it is a battlefield of good and evil forces, some that it exists beyond any concept of good or evil. Explanations of the temporal universe vary: some say that the reality that we experience is an illusion, or that it is a real but ephemeral and unimportant event; some say that it is evil or that it is an imperfect corruption of the spiritual realm; still others that it is an essential stage of our spiritual development. The existence of this spiritual reality is asserted as self-evident; therefore, no evidence is presented to support this belief. It is also an uncompromising viewpoint. What we call science is irrelevant to spiritual truth. Any evidence or reasoning that appears to contradict the teachings of spiritual truth is judged to be mistaken or evil.

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF JUSTICE?

This appears to be another area of strong agreement and one that we can wholeheartedly support; that society should be governed by the principles of fairness and impartiality, tempered with compassion; that is, until you look more closely at the religious definitions of order in the world. Here is the basic reasoning of religious teaching regarding justice:
The spiritual realm is orderly, harmonious, and perfect.
Human society should reflect this state of being.
Because people are imperfect, this is impossible; however, it is our responsibility to strive to achieve this state of perfection.
How can this be accomplished? By insisting that every person (or every being) stays in his or her proper place. A strong ruler acting in accordance with spiritual principles (or for theist religions, following the will of God) is the best agent for this task.
Fairness, good example, and persuasion are valuable qualities in a ruler, but ultimately force will be required to control those who do not accept their assigned place in society and who rebel against authority.
This reasoning is very consistent in religious teaching. Granted, every religious tradition has its dissenters who may challenge certain doctrines from time to time, but I’m trying to define core values and beliefs. Inequities in society, which seem to contradict the ideal of spiritual perfection, are explained thus: either the workings of spiritual reality are beyond our control and understanding, or the circumstances of one’s life are the consequence of actions in previous lives, or perceived injustices will be spiritually redressed after death. Justice is therefore understood as returning everything to its proper spiritual balance. Our idea of justice as equality is a modern secular concept which has been partially adopted by some religious groups. It does not come from any religious tradition that I know of. The only exceptions to this strict approach to justice are in religious traditions (notably Buddhist) where the withdrawal of all attachment to temporal affairs is seen as the only worthwhile goal. In this instance, my understanding is that justice is seen as that which helps people to withdraw attachment and injustice as that which hinders them.

WHAT IS THE PLACE OF LOVE?

This question is more difficult to answer because some words don’t translate well from one language and culture to another. In English, we don’t have separate words for spiritual love, sexual love, love of family, and so on. For this reason, many words with different shades of meaning become “love” in English translation. The only definition of spiritual love that seems to work in religious contexts is love as unconditional acceptance. I think that this is what Unitarian Universalists usually mean when they speak of love. In some traditions (for example, Christianity), this type of love is seen as a divine quality to be imitated. Some Buddhists use the term love to describe acceptance of all things as they are without personal needs or desires. Love as passion is usually seen as a sin, a distraction from true spiritual development, or at best a dangerous emotion that must be controlled. Although some religious traditions describe sexual love as a spiritual gift, it is rarely seen as a path to spiritual development. Brotherly and sisterly love in a spiritual sense is much more common. The members of religious communities often encourage this type of love among the community of believers, but only rarely extend it to unbelievers. To say that all religious traditions teach love only stands until you try to define what is meant by the words that have been translated into English as “love”. Love is a many-faceted quality and emotion. All religions encourage and value some forms of love. However, on closer scrutiny, it’s clear that different religious traditions are very selective here and usually condemn other expressions of what we call love.

DO RELIGIONS TEACH TOLERANCE AND ACCEPTANCE?
Many people believe that religions teach universal tolerance and acceptance. Is this an accurate statement? I have to say yes and no. Those who join a community of believers are generally welcomed equally, regardless of their background. This is a real accomplishment, when you remember that the world religions all appeared in societies dominated by war, blood feuds, ethnic conflicts, and rigid social hierarchies. The problem is that as soon as a religious movement has gained significant strength, its members start to treat non-believers in the same way that they were once treated. Tolerance and acceptance become conditional; for example, Muslims are taught to be tolerant of non-Muslims, but only those who believe in one God and the Last Day. Moreover, the non-Muslims must accept the authority of Muslims in all temporal affairs. Christians offer God’s love to everyone, but make it clear that anyone who rejects this offer is condemned to eternal torment. Devout Hindus of high caste must spiritually purify themselves and their surroundings after any contact with low caste or casteless people. The song that the choir sang this morning begins with the words, “We believe that we can learn from other faiths to tolerate.” I sang these words as Vera Fontaine wrote them, but I can’t agree with her. In all religious communities, there have been individuals and groups who have advocated the inclusion of all people within their communities of faith or love, but, with few exceptions, they have been attacked both by the religious authorities and the majority of believers.

THE ROLE OF MEN AND WOMEN

All the major religious traditions are in agreement about the place of women in society. Women are to be subservient to men. In most cases, the teaching is that they should be valued, cherished, and protected, but not trusted. On a personal level, what is seen as the correct place of women in relation to men varies considerably: almost equal partners; the essential foundation of home and family; servants to their husbands, fathers, and brothers; an unfortunate necessity; a temptation and distraction from spiritual activity; the personification of sin. I think it’s important to remember that these beliefs are based on what is understood as the correct spiritual role of women. At best, you can find a belief in spiritual equality and separate but equal status in the temporal world. I note with interest that this is the same concept that was used to defend racial segregation in the United States until it was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Our understanding of the equality of men and women is, like our concept of justice, an idea that was developed mainly by people who rejected religious tradition. I haven’t found any religious tradition that teaches temporal as well as spiritual equality for men and women. It’s true that many individuals have adopted this belief without abandoning their religious faith, but they have followed in the path of secular dissenters.

Have we answered our question? I leave that for each of you to decide. Speaking for myself, I know a fair amount about religious tradition and teaching and, most of the time, it’s not what I believe. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think we can learn from humanity’s spiritual traditions. I also acknowledge that for many people, these are their expressions of deepest meaning, although this is not always easy for me to accept and I often struggle to understand. I’m speaking now as a member of a specific Unitarian community. One of our expressions of why we exist is the phrase “Freedom of Religious Thought”. Only in secular societies has this principle been affirmed. To my knowledge, no society dominated by any religious tradition has ever accepted the principle of freedom of religious thought. A few thoughtful and often courageous individuals like King Sigismund of Transylvania, the only Unitarian king in Western history, have acted to promote tolerance and freedom, but religious authorities, acting with the support of the larger part of the community of believers, have always undone those actions when they had the power to do so. It’s true that all the major faith traditions now have liberal religious expressions, but these are a small minority in the world.
I want to close with a word of caution and an idea. This is the caution: I think that we should be very careful of the proposal that all the knowledge and wisdom that we require can be found in spiritual and mystical traditions. Many of the values and principles that we as Unitarians live by are in fact the product of secular civilization, not of religious tradition. This is the idea: it may be that what we call liberal religion is no more or less than the result of accepting the principle of the separation of Church and State, a recognition that most people are happier and healthier when they seek consensus for the laws of society and personal freedom for the expression of spirituality. It is my personal hope that we never abandon this principle for religious fervor, even for liberal religious fervor.
Bryan Carroll              November 25, 2007 – UCS

Readings for the Service
Beginnings
The Opening Lines of a Hymn from the Rig Veda – the Hindu Tradition
There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred? Where? In whose protection?
Was there water, bottomlessly deep?
There was neither death nor immortality then.
There was no distinguishing sign of night nor of day.
That one breathed, windless, by its own impulse.
Other than that, there was nothing beyond.

Islam – Opening Words of the Koran
In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the cherisher and sustainer of the worlds;
Most gracious, most merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship and thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way.
The way of those on whom thou hast bestowed thy grace,
those whose portion is not wrath, and who go not astray.

From the Christian Bible
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him; and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.

India – the Tradition of Yoga
Purifying action, study, and making God the motive of action
constitute the yoga of action.
This is for the bringing about of trance and for the purpose of attenuating afflictions.
The afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and love of life.
Ignorance is the field for the others, whether dormant, tenuous, alternated,
or fully operative.
Ignorance is the taking of the temporal, the impure, the painful, and the not-self
to be the eternal, the pure, the pleasurable, and the self.
Egoism is the belief that the power of seeing and the power by which one sees
is a single essence.
Attachment is the attraction to pleasure.
Aversion is the repulsion from pain.
Flowing on by its own potency, established even in the wise, is love of life.
These afflictions may be overcome by their opposites.
Their activities are destroyed by meditation.

Virtues and Rules for Living
Islam – from Surah 4 of the Koran
O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts of your hearts, lest ye swerve, and if ye distort justice or decline to do justice verily, Allah is well acquainted with all that ye do.

The Words of a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk – from a book published in 1995
The five wonderful precepts of Buddhism – reverence for life, generosity, responsible sexual behaviour, speaking and listening deeply, and ingesting only wholesome substances – can contribute greatly to the happiness of the family and society.

From the Hebrew Bible
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

China – Confucian Teaching – approximately 100 B.C.E
If Heaven produces these plants and animals in the right season, then the year will be one of abundance, but if at the wrong time, then the year will be a bad one. Similarly, if the ruler expresses his four emotions in accord with moral principles, then the world will be well governed, but if not, the age will be chaotic.

From the Christian Bible
Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ.

For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God;
but the woman is the glory of man.
For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man.
For indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake,
but woman for the man’s sake.

Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord,
for the husband is the head of the wife,
as Christ is also the head of the church.

From the Hindu Tradition
I will now propound the eternal laws for a husband and wife to keep to the path of duty, whether they be united or separated.
Day and night must women be kept in dependence by the males of their families, and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control.
Her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth, and her sons protect her in old age; a woman is never fit for independence.

Believers and Unbelievers
The Words of Two Modern Hindu Thinkers and Teachers
The first: The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body, and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence, it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or other, it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter.

The second: They are atheists and of weak intellect, and continually remain sunk in the depths of misery and pain who do not believe in, know, and commune with him who is resplendent, all-glorious, all-holy, all-knowledge, sustainer of the sun and other planets…

From the Koran
And if you are in doubt as to what we have revealed from time to time to our servant, then produce a surah like thereunto; and call our witnesses and helpers, if there are any, besides Allah, if your doubts are true.
But if you cannot – and of a surety you cannot – then fear the fire whose fuel is men and stones – which is prepared for those who reject faith.

From the Hebrew Bible
Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities fortified to heaven…
Know therefore today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and he will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you.

The Words of Billy Graham, Christian Evangelist
You see, only one thing separates us from God and keeps us out of heaven – and that is our sin. That is why our greatest need is to have our sins forgiven and cleansed, for only then can we be reconciled to God and go to be with him throughout eternity.
But how is this possible? No matter how good we are, we can never erase our own sins. Only God can do this – and that is what he did by sending Jesus Christ into the world for us.

From the Koran
To him who fights in the cause of Allah – whether he is slain or gets victory – soon shall we give him a reward of great value.

Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of Evil: so fight against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan.