Universalism: a Faith for This Or Any Time

“UNIVERSALISM: A FAITH FOR THIS—OR ANY—TIME”

A paper presented to Prairie Group by the Rev. Roger Bertschausen November 2009

There is nothing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, that can do away sin, but love; and we have reason to be eternally thankful that love is stronger than death, that many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it; that it hath power to remove the moral maladies of mankind, and to make us free from the law of sin and death, to reconcile us to God, and to wash us pure, in the blood, or life, of the everlasting covenant. —Hosea Ballou1

The question I have been posed by my esteemed colleagues on the Program Committee is whether the study of universalism is important for Unitarian Universalism today. My answer is an emphatic yes—indeed, I would say the study of universalism is imperative. To put it simply: universalism is the single most salient strand within our UU tradition as we face the challenges and opportunities of our world in the twenty-first century. I believe the exact same thing could probably have been said in 1850—and 1918, 1943 and 1989. Universalism has been, is, and I think will always be our greatest theological inheritance. What is universalism? The ringing quotation from Hosea Ballou’s Treatise on Atonement with which I opened this paper is a powerful expression of universalism’s core idea, expressed here in the language of its Christian variant. In this variant, universalism declares that the love of God for all human beings is so great that everyone is and forever will be saved—regardless of what we believe, regardless even of how we behave. There is a heaven, and everybody’s in. Nobody is left out. As Ballou understood, at the center of universalism lies love—a love that is stronger than sin, stronger than differences, stronger even than death. It is the lifeblood of the everlasting covenant, and all people—whether they know it or not—are part of this covenant. Love —or a synonym for love such as compassion—lies at the center of every strand of universalism across the world. Of course universalism is not the exclusive property of Christianity; nor is our own Universalist tradition the sole locus of universalism within the historic faith family of Christianity. As Forrest Church writes, “By definition, ‘universalism’ is not the property of any discrete religious body, including those that include it in their names.”2 Universalism is not simply about what might happen to humans after we die. More deeply, universalism is the religious impulse recognizing that as human beings, we are all related to one another. We are all in this together; what each of us does and says impacts everyone else. Universalism is the impulse to love rather than hate—even those we label enemies. It is the impulse to include rather than exclude, to embrace rather than 1 Hosea Ballou, Treatise on Atonement (Portsmouth, NH: Charles Pierce’s Bookstore, 1812; reprinted by Kessinger Publishing), p. 128. 2 Forrest Church, The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009), p. xi. All citations are from an uncorrected proof of this book.

1 judge. It is the principle at the core of the dictum to “love your neighbor as yourself” that shows up in different guises in virtually every religious tradition. It is Jesus forgiving the woman adulterer who is about to be stoned. It is the Buddha sitting down peacefully with a warrior. It is Gandhi reaching an open hand of love rather than a clenched fist to the British imperialist. Even though universalism is perennially under assault as heresy within Christianity and other traditions, it refuses to die. The minister and writer Andrew Jones wrote of universalism in 1890: “If it is misrepresented and condemned and slain, it will yet rise again.”3 And that’s exactly what it keeps doing, in just about every religion the world over. Our own Universalist tradition is, then, but one expression of universalism. In this case, the capitalization indicating the distinctiveness of our tradition also indicates that it is a singular manifestation of universalism. When I capitalize the word, I am referring to our distinctive strand of Universalism; when I don’t capitalize it, I am referring to the broader umbrella of universalism that transcends specific traditions. The important thing for us to remember with humility is that although we have a great treasure in Universalism, it is not just ours. To believe it is ours alone is arrogant and simply wrong. Furthermore, we should with gratitude realize that we have not the power to destroy it: even if we squander this rich inheritance, it will continue to sprout up elsewhere. But we do have a unique opportunity to help universalism thrive in this world, and in so doing, we have the power to use its message to create a better, more peaceful, more just world. That we could more powerfully and consistently manifest its message than we do is self-evident: if we did so, Unitarian Universalism would not constitute a tiny and declining percentage of the American, not to mention the world’s, population. Universalism is a message with legs. It is a message that has and can continue to change the world for the better. Our challenge is to become better stewards of this rich inheritance. So why is universalism the most salient strand within our UU tradition as we face our richly complex world in 2009? First and foremost, because it speaks to the greatest challenge facing the people of the world today: how to get along with each other amidst our teeming diversity. I label this the challenge of pluralism. With technological advances that have brought us into more pronounced proximity to each other regardless of our location on the planet, with powerful weapons capable of reigning destruction across oceans and continents, with a burgeoning population and a finite resource base, with the ability to clone other animals and perhaps someday even ourselves, in Forrest Church’s words, “we hold Genesis and Armageddon in our hands.”4 Universalism can help us figure out how to do this without destroying the world. The tragedy and horror of 9/11, with people from around the world dying together in the World Trade Center, put an exclamation point on this truth for many Americans. As Diana Eck concludes about our post-9/11 world, “One thing is certain: the challenge of relations between and among people of different religious and cultural traditions, both here in the United States and around the world, is moving to the top of the agenda.”5 I would say: it’s arrived at the top. Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan;

3 Carlton Pearson, The Gospel of Inclusion (Asuza Press International, 2006), p. 10. 4 Church, p. 69. 5 Diana Eck, A New Religious America (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) p. xiii.

2 nuclear weapon capability in Iran and North Korea and maybe someday in the backpack of a terrorist; torture at Guantanamo; an abortion doctor slain in Wichita; a swastika painted on a synagogue in Appleton, Wisconsin or a UU church in Brooklyn Heights; a man assaulted, tied up and left to die in Wyoming because his assailants thought he was gay—all of these point to the same thing: the centrality of the problem of pluralism. Do we see those who are different as Other, as a threat, as evil? Or do we see them as people like us, as our neighbors? Do we hate them, or do we love them? Standing on a horse high on a hill, watching the slaughter of unarmed people raging in the Krakow Jewish ghetto, do we see faceless victims or do we, like Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List, notice the little girl in the red coat and recognize what we must do to save her—and us?6 In the last century—and early evidence tragically indicates in this century, too— hatred is both highly potent and tremendously virulent. The Nobel-prizewinning Polish poet Wislawa Symborska captures this well in her poem “Hatred:”

See how efficient it still is, how it keeps itself in shape— our century's hatred. How easily it vaults the tallest obstacles. How rapidly it pounces, tracks us down.

It's not like other feelings. At once both older and younger. It gives birth itself to the reasons that give it life. When it sleeps, it's never eternal rest. And sleeplessness won't sap its strength; it feeds it.

One religion or another— whatever gets it ready, in position. One fatherland or another— whatever helps it get a running start. Justice also works well at the outset until hate gets its own momentum going. Hatred. Hatred. Its face twisted in a grimace of erotic ecstasy.

Oh these other feelings, listless weaklings. Since when does brotherhood draw crowds? Has compassion ever finished first?

6 Wendy Doniger, The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 19.

3 Does doubt ever really rouse the rabble? Only hatred has just what it takes.

Gifted, diligent, hardworking. Need we mention all the songs it has composed? All the pages it has added to our history books? All the human carpets it has spread over countless city squares and football fields?

Let’s face it: it knows how to make beauty. The splendid fire-glow in midnight skies. Magnificent bursting bombs in rosy dawns. You can’t deny the inspiring pathos of ruins and a certain bawdy humor to be found in the sturdy column jutting from their midst.

Hatred is a master of contrast— between explosions and dead quiet, red blood and white snow. Above all, it never tires of its leitmotif—the impeccable executioner towering over its soiled victim.

It's always ready for new challenges. If it has to wait awhile, it will. They say it's blind. Blind? It has a sniper's keen sight and gazes unflinchingly at the future as only it can7

Forrest Church asserts that when we meet neighbors near and far with different beliefs (or different customs or a different language or a different sexual orientation), we have four choices: 1) we can convert them to our belief (or otherwise make them just like us); 2) we can destroy them; 3) we can ignore them; or 4) we can respect them.8 Universalism points us toward the fourth option. The other three options lead sooner (#2) or later (#1 and #3) to an “Us versus Them” mentality and hatred—and in our world today, this mentality ultimately is lethal. Instead of Us vs. Them, we need to recognize that All of Us are in this together. This is because what is needed in the face of such potent and virulent hatred is not more hatred, but acceptance and inclusion. What is needed is love. Universalism nudges us toward love and inclusion. Over and over again, it asserts that there is an underlying commonality that links us together in spite of our

7 Wislawa Symborska, Poems New and Collected 1957-1997 (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1998), pp. 230-231. Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. 8 Church, p. 36.

4 considerable cultural, ethnic and religious differences. Wendy Doniger suggests that as human beings, we all share:

the realization that we are separate from our parents, the knowledge that they will die, that we will die. We share the experiences of joy: sex, food, singing, dancing, sunrise, sunset, moonlight, puppies, going to the seashore. People all over the world fall in love and have babies.9

Church makes much the same point:

We have so much more in common than could ever possibly divide us; alike mysteriously born and fated to die, the same sun setting on each of our horizons. We all want and need love, security, freedom, and acceptance. We need others’ forgiveness and understanding. All of us do. We ache in the same way. We bleed in the same way. At times, we all feel awkward and unworthy and inadequate. And we all fail at times to hearken to the better angels of our nature.10

I believe the key to loving others in a pluralistic world is a deep and living understanding of the truth embodied in the concept of “unity in diversity.” Universalism helps us understand and embrace the unity that underlies our common humanity; a skillful and mature universalism also helps us with the diversity part of the formula. Forrest Church provides a helpful and moving metaphor for universalism in his “cathedral of the world” illustration. This is surely one of the most significant of his many lasting contributions to our faith. In Church’s metaphor, each window represents a particular viewpoint, a specific understanding of the Truth (represented by the sun that shines outside all of the windows). The Cathedral of the World reminds us to appreciate and respect the different truths embodied in various religious understandings and traditions. And it reminds us neither to believe the light flows only through our window nor to throw stones through anyone else’s window.11 A second reason that universalism is the most salient strand within our UU heritage in 2009 is that it rightly puts love front and center. “Love,” Church writes, “is the heart of the universalist gospel.”12 Putting anything else at the center of our gospel— freedom, reason, even justice—misses the mark. Central to Christian universalists like Hosea Ballou was the love of God and the interrelated love of the human being for self and others—a love that is modeled on God’s love for humanity. Ballou quotes the First Letter of John: “God is love, and he who loveth, dwelleth in God, and God in him.”13 Ballou defines atonement itself as reconciliation, or a “renewal of love.”14 Love was the center of Jesus’ mission, not

9 Doniger, pp. 53-54. 10 Church, p. 99. 11 Church, pp. xv, xvi; John A. Buehrens and F. Forrester Church, A Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), p. 85. 12 Church, p. xiv. 13 Ballou, p. 95. 14 Ballou, pp. 123-125.

5 doctrine, not creeds. “If you love, then you are a friend of the religion of Jesus,” Ballou concludes.15 Facing the challenging fact of pluralism, love truly is the single most important attribute we can exhibit. If we love ourselves, people like us, people different from us, our enemies, God (or whatever we want to call It) extravagantly, then we are saved.16 And love—maybe only love—can save humanity and the earth (at least as we know it). Love is what will make us notice the little girl with the red coat among the dying throngs in the Krakow ghetto. And it will guide us to do what we must to save her and the world. In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus provides a picture of love in a world too full of exclusion and hatred. The Dutch painter Rembrandt gave compelling physical form to this picture in one of his greatest paintings, the “Return of the Prodigal Son.”17 In Rembrandt’s painting, although the father and the prodigal son are off-center, the warm light illuminating them both brings them immediately to the center of the viewer’s attention. The father, elderly and frail-looking, is dressed in lovely clothes capped with a luxuriant red cloak. His eyes have the look of a half-blind man. He bends down toward his kneeling son, both his hands gently placed upon the back of his son. His hands resting on his son’s back form the focal point of the painting. In the words of Henri Nouwen from his beautiful book about the parable and the painting, the father’s hands are “not begging, grasping, demanding, warning, judging or condemning. They are hands only that bless, giving all and expecting nothing.”18 They embody and convey love. They are the hands of universalism. The prodigal son’s torn and ragged clothes contrast markedly with the father’s rich clothing. The son’s left foot is bare, the skin calloused and worn; his right foot has the remains of a nearly worn-out sandal on it. He rests his shaved head against the chest of his father. He looks like a man who has hit bottom and lost everything. He has come to the painful and devastating realization that the road he has traveled since leaving home (if not before) was a complete disaster. It was a road that led him inexorably to a terrible dead end. It was a road of disconnection—disconnection from his family and his community, and, ultimately, from himself. He has been lost for a very long time. Leaning his head against his father’s chest, he has a look of utter defeat and surrender. And he also has the look of someone who has, at long last, come home. Neither the story nor the painting tells us this, but I suspect that the journey home was long and exceedingly difficult. Looking at the worn-out, broken prodigal son, I think of the archetypal journey home—that of Odysseus. How many monsters did Odysseus have to slay to get home to his beloved Ithaca? How many miles and how many years did he have to travel? And I think of Inman in the Civil War novel Cold Mountain. Almost the whole novel traces Inman’s tortuous journey home to his beloved North Carolina mountains from the battlefields of Virginia. I see Odysseus and Inman in the broken prodigal son. And I see Odysseus’ wife Penelope and Inman’s beloved Ada—and God— in the old man. As we look at Rembrandt’s painting, we see that at long last the prodigal son has made it home! In a variation of that old African American spiritual, “Home at last, home

15 Ballou, p. 139. 16 Church, p. 183-84; Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, If Grace Is True (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), p. 74. 17 http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_3_1_4d.html. 18 Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: Image Books, 1992) p. 137.

6 at last; thank God Almighty, he is home at last.” More than anything else, the story and the painting are about a homecoming. The son has returned to his family and his community; he has returned to the place he belongs. He has returned to love. Turning our attention to the elder son, we see him standing tall to the right with other bystanders, wearing the same kind of luxuriant clothes as his father. Unlike the prodigal son, we can see in the elder son a strong resemblance to the father. But the elder son has a completely different aura about him: there is not a trace of joy or welcoming or forgiveness in the elder son’s face. Instead anger and resentment and jealousy and cynicism simmer just below the surface. In marked contrast to his father’s outstretched hands, the elder son’s hands are tightly clasped together. They are withholding, not giving. The elder son is much further away than the several feet that physically separate him from his father and his brother. His attitude is opposite the universalism embodied in his father. Even though the elder son has stayed home all his life, he’s no more at home than his brother was in the distant country. His resentment and his anger have exiled him far from his home, far from his soul. And he has allowed himself to become every bit as alienated from his father as his brother had. The elder son seems to be mulling over how he will respond to the unexpected and unwanted return of his brother. The light on his face pulls him toward the embrace; the darkness of his clasped hands pulls him away. Will he lean over and join the two of them, in the process halting the destruction of his soul by his own resentment, anger and jealousy? Or will he turn his back on his kin and on his soul and walk further away from all of them? Will he come home, too, or will he stay stranded in the distant land? Like Jesus telling the parable, Rembrandt doesn’t give us the answer. The father in the parable and in the painting radiates compassion, forgiveness, generosity, gratitude, joy, and a welcoming spirit without a trace of being patronizing. Maybe more than anything, he radiates unconditional love. There is nothing his prodigal son did or could ever do that would ever threaten the old man’s love for his son. And there is nothing his elder son did or could ever do that would threaten his love for the elder son either. This nearly blind man can see perfectly when he gazes into his sons’ wayward souls: he can see the good now buried deep in both of them. A contemporary work of art presents an even more potent portrait of the opposite of love and universalism than the clenched hands of the elder son. The painting, by the American artist Jerome Witkin, is called the The Terminal. Ten feet high, the painting depicts a young man with a yellow star sitting in a cattle car, the door wide open. He is a Jew, and his destination clearly is Auschwitz or one of the other Nazi death camps. His expressionless look reveals that he has probably already been through too many horrific experiences to count. We know—and he knows—where this particular train is headed. When I first saw the painting, it took me a little while to notice the pair of hands painted on the side, gripping a bar, ready to shut the door to the cattle car. These hands are thrust so much in the foreground that it feels like they could be the viewer’s hands. This is precisely the response Witkin wants us to have: “Oh my God, those are my hands!” They are the hands not just of the Nazis who shut the doors of the cattle cars and the gas ovens; they are also the hands of all of us, in any time and any place, who stand by passively in the face of hatred.

7 So how do we use our hands: like the old man in Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son, to embrace and comfort others, even one who had turned his back on us? Or, like the hands shutting the cattle car door in Terminal, to reject, wound, and even kill? This is the question that universalism poses. “Are you guilty of love or not guilty?” asks Forrest Church.19 In this world, at this time, we must be able to answer “Yes!” if we are to survive, let alone thrive, as individuals and as a species. And this leads to a third reason why universalism is the most salient strand within Unitarian Universalism today: it contains the guiding ethic of our faith. In our tradition which has long emphasized deeds over creeds, how we act means a lot more than how we think or theologize. William Sloane Coffin, a friendly but honest critic of our faith, liked to say that our UU ethic is “as thick as our theology is thin.” As I told him: we are guilty as charged.20 For us, action is where the rubber hits the road—not words, not theology. What is this universalist ethic? It is to love our neighbors as ourselves. It is to accept all people as sisters and brothers, and to recognize within each of them inherent worth and dignity. It is to recognize our utter and complete interdependence with all existence. It is not to throw stones at other people’s windows in the Cathedral of the World. It is to stand on the side of love. As new converts to universalism such as Bishop Carlton Pearson, Philip Gulley and James Mulholland quickly realize, embracing the universalist ethic changes everything. Write Gulley and Mulholland:

Initially, I thought the salvation of all people a theological idea. Eventually, I discovered its application to my family and work. Only recently have I considered its implications for my every behavior. What do I watch on television? What movies do I attend? What games do I play or watch? How do I spend my leisure time? I won’t pretend to have to answer for every situation or person. However, I am convinced that any activity that reminds us of our connectedness and inspires our acceptance of one another is an act of grace. Any game or pastime that divides us contributes to the dysfunction of our world.21

Using the two pictures of hands represented in the father’s embrace of his wayward son in Rembrandt’s painting and the hands that doom in Witkin’s, universalism demands that we decide over and over again: Will we use our hands to embrace, or to condemn? The universalist ethic reminds us that we are responsible (with others, of course) for no less than creating heaven on earth. Unconcerned about what happens after we die because everybody is saved anyway, universalism relentlessly focuses our attention to life here and now on earth. The pertinent reality about heaven and hell is that we humans have the power and the ability to create each of them in our lives and the lives of those around us. The universalist ethic demands that we strive to create heaven and not hell in our lives and around us. Gulley and Mulholland ask: “Do you accept your responsibility to create heaven on earth?”22 This is a question that cannot be ducked in universalism.

19 Church, p. 182. 20 Forrest Church echoes this, p. 95. 21 Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, If God Is Love (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 109. (Gulley and Mulholland write in the singular first person). This point is also reflected in Pearson, p. 3. 22 Gulley and Mulholland, If God is Love, pp. 299-301.

8 In their important book Saving Paradise, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker write about how church architecture in the early Christian church reinforced the notion that paradise is here and now rather than a place somewhere else in the distant future. Images in early church art depicted the beauty of life on this earth and lifted up the idea that we each are called to care for the world. One of my favorite images they cited is depicted on an early sixth century chancel wall in the St. Vitale Church in Ravenna, Italy. It pictures the familiar story of Moses and the Burning Bush. God has just said to Moses, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”23 So Moses obediently kneels down to remove his sandals. Nearby there is a burning bush, representing the imminent presence of God. But then we see this is not the typical depiction of this story: there isn’t just one burning bush indicating that just this spot is holy. We see another. And another. And another. The burning bushes are everywhere! It’s not just the spot where Moses stands that is holy; the whole of creation is holy. And God’s hand comes out of the sky to bless Moses and all the holy ground. Paradise is everywhere in this world. Where this fact has been obscured by human neglect and sin, it is the universalist’s charge to work toward restoring paradise. Brock and Parker write in their Epilogue:

Our spiritual challenge is to embrace this reality: histories of harm are all around us, forces of evil operate within and among us, and yet everywhere the bushes are on fire, the risen Christ is with us on the road, the Spirit rises in the wind, the rivers of paradise circle the earth, and the fountain of wisdom springs up from the earth we tread, from this holy ground.24

A fourth reason why universalism is the most salient strand in Unitarian Universalism today is its inherent agility and flexibility. As our UU fold begins to resemble at least a slightly larger slice of the human diversity around us, universalism’s spirit of openness and inclusion becomes every more necessary. For example, universalism is a big enough tent to cover both theists and non-theists. Though the Christian variant of universalism—the genesis of our own Universalist tradition—was decidedly theist, believing in God is not necessary to embracing the ideas that we are all in this together and we are called to love. And finally, universalism is salient today because it grounds us in our Universalist heritage—going back to the roots of our faith in the early years following Jesus—and it gives coherence and focus to who we are and what our message is today. In focusing on universalism, we are not putting at the center of our faith something that is alien to it. And its insistent ethic of loving ones neighbor near and far lends a coherence and focus to our far-flung faith that can draw us together even as our theological beliefs become ever more multiple. The ethic of universalism translates well across our broad theological spectrum. But as enthusiastic as I am about our universalist message, universalism is not without pitfalls. Since it is important to be wary of these, I will spend a little time describing a few of universalism’s pitfalls.

23 Exodus 3:5. 24 Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009), pp. xiv- xv, 113-114, 170, 409, 417.

9 First, we humans have a tendency to take what makes sense to us and cram everything else in the world into this particular worldview. Part of the point of Forrest Church’s “Cathedral of the World” metaphor is that none of us have a whole and complete view of truth. We all see partially. Even us. Universalism itself is but a partial truth. Although it is (at least from a distance) jarringly hypocritical, it is possible to lift up universalism—or more properly one’s particular brand of universalism—as the one and only truth. I came face to face with this possibility a few months ago when I had lunch with a Sikh couple. They are followers of the late guru Baba Virsa Singh, Jr. (affectionately called “Babaji”), and are part of Babaji’s Gobind Sadan community. They presented his teachings as universalist. Central to them was his recognition that there are many paths to truth. But the more we talked, the more the narrowness of Babaji’s path—at least as this couple understood it—came out. Sure, there are many paths. But this path— following Babaji—is the best. It is Babaji—“a holy person of biblical proportions” according to the Gobind Sadan website,25 a man who has brought people back from the dead but “doesn’t claim to be a Guru”—it is Babaji who has found the exemplary universalist path. Soon enough, disdain for other paths began to come out, too, including Unitarian Universalism in spite of my religious affiliation. As we talked, I found myself once again cast into an “Us and Them” world. Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing! Most importantly, it might be us who are truly wolves beneath our universalist clothing. Another potential pitfall of universalism is its tendency to focus on commonalities to the diminishment or even the exclusion of the differences between us. The result is a kind of flattening of differences so that we all end up being pretty much the same. At its worst, this can result in a “lowest common denominator” approach26 in which the lowest common denominator between diverse people often ends up looking remarkably like… us. How many times, for example, have we viewed a good interfaith service as something like the vanilla character of many of our UU services: no particular theology or readings, the absence of theistic language, etc. To me, a lowest common denominator service is not truly interfaith or universalist because it fails to honor and celebrate the diversity of paths. A truly interfaith, universalist service will have a Muslim prayer call and a Mary Oliver reading and a “come home to Jesus” prayer (to cite a very few examples)—as long as each is done with a spirit of openness and graciousness to those in the room with different theologies. A skillful and mature universalism emphasizes not just our commonalities, but also our differences. A related danger for universalism is the very real possibility of lapsing into an uncritical relativism. In the face of religious practices that countenance or even encourage female circumcision or apartheid or barely suppressed violence against dissenters, we adopt an “I’m okay, you’re okay” posture. As Church’s “Cathedral of the World” metaphor suggests, while none of us have full access to the Truth, the Truth is nevertheless out there. We have to do our best to find what we can of it. Part of that process is voicing our heart-felt, carefully considered disagreements with one another— as long as we do so in a humble and respectful way that acknowledges the possibility that we are wrong. Church suggests that the best way to validate truth claims—by us or by

25 www.gobindsadan.org. 26 Church among many uses this descriptor, p. 69.

10 others—is by looking at how we actually live our lives. That’s where the proof (as close as we can get to it, anyway) is.27 Let’s face it: celebrating human diversity and the underlying unity that connects us all at the same time is tricky, ambiguous, even paradoxical business. Borrowing from Homer (with an assist from the historian of religions Wendy Doniger), we have to steer between the Scylla of seeing everyone as essentially the same and the Charybdis of seeing everyone as irreducibly particular and unique.28 Universalism has a tendency to steer toward the former. And so this is the sea monster we must especially guard against coming too near. We must make sure we don’t lose sight of—and more importantly, appreciation for—the differences between us. What are some practices that can help us avoid universalism’s pitfalls—within our congregations, our communities, and the world? One is to open our ears and our minds and our hearts when we are in the presence of people who are different from us. There are a breathtaking variety of beliefs and customs and stories out there. A great part of the human adventure—especially in this age when people different from us are literally or at least virtually closer—is learning about some of these differences.29 Maybe the most important practice is humility, a practice that doesn’t always come easily to us Unitarian Universalists. To love others—especially those who hold very different views from us—we need in Church’s words, “to sacrifice self- righteousness, bitterness, and pride.”30 We need to hold our universalism lightly. As we engage with others, we need to see that the holy bushes are aflame where they are, too. We need to take our shoes off, for their ground, too, is sacred. And finally, we need to look around for examples where universalism is working. One such place is All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a tremendously exciting and unprecedented universalist experiment is underway. With the addition of a few hundred members from New Dimensions, a Pentecostal universalist Christian church that has closed shop, All Souls has the opportunity to, in the Rev. Marlin Lavanhar’s words, create a church that is “truly inclusive of all souls.”31 It is, as Lavanhar suggests, an experiment in living out the name and the message of All Souls Church. It is an experiment living out the worldview and ethic of universalism. The roots of this experiment lay in the conversion to universalism of Bishop Carlton Pearson, a noteworthy Pentecostal minister in Tulsa who had a national profile in evangelical circles. At the time of his conversion, Pearson was the founding and lead pastor of a multiracial mega-church called the Higher Dimensions Evangelistic Center (known locally as “Higher D”). In a recent UU World article, Kimberly French describes Pearson’s dramatic change in theology:

Everything Pearson thought he knew was true started unraveling, as he began to realize: The whole world is already saved, whether they know it or not—not just professed Christians in good standing, but Muslims, Jews,

27 Church, p. 131. 28 Doniger, pp. 67-72. 29 Church, p. 90. 30 Ibid., p. 142. 31 Marlin Lavanhar, “Building a New Way” on the website of All Souls Unitarian Church: http://www.allsoulschurch.org/building-a-new-way.

11 Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, gay people. There is no hell after you die. And he didn’t have the good sense to keep it to himself.32

As a result of this change of mind and heart and his decision not to keep it to himself, Pearson—like many universalists who went before—was branded a heretic. With the resulting exodus of thousands of members from his church and his national reputation as an evangelical leader shattered, Pearson and the remnant of Higher D that stuck with him renamed themselves New Dimensions (New D). Having lost their building and most everything else, the couple hundred members of New D met for awhile at an Episcopal church. Then, as a result of a friendship that had sprouted between the heretic Bishop Pearson and the Rev. Lavanhar as well as the resonance of universalism for both congregations, New D moved its services to All Souls during the summer of 2008. Much to everyone’s surprise, about half the people who attended New D’s services that summer were All Souls members. As the summer came to a close and the All Souls leadership wrestled with how to accommodate New D in its much busier fall schedule, Pearson decided to dissolve New D. He was on the road a lot, and his associate minister had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Pearson also announced that his family would consider All Souls their spiritual home, and he encouraged other New D members to do the same. And thus a man who admits to praying that the devil would be cast out of All Souls Church as he drove by now found himself “getting cast into it.”33 Over the past year, most of the New D membership has joined or at least worshipped regularly at All Souls. To accommodate the former New D members—and the All Souls members who attended New D’s services during the summer of 2008— Lavanhar, with an approving nod from the church Board, decided to give their 11:30 service the music and feel of a New D service. To help accomplish this, New D’s music director was hired to lead the music. With these developments, All Souls Unitarian Church took a huge step to becoming a multi-racial, truly pluralistic spiritual community united by a common belief in universalism. Concludes Lavanhar: “We are better together.”34 Of course this experiment has not unfolded without some tensions. Most notably, many pre-New D All Souls members had to wrestle with the anti-Christian bias that is our UU Achilles Heel. And the huge musical and stylistic differences of the All Souls’ 11:30 service took many members far outside of their comfort zone. But thus far, with skilled leadership, humor, heaps of grace, and a steady focus on the universalist message at the core of the experiment,35 the transformation of New D and All Souls is happening. As Lavanhar asserts, this experiment is not about “forsaking Unitarian Universalism. It’s about being Unitarian Universalist.”36

32 Kimberly French, “The Gospel of Inclusion,” UU World (Fall 2009), p. 27. 33 Ibid., pp. 29-30; Marlin Lavanhar, “What’s Happening at All Souls?”—a sermon delivered at All Souls Unitarian Church on April 5, 2009, pp. 4-6. 34 French, pp. 30-31; Lavanhar, “What’s Happening at All Souls?” pp. 4-6. 35 The steady focus can be seen in reading several sermons by the Rev. Lavanhar and by the Rev. Tamara Lebak in 2008-09, including “In Our Own Tongues,” “Why Atheists Come to Church,” “Love Is the Spirit,” “What Color Is Your God?”, “What’s Happening at All Souls?”, and “Lineage.” See the church website: www.allsoulschurch.org. 36 French, p. 31-32.

12 As we consider the All Souls experiment, I think it’s important to bear in mind that Pentecostal universalism is not the only alternative form of universalism that we can welcome into our UU tradition. Other forms of universalism should be welcomed, too. In my congregation, the Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Appleton, Wisconsin, we are striving to make space for Buddhist, earth-centered, and Hindu universalists as well as Christian universalists. With the same sort of skill and dedication exhibited by Lavanhar and others at All Souls, our universalist message can help us better resemble the community outside our congregations’ walls. If we truly embody the ethic of universalism in our congregations, we can begin tearing down the walls of race, class, and religion that divide us from others. This is what we are witnessing at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa. To conclude, I have a modest proposal. My proposal is rooted in something I learned years ago from our colleague the Rev. Dr. Brent Smith when I had the honor of responding to a paper he penned at Philsofest in Deerfield, Illinois’ North Shore Unitarian Church. Smith pointed out that most mega-churches have short names. Indeed, they usually seem to be known by names of three syllables: Saddleback, Willow Creek, Higher D—or in my town: Christ the Rock and Alliance. My congregation’s name, on the other hand, is sixteen syllables: Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Many of our younger children as well as newcomers are unable to say it all correctly. Indeed, I’ve noticed that many newcomers will drop everything in our name but “Universalist,” or at least put the Universalist before the Unitarian. Why is this? Because the universalist part of who we are resonates most deeply with them. With respect for the enormous gifts that will forever flow from the Unitarian side of our heritage, my modest proposal is this: let’s drop the “Unitarian” from our too long name and lose five syllables. Making this change would put front and center the strand of Unitarian Universalism that most needs to be front and center: universalism. Although there is clearly a lot of power in how we name ourselves— Shakespeare’s Juliet was wrong—I don’t really plan to invest a lot of time or energy or money for new signs and letterhead to make my modest proposal happen. Rather, I plan to spend my time addressing Forrest Church’s more pressing question: “How do Universalists in name, become universalists in fact?”37 How can we notice the little girl in the red coat? How can we make our hands instruments of love and inclusion rather than hatred and exclusion? This is the perennial, crucial challenge we face today.

This paper is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Hosea Ballou, Forrest Church and the many others no longer with us who have toiled in the vineyards of universalism and have through word and example tried to live as if we truly are all brothers and sisters.

37 Church, p. 82.