Sermon “Foundations of Our Faith”

The Rev. Rali Weaver

First Church and Parish in Dedham

10/4/09

To begin a discussion about the Foundations of our Faith tradition it might first be good for us to ask the question what is faith?

From the Christian perspective the letter of Paul to the Hebrews describes "faith (as) the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Ministers and Priests alike have used this to justify beliefs that have little scriptural evidence to support including the doctrine of the trinity.

A different Paul- Paul Tillich a 20^th century Christian Theologian at the time of the destruction of Europe during World War 2 stated that "There is something immovable and unshakable which becomes manifest in the crumbling of our world," he wrote. "On the boundaries of the finite, the infinite becomes visible. This is why the prophets were able to face the shaking of the foundations. It is the only way to look at the shaking without recoiling from it."

According to Webster’s Dictionary Faith can be either trust or confidence in a person or a spiritual belief in a God.

Because we speak more about our “Faith Tradition” in our Unitarian Universalist context I thought it would be good for us to examine more closely three voices that helped to form our Faith Tradition in the nineteenth Century. The three that I have chosen for our discussion today are William Ellery Channing the Unitarian Theologian, Hosea Ballou the Father of Universalism, and Theodore Parker a Transcendentalist preacher and activist.

While not so prominent there are also many female Unitarian and Universalist role models that we could base our discussion upon today and I promise to explore their lives and teachings in a future discussions. I chose these three both because of their disparate views and the fact that at the end of the 19^th century they were all ministering within a 20-mile radius of this church.

From 1803 to 1842 Dr. William Ellery Channing was the Preacher, Pastor and Theologian at what was the Federal Street Church and is now Arlington Street Church in Boston. From 1817 until his death in 1852 Hosea Ballou was the Preacher, Pastor and Teacher at what was the Second Church in Boston and is now First Church in Boston. And From 1846 until his death in 1859 Theodore Parker served the 28^th Congregational Society of Boston which is now the Theodore Parker Church in West Roxbury. Despite their somewhat disparate theologies these three idealists formed what is a significant portion of the foundation of our faith tradition.

To begin - William Ellery Channing articulated the moderate values of Unitarian Christianity, which, in its simplest form held to the concept of the Unity of God, denying the trinity and holding to the idea that God is one. In 1819 Channing defined the new Unitarian theology in his “Baltimore Sermon”. Channing considered himself a Congregationalist and had no intention of inspiring a new religious denomination but as a result of his inspirational thoughts on Unitarian Theology the American Unitarian Association (AUA) was formed in the vestry of the Federal Street Church on May 25, 1825.

Instead of placing his faith within the traditional Calvinist Congregational paradigm of his day which viewed God as the granter salvation to those who were faithful enough -- which was only possible through the grace given by that God to a chosen few in the first place, Channing put his faith in one true loving God, which he used his own reason and experience to divine.

The Christianity of Channing was for every person. In his sermon “Likeness to God” Channing outlined the scriptural foundation for the human potential to have Godlike qualities, providing all persons with the ability to use their own Reason and Experience to discern the nature of what is holy.

At a similar time in history and only a few blocks away, Hosea Ballou was also rejecting all aspects of the Calvinist Doctrine and in so doing placed his faith in an infinite God who could not be offended by creatures as finite as human beings. Like Channing he believed that interpreting scripture through the lens of self-experience was vital to understanding that the Calvinist Doctrine of Atonement was unscriptural and illogical.

Ballou put his faith in an externally Loving God who requires only the happiness of his human children. In this Universalist World View that Ballou was crafting it was not some external attempt to attain heaven that required a moral life but was instead through the gratitude for the love of God that is so freely given that that right action is inspired. Because we are forgiven already Hosea Ballou asserted that it is our joy to strive to create the Kingdom of God on Earth.

In their day both Channing and Ballou were arguing against a predominate worldview that limited the scope of God’s Love. It was somewhat like a ping-pong match the way that ideas flowed between the Congregationalist churches of the day each minister fine-tuning his own ideals in reaction to the other.

Over their years of theological discourse Channing and Ballou together, built a foundation to our faith tradition, which, support our present day principle of inherent worth and dignity of every person and the vital use of individual reason and experience as a source in understanding the mystery of life.

It wasn’t long after before the new kid on the block Theodore Parker used his own reason to reject not only Calvinist Doctrine which he also viewed as unreasonable, but also the scriptures themselves. Skilled in reading Latin, Hebrew Greek, German, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic and Ethiopic, he examined source texts and determined that the bible was full of contradictions and mistakes that did not reflect the truth of the loving God he put his faith in.

Parker was a member of the Transcendentalist Club and met regularly with contemporary thinkers of his day Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing (William Ellery’s Son) and Henry David Thoreau just to name a few. These discussions helped him to articulate a Transcendentalist world view within the context of his faith.

To highlight how popular these ideas were in his time, Parker grew his church to 7,000 members serving such notable thinkers as Louisa May Alcott, William Lloyd Garrison, Julia Ward Howe and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

As with many of the Transcendentalists Parker was involved with almost all social reform efforts of his day. Based on his beliefs in a merciful God he advocated for changes in the educational system, prison system, in the treatment of women and toward the abolition of slavery (just to name a few).

While in his lifetime Parker’s attacks on traditional ideas were not respected by the Unitarian Leadership in Boston who were slow to sign on to the Abolitionist cause. Parker formed the portion of foundation of our faith tradition as it rests in ideals of the Free Faith and Free Pulpit and is fueled by Faith that is realized in Action.

Theodore Parker’s Abolitionist ideals and words shaped American hopes for equality long after his early death. In 1850, Parker quoted John Wycliffe in his prologue to the first English Translation of the Bible saying “of all the people, by all the people, for all the people” which later influenced the Gettysburg Address. A century later Parker’s words "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice”, which were crafted to inspire the ultimate success of the abolitionist objective, inspired the August 16, 1967 speech made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1961 the Unitarian and the Universalist denominations merged, and opened the discussions that lead to the Principles and Purposes that Aoife and I shared today.

Piecing together these ideals it is easy to see that while we might all have different ideas of the reality of the universe our faith tradition is grounded in the unshakable belief in the goodness of the universe. Its mortar is the substance of our individual reason and experience, it’s bricks are our Free Pulpit and Pew and it is shorn up by the hope of an unseen possibility of a brighter future for all.

In light of these free thinkers we can confidently describe our faith as one that is founded in freedom of thought. In light of their ideals we can explain our foundation is that of our reason and experience. Because of their lives we can see beyond limiting doctrine and have faith in the possibilities yet unseen and the hopes of things to come.

Following worship today we have two opportunities to live out our faith. First in our Fall Meeting the membership will address not only issues of budget and audit but also the possibility of helping our neighbors at the Dedham Food Pantry. Just following the Fall Meeting we also have another opportunity to explore our sense of Welcome by opening our minds ever wider to the commonalities of the human experience. Let us be our best Unitarian Universalist selves recognizing the value of our individual processes and resting our faith within their truth.