Liberal Religion

Rali M. Weaver

February 24, 2008

I wish I had the eloquence of Channing and could offer you words of freedom, and inspire you with the ideals of our liberal faith.

I do not have the poetry of Channing. The main reason I have difficulty finding inspiring ways to champion our liberal faith this morning is because I believe that in this day and age our liberal faith has been terribly misunderstood and has gotten a bad name.

As Unitarian Universalists we are described as being the faith of “the ten suggestions”, or questioned about how tolerance can have any moral core.

And I would argue that in our own churches the liberal religious message has often been confused with liberal politics and that we have lost sight of the powerful and unifying force of our liberal religion and replaced it with identification with partisan politics.

Part of the problem is that liberalism is a term that is much used in political and religious discussions without any given explanation or definition. This lack of definition has lead liberal ideals being muddled and confused and opened to criticism.

In general however liberals are always considered as focused on freedom and individual liberty. And this moral force of freedom and liberty gave birth to our democratic system of government as well as a set of liberal theological beliefs. The problem becomes when we try to ascribe an outcome to this ideal.

The two primary differing outcomes of the theological ideal of liberalism are represented in “Classical Liberalism” and “Social Liberalism”.

Classical liberalism is associated with individual freedoms as they apply to limited government. This Classical liberalism of William Ellery Channing, and John Stuart Mill and Thomas Paine (among others) raises up the ideal of human rationality, individual property rights, the protection of civil liberties, and holds up constitutional limitations of government, and free markets as vehicles for these liberties. While Classical Liberalism does not necessarily oppose the governments responsibility to uphold the common good it holds up the idea that laissez-faire economics will bring about the order that will benefit needs of the collective.

On the other hand Social Liberalism is associated a political philosophy that emphasizes mutual collaboration through liberal institutions and contends that the country must protect the rights and opportunities for all of its citizens in order to be free. Social liberals generally support a mixed economy of mainly private enterprise with some state provided public services. In general Social Liberals seek to provide and uphold civil, economic and social human rights and freedoms for all people. In the process, it expects democratic governments to provide a basic level of welfare, health and education, supported by taxation in order to uphold and maintain the public good. Social Liberals generally see the accumulation of wealth and power by a small group as a threat to liberty and as a result Social Liberals arewilling to accept some restrictions in economic affairs, such as term limits and taxation, and anti-trust laws and minimum wage laws intended to secure economic opportunities for all people and thus the common good.

I have been very careful to share with you these definitions without ascribing them to any political party – because although Classical Liberalism is generally ascribed to the Republican ideal and Social Liberalism is generally ascribed to the Democratic ideal I believe shades of both can be found in either party and-- as philosophical ideals --are more instructive to our faith position when we do not meld them with political rhetoric.

The other reason I have been careful here is that even in our liberal churches (where we have promised to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large -- I have witnessed at times an intolerance of those with differing philosophical ideals.

And to be quite frank I am not sure that even William Ellery Channing, when he was encouraging freedom of thought, ever conceived that this freedom might take us to such different answers to the same questions. And I am not sure that the answers are the problem anyway.

What I am afraid we loose sight of by categorizing our different beliefs, as Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat is the overarching values of liberty and freedom that hold us all as one.

It is this core value of freedom of thought and freedom of conscience that created our creedless faith, this remarkable tradition where we can search for our own truths and meaning. Our Liberal Faith is what offers me this free pulpit to spout my own ideals and you that free pew to have your own beliefs no matter what I say.

At its best our core value of tolerance has encouraged us to accept differences and encourage new ideas enabling us to strive-- at least --to create a community of different minded individuals. Knowing that it is in the open and respectful discourse of different minds that we exercise our liberty.

James Luther Adam, Unitarian Minster and Social Activist once wrote that: "What binds us together is at the same time the ground of our individuality and the ground of our common identity." I love those words because I believe that we come together, not, despite our differences but because of them.

Unfortunately as Unitarian Universalists I am not sure we have always been good at this. We find that we are predominately like-minded individuals who generally dislike conflict and agree in meetings and at the polls. Individuals with differing political views and social views often express feeling left out of discussions or criticized for their views.

This discrepancy between our liberal ideal of freedom of thought and the truth of our limited ability to accept differences leads me to wonder -- without the diversity that comes from the deep sharing of differing individual opinions how could we possibly find the ground for our common identity? And without the diversity of our individual convictions where is liberty? Without diversity of ideas where is our freedom?

If I don’t from time to time say something you wholly disagree with from this pulpit, what am I doing here?

Our liberal creedless faith can be difficult to describe which leaves us open to criticism.

Finding the thread to our common beliefs and allowing for respectful differences of opinion in the safety of our own parish may be the way to offer substance to our faith for new comers, and give us a ground for liberating our own lives.

I say this because even after 20 years of being a Unitarian Universalist, even after 3 years of seminary and nearly five years of service to the denomination, I am still unpacking the differences between my Methodist upbringing and what I believe now as a Unitarian Universalist.

Although I disagreed with much of what I was taught in Methodist Sunday School, I must admit it was much easier to be a Methodist. This is because much of what I was taught seemed to be an absolute truth. And from that place of absolute truth I could measure myself as good or bad, right or wrong.

In Unitarian Universalism I have not always been able to find that measuring stick.

Even recently as I have been planning for my Installation next week and talking to the people who have agreed to speak, I have been trying to identify my ideal of God and my concept of ministry.

Finding words to describe the indescribable has been difficult. And what I have found myself saying sounds quite similar to Eisenhower’s words.

I say “I believe in the common good, I believe that is where we find God” “I believe that I serve the common good- to me that is serving God”. Even to my tongue these words are not inspiring like the poetry of Channing. They are functional, and staid like the truths of Eisenhower. But they are my truth.

In a world where people want answers there will always be those who will find a faith - where the reason and experience of the individual is prized- to be flimsy and insufficient.

But no matter how staid and functional our individual faith may be I believe that having space to articulate our individual truths and holding them up so that we can each measure our own more clearly against the other is the true gift of our liberal faith. Finding the common threads so that we are able to articulate our connections is what will enable us to share this gift with others.

Living intentional purpose driven lives, challenging each other to think more clearly and explore new pathways, opening our hearts to the wide variety of truths among us, leaving space for respectful dialogue, leaving room for every person’s individual voice-- this is where our liberty lies --this is where we will find our freedom.

Let us start with each other. Knowing that strengthening our voices in this safe place will help us to articulate our liberal views to the world.

We will begin today at 1:00 in the Meeting House, sharing our individual ideas about what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist. On March 16^th we will discuss our polity and what it means to be a church and parish and on March 30^th we will discuss what each of us believe it means to be a person of faith. I hope you can join us for one or all of these conversations. The more voices the more diversity we will find. But social hour is a great time to talk, and meetings when two or more are gathered, there is always time and space for a values based conversation.

May we ever deepen our connections and find new ways to proclaim our liberal faith to the world.