CALL TO WORSHIP:
As a child I attended the Southern Baptist’ church near our home. I enjoyed the Sunday School classes for the most part, though I did get in trouble from time to time for asking the wrong questions. It was when I attended the worship services in the big sanctuary that I started having real problems.
I remember being impressed by the dignity of the services and the marvelous music. But when the minister started preaching hellfire and brimstone, I was scared out of my shorts. Then I wondered about this supposedly all loving god who could send everyone who wasn’t a Southern Baptist to such a horrible place. It just didn’t make sense to me, and I couldn’t figure how why it didn’t make sense to everyone else.
As I grew older, it became clear to me that I couldn’t accept such an obvious contradiction and such an evil concept of god. And so I left not only the Baptist Church but Christianity all together.
One of the many attractions of Unitarian Universalism for me was the message of Universalism that all of humanity is saved. Though by that time in my life, I didn’t believe in damnation or salvation, it was important to me that my church proclaimed the united and universal spirit of all people.
This morning we will explore the question, “What does it mean to be a Universalist? What is our heritage and what is our vision?”
VOICES OF OUR UNIVERSALIST HERITAGE
“Give them not hell, but hope and courage. Preach the everlasting love of God.” – John Murray, miracle Universalist minister
“All the law is fulfilled in ... this: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” – Elhanan Winchester, 18th century Baptist and then Universalist minister
“I hold the restoration of all souls; because having myself been the chief of sinners, ... God, through Jesus Christ, by the efficacy of his holy spirit, ... granted me the mercy and the pardon of all my sins, and had plucked me as a brand out of hell, (so that) I could not have a doubt but the whole world would be saved by the same power.” – George de Benneville, 18th century Universalist minister
“A belief in God’s universal love to all his creatures, and that he will finally restore all those of them that are miserable to happiness, is a polar truth. It leads to truths upon all subjects, more especially upon the subject of government. It establishes the equality of mankind – it abolishes the punishment of death for any crime – and converts jails into houses of repentance and reformation.” – Benjamin Rush, Universalist signer of the Declaration of Independence
"If we agree in brotherly love," he said, "there is no disagreement that can do us injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good." – Hosea Ballou, early 19th century Universalist leader
"The Universalists believe that God is too good to damn man, while the Unitarians believe that man is too good to be damned by God." – Thomas Starr King, mid 19th century Unitarian and Universalist minister
“Stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it... Go on finding ever new applications of these truths and new enjoyments in their contemplation, always trusting in the one God which ever lives and loves.” – Olympia Brown, first woman ordained as Universalist minister
"The Universalists believe that God is too good to damn man, while the Unitarians believe that man is too good to be damned by God." – Clarence Skinner, 20th century Universalist minister
“A vast encompassing universalism has ever been the condition of the world. ... Individually we grow with the growing awareness of our relatedness to all that is.” – Clinton Lee Scott, 20th century Universalist minister
THE SERMON:
Last Sunday I gave you a brief look at the history and theology of the Unitarian movement. I also talked about the symbol of Unitarianism – and now Unitarian Universalism – the flaming chalice.
The chalice has many different meanings, but one way to better understand the Unitarian faith is to see the flame as a symbol of our unity with all peoples, with all of life, and with our God, however we may define God. The flame is indivisible, whole, one powerful force that gives us the illumination of truth, the warmth of love, and the aura of mystery.
The oil of this flame are what the historian and Unitarian minister, Earl Morse Wilbur, calls the three basic beliefs of the Unitarian faith:
- "First, complete freedom in religion rather than bondage to creeds or confessions;
- “Second, the unrestricted use of reason in religion, rather than reliance upon external authority or past tradition;
- "Third, generous tolerance of differing religious views and usages rather than insistence upon uniformity in doctrine, worship or polity."
"Freedom, reason and tolerance, Wilbur wrote, “It is these conditions above all others that this movement has from the beginning increasingly sought to promote."So if the chalice symbolizes Unitarianism, what is the symbol for Universalism? The most appropriate symbol for Universalism I believe is the circle. The circle represents an openness of the spirit, including and embracing all peoples...
The circle with an off-centered cross – as you see on your Order of Service cover – is one of the historical symbols of Universalism. The position of the cross represents the importance of Christianity, and yet being off-centered tells the world that Universalism is open to all religious traditions and truths.
Universalism derives its name from the early theological doctrine which asserts that ultimately God will save all people. Universalists have always reasoned that if God is all powerful and good and loving, then He (or She) cannot possibly damn anyone for eternity.
Damnation may not seem like a burning issue to many of us today, but we need to remember the powerful impact that the imagery of hell once made on people. Even in our generation I'm sure that some of you, like myself, were once scared to death by the possibility of damnation. And I imagine many of us made our first big step away from the orthodox Christian church because of this irrational doctrine.
You may not realize however that the concept of hell is relatively new. The early Greeks and Hebrews believed that after death the soul entered into a shadowy existence called Hades (for the Greeks) or Sheol (for the Hebrews). This afterlife was a dreamlike existence with no punishment for one's sins.
Later, in the 6th century B.C. E. the Zoroastrian priests taught that there would be a final and conclusive battle between the powers of light and darkness, and that the powers of darkness would suffer eternal punishment following their defeat. These teachings influenced later Judaism so that by the time of Jesus many Jews believed in an afterlife and in some kind of punishment for those who were evil.
The New Testament describes Jesus as speaking of a fiery punishment, and as time went by the descriptions of damnation have become more detailed and horrifying. Dante's "Inferno" has accounts of hell that can still make your skin crawl.
The early Christian church did not make damnation a doctrine without a struggle. During the first 500 years of Christian history some of the leading Christian thinkers were Universalists. Clement of Alexandria and Origen were respected theologians of their day who both believed in universal salvation.
The majority of the church saw Universalism as a dangerous teaching however and in 544 A.D. the belief in the infallible love of God was officially made a heresy. Since that time hundreds of men and women have been killed for their universalist beliefs. And even today there exists no church that has universal salvation as a central tenant ... except the Universalists.
Universalism was brought to America by the independent thinking mystic, George de Benneville. De Benneville was of Huguenot extraction but he was raised in England. He became a preacher of universalism in France during the reign of Louis XV and was arrested and sentenced to death for his heresy. At the last moment he received a pardon because of his noble parentage, and decided to immigrate to America for health reasons ... that is, he wanted to avoid the guillotine.
George de Benneville settled in Philadelphia where he was successful at spreading the universalist message. He became a neighbor and friend of Benjamin Franklin and later served as a physician in the Revolutionary War.
A Universalist church did not exist however until the arrival of John Murray. It was over 200 years ago when John Murray began his universalist preaching in America. And ironically it began with the one and only "miracle" story in our Unitarian Universalist tradition. Here's how it goes:
Thomas Potter (not related to Harry Potter) was a wealthy farmer who lived on the New Jersey coast in the mid 1700's. After a thorough study of the Bible Potter had concluded that God was a God of great love. As with many other religious liberals of his day, Potter was horrified by the Calvinist notion that God would save only a few elect men and women and that all others were predestined to eternal damnation. Potter was convinced that a good God would never do such a thing, and he was further convinced that God would send him a preacher who would preach about a loving God. Potter proceeded to build his own church and settled down to wait for his universalist preacher to show up.
For the next ten years Thomas Potter's neighbors called his meeting house "Potter's Folly." Then, in September of 1770 a ship grounded on a sand bar off the Jersey shore at a place called Good Luck. A man by the name of John Murray happened to be on board that ship. Murray had been a Methodist lay preacher in England who had been labeled a heretic because of his belief in universal salvation. His wife and children had died and his business had failed causing him to be sent to debtor's prison. When his brother-in-law rescued Murray from prison, he set out for the New World to start a new life.
When the ship struck the sandbar the captain sent John Murray to shore for provisions. After trudging through the wetlands, Murray happened upon who else but Thomas Potter himself, who was overjoyed that God had finally sent him his universalist preacher.
Potter begged John Murray to preach in his church but Murray, not being a believer in miracles, declined. Finally Murray decided that if the wind did not change, keeping the ship from sailing, he would preach in the church that coming Sunday. Potter had faith that the wind would not change and he spread the word throughout the area that a universalist preacher would be in his pulpit on Sunday morning. Sure enough, the wind did not change and John Murray preached a sermon that knocked their socks off -- or so it is said.
The congregation asked John Murray to stay and become their preacher, but he declined. Instead Murray settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts and preached throughout New England, even occasionally traveling to New Jersey to preach in Potter's chapel.
Murray was often persecuted with well-aimed rotten eggs and even rocks when he preached (I feel fortunate only to have a few barbs thrown my direction every now and then). Once when addressing a group in Boston, a stone sailed through the air and almost hit him in the head. Murray picked up the stone and waved it in front of the audience, "This argument," he said, "is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing."
In 1779 Murray and a small group of enthusiastic Universalists founded the first Universalist church in history in Gloucester. And it was that same church under the leadership of John Murray that helped bring about one of the most historic decisions of the Supreme Court.
At that time everyone was taxed to support the congregational church in their area. Some members of Murray's church refused to pay the tax, claiming that the Bill of Rights protected them from involuntary religious taxation. The court agreed, ruling that every individual could support the church of their choice. And so, the Universalists helped to establish the principle of separation of church and state.
John Murray ministered in Gloucester for twenty years, and then moved to Boston to serve a Universalist church there. When he died in 1815, Universalism had grown into an organized and vital religious force in America.
The Universalists were quite different from the Unitarians of their day. Whereas the Unitarians were typically the Harvard intellectuals and the Boston social elite, the Universalists were mostly rural people who had come out of the Baptist and Methodist traditions. They were biblically oriented, using the bible to prove that God never intended eternal damnation.
Unlike Unitarianism, Universalism was a spiritual movement that reached the common people. When a Universalist preacher would come to a town, he or she would preach to whoever showed up, and if there was enough enthusiasm a church would be founded on the spot. By 1840, just seventy years after John Murray landed in America, there were 800,000 Universalists. That's about four times the number of Unitarian Universalists in North America right now. The Universalist church had actually become a mass movement!
What appealed to so many was that this was a church that moved people through love rather than fear. Universalist worship services were often as emotional and spiritual as the evangelical churches, only without the hellfire and brimstone that was used to manipulate people by scaring them into conversion.
Thomas Whittemore, a distinguished Universalist minister of the mid-1800's, describes a Universalist meeting which was "filled with the spirit." "I shall never forget that meeting ... if there ever was a heaven on earth, we had it there ... Everyone felt free; there was no restraint, no holding back, ... Give us the feeling, even if it be sometimes a little extravagant, (rather) than coldness and indifference ... We dread frost more than fire. From the beginning until of late, Universalists have been in favor of pure, warm, ardent feeling, in the cause of religion."
John Murray was the great organizer of the Universalist movement, but Hosea Ballou was its greatest preacher. Hosea Ballou was born in New Hampshire and his father was a Baptist minister. He was ordained in 1794, and was the spiritual leader of the Universalists throughout the early 19th century.
Hosea Ballou was a noted debater but he was not a divider. "If we agree in brotherly love," he said, "there is no disagreement that can do us injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good."
Hosea also had a sense of humor. Once someone from the audience questioned the doctrine of universal salvation: "What would you do with a man who died reeking in sin and crime?" the questioner asked. Ballou calmly replied, "I think it would be a good plan to bury him."
Printed sermons were a major medium for communicating theological ideas at that time and Hosea Ballou's sermons had a powerful impact. His most influential work however was a book titled A Treatise on Atonement which he published in 1805. That book became the Universalists' bible for many years to come.
The book was also momentous because it expressed not only the basic beliefs of Universalism but also many of the basic beliefs of Unitarianism. At that time Universalism was still officially trinitarian, but Ballou asserted that he no longer believed in the doctrine of the trinity because the trinity represented, "the amazing sum of infinity, multiplied by three." Most Universalists eventually followed Ballou to Unitarianism, and that is one of the principal reasons Universalists and Unitarians were eventually able to unite.
Thomas Starr King, a minister who served both Unitarian and Universalist congregations in the mid-1800s, was also able to find a common denominator between the two churches when he summed up the difference between the two faiths with these words: "The Universalists believe that God is too good to damn man, while the Unitarians believe that man is too good to be damned by God."
Universalists have made quite an impact on American culture. Dr. Benjamin Rush was a medical reformer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence as well as a Universalist. Mary Livermore, a reformer, lecturer, and advocate of womens' rights, was a Universalist, as was Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. Olympia Brown was the first woman to be ordained for the Universalist ministry in 1863.
Other Universalists were involved in the abolitionist movement, prison reform, women's suffrage, and many other reform movements. Even Abraham Lincoln can be called something of a Universalist. Though he was not a church goer, he revealed his Universalist leanings during his campaign for Congress in 1846. Lincoln attended a church service conducted by Peter Cartwright, a noted evangelical preacher. Cartwright called on all who wished to go to Heaven to stand up. All rose, but Lincoln. The evangelist called for all to rise who did not want to go to Hell. All rose, but Lincoln. "I am grieved," said Cartwright, "to see Abe Lincoln back there unmoved by these appeals. If he doesn't want to escape Hell, will he tell us where he does want to go?" Lincoln got up slowly and said, "I'm going to Congress."
Unfortunately, Universalism did not continue to grow as some had expected and others had feared. By 1961 when the Unitarians and Universalists merged to create the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Universalists had dwindled from a mass movement of 800,000 strong in 1840 to only 50,000 members. What happened? How had such a popular church diminished so greatly in just over a century?
The major reason for the decline of the Universalist church ironically was the growth in universalist theology. The Universalists had become so successful that they almost put themselves out of business. When they began their movement in the late 1700s there were virtually no other preachers who preached the doctrine of universal salvation. Thanks largely to their influence, the belief in universal salvation is visible today -- though not offcial -- in most of the mainstream churches. Now it is not a heresy in many churches to preach universalism.
There were other reasons for the decline of Universalism. Though they were not dogmatic, their churches did not prize individual freedom of expression to the extent Unitarianism did. The free flow of ideas was restricted in a way that slowed their spiritual evolution.
The Universalists also were controlled by a larger governing body instead of practicing the congregational polity of the Unitarian churches. And finally, Universalists did not require the rigorous educational standards for their ministers that the Unitarians required. Their preachers were filled with the spirit, but they lacked the intellectual discipline necessary for dependable scholarship.
Universalism as a church had become almost extinct by the time of the merger, though you can still find many Universalist churches across our land today. But the concept of universal salvation is not of concern to most Unitarian Universalists today. The meaning of Universalism has been transformed to give us new inspiration for our age.
Clarence Skinner, A well-known Universalist gave us this modern day message of Universalism:
“Humanity must enlarge the borders of consciousness to include the entire human race. High civilization is not the prerogative of any one race, ... The hope for peace on earth depends upon our outgrowing of smaller attachments; our religion must take the form of a larger loyalty.
“The religion of greatness gives us the intellectual courage to face reality, whatever it may be. is no middle way. It is greatness -- universalism or perish.”
Clinton Lee Scott echoes Skinner's sentiment in our reading this morning: “A vast encompassing universalism has ever been the condition of the world. We see and sense its segments, but the wholeness is too large for our small minds. Like the pioneers, who, confronted with the immense wilderness, cleared a meager plot for a homestead, so we fence in only as much of life as fits our powers.
“Tribe and family, nation and neighborhood, political party and denomination, and every other unit is but a fragment of the whole.
“Earth and sky, continents and seas, plants and animals, gods and persons, mind and matter, what are these but the related parts of life that embraces all? Beyond the orbit in which we move is the pulsating, ever-changing universe. Individually we grow with the growing awareness of our relatedness to all that is.”Contemporary Universalism is the belief in the wholeness of the universe. It is the belief that all human beings and every living being is connected in a sacred and indivisible unity. It is the belief that our salvation as a people and a planet can come about only through love put into action. It is the belief in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
One Universalist has said that Universalism is the biggest word in any language. It is not only the biggest word but it is the biggest concept and probably our most hopeful vision for the future.
