Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire
January 27, 2008
“Heresy in Unitarian Universalism”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
One of our ministers, Robert Walsh, has written a reflection on a newspaper article he saw several years ago about a heresy trial in Kansas City. The trial involved a Southern Baptist, who was a minister and a seminary professor, and who was accused of being a universalist. In other words, they said that he wrongly believed that no one goes to Hell, an early theological belief of our religious history. He denied it and he was acquitted. Rev. Walsh went on to wonder if he himself would be convicted if someone accused him of universalism, or of Unitarian Universalism. He said that there was enough evidence of the Baptist minister’s open beliefs to convict him of universalism, but that he got off anyway, so perhaps it would take more than beliefs to convict one of us of Unitarian Universalism – perhaps you would have to be actively involved with us. We do not stand, in our faith; we move.
I took a quick look at recent heresy church trials and found several in the last 20 years within Christianity. A Presbyterian was convicted of heresy in 1992 for saying that women could be ordained. A Southern Baptist woman was about to be tried for heretical beliefs in 1994, but quickly resigned from her teaching at the seminary. A little later, an Episcopal Bishop was brought to church court because he ordained a gay man as a deacon, but the case was dismissed. In Orthodox Judaism, they believe that Reform and Reconstructionist Jews are all heretics, along with most of the Conservative Jews. In Islam, the Sunnis and the Shi’as see each other as heretical. I am sure that the same thread runs through many religious traditions.
We Unitarian Universalists don’t see differing beliefs as heretical, as a problem. Although, many of the so-called heresies for others would have the opposite affect with us. For example, while we wouldn’t oust anyone for their beliefs about the roles of gays and women in religion, we would argue with them mightily. While we might disagree with the political beliefs of others and enjoy some rousing debates, we would never exclude them from our midst.
We know that Unitarian Universalism is very full of variety and truth and wisdom, and all kinds of religious practices and beliefs, but, we also tend to think that our religion is missing some things that are just as well left out, that don’t belong in our understanding of religion, and one of them is heresy. We have always been quite tolerant, both of the varying beliefs of our members, and of the beliefs of others. We are unique among religions that have a Christian background, which both Unitarianism and Universalism had, in that we did not persecute other Christians. From our beginnings, as far back as the 16th century, we have advocated for universal tolerance of the beliefs of others, and we have become even more accepting as we merged into one religion in 1961. Our principles and purposes call us to embrace the wide variety of beliefs and practices of our fellow Unitarian Universalists, and to accept the diversity of beliefs in the world community.
How could heresy be an issue for us, since folks are free to believe as their spirit leads them? The words ‘heresy’ and ‘heretic’ derive from the Greek, “harein”, meaning “to choose”. We Unitarian Universalists are the ones who choose our religious and spiritual life, as we walk together in beloved community. To others, that would be heretical; to us, this is the only way to be fully religious, with our minds and spirits completely engaged.
We have had many rocky times, however, in our development as a religious movement. There has indeed been theological discord and controversy, including some spectacular battles between theists and humanists, but we have held together through it all, respecting, even cherishing, this right to disagree. As the early Universalist minister Hosea Ballou said, “If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.”
Despite our acceptance of others’ beliefs, both outside and inside our religion, we have had past issues of internal non-acceptance. Actually, we did have a couple of heresy trials, back in the 19th century, and never came near one again after the last one – it felt too awful. The final trial was against a Universalist minister named Herman Bisbee in the 1870s. He served the Universalist Church of St. Anthony in Minnesota. He disagreed with James Tuttle, another Universalist minister, and they engaged in theological debate through public lectures and the press.
Bisbee believed in “natural religion”, and he liked Emerson and Transcendentalism, and was involved in the “free religious movement” that was developing in the Midwest at the time. He did not believe in the Christian miracles, nor the absolute truth of the Bible, and he was interested in world religions. All of the above may sound very familiar to us from our past, at that time, because it comes from the Unitarian side of the family, but Bisbee was a Universalist. They accused him of bringing unhealthy Unitarian influences into Universalism. Different from the Universalist theology of salvation by grace, Bisbee believed that humans could work on improving themselves, a more Unitarian idea. He said that Jesus “would not ask us all to believe alike; he would say ‘Be true to conscience’; seek…”.
In 1872 this was too much for the Universalist Church of America. Their press and the public press unleashed a firestorm against poor Herman Bisbee. The Church accused him of heresy and of being unfair to his colleague, James Tuttle, whose beliefs he had publicly criticized, and they convicted him on both counts. They took him out of ministerial fellowship, our equivalent of being de-frocked. Soon after the tragedy, his wife died, and he died a few years later, although first he became a Unitarian minister. The Universalist press did later apologize for its part. We consider this an embarrassing chapter in our religious history.
And as long as I’m airing our dirty laundry, one of the most important 19th century Unitarians, Theodore Parker, was ostracized by his fellow ministers. Now that’s not as bad as being dis-fellowshipped, but it was not very comfortable either. He was considered too radical to have preach in one’s church. He was isolated at the end of his ministry.
The other famous heresy trial from our history, which was not just a church trial, as they are all these days, but was the very last time that someone in America had a public trial for heresy, happened a little earlier. Universalist Abner Kneeland, one of our great heroes for his utopianism and radical theology, was actually tried and convicted and sent to prison for five years in 1845, as well as being dismissed from ministerial fellowship. He got in trouble for writing the following, among other things, “I believe that the whole universe is NATURE, and that the word NATURE embraces the whole universe, and that God and Nature, so far as we can attach any rational idea to either, are perfectly synonymous terms. Hence I am not an Atheist, but a Pantheist; that is, instead of believing there is no God, I believe that in the abstract, all is God;….” They still called him an atheist, and the public went after him. The Boston Unitarians and Universalists were humiliated by the jailing of Kneeland, and some tried to get him released, but to no avail. After he served his time, Kneeland left Massachusetts and started a utopian community in Iowa. He has helped us to expand our beliefs and we are greatly indebted to Abner Kneeland.
Now you have heard the worst, the past that we don’t like to talk about, since we think of ourselves as such accepting folks, and we are, mostly. We didn’t kill or jail anybody in the name of our religion, but we didn’t always live up to our shining beacon of freedom and acceptance, either, when it came to ourselves. They say you have to understand and own your past in order to move on, and to not repeat your old mistakes. We are not at all likely to charge anyone with heresy, but we do sometimes behave in ways that betray our non-acceptance of others. The religious stance of acceptance is quite a difficult one, and we have to keep working on our open and accepting sides, and keep busting up any smugness or exclusivity that we may be harboring.
If heresy is about choosing, we are fairly happy heretics. We just have to remember to keep letting everyone else choose, too. If we choose atheism, agnosticism, theism, pantheism, panentheism, or none of the above, we have to be clear that those around us can choose any or none of the above as well, and be honored and respected for their choices. If we choose to act, or believe, or be, in any way that we have found to be just right for us, we have to remember that another way may be just right for someone else. The forming of an in-crowd or the actions of a judgmental individualist can destroy the fabric of community. We have an amazing variety contained within our midst, something to be proud of, to celebrate. We happy heretics need to embrace and cherish and respect the many different choices that live amongst us. So may it be. Amen.