The international unitarian journal volume 2 1 dec 2015

The International Unitarian Journal Volume 2, Number 1, December 2015

Rev. John White Chadwick, DD. (1840 - 1904) Unitarian Minister, Author, Poet A Magazine Devoted to Modern Unitarian and New-Concept Christianity Containing Historical, Academic and Contemporary Commentary

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The International Unitarian Journal A free Internet-based occasional magazine of historical and contemporary thought related to classical, historical and contemporary Unitarian Christianity.

Volume 2, Number 1 The International Unitarian Journal is not formally affiliated with any religious group.

No group has endorsed this journal and none has been req uested to do so.

The International Unitarian Journal has an independent editorial policy .

No group has been asked to provide funding for this journal.

No funding has been requested.

No funding will be accepted.

There is a wide variety of Unitarian and Unitarian Christian groups, worldwide.

One should not construe that this journal is the m outh-piece for any of these groups or organizations.

TIUJ has invited Unitarian and closely-related groups to freely advertise in the pages of TIUJ. Only one such group has taken up the offer.

Commentary in the same vein as that within TIUJ can be found at www.theunitarianchristian.com Unitarianism, as utilized in the pages of TIUJ, is meant to be that Unitarian movement that conceives of itself as existing philosophically, if not strictly theologically, within the general parameters of Christianity.

Comment and contributions are welcomed.

Any and all materials published in TIUJ is assumed to be in the public domain.

Executive Editor: R. Lloyd Ryan, DA., Ph.D., Rev. (Unitarian).

Execontrol@yahoo.com

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Editorial Science vs Religion?

The Pew Research Center has just released the results of its most recent survey. Unitarians of whatever stripe should find it rather interesting. Maybe Religion and Science are not at the loggerheads that we frequently assume.The link follows. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/22/sci ence-and-religion/ Contemporary Christiandom?

Several weeks ago, my wife and I went for a car-ride through a rural area, going through a number of small farming villages that had seen better times. I was amazed at the number of churches that had been abandoned by their congregations and turned to other uses.

Two of these churches were cati-cornered across the highway. Both of them had been lovingly built, boasting multi-coloured church windows and elegant spires. They both needed paint and seemed to be bemoaning their crosses that they had once proudly held up, but the bells still obvious through the belfry windows. One had become an antique shop, the other a beauty salon.

A little further I came across a smallish Roman Catholic church or chapel, also down on its luck, badly in need of repair. A hearse and about a dozen cars were parked outside.

A dozen miles or so, farther on, an old Baptist church - according to its steeple - was now a tavern, probably doing as roaring a trade as it had ever done. Finally, we came upon a barn-like structure with a cross plastered on the side. The building was utterly graceless, crude, with absolutely no architectural beauty or finesse.

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I have too much respect for the readers to add unnecessary commentary except to say that the five churches typify today’s Christianity.

Truth for sale?

The producer of a new movie on the life of Neil Young was interviewed on CBC radio, Canada’s public broadcaster. The question was: Why have you portrayed Neil Young, who apparently had a happy childhood, growing up in Winnipeg, Canada, as growing up in a small coal town in California with a brute for a father and having to find his way, alone, across the desert, strumming a tin-can guitar, on his way to stardom?

The answer: We have to make money from the film,.. Americans will not go to see the film if the main character is not American-born.

So, what’s new? Truth has always been compromised in the service of power and mammon.

Taboos?

There are reports from India that Hindus murdered Muslims because the latter supposedly ate Beef. Muslims kill those who eat port or violate their narrow world-view in some other manner. It depends on whether the group of interest has sufficient public support to behave with impunity.

What are our taboos, those behaviours by “others” in our society that incense us?

The fact is that what is offended always ! - is our own fragile egos! There are no exceptions! We don’t defend our religion; we defend our fragile and wounded egos. That, or we simply feed our lusts. Poor us!

Contemporary Unitarian writings?

I have been asked why the pages of TIUJ contain so very much historical materials and not more contemporary commentary.

Although the comment was not proffered as criticism, it is, nevertheless, deserving of a response.

To begin, the historical materials is, in my opinion, some of the very best writings on Unitarian Christian theology and praxis that exists. We are fortunate, indeed, to have access to the thought of the likes of William Ellery Channing, Theodore Parker, James White Chadwick, James Martineau and other renown Unitarians on both sides of the Atlantic.

Maybe, the message should be that, even if we have moved beyond some of the thinking of our Unitarian forebears, we don’t have to re-invent the wheel entirely.

The second reason for my reliance on historical materials is that almost noone in Christian Unitarian circles, today, is writing, or, at least, no-one of whom I am aware. I acknowledge that there is no shortage of “fundamentalist” “Biblical Unitarian” materials. But, I doubt that the readers of TIUJ would have any interest in these materials. I do not. Those interested in such things can find oceans of it on the web and elsewhere.

Curiously, not much Unitarian theology is being written - other than sermons -` even in the circles of our “sister” theological movement, the UUA, which seems to have significant resources and numerous trained and ordained ministers. That is a tragic development given the very active culture of theological writing, of a Unitarian bent, especially in the 1800s. What happened?

Although I am probably not the one to do the related analysis, it seems to me that when the 20 th century dawned, the 4

Unitarian Christian clergy, having talked themselves out of fundamentalism, saw only Atheism - or, at most, Agnosticism as the logical alternative. They seem not to have had any notion that between the two extremes there was a dialectic, and that dialect was - and still is - pregnant with potential for non-dogmatic Christian spirituality that could be founded on rationality and on utilizing the Bible in a cherished and supportive manner rather than a book that was to be worshipped or permitted to exert the hegemony that the imperial Church had built into it over a period of about 1600 years.

It is worth noting that the UUAfocussed, Journal of Liberal Religion is published at the UUA seminary, Meadville Lombard Theological School. However, that journal is highly academic, has an academic rather than a pragmatic focus, and may have little appeal for the general reader. But, what do I know? (See www.meadville.edu/page.php?page=71)) Thirdly, I have approached numerous authors whom I thought might be interested in contributing to TIUJ. I have had only rejections, ssome of which have been absolutely astounding. There would be no purpose in identifying any of these people. However, of interest might be a response which I received from a “rather well-known” scientist who has written on spiritual matters. He said that, having reviewed several issues of TIUJ, he would not have his name associated with it. Moreover, he was a Christian who believed in the King James Version of the Bible.

Are there other scriptures?

The foregoing thought raises the natural question, “If the Bible cannot be used in the “traditional” manner, if Unitarians reject the supernaturalism, and

are justifiably sceptical of the remainder, then are there other scriptures available to Unitarians who continue to perceive themselves as Christian?

There are several possible avenues of response. In the first place, it is not simply a matter of wholesale rejection of The Bible. Recognizing its faults, Unitarians are still able to embrace the old book - in at least one or a few of its 25,000 or so versions - as a cherished work of potential inspiration. Unitarians might want to examine alternate versions of the Bible and select one that might be a little easier on the soul. Maybe, an obvious candidate is the Scholars Version, despite its glaring flaws. Maybe that version is something like Christian Unitarians. Neither our scriptures nor ourselves need to be measured against some artificial - and hence, nonsensical standard of perfection.

Unitarians, I think, would do well by embracing whole-heartedly The Gospel of Thomas and some of the resources which have been prepared based on that gospel.

One such is the work by Ron Miller: The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice.

Unitarian Christians might also examine some of the Gnostic materials and determine whether “some” of it might be worthwhile. I think it is fair to suggest that much of the Gnostic writings would not resonate well with Unitarian Christians simply because it has the same faults as the Bible and proposes some rather odd theology that we would perceive as “more magic,” at best.

Another response might be that Unitarians might adopt other works, maybe contemporary works, which could supplement and compliment The Bible and utilize these works as “scripture.”

There are several candidates that I can 5

think of. Undoubtedly, there may be many others than are within my limited awareness. One is the Friendship with God series of Neale Donald Walsch.

Another is the absolutely outstanding work

by A. C. Grayling, The Good Book: A Humanist Bible.

Another work which supplies a grounding of how we should approach each other is that of the highly respected Jewish theologian, Martin Buber: I and Thou which is both deeply religious and supremely humanist.

If the word, humanist, scares people, one might pause to reflect and realize that if Jesus was not a humanist then he was nothing. Hans Kung, in his work, On being a Christian, would, I think, agree.

Other supplementary works might be works on ethics and philosophy. I am not, at present, suggesting possible candidates although Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of The Stages of Moral Development would satisfy at least part of the need. However, we could do worse than have a deliberate focus on ethics, an area of thought and practice that is distinctly lacking in many religious circles.

If one is inclined to cast a jaundiced eye on the suggestion that Unitarians might have multiple scriptures from a plethora of sources, it is worth remembering that confining ourselves to one “book” is a distinctly “Western Christian” concept and practice. The ancient “Eastern Christian” churches, such as the Jacobites, Nestorians, and Gnostics had access to and utilized numerous scriptures, and not all of them mutually consistent. Modern scholars, such as Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman and Karen King, have been exploring these various scriptures. It might be noted that

Buddhism and Hinduism also enjoy access to hundreds, if not thousands, of scriptures. It is only the hegemony of the Imperial church, through the ages, which has blinded Western Christianity to the richness to be found in alternate and supplementary “gospels,” whatever their source. Unitarian faith is not centered in any one “book,” not even the Bible.

One example of such alternate foundations of Christian belief might be the Christian churches of India which are founded on the teachings of Thomas.

But, all of this begs the question: What is the purpose of scriptures?

We Unitarian New-concept Christians are in process of creating a new spirituality which we insist on saying is within the domain of Christianity, if for no other reason than we embrace Jesus as human brother and had adopted him as our teacher ... and like any other teacher, we are challenged to surpass him because our era is radically different from that of the period when jesus is supposed to have lived, and we have access to a wealth of information - a veritable universe of it - that Jesus simply did not have access to. Jesus, a very human man, was as much a child of his geography, society, culture, religion, economy and general world-view, as we are encapsulated by ours. It behoves to utilize everything at our command.

We have been given much and, to quote the Bible, much is expected of us.

What value, religion?

Numerous voices are being raised in criticism of religion in all its forms. My voice would be among them, at least against some of its forms. But, the call for a non-religious society and the declarations that Religion is dying is, at a 6

minimum, naive and, at the other end of the spectrum, misunderstood and misguided by those who, having done some analysis arrogantly assume that they - and only they - fully understand. The hubris is palpable.

Religion has always been with us.

Religion defines us! Those who claim to be Agnostic, Atheist, or simply sitting on the fence, are practising religion, whether they recognize it or not. Religion will not go away because we wash our hands of it.

Indeed, if religion is not guided into rational and human avenues, then it will become even more extreme, and more to the detriment of society and to humanity.

Let’s recognize that religion is endemic to who we are, without claiming to know how we became that way.

Even if we are simply an experiment of extra-terrestrials who have middled with our genes (as some self-styled scholars suggest), and even if religions have been planted (Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism) simply because some species who consider themselves superior to humanity want to observe our religious insanity, it lays on us the obligation, with the dignity of which we are capable, to develop a spirituality founded in our very humanity, a spirituality based on rationality and ethics and in recognition of our potential for good. We defy any and all who seek to enslave or undermine our spirituality, be they scientists, politicians, clergy or religious groups of whatever persuasions, economists, hegemonists, of whatever description, wherever they may be found.

A mission?

Unitarians of old had many social, cultural, and political missions, the abolition of slavery being, maybe, the most prominent.

Have Unitarian Christians lost their sense of mission?

There is no shortage of potential candidates for mission, for social, cultural and political peaceful activism, even within our own domestic boarders. We have, for example, issues of technological products that are poisoning our bodies and our environment. The technological issue of the most negative potential, the one that causes all others to pale in comparison, may be the matter of Artificial Intelligence.

There are a few isolated voices raising caution, but they are being drowned out by those who manage (or mismanage) most of the world’s wealth and whose only interest is creating more wealth, in a most narrow-minded and reckless manner, regardless of consequences. (See, e.g., http://www.msn.com/enca/news/world/%e2%80%98killer-robots%e2%80%99must-be-stopped-activists-say/arBBmqc8o?ocid=spartandhp)

Moreover, we, as Western society, at least, are not enforcing ethical considerations. Just because something can be done is not justification for doing it.

As one small example, what are the ethical considerations surrounding selling for profit body parts of aborted foetuses, a practice engaged in by Planned Parenthood, StemExpress, Advanced Bioscience research (ABR), and Novogenix Laboratories, apparently to the enormous financial gain of all organizations and of their employees?(See, for example, https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/13093.26.178.0/info graphic-for-sale-aborted-fetal-parts)

I am not, at present, condemning the practice, and it is not my intention to sensationalise it. I am, however, questioning both the matter of related ethics and of appropriate societal oversight.

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This is not a matter of being antiscience. Indeed, we have to become science-literate before we are able to resist the growing sense of dogmatic science as the new universal religion, and to reign in some scientists, maybe not the ethical and careful ones, who are setting themselves up as the new high priests, or who are willing to use science for purposes that are anti-human, and who refuse to perceive science as having an ethical component.

Are Unitarian Christians willing to raise their voices and express our concern at the potential horror? Environmental change is a mere tempest in a tea-pot in comparison.

Finally, how are Unitarian Christians going to respond to the developing awareness that our history is much more ancient than we have even, heretofore, permitted ourselves to think or acknowledge ... and, how should we respond to the voices that are suggesting that Humanity may not be the only sentient species in the universe?

Consider: “Scholars and theologians alike now recognize that the biblical tales of Creation, of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the deluge, the Tower of Babel, were based on texts written down millennia earlier in Mesopotamina, especially by the Sumerians. And they, in turn, clearly stated that they obtained their knowledge of past events - many from a time before civilizations began, even before Mankind came to be - from the writings of the Anunnaki (“Those Who from Heaven to Earth came”) - the “gods” of antiquity” (P. 2, Zecharia Sitchen. The Lost Book of Enki.)

DEEP ARE THE SPRINGS OF RELIGIOUS ERROR Introduction by Ronald Ryan,. DA., PhD., Rev. (Unitarian).

It is commonly understood, among One can easily detect the some detractors, that Unitarians have no foundations of today’s Unitarian values creed. That is true. Unitarian Christians and beliefs in the thoughts of this also have no dogma. However unusually perspicuous religious Unitarians do have a theology, one with gentleman. deep roots and long history. Moreover, Channing (1780 - 1842) took Unitarianism has, and has had, some strong issue with traditional church outstanding theologians one of whom is dogma (Catholic and Protestant) and, like William Ellery Channing.

Roberts, (Roberts (1995) ( Paul William One of Channing’s themes was to Roberts. 1995: Journey of the Magi: In take strong issue with Catholicism’s Search of the Birth of Jesus), teaching to the effect that humanity is recognized that Jesus had more power born sinful and to Calvinism’s teaching as a person, a fully-fledged person, than that humankind’s state is one of absolute as a deity. In his introduction to his depravity. Channing rejected both ideas, collected works, Channing (writing in saying that such teachings were 1841) makes it very clear that the anathema to humankind’s mind, soul, Church’s conception of Jesus was an and spirit. One doesn’t have to be a impediment to spirituality. Because Christian or even a theist to appreciate Channing’s introduction constitutes what how fresh are Channing’s words, even is likely the most eloquent statement of now, 150 years after they were written.

Classical Christian Unitarianism, it is The reader might keep in mind that presented below almost in its entirety, although Channing uses exclusively lightly edited to make it read as masculine pronouns, the tenor of his work contemporary English. Although the is such that there cannot be any doubt latter portion of the essay deals with that this man was thinking about specific political activity and issues of his humankind, in general, in all of its variety time, with very minor modification, it is and glory. nothing less than amazing that they It will be noted that Channing appear so contemporary. (The reader acknowledges the commonly accepted may, of course, consult an original view of humanity (even the common view version to determine whether the minor of today’s mainstream Christianity and modifications are justified. See, for the predominant view of other major example,http://americanunitarian.org/channi ngintro.htm) world religions!). He proceeds to roundly Not only is this declaration a reject the common view and proffers a ringing statement and endorsement of much more rational and, one might say, a Classical Unitarian Christianity, but it more humane one, reminiscent of the serves to illustrate just how different much later work of Hans Kung (1978) Unitarian Christianity is not only from the who, although a Roman Catholic dogma of the Imperial Church but also theologian, perceives the Church has still how starkly different Unitarian Christianity having the same problems that Channing is from general Protestantism, of which criticizes and, surprisingly, proffers much Unitarian Christianity is usually seen as the same alternate perceptions.

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being a part. Indeed, the understandings that Unitarian Christians have of the personhood of Jesus and their relationship with and to God sets Unitarian Christianity apart and unique in the spectrum that is Christianity, so much so that it would not be an error to perceive it as a Christian religion in its own right.

[Note: the editor has taken the liberty to italicise and bolden some of Channing’s statements. In an alternate version these highlighted segments might be presented as sidebars.]

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Introductory Remarks To the works of William Ellery Channing by William Ellery Channing, DD., Rev. (Unitarian)

The following tracts, having passed through various editions at home and abroad, are now collected to meet the wishes of those who may incline to possess them in a durable form. In common with all writings, which have obtained a good degree of notice, they have been criticized freely. But as they have been published not to dictate opinions, but to excite thought and inquiry, they have not failed of their end, even when they have provoked doubt or reply. They have, I think, the merit of being earnest expressions of the writer's mind, and of giving the results of quiet, long-continued thought.

Some topics will be found to recur often - perhaps, the reader may think too often. But it is in this way that a writer manifests his individuality, and he can in no other do justice to his own mind. Men are distinguished from one another, not merely by difference of thoughts, but often more by the different degrees of 10

relief or prominence which they give to the same thoughts. In nature, what an immense dissimilarity do we observe in organized bodies, which consist of the same parts or elements, but in which these are found in great diversity of proportions! So, to learn what a man is, it is not enough to dissect his mind, and see separately the thoughts and feelings which successively possess him. The question is, what thoughts and feelings predominate, stand out most distinctly, and give a hue and impulse to the common actions of his mind? What are his great ideas ? These form the man, and by their truth and dignity he is very much to be judged.

The following writings will be found to be distinguished by nothing more than by the high estimate which they express of human nature. A respect for the human soul breathes through them. The time may come for unfolding my views more fully on this and many connected

topics. As yet, I have given but fragments and, on this account, I have been sometimes misapprehended. The truth is that a man who looks through the present disguises and humbling circumstances of human nature, and speaks with earnestness of what it was made for and what it may become, is commonly set down by men of the world as a romancer and, what is far worse, by the religious as a minister to human pride, perhaps as exalting man against God. A few remarks on this point seem, therefore, a proper introduction to these volumes.

It is not, however, my purpose in this place to enter far into the consideration of the greatness of human nature, and of its signs and expressions in the inward and outward experience of men. It will be sufficient here to observe that the greatness of the soul is especially seen in the intellectual energy which discerns absolute, universal truth, in the idea of God, in freedom of will and moral power, in disinterestedness and self-sacrifice, in the boundlessness of love, in aspirations after perfection, in desires and affections, which time and space cannot confine, and the world cannot fill. The soul, viewed in these lights, should fill us with awe. It is an immortal germ which may be said to contain, now, within itself, what endless ages are to unfold. It is truly an image of the infinity of God, and no words can do justice to its grandeur.

There is, however, another and very different aspect of our nature. When we look merely at what it now is, at its present development, at what falls under present consciousness, we see in it much of weakness and limitation, and still more, we see it narrowed and degraded by error and sin. This is the aspect under which it appears to most men; and so 11

strong is the common feeling of human infirmity that a writer, holding higher views, must state them with caution if he would be listened to without prejudice. My language, I trust, will be sufficiently measured as my object at present is not to set forth the greatness of human nature but to remove difficulties in relation to it in the minds of religious people.

From the direction which theology has taken, it has been thought that to ascribe any thing to man was to detract so much from God. The disposition has been to establish striking contrasts between man and God and not to see and rejoice in the likeness between them.

It has been thought that to darken the creation was the way to bring out more clearly the splendor of the Creator. The human being has been subjected to a stern criticism. It has been forgotten that he is as yet an infant, new to existence, unconscious of his powers; and he has been expected to see clearly, walk firmly, and act perfectly. Especially in estimating his transgressions, the chief regard has been had not to his finite nature and present stage of developement but to the infinity of the being against whom he has sinned, so that God's greatness, instead of being made a ground of hope, has been used to plunge man into despair.

I have here touched on a great spring of error in religion, and of error among the most devout. I refer to the tendency of fervent minds to fix their thoughts exclusively or unduly on God's infinity. It is said, in devotional writings, that exalted and absorbing views of God enter into the very essence of piety, that our grand labor should be to turn the mind from the creature to the creator, that the creature cannot sink too low in our

estimation, or God fill too high a sphere.

God, we are told, must not be limited; nor are his rights to be restrained by any rights in his creatures. These are made to minister to their Maker's glory, not to glorify themselves. They wholly depend on him, and have no power which they can call their own. His sovereignty, awful and omnipotent, is not to be kept in check or turned from its purposes by any claims of his subjects. Man's place is the dust.

The entire prostration of his faculties is the true homage that he is to offer God. He is not to exalt his reason or his sense of right against the decrees of the Almighty. He has but one lesson to learn, that he is nothing; that God is All in All. Such is the common language of theology.

These views are exceedingly natural. That the steady, earnest contemplation of the Infinite One should so dazzle the mind as to obscure or annihilate all things else ought not to surprise us. By looking at the sun, we lose the power of seeing other objects. It was, I conceive, one design of God in hiding himself so far from us, in throwing around himself the veil of his works, to prevent this very evil. He intended that our faculties should be left at liberty to act on other things besides himself; that the will should not be crushed by his overpowering greatness; that we should be free agents; that we should recognise rights in ourselves and in others as well as in the Creator, and thus be introduced into a wide and ever enlarging sphere of action and duty. Still the idea of the Infinite is of vast power, and the mind, in surrendering itself to it, is in danger of becoming unjust to itself and other beings, of losing that sentiment of self-respect, which should be inseparable 12

from a moral nature, of degrading the intellect by the forced belief of contradictions which God is supposed to sanction, and of losing that distinct consciousness of moral freedom, of power over itself, without which the interest of life and the sense of duty are gone.

Let it not be imagined from these remarks, that I would turn the mind from God's Infinity. This is the grand truth. But it must not stand alone in the mind. The finite is something real as well as the infinite. We must reconcile the two in our theology. It is as dangerous to exclude the former as the latter. God surpasses all human thought. Yet human thought, mysterious, unbounded, "wandering through eternity," is not to be condemned. God's sovereignty is limitless; still man has rights. God's power is irresistible; still man is free. On God, we entirely depend; yet we can and do act from ourselve, and determine our own characters. These antagonist ideas, if so they may be called, are equally true, and neither can be spared. It will not do for an impassioned or an abject piety to wink one class of them out of sight. In a healthy mind they live together, and the worst error in religion has arisen from throwing a part of them into obscurity.

In most religious systems, the tendency has been to seize exclusively on the idea of the Infinite, and to sacrifice to this the finite, the created, the human.

This I have said is very natural. To the eye of sense, man is such a mote in the creation, his imperfections and sins are so prominent in his history, the chances of his life are so sudden, so awful, he vanishes into such darkness. The mystery of the tomb is so fearful; all his outward possessions are so fleeting; the

earth which he treads on so insecure; and all surrounding nature subject to such fearful revolutions that the reflective and sensitive mind is prone to see Nothingness inscribed on the human being and on all things that are made, and to rise to God as the only reality.

Another more influential feeling contributes to the same end. The mind of' man, in its present infancy and blindness, is apt to grow servile through fear, and seeks to propitiate the Divine Being by flattery and self-depreciation. Thus deep are the springs of religious error. To admit all the elements of truth into our system, at once to adore the infinity of God and to give due importance to our own free moral nature, is no very easy work. But it must be done. Man's free activity is as important to religion as God's infinity. In the kingdom of Heaven, the moral power of the subject is as essential as the omnipotence of the sovereign. The rights of both have the same sacredness. To rob man of his dignity is as truly to subvert religion, as to strip God of his perfection. We must believe in man's agency as truly as in the Divine, in his freedom as truly as in his dependence, in his individual being as truly as in the great doctrine of his living in God. Just as far as the desireof exalting the Divinity obscures these conceptions, our religion is sublimated into mysticism or degraded into servility.

In the Oriental world, the human mind has tended strongly to fix on the idea of the Infinite, the Vast, the Incomprehensible. In its speculations it has started from God. Swallowed up in his greatness, it has annihilated the creature. Perfection has been thought to lie in self-oblivion, in losing one's self in the Divinity, in establishing exclusive 13

communion with God. The mystic worshipper fled from society to wildernesses, where not even nature's beauty might divert the soul from the Unseen. Living on roots, sleeping on the rocky floor of' his cave, he hoped to absorb himself in the One and the Infinite. The more the consciousness of the individual was lost, and the more the will and the intellect became passive or yielded to the universal soul, the more perfect seemed the piety.

From such views naturally sprung Pantheism. No being was at last recognised but God. He was pronounced the only reality. The universe seemed a succession of shows, shadows, evanescent manifestations of the One, Ineffable Essence. The human spirit was but an emanation, soon to be reabsorbed in its source.

God, it was said, bloomed in the flower, breathed in the wind, flowed in the stream, and thought in the human soul.

All our powers were but movements of one infinite force. Under the deceptive spectacle of multiplied individuals intent on various ends, there was but one agent: Life, with its endless chances, was but the heaving of one and the same eternal ocean. This mode of thought naturally gave birth or strength to that submission to despotic power, which has characterized the Eastern world. The sovereign, in whom the whole power of the state was centred, became an emblem of the One, Infinite Power, and was worshipped as its representative. An unresisting quietism naturally grew out of the contemplation of God as the all-absorbing and irresistible energy. Man, a bubble arising out of the ocean of the universal sou, and fated soon to vanish in it again, had plainly no destiny to accomplis, which could fill him with hope

or rouse him to effort.

In the East the individual was counted nothing. In Greece and Rome he was counted much, and he did much. In the Greek and the Roman the consciousness of power was, indeed, too little chastened by religious reverence.

Their gods were men. Their philosophy, though in a measure borrowed from or tinctured with the Eastern, still spoke of man as his own master, as having an independent happiness in the energy of his own will. As far as they thus severed themselves from God, they did themselves great harm ... but in their recognition, however imperfect, of the grandeur of the soul, lay the secret of their vast influence on human affairs.

In all ages of the church, the tendency of the religious mind to the exclusive thought of God, to the denial or forgetfulness of all other existence and power, has come forth in various forms.

The Catholic church, notwithstanding its boasted unity, has teemed with mystics who have sought to lose themselves in God. It would seem as if the human mind, cut off by this church, from free, healthful inquiry, had sought liberty in this vague contemplation of the Infinite. In the class just referred to were found many noble spirits, especially Fenelon, whose quietism, with all its amiableness, we must look on as a disease.

In Protestantism, the same tendency to exalt God and annihilate the creature has manifested itself, though in less pronounced forms. We see it in Quakerism, and Calvinism: the former striving to reduce the soul to silence, to suspend its action, that in its stillness God alone may be heard; and the latter, making God the only power in the universe, and annihilating the free will, [advocates] that one will alone may be 14

done in heaven and on earth.

Calvinism will complain of being spoken of as an approach to Pantheism.

It will say that it recognises distinct minds from the Divine. But what avails this if it robs these rninds of self-determining force, of original activity; if it makes them passive recipients of the Universal Force; if it sees in human action only the necessary issues of foreign impulse. The doctrine, that God is the only Substance, which is pantheism, differs little from the doctrine that God is the only active power of the universe. For what is substance without power ? It is a striking fact, that the philosophy, which teaches that matter is an inert substance, and that God is the force which pervades it, has led men to question whether any such thing as matter exists; whether the powers of attraction and repulsion, which are regarded as the indwelling Deity, be not its whole essence. Take away force, and substance is a shadow, and might as well vanish from the universe.

Without a free power in man, he is nothing. The divine agent within him is everything. Man acts only in show. He is a phenomenal existence under which the one Infinite power is manifested; and is this much better than Pantheism ?

One of the greatest of all errors is the attempt to exalt God by making him the sole cause, the sole agent in the universe, by denying to the creature freedom of will and moral power, by making him a mere recipient and transmitter of a foreign impulse. This, if followed out consistently, destroys all moral connexion between God and his creatures. In aiming to strengthen the physical, it ruptures the moral bond which holds them together. To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with

death, for both have but one and the same life. It destroys responsibility. It puts out the light of the universe; it makes the universe a machine. It freezes the fountain of our moral feelings, of all generous affection and lofty aspirations.

Pantheism, if it leave man a free agent, is a comparatively harmless speculation, as we see in the case of Milton. The denial of moral freedom, could it really be believed, would prove the most fatal of errors. If Edwards’s1 work on the will could really answer its end; if it could thoroughly persuade men that they were bound by an irresistible necessity; that their actions were fixed links in the chain of destiny; that there was but one agent, God, in the universe; it would be one of the most pernicious books ever issued from our press.

Happily it is a demonstration which no man believes, which the whole consciousness contradicts.

It is a fact worthy of serious thought and full of solemn instruction that many of the worst errors have grown out of the religious tendencies of the mind.

So necessary is it to keep watch over our whole nature, to subject the highest sentiments to the calm, conscientious reason. Men starting from the idea of God, have been so dazzled by it as to forget or misinterpret the universe. They have come to see in him the only force in creation, and in other beings only signs, shadows, [and] echoes of this. Absolute dependence is the only relation to God 1

Edwards: The editor thinks that the reference is to Jonathan Edwards (1703 1758) who was an arch fundamentalist in the Calvinist tradition. See, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwar ds_%28theologian%29 15

which they have left to human beings.

Our infinitely nobler relations, those which spring from the power of free obedience to a moral law, their theory dissolves. The moral nature, of which freedom is the foundation and essence, which confers rights and imposes duties, which is the ground of praise and blame, which lies at the foundation of self-respect, of friendship between man and man, of spiritual connexion between man and his maker, which is the spring of holy enthusiasm and heavenly aspiration, which gives to life its interest, to creation its glory, ... is annihilated by the mistaken piety, which, to exalt God, to make him All in All, immolates to him the powers of the universe.

This tendency, as we have seen, gave birth in former ages to asceticism, drove some of the noblest men into cloisters or caverns, infected them with the fatal notion that there was an hostility between their relations to God and their relations to his creatures; and, of course, persuaded them to make a sacrifice of the latter. To this we owe systems of theology degrading human nature, denying its power and grandeur, breaking it into subjection to the priest through whom alone God is supposed to approach the abject multitude, and placing human virtue in exaggerated humiliations. The idea of God, the grandest of all, and which ought above all to elevate the soul, has too often depressed it and led good minds very far astray, a consideration singularly fitted to teach us tolerant views of error, and to enjoin caution and sobriety in religious speculation.

I hope, that I shall not be thought wanting in a just tolerance in the strictures now offered on those systems

of theology and philosophy which make God the only power in the universe and rob man of his dignity. Among the authors of these, may be found some of the greatest and best men. To this class belonged Hartley, whose work on Man carries, indeed, the taint of materialism and necessity, but still deserves to be reckoned among the richest contributions ever made to the science of mind, whilst it breathes the profoundest piety. Our own Edwards was as eminent for religious as for intellectual power. The consistency of great error with great virtue is one of the lessons of universal history. But error is not made harmless by such associations. The false theories of which I have spoken, though not thoroughly believed, have wrought much evil. They have done much, I think, to perpetuate those abject views of human nature which keep it where it is, which check men's aspirations, and reconcile them to their present poor modes of thought and action as the fixed unalterable laws of their being.

Many religious people fall into the error which I have wished to expose, through the belief that they thus glorify the creator. "The glory of God," they say, "is our chief end;" and this is accomplished, as they suppose, by taking all power from man and transferring all to his Maker. We have, here, an example of the injury done imperfect apprehension and a vague, misty use of Scripture language. The "glory of God," is undoubtedly to be our end; but what does this consist in? It means the shining forth of his perfection in his creation, especially in his spiritual offspring; and it is best promoted by awakening in these their highest faculties, by bringing out in ourselves and others the image of God in 16

which all are made. An enlightened, disinterested human being, morally strong, and exerting a wide influence by the power of virtue, is the clearest reflexion of the divine splendor on earth, and we glorify God in proportion as we form ourselves and others after this model. The glory of the Maker lies in his work. We do not honor him by breaking down the human soul, by connecting it with him only by a tie of slavish dependence. By making him the author of a mechanical universe, we ascribe to him a low kind of agency. It is his glory that he creates beings like himself, free beings, not slaves; that he forms them to obedience, not by physical agency but by moral influences; that he confers on them the reality, not the show of power; and opens to their faith and devout strivings a futurity of progress and glory without end.

It is not by darkening and dishonoring the creature that we honor the creator.

Those men glorify God most who look with keen eye and loving heart on his works, who catch in all some glimpses of beauty and power, who have a spiritual sense for good in its dimmest manifestations, and who can so interpret the world, that it becomes a bright witness to the divinity.

To such remarks as these, it is commonly objected, that we thus obscure, if we do not deny, the doctrine of Entire Dependence on God, a doctrine which is believed to be eminently the foundation of religion. But not so. On the contrary: the greater the creature, the more extensive is his dependence; the more he has to give thanks for; the more he owes to the free gift of his Creator. No matter what grandeur or freedom we ascribe to our powers, if we maintain, as we ought, that they are bestowed,

inspired, sustained by God; that he is their life; that to him we owe all the occasions and spheres of their action and all the helps and incitements by which they are perfected. On account of their grandeur and freedom they are not less his gifts; and in as far as they are divine, their natural tendency is not towards idolatrous self-reliance, but towards the grateful, joyful recognition of their adorable source. The doctrine of dependence is in no degree impaired by the highest views of the human soul.

Let me farther observe, that the doctrine of entire dependence is not, as is often taught, the fundamental doctrine of religion, so that to secure this all other ideas must be renounced. And this needs to be taught because nothing has been more common with theologians than to magnify our dependence at the expense of everything elevated in our nature. Man has been stripped of freedom, and spoken of as utterly impotent, lest he should trench on God's sole, supreme power. To eradicate this error, it should be understood, that our dependence is not our chief relation to God, and that it is not the ground of religion, if by religion we understand the sentiment of faith, reverence, and love towards the Divinity.

That piety may exist, it is not enough to know that God alone and constantly sustains all beings. This is not a foundation for moral feelings towards him. The great question on which religion rests, is, “What kind of a universe does he create and sustain?” W ere a being of vast power to give birth to a system of unmeasured, unmitigated evil, dependence on him would be anything but a ground of reverence. We should hate it, and long to flee from it into nonexistence. The great question, I 17

repeat it, is, “what is the nature, the end, the purpose of the creation which God upholds?” On this, and on the relations growing out of this, religion wholly rests.

True, we depend on the Creator; and so does the animal; so does the clod; and were this the only relation, we should be no more bound to worship than they. We sustain a grander relation, that of rational, moral, free beings to a Spiritual Father.

We are not mere material substance, subjected to an irresistible physical law, or mere animals subjected to resistless instincts; but are souls, on which a moral law is written, in which a divine oracle is heard. Take away the moral relation of the created spirit to the Universal spirit, and that of entire dependence would remain as it is now; but no ground, and no capacity of religion would remain; and the splendor of the universe would fade away.

We must start in religion from our own souls. In these is the fountain of all divine truth. An outward revelation is only possible and intelligible, on the ground of conceptions and principles previously furnished by the soul. Here is our primitive teacher and light. Let us not disparage it. There are, indeed, philosophical schools of the present day which tell us that we are to start in all our speculations from the Absolute, the Infinite. But we rise to these conceptions from the contemplation of our own nature; and even if it were not so, of what avail would be the notion of an Absolute, Infinite existence an Uncaused Unity, if stripped of all those intellectual and moral attributes, which we learn only from our own souls.

What but a vague shadow, a sounding name, is the metaphysical Deity, the substance without modes, the

being without properties, the naked unity which performs such a part in some of our philosophical systems. The only God, whom our thoughts can rest on, and our hearts can cling to, and our consciences can recognise, is the God whose image dwells in our own souls.

The grand ideas of Power, Reason, Wisdom, Love, Rectitude, Holiness, Blessedness, that is, of all God's attributes, come from within, from the action of our own Spiritual nature. Many, indeed, think that they learn God from marks of design and skill in the outward world; but our ideas of design and skill, of a determining cause, of an end or purpose, are derived from consciousness, from our own souls. Thus the soul is the spring of our knowledge of God. These remarks might easily be extended. But they will suffice to show that in insisting on the claims of our nature to reverence I have not given myself to a subject of barren speculation.

It has intimate connexions with religion, and deep injury to religion has been the consequence of its neglect. I have also felt and continually insisted that a new reverence for man was essential to the cause of social reform. As long as men regard one another as they now do, that is as little better than the brutes, they will continue to treat one another brutally.

Each will strive, by craft or skill, to make others his tools. There can be no spirit of brotherhood, no true peace, any farther than men come to understand their affinity with and relation to God and the infinite purpose for which he gave them life. As yet these ideas are treated as a kind of spiritual romance, and the teacher, who really expects men to see in themselves and in one another the 18

children of God, is smiled at as a visionary. The reception of this plainest truth of Christianity would revolutionize society, and create relations among men not dreamed of at the present day. A union would spring up compared with which our present friendships would seem estrangements. Men would know the import of the word Brother, [which remains] as yet nothing but a mere word to multitudes. None of us can conceive the change of manners, the new courtesy and sweetness, the mutual kindness, deference, sympathy, and the life and energy of efforts for social amelioration which are to spring up in proportion as man shall penetrate beneath the body to the spirit, and shall learn what the lowest human being is. Then insults, wrongs, and oppressions, now hardly thought of, will give a deeper shock than we receive from crimes which the laws punish with death. Then, man will be sacred in man's sight, and to injure him will be regarded as open hostility toward God. It has been under a deep feeling of the intimate connexion of better and more just views of human nature with all social and religious progress, that I have insisted on it so much in the following tracts, and I hope that the reader will not think that I have given it disproportionate importance.

I proceed to another sentiment which is expressed so habitually in these writings, as to constitute one of their characteristics, and which is intimately connected with the preceding topic. It is reverence for Liberty, for human rights: a sentiment which has grown with my youth, which is striking deeper root in my age, which seems to me a chief element of' true love for mankind, and which alone fits a man for intercourse with his

fellow-creatures. I have lost no occasion for expressing my deep attachment to liberty in all its forms, civil, political, religious; to liberty of thought, speech, and the press; and of giving utterance to my abhorrence of all the forms of oppression. This love of freedom I have not borrowed from Greece or Rome. It is not the classical enthusiasm of youth which, by some singular good fortune, has escaped the blighting influences of intercourse with the world. Greece and Rome are names of little weight to a Christian. They are warnings rather than inspiration and guides. My reverence for human liberty and rights has grown up in a different school, under milder and holier discipline. Christianity has taught me to respect my race and to reprobate its oppressors. It is because I have learned to regard man under the light of this religion that I cannot bear to see him treated as a brute, insulted, wronged, enslaved, made to wear a yoke, to tremble before his brother, to serve him as a tool, to hold property and life at his will, to surrender intellect and conscience to the priest, or to seal his lips or belie his thoughts through dread of the civil power.

It is because I have learned the essential equality of men before the common Father that I cannot endure to see one man establishing his arbitrary will over another by fraud, or force, or wealth, or rank, or superstitious claims. It is because the human being has moral powers; because he carries a law in his own breast and was made to govern himself that I cannot endure to see him taken out of his own hands and fashioned into a tool by another's avarice or pride. It is because I see in him a great nature, the divine image, and vast capacities, that I demand for him means of 19

self-development, spheres for free action; that I call society not to fetter, but to aid his growth. Without intending to disparage the outward, temporal advantages of liberty, I have habitually regarded it in a higher light, as the birthright of the soul, as the element, in which men are to put themselves forth, to become conscious of what they are, and to fulfil the end of their being.

Christianity has joined with all history in inspiring me with a peculiar dread and abhorrence of the passion for power, for dominion over men. There is nothing in the view of our divine teacher so hostile to his divine spirit, as the lust of domination. This we are accustomed to regard as eminently the sin of the Archfiend. "By this sin fell the angels." It is the most Satanic of all human passions, and it has inflicted more terrible evils on the human family than all others.

It has made the names of king and priest the most appalling in history. There is no crime, which has not been perpetrated for the strange pleasure of treading men under foot, of fastening chains on the body or mind. The strongest ties of nature have been rent asunder; her holiest feelings smothered; parents, children, brothers murdered, to secure dominion over man. The people have now been robbed of the necessaries of life, and now driven to the field of slaughter like flocks of sheep, to make one man the master of millions. Through this passion, government, ordained by God. to defend the weak against the strong, to exalt right above might, has up to this time been the great wrong doer. Its crimes throw those of private men into the shade. Its murders reduce to insignificance those of the bandits, pirates, highwaymen, assassins, against

whom it undertakes to protect society.

How harmless at this moment are all the criminals of Europe, compared with the lust for power that one country attempts to exert over another. This passion for power, which in a thousand forms, with a thousand weapons, is warring against human liberty, and which Christianity condemns is its worst foe, I have never ceased to reprobate with whatever strength of utterance God has given me.

Power trampling on right, whether in the person of king or priest, or in the shape of democracies, majorities and republican slaveholders, is the saddest sight to him who honors human nature and desires its enlargement and happiness.

So fearful is the principle of which I have spoken, that I have thought it right to recommend restrictions on power and a simplicity in government beyond what most approve. Power, I apprehend, should not be suffered to run into great masses. No more of it should be confided to rulers than is absolutely necessary to repress crime and preserve public order.

A purer age may warrant larger trusts but the less of government, now, the better, if society be kept in peace. There should exist, if possible, no office to madden ambition. There should be no public prize tempting enough to convulse a nation.

One of the tremendous evils of the world is the monstrous accumulation of power in a few hands. Half a dozen men may, at this moment, light the fires of war through the world, may convulse all civilized nations, sweep earth and sea with armed hosts, spread desolation through the fields and bankruptcy through cities, and make themselves felt by some form of suffering, through every household in Christendom.

Has not one politician recently caused a large part of our world to bristle 20

with armaments? And ought this tremendous power to be lodged in the hands of any human being? Is any man pure enough to be trusted with it? Ought such a prize as this to be held out to ambition ? Can we wonder at the shameless profligacy, intrigue, and the base sacrifices of public interests by which it is sought and, when gained, held fast. Undoubtedly, great social changes are required to heal this evil, to diminish this accumulation of power.

National spirit, which is virtual hostility to all countries but our own, must yield to a growing humanity, to a new knowledge of the spirit of Christ. Another important step is a better comprehension by communities that government is at best a rude machinery which can accomplish but very limited good and which, when strained to accomplish what individuals should do for themselves, is sure to be perverted by selfishness to narrow purposes, or to defeat through ignorance its own ends. Man is too ignorant to govern much, to form vast plans for states and empires. Human policy has almost always been in conflict with the great laws of social well being; and the less we rely on it the better. The less of power, given to man over man, the better. I speak, of course, of physical, political force. There is a power which cannot be accumulated to excess, by which I mean moral power, that of truth and virtue, the royalty of wisdom and love, of magnanimity and true religion.

This is the guardian of all right. It makes those whom it acts on, free. It is mightiest when most gentle. In the progress of society this is more and more to supersede the coarse workings of government. Force is to fall before it.

It must not be inferred from these

remarks that I am an enemy to all restraint. Restraint in some form or other is an essential law of our nature, a necessary discipline running through life, and not to be escaped by any art or violence. Where can we go and not meet it? The powers of nature are, all of them, limits to human power. A never-ceasing force of gravity chains us to the earth.

Mountains, rocks, precipices, and seas forbid our advances. If we come to society, restraints multiply on us. Our neighbour's flights limit our own. His property is forbidden ground. Usage restricts our free action, fixes our manners, the language we must speak, and the modes of pursuing our ends.

Business is a restraint, setting us wearisome tasks, and driving us through the same mechanical routine day after day. Duty is a restraint, imposing curbs on passion, enjoining one course and forbidding another, with stern voice, with uncompromising authority. Study is a restraint compelling us, if we would learn any thing, to concentrate the forces of thought, and to bridle the caprices of fancy. All law, divine or human, is, as the name imports, restraint. No one feels more than I do the need of this element of human life. He who would fly from it must live in perpetual conflict with nature, society, and himself.

But all this does not prove that liberty, free action, is not an infinite good, and that we should seek and guard it with sleepless jealousy. For, if we look at the various restraints of which I have spoken, we shall see that liberty is the end and purpose of all. Nature's powers around us hem us in, only to rouse a free power within us. It acts that we should react.

Burdens press on us so that the soul's elastic force should come forth. Bounds are set so that we should clear them. The 21

weight, which gravitation fastens to our limbs, incites us to borrow speed from winds and steam, and we fly where we seemed doomed to creep. The sea, which first stopped us, becomes the path to a new hemisphere. The sharp necessities of life, cold, hunger, pain, which chain man to toil, wake up his facilities and fit him for wider action. Duty restrains the passions only so that the nobler faculties and affections may have freer play, may ascend to God, and embrace all his works. Parents impose restraint so that the child may learn to go alone, may outgrow authority.

Government is ordained so that the rights and freedom of each and all may be inviolate. In study, thought is confined so that it may penetrate the depths of truth, may seize on the great laws of nature, and take a bolder range.

Thus, freedom, ever-expanding action, is the end of all just restraint. Restraint, without this end, is a slavish yoke. How often has it broken the young spirit, tamed the heart and the intellect, and made social life a standing pool.

We were made for free action.

This alone is life, and enters into all that is good and great. Virtue is free choice of the righteousness; love, the free embrace of the heart; grace, the free motion of' the limbs; genius, the free, bold flight of thought; eloquence, its free and fervent utterance. Let me add that social order is better preserved by liberty than by restraint. The latter, unless most wisely and justly employed, frets, exasperates, and provokes secret resistance; and still more, it is rendered needful very much by that unhappy constitution of society which denies to multitudes the opportunities of free activity. A community, which should open a great variety of spheres to its members so that all might find free scope

for their powers would need little array of force for restraint. Liberty would prove the best peace-officer.

I will advert to one topic more, and do it briefly, that may not extend these remarks beyond reasonable bounds. I have written once and again on War, a hackneyed subject, as it is called, yet, one would think, too terrible ever to become a commonplace. Is this insanity never to cease? At this moment, whilst I write, two of the freest and most enlightened nations, having one origin, bound together above all others by mutual dependence, by the interweaving of interests, are thought by some to be on the brink of war. False notions of national honor, as false and unholy as those of the duellist, do most toward fanning this fire.

Great nations, like great boys, place their honor in resisting insult and in fighting well. One would think that the time had gone by in which nations needed to rush to arms to prove that they were not cowards. If there is one truth which history has taught, it is that communities in all stages of society, from the most barbarous to the most civilized, have sufficient courage. No people can charge upon its conscience that it has not shed blood enough in proof of its valor.

Almost any man, under the usual stimulants of the camp, can stand fire.

The poor wretch, enlisted from a dram-shop and turned into the ranks, soon fights like a " hero." Must France, and England, and America, after so many hard-fought fields, go to war to disprove the charge of wanting spirit? Is it not time, that the point of honor should undergo some change, that some glimpses, at least, of the true glory of a nation should be caught by rulers and people? " It is the honor of a man to pass 22

over a transgression," and so it is of states. To be wronged is no disgrace. To bear wrong generously, till every means of conciliation is exhausted; to recoil with manly dread from the slaughter of our fellow-creatures; to put confidence in the justice which other nations will do to our motives; to have that consciousness of courage which will make us scorn the reproach of cowardice; to feel that there is something grander than the virtue of savages; to desire peace for the world as well as ourselves, and to shrink from kindling a flame which may involve the world; these are the principles and feelings which do honor to a people.

Has not the time come when a nation professing these may cast itself on the candor of mankind? Must fresh blood flow for ever to keep clean the escutcheon of a nation's glory? For one, I look on war with a horror which no words can express. I have long wanted patience to read of battles. Were the world of my mind, no man would fight for glory; for the name of a commander, who has no other claim to respect, seldom passes my lips, and the want of sympathy drives him from my mind. The thought of man, God's immortal child, butchered by his brother; the thought of sea and land stained w ith human blood by human hands, of women and children buried under the ruins of besieged cities, of the resources of empires and the mighty powers of nature all turned by man's malignity into engines of torture and destruction; this thought gives to earth the semblance of hell.

I shudder as among demons. I cannot now, as I once did, talk lightly, thoughtlessly of fighting with this or that nation. That nation is no longer an abstraction to me. It is no longer a vague mass. It spreads out before me into

individuals, in a thousand interesting forms and relations. It consists of husbands and wives, parents and children, who love one another as I love my own home. It consists of affectionate women and sweet children. It consists of Christians, united with me to the common Saviour and in whose spirit reverence the likeness of his divine virtue. It consists of a vast multitude of laborers at the plough and in the workshop, whose toils I sympathize with, whose burden I should rejoice to lighten, and for whose elevation I have pleaded. It consists of men of science, taste, genius, whose writings have beguiled my solitary hours, and given life to my intellect and best affections.

Here is the nation which I am called to fight with, into whose families I must send mourning, whose fall or humiliation I must seek through blood. I cannot do it without a clear commission from God. I love this nation. Its men and women are my brothers and sisters. I could not, without unutterable pain, thrust a sword into their hearts. If, indeed, my country were invaded by hostile armies, threatening without disguise its rights, liberties, and dearest interests, I should strive to repel them, just as I should repel a criminal who should enter my house to slay what I hold most dear and what is intrusted to my care.

But I cannot confound with such a case the common instances of war. In general, war is the work of ambitious men, whose principles have gained no strength from the experience of public life, whose policy is colored - if not swayed - by personal views or party interests, who do not seek peace with a single heart, who, to secure doubtful rights, perplex the foreign relations of the state, spread jealousies at home and 23

abroad, enlist popular passions on the side of strife, commit themselves too far for retreat, and are then forced to leave to the arbitration of the sword what an impartial umpire could easily have arranged. The question of peace and war is too often settled for a country by men in whom a Christian, a lover of his race, can put little or no trust; and at the bidding of such men, is he to steep his hands in human blood? But this insanity is passing away. This savageness cannot endure however hardened to it men are by long use. The hope of waking up some from their lethargy has induced me to recur to this topic so often in my writings.

I might name other topics, which occupy a large space in the following tracts, but enough has been said here. I will add only that I submit these volumes to the public with a deep feeling of their imperfections. Indeed, on such subjects as God, and Christ, and Duty, and Immortality, and Perfection, how faint must all human utterance be! In another life, we shall look back on our present words as we do on the lispings of our childhood. Still these lispings conduct the child to speech. Still, amidst our weakness, we may learn something and make progress, and quicken one another by free communication.

We, indeed, know and teach comparatively little; but the known is not the less true or precious because there is an infinite unknown. Nor ought our ignorance discourage us as if we were left to hopeless skepticism. There are great truths which every honest heart may be assured of. There is such a thing as a serene, immovable conviction. Faith is a deep want of the soul. We have faculties for the spiritual, as truly as for the outward world. God, the foundation of all existence, may become to the mind

the most real of all beings. We can and do see in virtue an everlasting beauty.

The distinctions of right and wrong, the obligations of goodness and justice, the divinity of conscience, the moral connexion of the present and future life, the greatness of the character of Christ, the ultimate triumphs of truth and love, are to multitudes, not probable deductions, but intuitions accompanied with the consciousness of certainty. They shine with the clear, constant brightness of the lights of heaven. The believer feels himself resting on an everlasting foundation.

It is to this power of moral or spiritual perception that the following writings are chiefly addressed. I have had testimony that they have not been wholly ineffectual, in leading some minds to a more living and unfaltering persuasion of great moral truths. Without this I should be little desirous to send them out in this new form. I trust that they will meet some wants. Books which are to pass away, may yet render much service by their fitness to the intellectual struggles and moral aspirations of the times in which they are written. If in this or in any way I can serve the cause of truth, humanity, and religion, I shall regard my labors, as having earned the best recompense which God bestows on his creatures.

W. E. C. BOSTON, April 18th, 1841.

Rev. Dr. John White CHADWICK, (DOB: Oct. 19, 1840, Marblehead, Massachusetts), American writer and Unitarian minister, learned, first, the shoemaker trade after which he studied to be a teacher. Finally, he entered Harvard University Divinity School from which he graduated Doctor of Divinity in 1864. His first ministerial appointment was as pastor of the Second Unitarian church of Brooklyn, NY where he remained until his 24

death.

Chadwick became a radical preacher following in the forward-thinking and daring theological footsteps of William Ellery Channing and Theodore Parker.

A prolific writer of both theology and poetry, probably the best-known of Chadwick’s works are: Life of N. A. Staples (1870): A Book of Poems (1875); The Bible of To-day (1878); Some Aspects of Religion; The Faith of Reason (1879); The Man Jesus; Belief and Life (1881); Origin and Destiny (1883); In Nazareth Town: A Christmas Fantasy (1884); A Daring Faith (1885); Evolution and Social Reform (1890); Old and New Unitarian Belief; The Power of an Endless Life; The Revolution of God; Theodore Parker, Preacher and Reformer (1900); George William Curtis; Later Poems (1905).

John White Chadwick died December 11, 1904.

Old and New Unitarian Belief by John White Chadwick, Rev. (Unitarian) HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. Unitarianism, as a doctrine of the unity of God, is much older than the Christian Church, not only in the direct line of development from Judaism, but on various subsidiary lines. This is true of the explicit doctrine, and it is much more widely true of that implied in many forms of primitive religion.

25

The heroic company of scholars which has argued for a primitive Monotheism, from which the various polytheisms of, the world were a decadence, has not been wholly given over to believe a lie. Their crude result has been the clumsy symbol of a striving after unity, or tendency to it, in the most primitive and polytheistic forms of worship and belief. Thanks to this tendency or striving, the Vedic Hymns elevate Indra or Varuna into a prominence that sometimes leaves the other deities of the

pantheon with their occupations gone.

Behind the dualistic strife of Ahrimanes and AhuraMazda a power is conceived that reconciles their opposition, and in the Greek mythology we have an ultimate fate to which the Olympian gods must yield. Underlying and over- topping all the different theological schemes, with their multiplicity of gods and goddesses, there was the sense of the Divine, of that mysterious power which was at the heart of things, coming to clearer consciousness in the thought of philosophic minds, but seldom wholly absent from the most simple and untaught That the early Christian Church was Unitarian in the sense of being Monotheistic is evident from the fact that the early Christians were mainly Jews; the earliest, Jews without exception.

Whatever Jesus might have thought as to its being no robbery for him to be equal with God, to say nothing of identity, for him to have broached such an opinion would have brought his ministry to such a sudden termination that we should never have so much as heard his name. The fishermen of Galilee, equally with the scholars of Jerusalem, would have recoiled from such presumption with immeasurable distrust; and there would have been no need of any civil process to punish it : an outburst of spontaneous rage would have anticipated Pilate's acquiescence. The simple fact that the first theoretic conception of Jesus was that which regarded him as the Jewish Messiah makes the idea of his original deity absurd, for the idea of deity no more entered into the conception of the Messiah than the idea of comfort entered into the later doctrine of eternal hell.

The deification of Jesus was a very gradual process. To say that the 26

beginnings can be found in the New Testament is not to claim for them a very primitive Christianity, for the New Testament books took just about a century to come full circle, — from 50 to 150 A.D. Paul's Epistles represent a more developed form of the doctrine of Christ's nature than do the Synoptic Grospels ; but this is only what we should expect from what we know of Paul and his relation to the early Church, and of the character of the Synoptics, as the last result of a long process of traditional aggregation. The highest point in either of the three is found in the idea of a dignity and office to be bestowed on Jesus as a reward of his faithfulness, and through the medium of his death and resurrection.

That all the Epistles of Paul were written before the first of the Synoptics shows, when we consider how little the Epistles colored them, how tenaciously the human side of Jesus held its ground. As the deification proceeded, the Jews were alienated more and more. In the Epistles of Paul the process of exaltation is much further advanced than in the Synoptics; but it stops short of actual deification, as does the Fourth Gospel also, though that goes a little beyond Paul.

The nature of Christ was a matter of free speculation for the next two hundred years, and even further on.

Midway of the third century Sabellius advocated the doctrine that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all emanations of the Logos, which he identified with the Supreme God. For a time this quaternity, this fourfold mystery of the divine nature, threatened to be the orthodox doctrine ; but it was finally condemned as heretical, and in its place the doctrine of the Nicene Creed was set up, namely, that Christ was of the same substance with the Father, and was the product of his eternal

generation. The great advocate of this doctrine at Nicaea, in 325 A.D., was Athanasius ; and its great opponent was Arius.

Time was when the majority of Unitarians cast in their lot with Arius, and those who were inclined to question his superiority to Athanasius were received with much suspicion and alarm. But the preference is now quite the other way, not as fully accepting the thought of Athanasius, but as thinking that it had probably more philosophic truth in it than the Arian conception. This tendency has been interpreted by some orthodox critics, whose wish is father of their thought, as a retreat upon the orthodox position. But, in truth, the late attraction of Athanasius for Unitarians has been his teaching of the humanity of Jesus. If he affirmed his deity, he affirmed his humanity with equal energy; while Arius makes him a being sui generis — not a non- natural man, but a non-natural God ; not quite so old as God, but so nearly that Arius would not say, "there was a time when he was not," but "there was when he was not." It is interesting and significant that Dr. Hedge, sympathizing with the Athanasian doctrine rather than with that of Arius, would have had the Unitarians call themselves Humanitarians. The animating motive of both Arius and Athanasius was much the same, — to steer clear of Ditheism, — the affirmation of two gods, — while still exalting Jesus to the highest possible degree.

But, dreading one and the same evil, the two parties took different methods of avoiding it, and in their hot insistence, each on its own way, made every corner of the Roman Empire ring with angry altercation.

When this at length had died 27

away, there was very little Unitarianism, as opposed to Trinitarianism, for some dozen centuries, though there was here and there a good deal of earnest criticism of the creed of our traditional orthodoxy, some of whose doctrines were slowly getting themselves established all along this weary time. The doctrine of the Atonement had to wait till the eleventh century for anything approximating to its modern form.

Considered doctrinally, the Reformation was a reactionary movement; and its reaction was to those opinions and beliefs which were most horrible in the earlier centuries, which had most oppressed the mind and heart of Catholic Christendom, and which had been shorn of something of their hatefulness. As for the doctrine of the Trinity, Luther accepted it by sheer force of will Melanchthon would not consider it too seriously; Zwingli was sounder (less tritheistic) upon this point than Calvin himself, while he differed from him by the heavens' width in regard to total depravity, finding in every child a newborn Adam, thanks to the power of Jesus' death and resurrection, and matched the Free Religionists of our own time in his abundant sympathy with the religions of the heathen world. Castellio, one of the finest spirits of his age, at first befriended

by Calvin, afterwards became the victim of his implacable enmity for his free handling of predestination, and was so beset that in his lonely banishment he was literally starved to death.

The name of Servetus is much better known. With all his brilliant qualities, he was somewhat crotchety, or, in more precise language, "one of those bold spirits who sometimes seize hold at once, and, as by instinct, of high and rich truths, but are wanting in the depth and

sobriety of reasoning power necessary for the working out of a great system." His system has been described by M. Riville, a competent critic, as a crude mixture of rationalism, pantheism, materialism, and theosophy. Generally hailed by Unitarians as "one of themselves," if he had been, the shame of Calvin would have been less in putting him to death. In truth, he would have had him beheaded, and not burned; but, as he had done his best to hand him over to the Roman Inquisition, which would have tortured him first and burned him afterwards, he should not be too much admired on this account. So far as a matter somewhat obscure and difficult can be made out, Servetus held an opinion which was much the same as that of Sabeillus.

A man is never sure of orthodoxy who does a little thinking for himself. This was Bishop Huntington's trouble when he left the Unitarians: before he knew it, he had a quatemity upon his hands, as Dr. Hedge made clear enough. One thing is certain, — that Servetus was no Arian.

He said distinctly that Arius was "not equal to the glory of Christ," — non aequalis gloriae Christi - And as little Arian were the Socini, Laelius and Faustus, uncle and nephew, whose name has nicknamed English Unitarians to the present time, though long since it ceased to indicate their opinions as obviously as the name Calvinism has ceased to indicate the opinions of the modern orthodox.

But I do not know of any name upon their calendar of which Unitarians have more reason to be proud, not even William Ellery Channing's, than the name Socinus, such a leap the uncle and nephew of this name made out of the darkness of the ancient and the medieval into the light and beauty of the modern 28

world. It was no petty or equivocal arraignment that the younger brought against the orthodox creed : it was a sweeping one, without paltering or obscurantism ; and the scope of it included the doctrines of the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the personality of the devil, total depravity, vicarious atonement, and eternal hell. Moreover, he had the social temper of Joseph Priestley and W. E. Channing, their hatred of oppression, their sacred passion for a kingdom of heaven upon earth.

Poland and Transylvania had been troubled with dissentients from the doctrine of the Trinity before the burning of Servetus in 1553; and in 1558 Georgio Blandrata went to Poland, and heaped such fuel on the fire that in a little while there was a general conflagration and a schism in the Church, the year 1565 seeing the establishment of the first Unitarian church that Christendom had seen since Constantine, throwing his sword into the Athanasian scale, had made the other kick the beam. The history of Polish Unitarianism is a history of an efficient organization, and a success so positive that it drew upon itself the arm of persecution with its utmost strength, a decree of expulsion (1658) marking the first centennial of Blandrata's arrival in Poland.

The exiles went in all directions, those that went to Transylvania finding there a goodly fellowship which had sprung into being almost simultaneously fact, largely a reaction against the natural theology of the eighteenth-century Deists.

It was less rational and progressive than that. And it tended much more to the dogmatic hardness of a creed than the Presbyterianism of " the Bible only " from which it was evolved. It made religion as

much a matter of belief as it has ever been made. The hand of Priestley has been heavy upon English Unitarianism.

But nothing shows more clearly and impressively what libels labels may become, and how wide the range of thought included in the Unitarian name, than a comparison of Priestley's Unitarianism with that of recent date. And nowhere else does this inclusion come out so strikingly as in a comparison of his thought with that of James Martineau, at whose birth in 1805 Priestley's death was so recent as the previous year. Martineau himself began with the materialistic philosophy and necessarian ethics of Priestley, but for forty years they have had no sterner opposition than from him.

And, while Priestley contended that belief in the Messiahship of Jesus was the only essential of the Christian religion, Martineau contends that Jesus neither was the Messiah nor conceived himself to be so, that the doc- trine of his Messiahship was one of the " Corruptions of Christianity" which Priestley omitted from his catalogue.

Three other names stand out with Priestley's as pre-eminent among the Unitarian founders of the eighteenth century. They are Price and Belsham and Lindsey. Price was not a Socinian, like Priestley and Belsham, in his theology, but an Arian; yet he was in thorough sympathy with Priestley's political ideas.

He was an intimate and valued friend of Benjamin Franklin, to whom he introduced Priestley at the beginning of that scientific career of which the discovery of oxygen was the proudest incident.

He was equally the valued friend of American independence, and, with Priestley, of the French Revolution, in its earlier manifestations. His public 29

advocacy of the Revolution drew upon him Burke's celebrated 'Reflections' ; while Priestley's drew upon him the mob which sacked his house in Birmingham, and scattered his papers, and destroyed his philosophical instruments, where now his statue looks serenely down, as if he had forgotten or forgiven every wrong.

But Unitarianism as a distinct organization in England derives neither from Price nor Priestley, nor from Belsham, who was a loud echo of Priestley's materialistic, necessarian Christianity, but from Theophilus Lindsey.

He was the solitary contribution of the Established Church to the new faith.

There were hundreds in that Church who agreed with him; and a number of them got together, and petitioned Parliament for some alteration of the creeds and articles that would enable them to use them without mental reservation. The petition was not even received. Whereupon all except Lindsey fell back upon their livings, fat or lean, resolved to wait for better times, meantime to go on using the words which they did not believe. So could not he.

He gave up his Yorkshire vicarage, and went up to London with 20 Pounds, the proceeds of his furniture and books ; and in an auction-room in 1 Essex Street, just off the Strand, he started the first Unitarian Church. There, shortly after, was built the Essex Street Chapel, which still remains, the Unitarian headquarters of to-day; and, speaking there one morning in June, 1887, I felt myself to be on holy ground, not only because of the denominational association, but because Theophilus Lindsey was one of the holiest of men, one of the gentlest, purest, truest, that the world has ever known. Belsham was his successor, and thereby hangs a tale.

Priestley, homeless in England, came to America in 1794, and was instrumental in the organization of a church in Philadelphia, which had laypreaching till 1825, when Dr. Fumess was installed its minister; and he is now, in 1894, its pastor emeritus, having brought his active ministry to an end in 1875. ^^^ This was not the first Unitarian Society in America. The first, like the first in England, and solitary as that in this respect, had an Episcopalian reformer for its minister, James Freeman, of King's Chapel, the grandfather, by marriage, of James Freeman Clarke. An English nobleman, travelling in this country, — Lord Stanley or Lord Amberley, I have forgotten which, — speaking of the King's Chapel Prayer Book, said to Dr. Bellows, " I understand it is our liturgy watered."

"No," said Dr. Bellows, "washed." The washing, or watering, was done in 1785, by the then young Mr. Freeman, who acknowledged his indebtedness to Theophilus Lindsey in his preface. In 1787 Mr. Freeman was installed by his vestrymen - he had been a lay-reader before that - no bishop being willing to lay his apostolic hands upon a head so full of heresy. There were other Episcopal churches which the new wine made for a while somewhat unsteady in their gait, but they all settled down at length into a sober acquiescence. It was very different in the Congregational churches. These furnished the Unitarian body with nearly all its early churches in America, as the Presbyterians furnished them with nearly all their churches in England.

Ecclesiastically speaking, the Unitarian Church in America is "the liberal wing of the great Congregational body which founded the first colonies of New England and gave the law to Church and State for 30

more than two hundred years."

Twelve years ago 120 or more of our 366 Unitarian churches of that date were on an historical basis of Puritan Congregationalism. They had all descended from Puritan parishes; and thirty-eight of them antedated the year 1700, including the first church in Plymouth, that of the Pilgrim Fathers. For many years before the beginning of the present century Calvinism had been undergoing a process of softening and abridgment in the New England churches. Since the beginning of the century this process had become more general, and more conspicuous in its manifestations.

It especially characterized some of the ablest ministers in and around Boston. A class was thus formed to which the name " Liberal Christians " was applied. The meaning of this term was simply that they were disposed to put a liberal construction on the Calvinistic creed. Among the members of this class there was no organized sympathy. They were generally Arminians, but so predominantly intellectual rather than emotional, and so conservative in taste, that Arminian Methodism had for them no attractions. A smaller majority were dissenters from the Trinitarian dogma. In regard to the rank of Jesus and the nature of the atonement there was much less unanimity.

Liberal Christian ministers exchanged pulpits freely with the socalled orthodox, and united with them in all the ecclesiastical relations of the time.

Presently some of the more rigid of the orthodox party began to see that Liberal Christianity was silently but surely eating out the heart of Calvinism. The catastrophe would probably have come a few years sooner but for the War of 1812,

which was of such absorbing interest that for the time the dangers to which Calvinism was subject were forgotten.

But peace between America and England had hardly been proclaimed when war between Orthodoxy and Liberalism was declared. The declaration came from the orthodox side, — an article written in the Panaplist by Jeremiah Evarts, father of the Hon. William M. Evarts, written at the instance of Dr. Jedediah Morse, its editor, whose 'Geography' was a famous book in the forepart of the century.

It was, perhaps, some sharp reviews of that, in which he fancied odium iheologicum was present, that stirred him up to make reprisals in a book called 'American Unitarianism,* which was based on Belsham's Life of Lindsey. And now you have the tale which I said hung thereby, in speaking of Belsham's succession to Lindsey 's place and work.

Belsham's book was made up mainly of letters to Lindsey by Dr. Freeman, Buckminster, and other Boston Liberals.

Morse's book, and, still more vigorously and violently, Evarts's article, was bent on showing the sympathy and identity of the American Liberal Christians with the English Unitarians, and on convicting the former of dishonesty in covertly teaching or hypocritically concealing their opinions.

Finally, the article was a call upon all orthodox Christians to come out from the Liberals, and deny to them the Christian name and Christian fellowship.

Dr. Channing, who in 1815 was thirty-five years old and had been for twelve years the beloved minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, wrote an elaborate letter in answer to Morse's article, denying the general sympathy of his party with Priestley and Belsham (they were not Socinians, but Arians, for the most 31

part, in their theory of Christ), but claiming for the Socinian humanitarians the Christian name, and all the rights and courtesies of Christian fellowship.

But it was his reply to Evarts's charge of dishonesty and hypocrisy that showed what a reserve of moral indignation his quiet modesty had long concealed. His disclaimer was entirely rational, but the event proved the mistakenness of the policy which the Liberals had pursued. In periods of transition, negation and affirmation should go hand in hand. The policy of the Boston minister, who was " mighty careful to tell no lies," always fails in the long run.

It is not enough to preach that which you believe, as Channing and his party did, with passionate sincerity. The negations must come out They had to, then and there.

In conclusion, Channing pleaded earnestly against the exclusive spirit which would deny the Christian name, and shut out from Christian fellowship all those who could not take the Calvinistic shibboleth upon their lips. His pleading was in vain. The controversy which had been so vigorously begun went on for several years, and drew into it, on either side, men of great ability. Many things were said that showed how independent of each other are in theological soundness and the Christian spirit. In the asperities of debate, in the injustice of parochial divisions, there was blame enough on either side. Scores of congregations were divided ; and hundreds of the clergy and laity who should have been lifelong friends were ranged in hostile camps and met each other with indifferent greetings or averted eyes.

Channing's contribution to the controversy was equally remarkable for

the smallness of its bulk and the weight, of each particular item of the count.

There was one mighty sermon in Baltimore (1819) at Jared Sparks's ordination; and not long ago I stood in the very church and pulpit in which it was preached, and felt myself again on holy ground.

The pulpit's shape is not unlike that of a mortar, and the sermon that was shot from it exploded like a bomb in the orthodox camp. There was another mighty sermon that was preached at the dedication of the Second Unitarian Church in New York, in which the sacred eloquence of Dewey was afterward a soaring flame. There were a few articles in the Christian Examiner and a few public letters to the same effect. But every sermon that he preached was interpenetrated with his Unitarian gospel of the dignity of human nature, the supremacy of reason, salvation by character, and the intellectual and moral unity of God and man. He had no liking for controversy, and the most of it fell into other hands, some of them mighty for the pulling down of strongholds of inveterate error, some of them plastic for the shaping of new forms of church organization and missionary work.

Of the former, Andrews Norton, of the latter, Ezra Stiles Gannett, was easily the first. The elder Ware contended against Woods of Andover for the new interpretations : whence an imperfect pun - the " Wood'nd Ware Controversy " touched with a gleam of humor the top sombre spirits of a strenuous and baleful time.

My friend, William C. Gannett, reckons that few of the preachers who were over forty at the outbreak were ever anything but Arians. The younger men were more inclined to the Socinian 32

interpretation, which was not inconsistent with an intense Biblicism and supematuralism. Jesus might be a man, and still invested with miraculous powers, miraculously born and raised up from the dead; and the Bible might be the infallible record of his life and teaching and of much besides.

But hardly had the Unitarian controversy, as between Liberals and Calvinists, reached its term, which may be roughly fixed at 1830, than the first signs began to appear of a new controversy within the limits of the Unitarian body, - a controversy in which Channing was distinctly on the Liberal side, though others broke much more effectually than he with the Arian and supernaturalist tradition.

But we find him lamenting the development of "a Unitarian orthodoxy and deprecating "a swollen way of talking about Christ' and these signs are two of many that make clear in what direction he was going, and why the more conservative people viewed him with distrust; though it should not be forgotten that his anti-slavery sympathies also were intolerable to many. But the Unitarianism of Channing, and those whose intellectual and spiritual temper was nearest akin to his, contained from the outset of the denominational history a principle - the principle of reason in religion -which soon or late was sure to carry those obedient to it a great deal farther away from Arianism, which exalted Christ sometimes to a degree of inappreciable difference from God, than the Socinian doctrine of a miraculously gifted man and an infallible book. It was inevitable, if reason was sufficient to determine the grounds and limits of a revelation, and within those limits to interpret what was written, that there should come the moment when it would dare to judge the revelation, and

by such judgment assert its own superiority thereto. When Channing said, " The truth is, and it ought not to be denied, that our ultimate reliance is, and must be, on our own reason : I am surer that my rational nature is from God than that any book is an expression of his will," he said that in which all our later developments were folded like the oak within the acorn's cup.

But the development would probably have been much slower if a new philosophy, quite different from that of Locke — which was consciously the philosophy of Channing - while unconsciously he anticipated a more spiritual rendering of the world, and very different from that of Hartley — which Priestley and Belsham had espoused — had not sprung up in Germany, and been illustrated by such names as Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, and in England found such advocates as Coleridge and Carlyle.

These last, it would appear, did much more than the Germans directly to foster the Transcendental movement in New England; and Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, with its one glorious chapter on " Natural Supernaturalism," the most of all. There were many touched with the new thought, - pre-eminently Emerson and Hedge, and Ripley and Clarke, and Bartol and Parker; and to the first and last of these respectively it fell to give to it its loftiest expression, and its most thoroughgoing application to the religious questions of the hour.

Emerson's withdrawal from the Hanover Street pulpit in 1832, because of his inability to use the forms of the Lord's Supper as they were then generally understood, was followed in 1836 by his little book called 'Nature,' and in 1838 by his 'Divinity School Address,' higher than which the wings of his religious aspiration 33

never beat the upper heavens. Furness's 'Remarks on the Four Gospels,' a book of startling radicalism in its day, came out in 1836; and Strauss's Life of Jesus, of the year before, had consequences not to be measured by the degree to which his mythical theory might commend itself to an intelligent and earnest mind. It laid bare the countless inconsistencies of the miraculous stories and the insufficiency of naturalistic ingenuity to meet the case.

But it was a young man — who was one of the first American readers of Strauss's book, and who reviewed it for the Christian Examiner with more satire than appreciation, who had just finished a translation, printed later, of De Wette's Introduction to the Old Testament - who was to concentrate in himself to an unparalleled degree the influence of the New Criticism and New Philosophy on the Unitarian body.

I speak of Theodore Parker, who was born Aug. 24, 18 10, was settled at West Roxbury in 1837, and in Boston, where he had been preaching for some time, in 1846, and died in Italy, May 10, 1860. What manner of preaching he did in West Roxbury we have just now a better opportunity for knowing than formerly, a volume of his sermons there being still (1892) warm from the press.

They are much warmer from the impress of his spirit. They have a wonderful simplicity. The love of God, the love of man, the love of all things beautiful and sweet and true, blossoms on every page.

I had hoped that his sermon on The Temptations of Milkmen would be there, but it is not.

Reading everything, three hundred and twenty volumes in fourteen months before he fairly got up steam, Parker read deep in all the philosophical and critical literature of the time, and skimmed from it

the cream of cream. He heard Emerson in Cambridge, and walked home to Roxbury with a stormy pulse, thinking unutterable things. At least, so far he had not uttered them; but now he felt he must.

And soon he did, first to his own people, and then one day (May 19, 1841) in a South Boston sermon at the ordination of a friend ; and now the sermon ranks with Channing's Baltimore sermon and Emerson's at Cambridge as one of the great epoch making sermons of the Unitarian development. Its subject was, "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity." The permanent was the spiritual truth of Jesus and his personality exalted to a degree which the most conservative Unitarian of the present time could not easily surpass. It was the transient part that was most permanent in the hearers' memories and the denominational consciousness. In this he included the New Testament miracles, not as never having happened, but as being now more an encumbrance than a help. He also included the supernatural character of the Bible and Jesus, and the sacraments, — not as invalid and unworthy, but as not essential to a Christian faith and life.

Parker had not yet thought out his system to the end; but he had gone too far already for the brethren's peace, or for his own. For, like some others, while he must speak frankly and strongly, he had a woman's heart, hated to wound others, and was easily wounded himself. The South Boston sermon was followed up with a course of lectures, afterwards published in a book called, A Discourse on Matters pertaining to Religion, which are the best expression of Parker's theological position. No more religious book has ever welled from the deep heart 34

of man.

His new philosophy united with the fundamental religiousness of his nature to produce this result. His interpretation of the philosophy was much more positive than that of its great German expounders. Compared with Schelling's or Fichte's, it was as a mountain to a cloud ; and, where Kant's God and Immortality were merely posited as conveniences for the working of his "Categorical Imperative " of the Moral Law, with Parker God, Immortality, the Moral Law, were intuitional certainties of irrefragable stability. It was as if he had set aside a public supernatural revelation only to substitute for it a private one in each several mind and heart. At the same time it must be said that in the general working of Parker's mind he was much more experiential than intuitional.

His religious intuitionalism was very much the splendid symbol of his personal genius for religion and his own abiding faith.

Channing, theoretically inductive, was practically deductive; while Parker, theoretically deductive, had such a stomach for facts as few men ever had, and his digestion of them gave the tone and vigor of his intellectual life.

The controversy growing out of Parker's theological position was both long and hard; and it was harder upon none than upon those who, honoring and loving him for his great gifts and noble spirit, felt that they could not walk with him because they were not agreed. He made no attempt to organize a party, and was left very much alone. To exchange with him was dangerous; and for daring so much on one occasion James Freeman Clarke saw the secession of a large section of his congregation, and John T. Sargent lost his standing as a

minister at large. The influence of the controversy on the life of the denomination was simply paralyzing for some twenty years. It alienated from its organized activities, if not from its name and its communion, many of the younger men, some of them, such asJohnson and Longfellow and Higginson and Weiss and Frothingham and Wasson, men of the rarest intellectual force and largest spiritual capacity, to lose whose furtherance and sympathy was almost a fatal blow.

The bias of the anti-slavery conflict on the situation was such as to prevent an organized schism from the body. It was, moreover, of the essence of Transcendentalism to be distrustful of organization, and the anti-slavery movement drew on a world of Parker's energy that might have made the theological controversy still more hot; while the ethical passion of the young Abolitionists who followed the double lead of Parker and Garrison was for the time being the "one world at a time" which they could entertain, and furnished them with all the high and genial fellowship that they could ask.

The war of words came to an end at last on the political field, and the war of ships and armies followed; and in April, 1865, just as the tottering strength of the great rebellion was rushing down to final wreck, a Unitarian convention met in New York to initiate the fourth period of our denominational life, the period of organization.

We will call the other three the periods of controversy, internal division, and stagnation — the last of these designations relative to the unrealized possibilities of the time. It was a good year for such a meeting, the three hundredth anniversary of the first 35

Unitarian church established in the world, that of Georgio Blandrata, in Poland. The convention was the direct result of Dr. Bellows' personal application to himself of that great word of the spirit, — "Thou hast been faithful over a few things: I will make thee ruler over many things." He had been faithful over the few things of the Sanitary Commission - few relatively to the boundless energy of his organizing and inspiring genius. He had conceived and managed and inspired its glorious work ; and all that he had done instead of exhausting his energy had stored up in him a fresh amount, which must have some new outlet, or the man would spiritually burst. In advance of the convention, in response to his appeal, much money was raised by subscription, and turned over into the treasury of the Unitarian Association, four-fifths as much as had been given for denominational work through that channel during the preceding twenty-five years.

But I must have no one suppose that this period of organized activity has been troubled by no controversy whatever. Because we have freedom of inquiry and religious liberty, and because some hasten slowly and others a little faster in the revision of their opinions, I am inclined to think that we shall always have some differences of opinion and policy, and that we shall wax warm about them, if we do not get red-hot. But I doubt if we are any worse on this account.

Periods of difference in religious bodies are quite as often periods of prosperity and growth as periods of decadence. We have, in fact, had three somewhat memorable controversies in America during the last thirty years in our denomination. The formation of our National Conference in 1865 was the

signal for the beginning of the first.

Some wanted a creed of several articles as a banner for our organization.

That had no chance. The proposition was defeated by an overwhelming vote. It would have been perfectly easy to frame a constitution that would have been true to all and agreeable to both parties, under which we could have gone on conquering and to conquer from that time till now.

But what some wanted was "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" ; and they had their way, incorporating in the preamble of the constitution a phrase describing Jesus as our ''Lord and Master Jesus Christ," which, for a good many, carried with it a suggestion of authority inimical to spiritual freedom and a suggestion of official dignity unwarranted by the historic facts. There was a great debate, and it was renewed at Syracuse at the second meeting of the Conference which was established in New York.

Indeed, what has been aptly called the " Battle of Syracuse " was one of the greatest meetings we ever had. I shall never forget the flaming eloquence of the Abolitionist hero, Charles C. Burleigh, as he appealed "from you to your Master," pointing to the words of Jesus on the frescoed wall; nor how Dr. Bellows had to hold down the top of his dear shining head after such an extemporaneous speech as only he could make.

The battle was a victory for the conservative party; and that night upon the home-bound train the Free Religious Association was conceived, and duly born in Boston the next May. It detached many wholly from the Unitarian body, and gave many others room for their wider sympathies, while they still kept up their connection with the parent body, and tried time and again to bring the 36

obnoxious preamble into better shape. As it now stands, there is an article of the constitution declaring that the preamble is only binding upon those who can agree to it. This miserable arrangement is likely to be done away with before long, a committee having been appointed at the last meeting of the Conference to this end, and their report having been made advising certain changes that would satisfy the scruples of the radical party and may be satisfactory to all concerned.

Meantime the broadening temper of the Conference has drawn back every year a greater number of those who were alienated from it by its earlier course.

What is known in our annals as the " Year Book Controversy" was a pendant of the controversy in and about the National Conference. The question mooted was whether the names of those who could not conscientiously appropriate the Christian name should appear in the Year Book of the Unitarian Association.

It may seem a petty question; but it involved the question, “What is Christianity, and What is Unitarianism?� and the further question whether a man can be a Unitarian who is not a Christian.

The personal centre of the controversy was the Rev. William J. Potter of New Bedford, after the Rev. O. B. Frothingham the President of the Free Religious Association, a preacher of the loftiest moral temper and the rarest intellectual gifts, his published sermons the best expression of our most characteristic thought to which we have yet attained, as calm as Channing's in their tone, but with an intellectual grasp which Channing never had, and a sweep of vision which was impossible before the orb of scientific truth had fairly risen and dispersed the misty exhalations of the

dawn.

The final outcome of the controversy was the admission to the Year Book, and by that sign to the denomination, in good standing, of all ministers who were in charge of Unitarian societies, and of all who had been so and had not withdrawn from the ministry. And so again we took the broader road which leads to the destruction Alive when this was written, he died Dec. ai, 1893. of all artificial barriers between men who, if not of one mind, are of one heart and one soul.

And last we had our "Western Controversy." It came about through the attempt of certain earnest spirits to limit the fellowship of the Western Conference by a " statement of purpose," committing the Conference as such to a belief in Christian theism.

In the great debate which followed, at its annual meeting, the Conference, refusing to limit its fellowship by any dogmatic test, welcomed all to come in and help who would fain build up the kingdom of righteousness and truth and love. This action, known as "the Cincinnati Resolution," was the signal for the withdrawal of many individuals and some churches from the Western Conference, and for the extension of the controversy in ever-widening circles, until the East hardly less than the West was included in their sweep. There was much more misunderstanding than real difference.

The principal contestants for the broader way were men preeminent for their theistic ardor and the tenderness of their devotion to the memory and example of Jesus of Nazareth.

What they have contended for has been simply a franker avowal of the National Conference position, putting 37

first, however, the principle of generous inclusion, and then making a statement of "things commonly believed among us " wonderfully rich and strong, and expressly given as not covering all and binding none.

I have no doubt in my own mind that we shall, as a denomination, ultimately come to this position, and that the wandering sheep will all come home at last, and that there will be one flock and one fold, open on every side to pastures new.

Long since the spiritual genius of Dr. Martineau, whom the Messianic phrase of the National Conference preamble would logically exclude from our fellowship, if it were made a test, sounded the note of highest courage when he said, "The true religious life supplies grounds of sympathy and association deeper and wiser than can be expressed in any doctrinal names or formulas; and free play can never be given to these genuine spiritual affinities till all stipulation, direct or implied, for specified agreement in theological belief is discarded from the bases of church union." Into the largeness of this liberty we are sure to come at length. Nor is it now a distant city sparkling like a grain of salt, but near at hand, and beautif ul with unimagined light.

So it seemed to me in 1892 before the meeting of the Western Conference for that year. At that meeting a resolution was passed pledging the Conference to religious work in harmony with the Cincinnati Resolution and the ''Statement of Things commonly believed among us.�

To many this appeared to be unnecessary, because sufficiently implied before; while some of the staunchest friends of the Cincinnati Resolution feared a construction prejudicial to that

utterance.

Further resolutions were adopted in 1893 which were satisfactory to both parties, and brought the painful controversy to a tardy end.

The fifty years which have gone by since Channing died in 1842 have seen great changes in the several worlds of politics and science and philosophy and criticism and theology. They have seen the anti-slavery conflict, in which Channing and Parker took conspicuous and noble parts, culminating in civil war and in the destruction of slavery. They have seen science advancing, with a step ever more confident, to discoveries ever more magnificent, the doctrine of evolution central to them all, and giving them organic unity and life. They have seen philosophy driven back by science from the transcendental ground, and compelled to base itself upon experience.

They have seen theology powerfully affected both by philosophy and science, and criticism in its treatment of the Bible making all things new with its discovery of the modem date of great portions of the Pentateuch and all the Psalms, if we take the Exile as the dividing line between ancient and modern in the Old Testament history.

And all of these changes have powerfully affected Unitarian thought and life. Nobody has been more sensitive to them than we. No sect has been less backward and more cordial in accepting the new ideas. But so it has happened that, while the philosophy for which Emerson and Parker were made anathema has passed into the keeping of the orthodox sects, the scientific philosophy which these have made anathema in its turn has become very generally the philosophy of Unitarian thought. So it happens that the critical 38

results which Parker reached, and which his brother Unitarians could not endure, are now the commonplaces of the progressive orthodox. So it happens that the doctrine of the divine unity now resumes a wealth of meaning in which, at first, it had no part.

Science is but another name for the discovered unity of the world; and the unity of the world reflects as in a mirror the Unity of the Universal Soul. If any doctrine was more central to the Unitarianism of Channing than the unity of God, it was the Dignity of Human Nature. But, clearly, Channing's '' one sublime idea," as he called it, has been vigorously challenged by the doctrine of heredity, and by the Darwinian theory of human origins. In the first particular, the gain of pity and compassion is much more than any loss entailed; while, as for the second, what seemed to wreck our faith in human nature has been its grandest confirmation.

For nothing argues the essential dignity of man more clearly than his triumph over the limitations of his brute inheritance, while the long way that he has come is prophecy of the novel heights undreamed of that await his tireless feet. As it is here, so it is everywhere. If that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.

It is through its inheritance from Priestley, in the main, that Unitarianism has been a movement of thought in sympathy with science. It is through its inheritance from Socinus and Milton and Locke and Price and Priestley and Channing and Parker that it has been a movement of conscience in sympathy with reform. And, as the former binds it to the religious interpretation of science, so does the latter bind it to intelligent

cooperation with every movement that makes for the purification of our politics and the improvement of our social life.

Common worship is beautiful, and mutual incitement to the highest moral things is more than beautiful; but a church, or body of churches, which is not persuaded that the field is the worldy and does not shape its life conformably to that persuasion, is a thing that cumbereth the ground.

The Doctrine of Man by John White Chadwick, Rev. (Unitarian) In this course of lecture-sermons I wish to bring out as clearly as I can the distinctive doctrines of our Unitarian faith.

They have not always been what they are now. In this respect they have not been singular. A Christianity that is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever is a theological fiction to which nothing real corresponds, as Cardinal Newman finally discovered, and so wrote his 'Development of Christian Doctrine,' endeavoring therein to establish a principle by which the extent of ^nation, without a difference of species, could be determined.

But the Unitarian doctrine in regard to human nature has had more consistency from first to last than any other. The first Unitarians in the line of our development were the Hebrews and the Jews - a distinction of historical succession merely - the survival of whose fittest literature we have in the Old Testament. The general conception of human nature in the books of that collection, covering about eight centuries, is one of generous appreciation and 39

noble self-respect. It is true that the doctrine of total depravity has backed itself up with as many texts from the Old Testament as from the New; as many from the Psalms as from Paul's Episties, if not more. But the individual selfabasement of the psalmists cannot be taken in evidence of a general estimate of human nature, and no more can the denunciations of the prophets hurled at specific criminals and crimes. Moreover, it is the opinion of our most learned scholar that only in the fifty-first Psalm do we find the depravity of human nature clearly taught: "Behold I was shapened in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

Much more in consonance with the general view than this is the verse in the eighth Psalm: "Thou hast made him but little lower than God. Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor." The Septuagint reading, "but little lower than the angels," perpetuated by the King James translation, is sufficiently at variance with the Calvinistic view. The characteristic note of the Old Testament,

and of Jesus in the New, is that, if a man will, he can obey the law of righteousness, and that, too, without divine interposition. He is the architect of his own fortunes.

“It matters not how straight the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll ; I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

This language of the modern poet is nothing but a free translation of the average tone of the Old Testament and the earlier Gospels of the New. Jesus was always drawing inferences from the goodness of men to that of God: " Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors;" For what man is there of you who, if his son ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone ; or, if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent ? " Everywhere in the parables, and especially in that of the Prodigal Son, a human goodness furnishes an image and an argument for the divine. If theologians had only the words of Jesus, the first Christian Unitarian, to build upon, they would not have built one stone of their doctrine of man's total depravity upon another. But they have had also the Epistles of Saint Paul ; and it must be confessed that, to paint human nature blacker than he sometimes painted it, or more incompetent, would be difficult, if not impossible. Augustine, John Calvin, Johnathan Edwards, have all dipped their brushes in his pot; and there has been enough in it for them and all their kind.

The Unitarianism of Arius in the fourth century, so often treated as a novel heresy, was, in fact, the swan-song of the Unitarian orthodoxy of the earlier Church; and swan-songs are not sweet.

His doctrine, while it saved the 40

unity of God, saved nothing of "the excellency of Christ" for human nature.

Indeed, the Athanasian doctrine, which triumphed over Arius, at Nicaea, in its identification of Jesus with God, while still affirming his humanity, was a doctrine much more honorable to human nature than that of Arius, which made Jesus a being sui generis as far as possible removed from man, as near as possible to God, short of identity. The attractiveness of Athanasius - whom you must not associate with the seventhcentury Athanasian Creed, but with the fourth-century Nicene — for many Unitarians is in virtue of the fact that they find in him a blundering expression of the divinity of man and the humanity of God, and of the one substance of all uncreated and created things.

For some centuries after the Council of Nicaea, in 325, the Unitarianism of Arius made a good fight for its life, and had many able coadjutors.

At Nicsea the opposing doctrine conquered only because the Emperor Constantine threw his sceptre into the scale; and for a long time after the question which should finally prevail was simply a question which could get the strongest battalions — those of the imperial power — upon its side.

Given a little more assistance from the secular arm, and the Unitarianism of Arius might have been the orthodoxy of the succeeding centuries for a thousand years. We, of to-day, have little reason to regret the actual course of history. It would seem that the doctrine of Arius must have been much more fatal to the human aspect of the life of Jesus, and the helpfulness implied in that, than the doctrine of the victorious party.

Once the doctrine of the Trinity had got fairly established in the sixth

century or thereabout, there was very little Unitarianism in Christendom until the Protestant Reformation ; that is, there was very little denial of the identity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit But, though Augustine, looking " down into the unsunned depths of his breast, — into hideous gulfs of bottomless guile, into weltering abysses of insatiate lust, — and seeing the hells open, — hell underneath hell — in his darkling, selfish heart," inferred from this experience the total depravity of human nature; and, though his doctrine triumphed over the more genial doctrine of Pelagius, nevertheless, as time went on, it was the doctrine of Pelagius, rather than that of Augustine that became the ruling doctrine of the Church.

In our own time we have Roman Catholics assuring us that Romanism, and not Protestantism, must be the religion for America, because selfgovernment and universal suffrage presuppose that human nature is not, as Prot- estantism teaches, radically corrupt They certainly do; but, if God has made man upright, the political bosses have sought out many crooked inventions.

The doctrine of Luther and Calvin on the human side was a reactionary doctrine. It went back to Augustine for the most horrible doctrines which his perturbed imagination had conceived, — the doctrines of total depravity and predestination.

It was these doctrines rather than the Trinity or the Deity of Christ that made the first Protestant heretics. Zwingli taught that every newborn child - thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam — was as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before his fall.(This brave old Zwingli had such appreciation of the pagan scholars, 41

saints, and heroes that he anticipated the late Parliament of Religions by three centuries and half another. ) Laelius and Faustus Socinus were the first Unitarians of the Reformation period out of whose thinking came a definite body of Unitarian belief and a definite Unitarian organization. These two were men whose reputation has been much spattered and obscured by the incalculable mud thrown at their followers by the more orthodox, but no sect in Christendom has representatives of whom it is more justly proud. It was no slight departure which they made from the theology of their contemporary, Calvin, and those who thought with him.

They broke with these at almost every point; and, while a great body of churches in Poland and Transylvania sprang from their thought, it was a long time before the Unitarianism of Great Britain and America reached the mark of their high calling.

The earlier Unitarians in England and America for the most part took the Arian line; and, except for their antitrinitarian ideas, they were in general agreement with the opinions of the majority. But there was no fixed rule.

Richard Price, of London, was a belated Arian among Socinians, — Priestley, and Lindsey, and their kind; but it was his preaching in favor of the French Revolution that drew Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution' on his venerable head, and we may be sure that no man preached that way in 1789 who did not believe in human nature as something radically sound and good.

And here in America it was not one of the radical Socinians, of whom there were a few, but one of the conservative Arians, of whom there were many, who made the doctrine of the dignity of human

nature his "one sublime idea," set it in the forefront of his preaching, and rallied to its illustration and defence all that was best in his own nature, and in the fellowship of which he, William Ellery Channing, was the leading spirit. It was that illustration and defence that made the Transcendentalism of Emerson and Parker possible a few years further on.

What was their doctrine but a corollary of Channing's dignity of human nature?

Many before Channing had asserted the dignity of human nature, notably one William Shakspere, in a passage which I need not quote, beginning, " What a piece of work is man!" But it was reserved for Channing to assert this dignity with such amplitude and consistency as had not been known before, and in his personal character to furnish the doctrine with such an argument and illustration as he could not send abroad upon his winged words.

The dignity of human nature ! No other doctrine has been so central to our faith and work as this. It enters into all our other doctrines, leavening the lumpishness of what was dullest once, raising the meanest to some better height, compelling new interpretations, broader and truer than the old. Not all there was in it was seen by Channing when he first published it with glowing heart, nor even when he finished his course amidst the beauties of an outward nature as calm and peaceful as his own.

All the denials and affirmations of Theodore Parker were contained in Channing's "one sublime idea," as the days are in the year and the stars are in the sky. Logically carried out, it meant the complete humanity of Jesus. Given such faith as Channing's in the possibilities of human excellence, and what need to claim for Jesus any superhuman quality?

42

Within the wide space of humanity his greatness swings as freely as the earth amidst the various stars. Given such faith, and the Bible in its marvellous richness and its wonderful complexity seems an easy thing for human genius to create, no prophecy or psalm or gospel or epistle too ethically stern or too spiritually exalting for man's normal delight in the infinite God and the law of the Eternal.

Given such faith, and man's reason, conscience, and imagination furnish him with all needful revelation.

Given such a faith, and not to hope for immortality - nay, not to heartily believe in it - would be quite the impossible thing. The dignity of human nature is not an inference from that, as many have imagined, inverting the true order of relations, but the immortality of the soul is a just inference from its present dignity and worth. So with the doctrine of the atonement No magical appropriation of the merits of the blood of Jesus, nothing less than character, obedience, righteousness, could save the soul from the only real hell, — that of the great refusal to be what we may and can be, working out our own salvation, and God working evermore in us. And so on, through the whole range. There was not a doctrine held by the earlier Unitarians that Channing's "one sublime idea" did not make fluid and recast in some diviner mould.

But its practical implications were of more importance than those merely doctrinal. Certainly, they were so for Channing himsell Here was the root and ground, the motive, inspiration, spur, of all his philanthropic zeal. ''What I strike a man!" was his sufficient argument against flogging in the navy. And for himself he asked no better argument against slavery, against intemperance, against

debasing punishments, against the oppression of one class by any other, against the niggardly support of education by the town or state. In every man or woman, white or black, educated or ignorant, good or bad, elevated or degraded, he saw the glory of the human - if not a realized, then a potential fact.

And it is so with every one who has entered faith- fully into his spirit, whose appropriation of his ''one sublime idea " is not merely nominal, but vital. If in the anti-slavery conflict, for all the thinvoiced and weak-kneed apologists for slavery that stood in Unitarian pulpits, there was a larger company who witnessed a good confession at whatever cost, it was because they had not sat at Channing's feet in vain. There are aspects of society in our own time which in Channing's time were not conspicuous.

They have come from the development of our industrial organization, from the widening gulf which has been fixed between the employer and the employed by the stupendous changes that have taken place in methods of industrial production.

But for these novel aspects the doctrine of Channing has as clear a word as if he had anticipated their utmost stress ; and how often do I wish that he were here to make the application ! For I hold that nothing is more sure than this: that underlying and over- topping every other necessity of our industrial organization is the necessity, on the part of the employer, of seeing in every workman at his forges or his looms, in his quarries or his mines, not merely so much ''labor," and not merely an industrial machine, but a fellow-creature, a human being, a conscious soul, a brother man whom he must not treat with any least indignity or disrespect without 43

this vision and this sympathy no legislative ordering of our political economy will bring us much nearer than we are now to the mark of our high calling.

The changes in industrial organization are not the only changes that have taken place during the fourscore years that have elapsed since Channing's "one sublime idea " touched his thought with beauty and his lips with flame. And during these years it must be confessed that our theories of human nature have been subjected to a good deal of stress and strain by the changes which have overtaken our conceptions of man's physical and intellectual and moral history - changes coming from the side of that great doctrine of evolution into which each several science is now pouring itself in an abounding stream.

It must be confessed that the problems of human character are far less simple as they present them-selves to us than as they presented themselves to Channing and his contemporaries. For one thing our studies in heredity have made it plain that every new-born soul is not that tabula rasa, that clean white sheet of paper, just like every other, which in the popular presentations of Unitarianism in its earlier course it often was. The parable of the talents is a parable of human inequality: only this ranges from one talent to five hundred instead of from one to five. Some men are born with aptitudes for virtue, some with aptitudes for vice. The will, chowever free, is in one case drawn by a stupendous energy in the direction of the good, and in another case by an equally stupendous energy in the direction of the bad. There have been many fluctuations in the battle which has raged upon this ground.

Buckle was a man after the early Unitarians' own heart so far as he did not believe in heredity at all. But, then, he did believe in the incalculable and enormous influence of the environment. Spencer, on the other hand, has made heredity the central principle of his philosophy, the inheritance of acquired variations being essential to his doctrine that the gain of evolution is transmitted, in the accumulations of experience, from one generation to another, not as a social tradition only, but registered in nerve and sinew, blood and bone. The most lively battle now proceeding in the scientific world is on this very ground. Spencer has encountered a most vigorous and confident antagonist in the German naturalist.

Professor Weismann, whose doctrine of heredity does not admit of any transmission of acquired peculiarities. No use and no abuse of their original outfit, on the part of parents, has the least congenital effect upon their offspring according to the teachings of this new philosophy.

Here is a doctrine which has important bearings on our individual and social life. For all the learning with which it has been defended, it has not yet been established; not by a good deal: and Weismann has made more notches in his sword by his own grinding than have his enemies by their sturdy blows. He has abated so much from the first form of his doctrine that it is now, though different from Darwin's, and more different from Spencer's, very near akin to that of Galton, whose Hereditary Genius is one of the most interesting books the general controversy has brought forth.

We have in Galton's a doctrine of heredity which denies much less confidently than Weismann the 44

transmission of individually acquired traits, and which narrows much less than he the path of prenatal influences, especially of the mother on the child. But not all prenatal influences, he insists, are hereditary - a distinction which will not impress the average mind as practically a difference.

Be these things as they may, the doctrine of heredity rather gains than loses in significance, if it prevails after this manner rather than after that of Spencer. Only, if this happens, the doctrine becomes much less appealing to parental virtue; there is no longer occasion to say of the unborn children, "For their sakes we sanctify ourselves."

The working of heredity is much more than before that of a blind and helpless fate for good or ill, though certain of its larger implications still remain. And in the mean time the fact remains, however caused, that human nature presents no such equality and lucidity to our recent science as it did generally to the Unitarians of Channing's generation.

But the inequality does not impeach the dignity. The range is wide, but its inclusions on the higher side are so magnificent that it can well afford the lower and the lowest in the scale. Then, too, the lowest natures frequently manifest traits that ally them with the highest, and put to shame the conventional moralities of the professionally pious. Consider, too, how much of grievous fault is but the exaggeration and the overplus of appetites and passions of which we need not be ashamed.

Consider yet again how marvellously responsive many of the lowest are to the touch of sympathy and love. Suppose the upshot of the battle, now raging so fiercely between Spencer

and Weismann, should be the complete discomfiture of the former - an event which I do not anticipate - we should gain more upon the side of the environment as determinative of the good or evil of the individual life than we should lose upon the side of inherited acquisitions. Indeed, upon this side, the gains are clear and steady independently of the immediate question in dispute.

How often do the children that are born of ignorance and lawless passion, of intemperance and crime, where they have been sequestered from the influences of their congenital environment, develop in due time the noblest manly strength, the rarest womanly perfection I The dignity of human nature stands approved in the ability of the most basely born to reach the heights of intellect and will; in the nobility that is bound by its advantages to service of the miserable and perishing. In seven generations there accumulate more than two thousand possibilities of heredity for each new adventurer. More than a match for these, in the majority of cases, is the environment of thoughtful love which can be built around the growing child to shield him from all harm.

Nay, but we should not know how great our human nature really is, were it not for these contrasting depths and heights. We would have none continue in sin that grace may abound in others; but we cannot but be glad that a Pope, Leo X, compels a Luther to Stand forth; a King, Philip II, and an Alva bring a William the Silent safe to his political birth; a pig-headed king, George III of England, means Sam Adams and John Adams and George Washington in Americ; the slavocracy of the South means Garrison and Lincoln and a mighty company who were fellow-laborers with 45

these.

From the abstractions of philosophy and the ballooning of speculative science, they that are wise will often turn to the pages of history, to the records of personal greatness, to their own knowledge and recollection of the most exalted character and worth.

It will be impossible for them to contemplate the spectacle of so many men and women of great name and high example, or of private goodness and fidelity, without assurance that the dignity of human nature is not at the mercy of any doctrine of heredity, no matter whose or what." “Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." So said the writer of old time.

And what say we? "Beloved, still are we the sons of God, whatever we have been in those from whom we draw the bane or blessing of the life we call our own."

Whereupon suddenly and sharply we are told that the dignity of human nature must not only reckon with the inequalities of human life and the mysteries of hereditary taint, but also with the descent of man from lower animal forms. Here is some- thing which did not enter into the most prophetic calculations of the earlier Unitarians, and it must be confessed that to many of the later ones it has been an unwelcome and annoying guest.

How would the Calvinists rage, and the orthodox imagine a vain thing!

And yet, strange as it may appear, it was not the Calvinists to whose aid Darwin had seemed to come after a fashion, but the Unitarians whose exalted estimate of human nature he had seemed to seriously impeach, who were among the first to accord to him a patient hearing, and afterward a general acquiescence.

And with what loss, if any, of their confidence in the dignity of human nature.? With none whatever, albeit with some better understanding of the stress of certain motions in our blood, some happier confidence that what the theologians have called original sin is some inheritance from far-off ancestors of whom we have no call to be ashamed.

We are too prone to think that all that we inherit from the lower animals is a deduction from our proper nature. But the distinction of lower and higher has in it a good deal of human vanity. We should be no lower than we are if we could swim like the fish, see like the hawk and float as he does in the upper deeps, run like the deer, and wrestle like the pard.

Are not the most of us such miserable weaklings that we might well desire that we had inherited more of the primitive ancestral brawn, had more of the original Bersark marrow in our bones? Plotinus was ashamed of his body - with good reason probably - like many of the Christian saints. Here and there we have seen a reversion to that sentiment, coming from two quarters, contempt for the ladder by which we have reached the top of animal life, and insistence on "spirit" as the only real thing by our friends, the Christian Scientists, and such as they.

But who more spiritual than Novalis? and he said, “I touch heaven when I touch a human body." " Every muscle," said Theodore Parker, " is a good muscle, every bone is a good bone." And Browning sang : — Then let us no more say, Spite of this flesh, to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.

As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry, ' All good things 46

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps soul.

You that despise the body, buy a first-rate 'Anatomy and Physiology: read and study that. Look at the Venus of Milo and Michel Angelo's Dying Captive, and remember it was Michel Angelo who said,Nor hath God deigned to show himself elsewhere More clearly than in human forms sublime.

You that despise your animal birthright, learn from the biologist that every substance, every cell, and every tissue of your body is the same as in the mammals next to man, and farther back, and that they are as beautiful and good as God can make. Tennyson is always flouting at the tiger and the ape in us, as if they were all of our inheritance. But the world is big enough for apes and tigers, too ; and I am glad of that. " The young lions roar, and seek their meat from God !

Good for the young lions ! May they never suffer lack ! Be far from us that conceit which regards the steps of animal creation, from the protozoon up to man, only as so many steps toward man and not each good in itself, even as each successive stage in a delightful journey which brings us to some happy goal.

It is not the goal, but the course, that makes us happy, said Jean Paul.

Nay, but in this matter it is both the course and goal.

The dignity of human nature is not in the least impeached by these considerations of the connections and resemblances of animal and human life.

Man is a cup which the Eternal Power has had for many million years upon his wheel and 'neath his moulding hand.

Therein I read^ in part, the worth and dignity of what has taken shape and beauty from his plastic stress. Whatever

the Eternal might have done, what he has done is plain enough. He has taken millions and billions of years to bring forth man from the ascidian, — about half a million from the time when first he fairly got him on his feet to bring him to his present amplitude of life.

And have we not a perfect right in the long way that we have come to find a hint and prophecy of the long way we are to go ? As yet we have not reached the half-way house upon the mountain of our great endeavor. The highest summits that now beckon us are only foot-hills to that top and crown on which humanity shall be transfigured into the image of that glory which it had in the beginning before the world was with God. Nay, but we cannot think of any possible achievement that shall end the endless quest. " The sun is but a morning star.�

Now, there are those who find no deduction from the dignity of human nature in the past history of the race who confess themselves staggered by the prospect which speculative astronomy opens to their view; that is, the prospect of an ultimate collapse of our whole mundane order, the degeneration of the earth to the condition of the moon, " A gray, wide, lampless, dim, unpeopled world," throwing itself at length in sheer despair upon the fiery bosom of the sun.

This prospect, it must be confessed, does not agree with the idea that in a perfected humanity upon the earth we have a sufficient substitute for personal immortality. This prospect resolves the spectacle of universal life into the play of children on a sandy beach, who comfort one another by singing as they work: " Perhaps, if we hurry very much, And don't lose a minute of the day, 47

Therell be time for the last lovely touch Before the sea sweeps it all away."

In the phrase of Omar Khayydm, the caravan would reach "the nothing it set out from." But, if that were so, we should not cry with Omar Khayydm, "Oh, make haste!"

No, as the disciples said to Jesus, " It is good for us to be here." Such a prospect does not impeach the dignity of human nature, but it does impeach the husbandry of heaven. The Scotch woman, asked what she would say to God's damning her forever, answered, "And if he does, he'll lose mair than I do."

If the prophecy of the speculative astronomers is made good, and there be no personal immortality, God will lose more than we shall by the transaction.

We shall have had our day - our love and laughter, our sunshine and sweet rain, our work and rest; and " we know that what has been was good." But can God afford such prodigal destruction of his work ? Why not ? There are so many stars in heaven. But without personal immortality, unless our speculative astronomers are "all wranglers and all wrong," there will come a time when the whole process of terrestrial development will be as if it had never been.

So help me God, I can no otherwise than think some better thing of him than that. And, if the speculative astronomers are right, then we have one great, sad reason more for an unconquerable hope and stout assurance of a spiritual immortality that shall justify the ruin of the physical environment in which the soul has nourished for a time its half-unconscious life.

Another challenge to the dignity of human nature has come from those for whom the expanding universe and the greater God which it implies have

dwarfed mankind into a hopeless relative insignificance.

What said the Psalmist? " When I consider the heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man ? " And if the Psalmist was so impressed, how much more must be the modem man, for whom the heavens are so much more vast and wonderful than they could be for him ? But pari passu with the enlargement of the sidereal universe there has been an enlargement of humanity. It is man who has read the secrets of the heavens. He has weighed the stars as in his hand. He has measured them as with a surveyor's chain. And hence he is more wonderful than they. " Thou gazest on the stars, my soul*: Oh, would that I might be Yon starry skies, with thousand eyes, That I might gaze on thee ! " (*"My love" in the original. I am indebted for the variant to Dr. Horatio Stebbins, and think it a stroke of geniuss.)

Moreover, it is evident from our latest studies that we are as far from fathoming the mysteries of the human brain and mind as we are from fathoming the mysteries of the heavens. And when to the mysterious greatness of the mind we add on the one hand the wonder and beauty of the physical organism, and on the other the tragedies of misplaced and disappointed and the exaltations of triumphant love, the heroisms and devotions of the moral life, the splendors of the imagination, the trust of broken hearts which cry, "Though the Lord slay me, yet will I trust in him I" - if we cannot "still suspect and still revere ourselves," still front with unabashed demeanor the greater universe and the greater God 48

which science has revealed, it is because we have not individually the mind to enter into and appropriate the most obvious meaning of the things that press upon us day and night The apostle promised those to whom he wrote that they should be like God, for they should " see him as he is." " We are like him," rejoins our moderm thought, '' because we do see him as he is." All genuine appreciation means a common mind. It is so between man and man. No Shakspere or Rembrandt or Beethoven in you, and no appreciation of their glorious art. It is so between man and God. An intelligible universe must be intelligent. The converse of the proposition is as true. The order of our notions and ideas means the order of the universe; and our apprehension of that order means, as Channing said, that "all minds are of one family," that we have the mind of God, and by that sign are now the sons of God, and not merely in some future tense.� �Were not the eye itself a sun, No light for it could ever shine : By nothing Godlike could the soul be won, Were not the soul itself divine.'�

The power in us to read the laws, to hear the harmonies, to appreciate the beauty of the world, is proof of our celestial mind as absolute and glorious as we can ask or dream.

So, then, having attended to each separate challenge that our doctrine of the dignity of human nature has received from modern thought, we may, I think, conclude that the doctrine of the dignity of human nature has suffered no detriment, no diminution, from the changes that have taken place in men's conceptions of the universe and human

origins during the last half-century. The more we know of geology and biology and anthropology and archaeology, the more significant and grand must seem the human nature for which there was such costly preparation, whose physical constitution is such a marvel of infinitely delicate and beautiful coordinated powers, whose prehistoric training brought about a change only less signal than the whole extent between the animal and man, whose historic manifestation has been a splendid and victorious march, illuminated by the heroisms of men and women of whom we may not say, " The world was not worthy," but who were worthy of the world and of an immortal destiny.

And even if it were not so, if the teachings of science were apparently conclusive of an origin and an inheritance fatal to all worth and dignity in man, and if the examples of history and experience only tended to confirm this verdict by their apparent balance on the side of weakness and injustice, extravagance of passion and infirmity of will, the dignity of human nature might still hope to come off conqueror, and more than conqueror, if only those in doubt would turn from every outward evidence, and look in upon the mystery and wonder of their own throbbing hearts. What passions surging there, what infinite desires, what unconquerable love ! and, calm and strong amid the turmoil and the conflict, the moral will, the conscience pronouncing its inexorable laws, issuing its imperial mandates, proclaiming its imperishable satisfactions and rewards.

I hold with one in whom the dignity of human nature found a splendid illustration, Orville Dewey, that there is no greatness of fame, no splendor of reputation, that is worth a millionth part of 49

what we all possess in our own powers of thought and love and consecrated will.

The humblest man has that within him greater than the greatest name. “Fear not: thy vessel carries Caesar," said the conqueror to his captain, when the winds were loosed and fearful was the sea. And whatever storms of science and philosophy, and whatever black experience of others' wickedness, may smite our sense of human dignity and worth, we need not fear if with us sails that greatest conqueror, that righteous will, in whose captive train rebellious passions walk with downcast eyes, and in the grandeur of whose triumphs emperors and kings have been abased below the level of the poorest creatures subject to their sway.

WHAT DO UNITARIANS BELIEVE? John White Chadwick, D.D., Rev. (Unitarian) The notion has had much industrious circulation that in what Unitarians do not believe is to be sought and found their characteristic intellectual quality. That Emerson has spoken somewhere of "the pale negations of Unitarians " has done more to secure for him orthodox canonization than all the rest he ever said. That Unitarianism was a system of negations was a phrase repeated so often from seventy to fifty years ago that it ossified men's organs of intelligence.

And doubtless there were those among the Unitarians of Channing's time who exhausted in denial what little intellectual and moral energy they had.

But, as the highest is the measure of the man, so it should be the measure of the religious movement or denomination.

Luther and Calvin stand for the Reformation, Fox and Barclay and Penn for Quakerism, John Bunyan and Roger Williams for the Baptists, Ballon for Universalism, and so on. So Channing and Dewey and Gannett stand for Unitarianism in its formative period from 1815 to 1835; ^"^ there were many whom they fairly represented in the habitual tenor of their thought and speech.

Was there anything negative in this .5* There was. The Trinitarian doctrine was denied, the deity of Jesus, the personality of the Holy Spirit, the total depravity of mankind, election and reprobation, atonement by the blood of Jesus.

But every one of these denials was the reverse of an affirmation clear and strong as ever rang from human lips.

Was the trinity of the Godhead denied ?

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Its unity was at the same time affirmed.

Was the deity of Jesus ."^ There was no lack of clearness in the counter-affirmation. Was total depravity?

Yes ; but no pale negation was Channing's stout assertion of the dignity of human nature, and Dewey's of the dignity of human life. Did they deny the doctrine of vicarious atonement, and reject it utterly? They did. But not less unmistakably did they affirm that " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" by the example of his moral excellence and the inspiration of his self-surrender.

Come down another generation, to Theodore Parker and to those who thought with him. The spirit that denies was often strong in them. They denied with more of vehemence and violence than their predecessors; but their " pale negations," if they were " pale," were the exponents of as many affirmations, which were anything but pale. They were as red as love, as golden as the sun. Parker denied the economic advantage, the justice, the morality, of human slavery.

Equally and by inevitable consequence he affirmed the economic advantage, the justice, the morality, of every man's right to his own body and his own labor for his own use.

In theological and religious matters, his stout denials had an equal correspondence of the most clear and ruddy affirmation. Did he deny the special inspiration of the Bible ?

He affirmed the law of universal inspiration. Did he deny the special incarnation of the Deity in Jesus. He affirmed the universal immanence of God

in matter and in man. There never was, I think, a genius more essentially affirmative than Parker's since the evolution of the race began.

He had a trinity moreover, though it was not that of the New England orthodox. Its component parts were God and Immortality and the Moral Law. He never tired of reaffirming these supreme and glorious affirmations. Whether the later aspects of the Unitarian development maintain the preponderance of affirmation over negation that marked its first and second stages, we can decide when we have given some direct attention to its more immediate past and to its present doctrinal 'condition.

To come then, at length, to the original question. What do Unitarians believe? I answer, first of all, that they believe in the right of every man to fashion his own creed. From first to last there have been various attempts by little cliques and knots of men to formulate a creed, which should be used as a limitation and a test of fellowship. Such an attempt was made in 1865. It was made again a few years later. But the attempt, whenever made and seconded by whatever earnestness or conspicuous ability, has always been a signal for an opposition which has not left one stone of the creed-making scheme, however ingeniously devised, upon another. The system of our Unitarian churches is, without exception, purely Congregational.

Not one of them acknowledges in any least degree the authority of any central or superior organization. There have always been among our churches and our ministers those whose connection with our general conference or association, or such less inclusive bodies as our state and local conferences, has been extremely tenuous.

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But no one has ever for a moment questioned the Unitarianism of these churches and these ministers. Bellows, who was never happy if not organizing somebody or something, and Furness, to whom all organization was an abomination, were equal in their Unitarian standing. And if, at any time, the American Unitarian Association or the National Conference of Unitarian Churches should adopt a statement of belief (which is as little likely, for one or the other, as that the Pope will make a cardinal of Col. Ingersoll), those who could not accept the terms of such a statement would be just as clearly Unitarians as they are now.

The nearest approach to a creed announced by any general Unitarian organization is the expression, "Lord and Master, Jesus Christ," in the preamble of the National Conference. But even so much as this is declared by an article of the constitution to express only the views of the majority, who placed it there. So many of this majority have now gone over to" the choir invisible" that the elimination of the obnoxious phrase is only a question of time, and is delayed only in deference to the sentiments of men whom we all delight to honor, however some of us may differ from them in matters of belief.

Seeing, then, that we have no general statement of belief and no general body capable of imposing one on individuals or churches, and seeing that we believe first and fundamentally in the free intellect, and not only in the right, but in the duty, of private judgment, it is evident that perfect homogeneity of belief among us is not to be expected, is not possible.

Unitarians do not all believe alike.

In this respect, they are not so different

from certain other bodies of believers as those belonging to these other bodies generally suppose. There is no remarkable unanimity of belief in any of the Protestant sects. The Episcopalians in England and the United States present a much greater divergence of belief between their most conservative and most liberal members than do the Unitarians. There are Episcopalians in England and America whose opinions are those of the most radical Unitarians, and there are others who are Calvinistic in their thought and spirit. With the Congregationalists, it is not different.

Hundreds of their preachers are as liberal all the time as Beecher was on his most liberal days; and others �a much larger number� are as sound as the Westminster Confession.

The principal difference between Unitarians and the orthodox sects is that the latter pretend to unanimity and do not have it, while the former do not pretend to it and do not have it. But they have quite as much of it as their evangelical critics, if they have not a little more. Cardinal Newman ventures the delightful paradox that the Roman Catholic Church has been the principal abettor of free thought, because it has forbidden it; and men will always have the things that are forbidden.

There is much of truth in this; but the Roman Catholic Church does not, I think, deserve much praise for the result.

Given perfect intellectual freedom, and there will at once arise and prosper a tendency to intellectual agreement. And so it happens that, although Unitarians do not all believe alike, and although some of their differences are not inconsiderable, there is among them much agreement; and there is getting to be more from year to year.

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In the meantime there are some things which they all believe; and I will first address myself to these, and then to those particulars in which there is more or less divergence.

First and foremost, Unitarians all believe in the right and duty of making reasonableness, or rationality, the final test of truth. There was a time when this could not be said. Christianity, a supernatural revelation to be interpreted by reason, was the original stand-point.

But what if the revelation came into conflict with the reason ? Then, said the younger Ware, we must "follow the written Word"; and the majority agreed with him. But Channing said: "The truth is, and it ought not to be disguised, that our ultimate reliance is and must be on our own reason" ... "I am more certain that my rational nature is from God than that any book is the expression of his will."

And from Channing's time till now this understanding has increased, and now I think it may be considered universal. There is still much difference as to what is reasonable and, therefore, to be believed; but there is entire agreement that what is not reasonable is not to be believed, wherever or by whomsoever taught. Such insistence as that Theodore Parker was not a Christian because he was "drawn into discipleship less by logic than by love," because Christianity seemed reasonable to him and not because of its miraculous "evidences," is as remote from the Unitarianism of the present as the Ptolemaic astronomy is from that of Newcomb and Lockyer.

In the second place, Unitarians all believe, without a single individual exception, that character is more than creed, conduct more than opinion. It is

quite possible that this belief should have been my "first and foremost." For this implies the freedom of the intellect. This implies that "we are responsible not for the rightfulness, but for the righteousness of our opinions"; not for the justness of our judgments, but for not seeking our own will. But to say that character is more than creed, conduct more than opinion, does not imply that opinion is of no importance, that it makes no difference what a man believes.

Unitarians all believe without exception that it makes a great deal of difference what a man believes. That his opinions can't be wrong whose life is right is only true because his life cannot be wholly right whose opinions are wrong.

And this is true not merely of those opinions which have an immediate bearing upon conduct, but of those which relate to the most general aspects of the world. The man's life whose thoughts of God and nature and humanity are grand and elevated must be more right than one whose thoughts of these great things are poor and mean. High thinking is an absolute good.

But, whatever the importance of high thinking and right thinking, the soundness of the Unitarian principle is not and cannot be impeached. Character is more than creed, conduct is more than opinion; and any endeavor to set up a standard of belief that may exclude good men from equal fellowship with the Unitarian denomination is a violence to both of its essential principles, the right and duty of free thought, the superiority of ethics to belief.

In the third place. Unitarians all, without exception, believe in the unity of the Divine Being. It is this belief that gives to them their name ; and, as one generation has succeeded to another, 53

there has not been the slightest inclination to recede from its most definite expression. On the contrary, this Unitarian belief resumes to-day a much greater wealth of meaning than it did fifty or sixty years ago. It has never been at any time, as entertained by men of representative intelligence and character, a matter of what Daniel Webster called "the arithmetic of heaven."

That Calvinism had three gods instead of one, who is over all, blessed forever, was not so objectionable to Channing's mind as its dualistic opposition of the Divine Love and Justice was to his conscience and his heart.

Channing was repelled by the moral atrociousness of Calvinism much more than by its intellectual absurdity. But, from Channing's time till ours, Unitarianism, as a movement of reason in sympathy with science, has found new reasons every day for believing that there is one God and Father of all, â₏� one, and one only.

Everywhere the differences of the material world have yielded up to patient observation and experimental proofs of essential unity and harmony. A resolution of apparent difference into essential likeness is the outcome of all science.

The list of un-compounded substances is growing shorter every year.

The spectroscope reveals in sun, in planets, and in distant stars, the same ingredients that make up the earth we tread upon. Coal in the grate and sunlight all abroad are consubstantial. Species are nothing but varieties more strongly marked; and genera are only species of an elder date. The correlation and conservation of forces bring still grander illustrations of the "all-pervading unity."

Light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and vital force are all so many different

forms of the same thing, each masquerading in the other’s mask or domino, as the occasion may demand.

These countless unities on every side have made it increasingly difficult for Unitarians to believe in natural and revealed religion. It is all natural or it is all revealed.

The great religions of the world differ in degree only, not in kind. I do not say that these conclusions have been reached by all Unitarians. Some of the best of them decidedly object to such an inference from the Eternal Unity. But that the Unitarian tendency to these conclusions is exceeding strong, and that a large majority of the more thoughtful and intelligent have arrived at them already, of this there cannot be, I think, a particle of doubt.

In the fourth place. Unitarians all, without exception, believe in the dignity of human nature and of human life.

Their tradition on these lines, so far as it has had a personal inspiration, has derived itself from the thought of Channing and the thought of Dewey.

Channing was the great apostle of the dignity of human nature, Dewey was the great apostle of the dignity of human life.

"My one sublime idea," Channing said, "which has given me unity of mind, is the greatness, the divinity, of the soul." And he understood himself completely. For this idea, when not explicitly set forth, pervaded like a subtle essence everything he said and did.

Even the goodness of God was a deduction from this central proposition.

All his reformatory action was based upon it, as when he said, objecting to flogging in the navy, "What! Strike a man!" as if no other argument was needed for his cause. Even his glorious principle of intellectual and religious 54

liberty was an inference from the dignity of human nature.

But, as a movement of reason in sympathy with science, Unitarianism has found itself confronted by the Darwinian theory of human origins. How, without breaking violently with its traditional persuasion of the dignity of human nature, could it embrace or even tolerate such a theory as this? And yet it is unquestionably true that no other body of believers has accorded to this theory such profound attention or has accepted it in so many individual instances. I should, I think, be amply justified in saying that a large majority of Unitarians have accepted the Darwinian hypothesis.

But those who have done so do not believe any less in the dignity of human nature than they did before or any less than those who cannot go along with them.

Indeed, the rise of man from brute conditions is, as they conceive, a further reason for believing in his essential dignity and worth. The long, long way that he has come from his primeval limitations not only proves what splendid stuff was here, but hints at equal, if not greater, distances for him to go, at heights undreamed of yet, whence his “Excelsior!" shall sound. The old translation of the psalmist was; "What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels. Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor." The new translation is, " Thou hast made him but little lower than God"; and the change is one to which the Unitarian sense of human greatness cordially responds.

To say that Unitarians believe not only in the dignity of human nature, but also in the dignity of human life, is to say

that they believe in the excellence and glory of this present life. For this aspect of our faith we are indebted to Orville Dewey as to no other man. Theological habits are not changed in a day, nor wholly in one year or ten and it would not be difficult to find in the literature of early American Unitarianism, long after Dewey's manly protest against such hopeless drivel, expressions of contempt and loathing for this present life, and comparisons between it and the life that is to come immensely to its disadvantage.

But there has been less and less of this from year to year, until, at length, hardly a survival of it can be found in any of our sermons, hymns, and prayers.

Now the belief is universal among Unitarians that, whatever life and blessedness await us on the other side of death, "it is good for us to be here."

"How good is man's life, the mere living How fit to employ All his heart and his soul and his senses Forever enjoy!"

If many things are miserable to see or to endure, what have we here but further opportunity to approve our manhood and our womanhood by abolishing the misery, and enduring what must be endured with a courageous heart ?

And now I come to those points of belief on which there is less agreement than there is upon the points I have already named. And, first in order here, I will name the character of Christianity.

Time was when Christianity was universally regarded by Unitarians as a supernaturalreligion, attested by signs and wonders, promulgated by one who, even if purely human, was endowed with certain supernatural gifts, and perpetuated in a literature as �The New 55

Testament� whose writers were miraculously restrained from all erroneous statements, whether of doctrine or of fact. But now it can be said with absolute assurance that this view of Christianity is no longer held in its entirety by any Unitarians.

Many who still think and speak of Christianity as a supernatural religion, and of Jesus as a worker of miracles, regard the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole, as a purely human composition, subject to inaccuracy and error, as all human things must be. But there are now many Unitarians and, if they are not already the majority, they are tending rapidly to this proportion who do not regard Christianity as a supernatural religion.

It is to them one of the great religions of the world, one of the great expressions of man's sense of his relation to the Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed. It differs from the other great religions not in kind, but in degree; and its general superiority does not preclude inferiority of particular precepts, tendencies, ideas, and ideals.

For many, if not all, of those who hold to this interpretation, the acceptance of the Christian name does not involve any discrimination of Christianity from other great religions, as true from false, or even as greater from the less: it is simply an acknowledgment of their hereditary standing. If they are debtors to the Jews and Greeks, to the Brahmans and the Buddhists, the Iranians and the Scandinavians, they are indebted most of all to Christianity, its history and its tradition, for their best of thought and life.

The next point of belief on which Unitarians differ widely among themselves is the life and character of Jesus, and his relation to the religious life

of men. But the difference is not now by any means so great as it was formerly, when the majority (I speak here of America) held to the Arian opinion that he was neither God nor man, but much nearer God than man in power and majesty; and only a very small minority regarded him as purely human.

To-day, these proportions are reversed. The majority is humanitarian.

The minority is Arian, and its Arianism is not that of former generations. Those who do not regard Jesus as entirely human regard him as much more akin to man than to God. And these are very few and far between. Belief in the humanity of Jesus is now nearly universal. But, whether it ought to logically or not, it is certain that it does not prevent a goodly number from believing that he was a worker of miracles, and that his birth and death were attended by miracles as great as any that he ever wrought. The goodly number is, however, lessening steadily; and it is decidedly in a minority already, unless my calculations are at fault.

The question of miracles is one about which there is among Unitarians a great variety of opinions. There are few, if any, in our fellowship who set aside all the accounts of miracles in the New Testament as devoid of any factfoundation. There are still fewer who believe that, whatever actually happened, there was any violation of natural law.

The view of Dr. Furness, which was considered dread- fully heretical when it was first promulgated, about fifty years ago, is now, perhaps, the most common view of the conservatives among us. It is that the wonder-working power of Jesus was the exponent of his moral excellence.

To this it is objected by the more radical that approximate moral excellence 56

should give approximate wonder-working power, and there is not the slightest evidence that it has ever done so. The present state of opinion is, it seems to me, pretty much this: That Jesus was miraculously born is very generally, almost universally, discredited. That he was raised from the dead has a much wider credence. But of his resurrection there are many different interpretations.

Only a few believe that his crucified body came forth from the grave and ascended into heaven. Many believe that there was some visionary appearance that gave rise to the resurrection stories. Even the most radical incline to the belief that they represent some remarkable psychological experience. As for the miracles ascribed to Jesus, the commonest opinion is that, through his own faith and that of others, some were relieved of certain nervous affections, and that the principle Fama crescit eundo " Rumor grows in going" accounts for the numerous reports of miracle in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, over and above the dealings with demoniacs.

In the Fourth Gospel, deliberate imagination seems to have been at work.

The bias of the resurrection miracle upon the belief in immortality has prevented it from being made a matter of dispassionate consideration. There are some who fain would find in it a convincing proof of all men's immortality.

Time was when not a few insisted that the sole evidence for immortality was here, and survivals of this insistence can still be discovered here and there. But the belief in immortality among Unitarians is generally held upon entirely different grounds, its answer to the intellectual and moral and affectional demands of mortal imperfection. To say that the belief in immortality is universal among Unitarians

might be extravagant. But where there is not actual belief there is, in almost every individual case, a hope that seems so reasonable and is so strong and brave that, compared with the "dead certainty" of others, it has an attractive face.

The doctrine that this life is a probation, and that its character will determine the eternal future's weal or woe, was once extremely common among Unitarians. Now it has none to do it reverence. Now it is universally believed that, if there is another life, we enter on it well equipped or ill according as we have made good use or ill of earthly opportunity; but that for the worst and best equipped there will be "the glory of going on," and no mere settling down to the enjoyment or the suffering of a condition determined by our conduct here.

There are other differences of opinion concerning Jesus than those pertaining to his nature, his miracles, his resurrection. Among those who equally concede his complete humanity, some insist upon his moral perfection, while others remember that he said, "Why callest thou me good?"

Moral perfection cannot be judged of from without, especially at forty or fifty years' remove; and an affirmative judgment from within would be its own invalidation. There are still those who "dwell," as Emerson put it, "with noxious exaggeration on the person of Jesus."

There are still those who have, as Channing put it, "a swollen way of talking about Jesus." And there are others to whom the deliberate mouthing of his name and titular appendages is an unspeakable offence, hindering the course of his great spirit. But these can hardly be exceeded in their admiration for his faith in God, his love for man, his 57

hatred of all meanness and hypocrisy, his gentle life and his heroic death, or in their sense of the importance of his brief career to eighteen centuries of Christian civilization.

The doctrine of atonement by the blood of Jesus plays, and has played, such a conspicuous part in theological systems that it may well be asked, "Do Unitarians believe nothing corresponding to this imposing doctrine of vicarious atonement?"

They believe, without exception, that the regular orthodox doctrine that it was necessary for Jesus to die a horrible death in order that God might extend forgiveness to his erring and repentant children is a doctrine only less monstrous and absurd than the doctrine of eternal punishment for temporal sins. And they furthermore believe, without exception, that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself," to ideal truth and holiness, in the same way that he is now and always has been in good men and true, willing to suffer and to die, if need be, for their fellow-men.

The character of the Bible is another point of doctrine upon which there has been from first to last a considerable difference of opinion among Unitarians. At first, it was regarded as miraculously inspired in every part. Then, very gradually, with the development of critical science, this opinion became qualified in various particulars. Verbal infallibility was the first to go. Then the unauthentic character of certain books and parts of books became clear as day.

Then the processes of aggregation, which resulted in the Old and New Testament canons, being carefully examined, it was found that there was not a single fact on which to base a theory of supernatural origin for

any book in either Testament. The different books were seen to have drifted together in obedience to various tides of theory and sentiment. That in the "struggle for existence" there was generally a "survival of the fittest" seemed extremely probable, but “generally� is not "always"; and the fittest had as little supernatural warrant of their excellence as the unfittest. At length, the human character of the Bible may be regarded as an almost or quite unanimous opinion among Unitarians.

The most conservative [Unitarians] allow that the separate books differ greatly one from another both in character and practical value, and deprecate the putting of them all on one high level. The most radical find in the Old Testament and New together the most admirable and wonderful collection of sacred scriptures that any people has preserved. If others rise at times to equal or to greater heights, the average altitude of these is markedly predominant. As to the character and authenticity of various book, there are still various opinions.

The more conservative rally with particular vehemence about the Fourth Gospel, but few of them consider it the work of John in an unqualified sense.

That it has some impress of his mind or memory upon it is the most that is contended for by the more cautious and intelligent. The radical transformation of the Old Testament by the scholarship of Kuenen and Reuss and W ellhausen, whereby the priestly portions of the Pentateuch are credited to the fifth century B.C., has conquered for itself in ten years a very general acceptance; while many other critical opinions upon books or parts of books that were regarded twenty or thirty years ago with general suspicion are now received with 58

hardly a dissenting voice.

Thus, with as much particularity as your patience would allow, I have set forth the beliefs of Unitarians upon all the more important matters that engage the interest and enthusiasm of the religious world. I have endeavored to give a fair account, unbiassed by my personal predilections, for some opinions as compared with others. But our wish is so extremely apt to be the father of our thought that I may have erred in claiming for the opinions which are particularly dear to me a wider currency than they actually enjoy.

But, whatever deductions may be made on this account, the central facts will not be seriously changed. They are that, notwithstanding the lack of any creed that even claims to be authoritative or discriminative among Unitarians as individuals and churches, and notwithstanding the freest and the fullest exercise of intellectual freedom, there is an amount of intellectual agreement in the Unitarian fellowship in comparison with which the disagreements are of the small- est possible account; and, moreover, that upon those points where there is least agreement there is a strong and unmistakable tendency to completer unanimity. They all believe that reason is the final test of truth, and in the right and duty of the freest thought upon the highest themes. They all believe that character is more than creed, conduct more than opinion, while still believing that a right belief is of immense importance. They all believe in the unity of the Divine Being, not only ontologically, but morally, and of this doctrine they are making every year a more consistent application.

They all believe in the essential dignity of human nature and of human

life, and find no reason in the latest science to abate one jot of their inspiring faith. And if concerning the person and the offices of Jesus, the nature of Christianity, the question of miracle, the future life, the general character of the Bible and its particular contents, there is less of unanimity than on the points already named, there is wide and ever-widening agreement, and, in the meantime, an ability to disagree with mutual respect and kindliness that is seldom marred by any outburst of illiberality.

But, with all the unanimity that is at present characteristic of their fellowship, and all that is prophetically heralded in the tendencies of thought and feeling that are clearly manifest, the Unitarians have not a particle of fear that they are coming upon any period of " definite homogeneity," in which all play of individual character and opinion will be hopelessly submerged. Whatever agreement there may come to be upon questions of first- or second-rate importance, there is little likelihood that, with perfect freedom, there will not be enough diversity to keep us safe from any wooden uniformity or any miserable stagnation.

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Lastly, but not least, Unitarians believe that, whatever future there may be for them as an organized fellowship, the future of their doctrines and ideas is to be altogether great and glorious. They believe that Orthodoxy is already permeated with their doctrines and ideas to a much greater extent than it was when Channing and his contemporaries stood forth by themselves, and that, if a new departure should again be forced, for every man that came out in 1820 there would now be a score, if not a hundred. Their own future as an organized fellowship seems to them full of hope and cheer.

To this prospect they are not indifferent; but of one thing they are entirely sure, and for it they are wholly glad, that the truth which they so dearly love is going on from victory to victory, from faith to faith, from joy to joy.

There is no ending to the road, No limit to the flying goal, But speeds the ever-greatening soul From truth to truth, from God to God.

A Daring Faith John W. Chadwick Berry Street Essay, 1884 Delivered at the Ministerial Conference Boston, Massachusetts May 28, 1884 I am indebted to a friend for the subject of the address which I shall read to you this morning, to many friends no doubt alive and dead for much that I shall say. My subject is "A Daring Faith.” We have, I think, a just description here of the faith to which many Unitarians have arrived already and to which the average tendency of the Unitarian body is quite unmistakable. Let it be understood that I am the voluntary spokesman, here, of the many who have already come to the Mount Zion of this faith, and who believe the average tendency to be sound and good. When I speak of this faith as "ours,” let it be understood that I have these in mind, and am not imputing to the Unitarian body, as a whole, a faith which some of its most honorable and honored members do not cherish.

Why is this faith of ours a daring faith? For one thing because it is a faith in religion. And there can be no faith in religion, at this present time, which does not involve an element of daring. It is made necessary, in the first place, by the history of religion. And not merely by its history as summarized by those who have arrayed themselves against religion with deliberate and conscious animosity.

If such were to be trusted, we should believe with them that the record of religion in the past had been a record of evil and of evil only.

Daring our faith must be to meet their railing accusation; but daring, too, to meet the unquestionable facts which the 60

impartial annalist records, and the unavoidable concessions of those who still believe that the religious interests of mankind are its most vital interests. "We cannot forget,” says one** in whose "large utterance” we all rejoice, "that religion has been a worker of evil, one of the greatest workers of evil. No agent that has wrought in earthly scenes has been more prolific of ruin and wrong. The wildest aberrations of human nature, crimes the most portentous, hatred and wrath and bloodshed more than have flowed from all sources besides, have been its fruits. The victims of fanaticism outnumber those of every other and all other passions that have wasted the earth. Pining in dungeons, hunted like beasts of prey, stretched on the rack, affixed to the cross, their sufferings are the horror of history. No high wrought fiction, recounting imaginary woes, can match the colors of their authentic tragedy. A corruption of the text of the Vedas has cast thousands of Hindu women on the funeral pile. An interpolation of two words in the service of the Eastern Church has driven whole villages in Russia into fiery death. A sentence in the Book of Exodus has been a death sentence to millions of helpless women. And who shall compute the sum of the lives that have furnished the holocausts of the inquisition.” (**Editor’s note: Frederic Henry Hedge, (1877) Ways of the Spirit, and Other Essays - Page 36 - Google Books Result.

https://books.google.com/books?id=pY1H AAAAIAAJ) And this tale of sorrows, though it is long and terrible, does not include some of the most dreadful counts. These sorrows have but killed the body. Others have cast the human spirit into hell. They have fostered ignorance, they have crushed out intelligence, they have nourished thousands of insanities, the most intolerable, the most incurable that have marred and wasted the diviner part of man.

To blink not one of all these monstrous facts, to allow them their full force, and yet have faith in religion, -faith in its past as well as in its present and its future, -- must not the loving be the daring who can attain to this? To this have we attained. We dare so much.

Religion is not discountenanced by these monstrous facts. They are the defects of its qualities. They are the fierce, black, swirling eddies which declare the volume and momentum of the torrent in its mid career. They no more impeach the essential soundness of religion than the excesses of the sexual passion impeach the soundness of this passion. Without this, men, without that, man, would shortly be extinct.

Religion has indeed been guilty of these crimes and misdemeanors, but they do not exhaust the fullness of her life. She has done much besides. She has reared the grandest buildings, written the most precious books, inspired the noblest arts, -- their first inception and their highest range, -- furnished the most illustrious men, giving at once their motive and their aim, inaugurated the most important changes in society, controlled the most far-reaching movements of mankind. Let all the facts be shown in their due order and 61

proportion; and the most daring would be those who dare deny the ultimate validity of that force in human nature which has been equal to so much of lordly benefit, stained though it be with many lusts and crimes.

But there is that in certain aspects of our immediate time which is more daring to our faith in both the present and the future value of religion, whatever its past record, than any arraignment which its enemies have brought against it, or any admissions which its honest friends have made in its disfavor. What I refer to is an ethical passion, consciously and deliberately detaching itself from religion, whose votaries insist that religion has no future, that henceforth ethics must be all in all, that, in the present, religion still hinders ethical advancement as it has always hindered it in the past; but it must hinder it no more.

So grave and sweet are many of the voices that assure us that these things are so that we cannot but accord to them our earnest heed. They present a remarkable phenomenon at the very moment when the insistence is so common that a moral interregnum must ensue not only on the decay of Christian dogma. The ethics correlated with this dogma has been vitiated from the start by an ulterior motive. Nothing is given up on earth that is not made up for many times over in the heavenly places. The dictum of Hopkinsian piety, that we should be willing to be damned for the glory of God, shines like a bright particular star amid the general darkness.

But the dictum of the new ethical passion is that we should be willing to be damned for the glory of man; we should be willing to sacrifice ourselves utterly, if, haply so, the coming man may stand erect in larger freedom and in fuller joy. It

is not an easy matter to resist the fascination of this new asceticism, this Donatism of to-day. But, when we have listened to its wisest speech or its most eloquent, we dare believe that ethics is not all, and that a religion which is ethics only, if it be truly a religion, is not all. If there is duty, there is also joy and worship. Even though it were not permitted us to say "God” any more, we should still be confronted night and day by the majestic order of the universe; and it would say to us, "Rejoice! Rejoice!” and the totality of our relation to it could not be exhausted by any sense of mutual obligation between man and man.

The morning and the evening hush, the glow at night of multitudinous stars, the spring’s delicious trouble in the ground, the summer’s beautiful effulgence, the imperial splendor of autumnal days, and, more than all, the wonder and the mystery of human life and thought and love, -- not until these things and such as these gladden our hearts no more, and no longer soften them with the still rain of tears, will the religion of the harmoniously developed man be "mere morality,” albeit the most exigent that has ever summoned men to passionate self-surrender. They reckon ill who leave this worship factor out from their conception of religion. Ours is a daring faith, because it dares believe that moral obligation is not, as it has been so frequently declared to be of late, the sole substance of religion. This is not less than its most earnest and exalted devotees would have us to believe; and still it is a part.

"Sometimes, I have an awful thought, Which bids me do the thing I ought: It comes like wind, it burns like flame, How can I give that thought a name?

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It draws me like a loving kiss.

My soul says, There is more than this.”

(Editor’s note: I Saw the Beauty of the World.

Unity Hymns and Chorals: For the Congregation and the Home.James Vila Blake, William Channing Gannett, Frederick Lucian Hosmer 1880 https://books.google.com/books?id=cHXAHpHhJ7 cC)

What is this which is more than ethics? It is not worship. It is religion, -religion which is not ethics alone, nor worship alone, but ethics and worship indissolubly fused into one great commanding and inspiring unity.

Again, ours is a daring faith, because it is not merely faith in religion, and in religion as "morality touched by emotion,” conjoined with worship in co-equal marriage, but also faith in natural religion, in religion as natural. To cherish such a faith is to array one’s self against a great majority of the human race. With this majority, which is not Christian only, but also Jewish and Mohammedan and Brahmanic and Buddhistic and of many humbler faiths, -with this majority, religion is a something supernatural, something imposed on human nature from without, and not the natural flowering of its inherent and most characteristic life. To this belief, we dare oppose the faith of Emerson, -"Out of the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old.”

Out of this same great heart have come all Bibles, all religions. We posit no divine communication as opposed to human possibility or additional to it. The divine communication is in the structure of the world. The Word is evermore becoming flesh, and we evermore behold its glory full of grace and truth. It is not from any disposition to minimize God that we deny to him any isolated irruption into

the habitual order of the world. It is because we would maximize him to the uttermost. That once or twice he spoke and broke a silence otherwise eternal, -this is too nearly atheistic for our minds and hearts. We want a present God, and no mere hearsay or tradition. We do not wish to live on the report of dead men’s truth and dead men’s virtue. Our God, -he is no "ebbing tide that left Strewn with dead miracle those eldest shores, For men to dry and dryly lecture on, Himself henceforth incapable of flood.”

(Editor’s note: The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell) He is a living God. O friends, who think that God once spoke in some far-off millennium, and then relapsed into his former alienation, and that the best that we can do is to listen for the echoes of that distant voice, mingled with infinite wild jargonings of insensate men, what say you to this pulsing, radiant beauty of the early summer, to this flood of life which has crept up and up till it has caught the highest tree-tops in its waves, and now breaks into flowers and music at our feet? Is it by any hearsay or tradition that these things are so? Nay, the Immanent and Never-failing Life.

No summer of the earliest time had ever more of Him to warm and quicken it then this which flings its blossoms to our throbbing breasts. And shall the Eternal One be further from the life of man than from the life of woods and streams? Shall the grass grow and the buds burst and the flowers fling out their tiny gonfalons, and the birds sing and the summer come as it has come and will in an unstinted tide of beauty and of good, and all by his immediate inspiration; and shall the heart of man live 63

on the vague tradition and surmise of some elusive momentary gleam of his ineffable glory, vouchsafed long since in some gray morning of the world?

Let those who can believe it: we cannot. We dare believe, and to the uttermost. We dare not doubt so much.

Either a God who lives and speaks to-day, or none that has ever lived, none that has ever spoken; either a revelation that is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh and spirit of our spirit, a revelation that is inherent in our being’s inmost grain, or the eternal silence still unbroken.

There are those who claim that a belief in supernatural powers impinging on the circle of our mortal life has been essential to the progress of mankind, to its appropriation of all best and fairest things. And, because their name is legion and because their lips are touched sometimes with infinite persuasion, it may well be a daring faith that shall precipitate itself upon a different conclusion.

But here we stand. So help us God, we can no otherwise. Not faith in miracle, but faith in law has been the saving grace in human history. To men’s growing confidence in the stability thrusts, is due all the stability of human life. As if the incalculable element in nature were not sufficiently immense and sufficiently paralyzing to the arm of industry and social enterprise, men have induced upon it the incalculable element of an imaginary supernatural sphere. So handicapped, the wonder is that man has made anything but a miserable failure of the race set before him.

But he has from age to age reduced the incalculable element in nature within narrower limits, and simultaneously he has heeded less and less the suggestion of a supernatural interpolation. And in proportion to his

doing of these things has been his growing mastery of the world. To the fabled music of Amphion the obsequious stones built up the walls of Thebes. No fable is the music of men’s faith in the invariable sequences of natural law to which the arts of civilization have upreared themselves for our defence and joy. Without a growing faith in the uniform procedure of that Power which manifests itself in the qualities and relationships of all material things, the vast and infinitely complex web of civilization would never have been spun.

And, could this faith be taken from us now, all that the patient generations have accomplished would at once begin to melt into thin air. Our sufficiency is of God; not of his interference and caprice, but in the unchanging and unchangeable consistency of all his ways.

A daring faith! And how much better than the daring doubt that he is equal to all places and events, that he is present here and now as surely and as graciously as he has ever been in any time or place since the first atom stirred, that his steadfast law is as simple for the beatitudes and graces of our inner life as for the economies of our material comfort and prosperity!

Faith in religion, whatever crimes have been committed in its name, whatever imbecilities afflict its present course; faith in religion, not as morality alone, but as morality and worship equally conjoined; faith in religion as the most natural gesture of the human soul, in Law as the expression of the everlasting faithfulness and the foundation of our deepest trust, -- here is a daring faith. And yet its terms do not exhaust the fullness of the faith that is demanded of us by the exigencies of this modern time, -- exigencies which Denton 64

formulated when he said, "To dare to dare, and evermore to dare.�

The best, the most important, certainly, is yet unsaid. It is that we are cowards still, without the courage of our principles, recreant to all that is most sacred in our Unitarian tradition till we have added to the faith already named faith in the simplicity of religion, faith in its spirituality, faith in its essential quality as transcending all dogmatic limitations.

This is the most daring faith of all, but there is nothing new in its enunciation. It is good, old-fashioned Unitarianism, the Unitarianism of William Ellery Channing, which declared that character, not creed, is the essential thing, and that it is our duty, not less than our right, to exercise the fullest liberty of thought concerning the most sacred things. Thousands of times these declarations have been made. Hundreds of times they have been clarioned forth upon great public occasions, and have been received with thunders of applause.

But it is one thing to say these things or to assent to them in a general way, and it is quite another thing to apply the principles which they involve to a particular case: such, for example, as the famous Year Book Controversy, which lately came to such a comfortable, not to say comical, conclusion, spoiling a splendid opportunity for straightforward justice and fidelity to an ideal; such, still more notably, as the constitution of our National Conference, which, had we the courage of our principles, would long since have ceased from being the absurdly contradictory instrument it is today. But there are many hopeful signs.

One of the most hopeful is the publication by our Unitarian Association of such a book as Mr. Hall’s Orthodoxy and Heresy. If the Association had done

nothing else for a whole year, it would have done enough to justify our perfect confidence. For what is the final outcome of that learned, interesting, and courageous book? In its own words, it is: "Either Catholicism is right, or doctrine is not essential to Christianity. As true Protestants, of course our choice is clear.

We hold Protestantism to be right.

Therefore, we must conclude that doctrine is not essential to Christianity.

There can be a pure and true Christian faith without Christian doctrines, without any verbal statements, that is, in which all are forced to unite. Doctrine is not an essential part of Christianity, else Catholicism is right and Protestantism is wrong.” Here is a standard which allows not only religiousness, but Christianity, to those who find themselves compelled to question or repudiate the supernatural claims of Jesus, made for him or by him, and to reject his spiritual lordship and finality.

I shall not linger at this stage of my discourse. Mr. Hall’s presentment of his thought is so comprehensive and persuasive, and it is so easily accessible, that I am little tempted to repeat in some indifferent fashion what he has spoken once for all. But his final inference shall introduce me into the concluding part of what I have to say. It is much further-reaching than the inference that Christianity is superior to all dogmatic limitations. "For fifteen hundred years,” he says, "the Christian world tried the experiment, under circumstances the most favorable possible, of turning Christianity into a creed, of distrusting reason and providing an infallible authority for the soul, of erasing all theological differences and effecting unity of belief. The experiment failed disastrously.

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If we are wise, we shall accept the failure and not repeat the experiment. It means that dogma is no essential part of religion.” It does indeed mean all of this, but not explicitly. Explicitly, it only means that dogma is no essential part of Christianity. It is a daring faith that can apply even so much as this to the affairs of practical and organized religion. But there are applications of the principle involved which demand a much more daring faith than that which allows religiousness to many who reject the supernatural character of Christianity and the spiritual lordship of Jesus.

For us to dare so much is easier than not to do it; that is, for those of us who do not accept the supernatural account of Christianity nor admit the lordship of the Nazarene. It is for those who do accept the one and who do admit the other that the daring is painful exigency. Whether we have or have not a courage which they dare not show depends on our ability to allow religiousness to those who openly reject the doctrines that are dear to us beyond expression, being convinced that dogma is no more essential to religions in its last inclusiveness than the Christian dogma is to Christianity. Such are the doctrines corresponding to the verbal symbols God and Immortality.

If these symbols have for us no longer any meaning, nothing is easier than to allow religiousness to those who openly reject them. So doing, we may only prove our lack of a sufficient courage to assume the odium which we more than half-suspect belongs to such an intellectual position. But, if the verbal symbols, God and Immortality, stand with us for great and wonderful realities, if at their touch thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears are quickened in the mind,

if those whom we have dearly loved have slipped away from us into the Great Silence, if one perhaps dearest and best of all is everywhere and always missed and life were insupportable without the hope of one day meeting her again and knowing that she knows what holy task-work we have made the lonely years, - if it is so with us, then faith in the simplicity of religion, in its transcendency of all dogmatic limitations, is for us indeed a daring faith.

And to this we are called: not to give up our own faith in God, not to give up our own faith in Immortality, but to believe and to persistently maintain that without conscious faith in either of these (to us) divine realities a religiousness is possible of no doubtful character, a religion of unswerving trust and holy consecration.

I know that some of us are equal to these things. It may be that all of us are so. That all of us should be I cannot but desire with strong desire. It must be confessed that there are those in all our churches for whom the symbols, God and Immortality, have no longer any deep significance, to whom the first seems so misleading that it were better set aside, to whom the second stands for something that they could not, if they would, expect and would not, if they could, dreading the weight of the eternal years, - for such there is no trial of their faith.

Such, without effort, can agree that morals are exhaustive of religion, or, seeking a larger outlook, that religion is man’s sense of his relation to the Universe and his endeavor somehow to convert this sense into a binding law of life. But not so easily can they for whom the tow words "God” and "immortality” stand for imperious necessities of intellect and conscience and affection, if 66

which can be denied, the pillared firmament is rottenness and earth’s base built on stubble. To these and such as these, and undogmatic faith flings down a real challenge.

Dare they believe and steadfastly maintain that religion is not to be measured by the presence or the absence of those imposing and commanding doctrines that have been most distinctly associated with its historical development? Dare they give their unqualified assent to the saying of one, himself an English Trinitarian, who has written the most religious book*** that has been published in our time, a book that is brimful of god: "No definition of religion can be satisfactory, unless it surrenders all distinctions between essential and non-essential dogmas: unless, in fact, it is capable of embracing within its scope every conceivable opinion that can by any possibility be conscientiously held.” "Upon this rock,” saith the spirit, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (*** Editor’s note: James Orr (1893). Incarnation.

The Christian View of God and the World... https://books.google.com/books?id=m3xCAAAAIA AJ)

Nothing is surer than that intellectually and formally a man may be a theist and yet have very little religiousness. His thought of God may touch him less devoutly than the sight of April violets or a rose in June may touch another man who makes no pretensions to religion. Wisely and well asks Frederic Harrison: "Why need a theist be one who has a religion? All that he does, as a theist, is to answer a certain cosmical problem in a certain way.” Nothing is surer, on the other hand, than that a m an may intellectually and formally refrain

from the theistic affirmation, may even permit himself to be called an atheist, and even prefer to be so called, and nevertheless he may be (he is by no means necessarily) profoundly religious.

For religion is an awful, tender, earnest, solemn, trustful sense of our relation to the great sum of universal life and law; and it often happens that, just in proportion as this sense is vital and profound, a man is disinclined to accept any statement which other men have made of the ultimate mystery of Bing or to make any statement of his own. I should say, myself, that such a man is an unconscious theist. In every earnest attempt that has so far been made to state the problem of the universe in other than theistic terms, I find, or think I do, an unquestionable theistic implication.

"Man cannot be God’s outlaw if he would, Nor so abscond him in the caves of sense, But Nature still shall find some crevice out With messages of splendor from that source, Which, soar he, dive he, baffles still and lures.”

(Editor’s note: From: James Russel Lowell, The Cathedral.

God is at the beginning of our thought, not at the end of it. We cannot believe in ourselves without believing in him. We cannot trust our faculties without trusting the ultimate ground of their existence. We cannot deny God without thereby affirming him. But, if a man refuses to call himself or to be called a theist, we must take him at his word.

Only, if he is one who thrills with recognition of the tender grace and awful sweep of things, one whom the vastness of life’s awful temple almost oppresses 67

with a sense of order and of might, one whom this sense and recognition binds to constant service of the Beautiful and Good and True, let us dare say that, in the highest, deepest sense, he is religious; let us not dare, whatever question he may make of personal theism, whatever objection to the name of God with any possible interpretation, to doubt that he has chosen for himself the better part which cannot be taken from him by any failure on his part to express to others’ satisfaction the logic of the mystery of the Eternal Life.

As with the doctrine of Theism, so also with the doctrine of Immortality. The more it is to us, the less shall we be tempted to believe that any one can willingly forego its precious consolation.

The subjective bias in favor of this doctrine is so immense that to blame a man for doubting its validity is a terrible perversion of the natural order of ideas.

The logic of his doubt we may impugn, but surely not his moral rectitude in denying that which, could he do it honestly, he would affirm with passionate delight. Nothing is surer than that intellectually and formally a man may hold it with unquestioning assurance and be no more religious for so doing. Bound up as it has been in Christian history with the doctrine of eternal misery, it has been eminently unreligious, - a libel upon God, a horrid blasphemy.

There is often more religion in the denial of this doctrine than in its affirmation, as when the denial is the outcome of a certain noble modesty, demanding, what am I, that I should dare to ask for such immense continuance? In short, this doctrine is potentially and not intrinsically religious. Its religiousness depends upon the way in which it is held.

It is held for the most part so selfishly and

sordidly that it were better doubted or denied. But when all its religious potentiality is made actual, how beautiful it is, how sweet, how excellent! What visions it projects of blessed things to be,- fuller appropriation of the splendid meanings of the world, deeper insight into its solemn mysteries, beauty and truth unveiling more and more of their immortal grace, and then- a flash of recognition and the long story of the years of absence told, and the long sundered parts of the one life knitting together, and the united strength bracing itself to tasks of high adventure and unselfish love!

"For, sudden, the worst turns the best to the brave: The black minute’s at end, And the elements’ rage, and the voices that rave Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy, Then a light; then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again!

And with God be the rest.”

(Robert Browning: Prospice) Here is a hope, a trust, a faith, for which we need not make excuse, of which we need not be ashamed. If there is anything noble in us, is it not this? And yet there is a deeper deep. There is a trust more perfect. And we attain to it, when we say with calm sincerity, "Whatever is agreeable to thee, O Nature, is agreeable to me.” Better than any faith in the immortal life is faith that, if such a life is best for us, then it will surely come. We do not want it, if it is not best.

Let the Eternal Power decide! "If our bark sinks, ‘tis to this deeper sea.”

And there are those who sail it 68

evermore. They have no assurance of a life beyond the grave. They have a complete assurance that, if such a life is good for them to live, they shall not miss the way. Is such a habit of the soul less perfectly religious, do you think, than Theodore Parker’s certainly of immortality or than the cry of some, "NO immortality, no God, no good”? Is it not of all possible habits of the soul the most perfectly religious?

The drift of these considerations may be willfully misunderstood, but hardly otherwise by any serious mind. It is not that we would have the great beliefs in God and Immortality less precious in men’s eyes. We would that we might strengthen and ennoble them a hundred-fold. What we desire is that, however great and precious and consoling these beliefs may be to men, they should have a daring faith that they are not exhaustive of religion, not, by any means, the final standards of its grace and power. They may be rigorous and aggressive in the mind, while at the same time the quality of a man’s religiousness is intolerably poor. They may be timorous, silent, or even consciously opposed, and the quality of a man’s religion may be sweet and sane, a gracious force in his own life, a blessing to his kind. Here is no idol of the closet, whose living counterpart we have never found in the society of living men: but the living men, whom we have known and loved, in whose walk and conversation we have seen the fair embodiment of this gospel that we preach, have been our most convincing argument that these things are surely so.

To allow that the most characteristic dogmas of religion are not essential to a profound religiousness will doubtless seem to some of our remoter

friends a paradox well qualified to cheapen and discourage all belief in God or the immortal life. But it is our belief that this allowance- let it become insistence, and so much the better- will have no such operation. We do not believe that either of these great beliefs has gained one noble suffrage in the course of human history by the persistent association and the persistent association of moral shame and blame with their negation. We believe that, once removed forever from the sphere of praise and blame, these ideas and beliefs will enter on a new career of victory and renown.

The opprobrium here to fore attaching to denial has whipped in the cowards, while it has piqued the courage of high-tempered and chivalrous men.

Like Perugino, who refused the final sacraments when dying, they wish to see "how a man fares who has dispensed with all these things.” "Men are responsible,” said Thomas Jefferson, "not for the rightfulness, but for the righteousness of their opinions.” To hold them responsible for their rightfulness is to put their righteousness in constant jeopardy. The mystery of faith cannot be held in a pure conscience so long as this enormous bias hangs upon it. But that it shall be held in a pure conscience is of the first importance. "The hell that a lie will keep a man from is doubtless,” George MacDonald says, " the best place for him to go to.” Whatever the result of freeing the great doctrines of religion from the moral bias that has hung upon them in the past, there is nothing else for those to do who see that it is not legitimate.

"Guard thou the act! though ‘t safer seem In harbor to abide: For us the tides of ocean stream; The safe must first be tried.”

(Editor’s note: Although this seems to be an off69

quoted piece of poetry by Unitarian ministers. The source has not been located.)

And what remains to us when we have come to this conclusion, - that dogma is not essential to religion and that no exception can be made to this exalted rule? Why, it remains, for those of us who have our own doctrinal persuasions, freely to utter them to urge them on our fellowmen in the degree of our conviction of their spiritual significance, always subordinating them, however, to the assurance felt, and manfully avowed, that the mere holding of nay doctrine whatsoever has no religious quality.

A man’s belief in God, a man’s belief in Immortality, may be the continent of a religiousness of incalculable depth of sweetness. And it may be "a cipher with the rim removed.” What remains is for those of us who cherish these beliefs to rescue them so far as in us lies from all unmoral and immoral implications, to make them radiant with celestial peace and calm, motives and inspirations to all highest excellence, all sweet humanities.

This, too, remains: the faith that, even for those who somehow have lost these doctrines and persuasions irretrievably, all is not lost. It remains for us to show how many great and ample reasons still exist for carrying out the poet’s high behest when he puts question, and makes answer thus:"Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!

Sits there no Judge in heaven, our sin to see?

More strictly then the inward judge obey!

Was Christ a man like us? Ah! Let us try If we then, too can be such men as he!”

(Matthew Arnold: The better Part) There remains the unity of the Spirit,- the spirit of beauty, truth, and good, the spirit of awe and wonder,

reverence and adoration, trust and peace, as we more deeply apprehend the ordered vastness of the world and more earnestly ally ourselves with its invincible and glorious sweep from good to better and from better on to best. Are we a little flock, and do we sometimes shudder at our isolation? To what a company that no man can number are we conjoined by this unity of the Spirit! As the good ship passes the equator with no monitory ripple of the sea beneath her steady keel, so, thanks to this, we pass a thousand nominal barriers of sect and creed, and enjoy the freedom of a thousand cities of all lands and times.

Wherever there is love of beauty, truth, and good, and loyalty to these; wherever there is wonder, reverence, and aspiration; wherever there is devotion to ideal ends of human betterment, - there is our passage free, and there are we at home.

But, if I enlarge my testimony further, I shall certainly be burdensome to you. A moment’s glance over the lengthy way that we have come together: A daring faith! faith in religion, blinking nothing of the crimes committed in her name, nothing of present folly that her stolen livery wears; faith in religion, but as morality alone, but as morality and worship; faith in religion as a thing as natural as the blowing clover and the falling rain. Last but not least, faith in the simplicity of religion, in its transcedency of all dogmatic limitations; faith that it is, at best, a manful recognition of the tender grace and awful sweep of things, and a high and pure resolve to convert this recognition into a voluntary energy of devotion to the Eternal Power that makes for righteousness.

We are so few that I can easily imagine with what scorn and 70

inextinguishable laughter such a horoscope as this would affect the proud and mighty ones of the traditional religion, who sit like gods enthroned, imagining that all the future is in fee for them and theirs forever. We can afford the laughter rand the scorn. To us belong the future, not to them. The signs are manifold that the old order changeth, giving place to new. The air is full of portents of the coming time.

Blessed are the eyes that see the things that we see; for many prophets and kings of thought have desired to see the things tht we see and have not seen them, and to hear the things that we hear and have not heard them. But, wonderful as is the change already realized, we have every reason to believe that it is little to the change that is impending, and will shortly come to pass. Doubt not that there awaits a glorious future for religion.

But it will be religion without dogma; a passion for all truth; a great lift of the heart to the ineffable mystery; great hopes for great souls; the moral sentiment supreme. What have we done that our uplifted foreheads should be kissed by the first tender beams of such a dayspring from on high? What can we do that we may not be quite unworthy of such heavenly Chrism?

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Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889).

English poet and playwright.

Prospice Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more, The best and the last!

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I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!

A Traditional Unitarian Hymn This hymn was written in 1879 and published in "The Thought of God" with the title " The Indwelling God." Go not, my soul, in search of him, Thou wilt not find him there, — Or in the depths of shadow dim, Or heights of upper air.

For not in far-off realms of space The Spirit hath its throne; In every heart it findeth place And waiteth to be known.

Thought answereth alone to thought.

And Soul with soul hath kin; The outward God he findeth not Who finds not God within.

And if the vision come to thee Revealed by inward sign, Earth will be full of Deity And with his glory shine!

Thou shalt not want for company, Nor pitch thy tent alone; The indwelling God will go with thee.

And show thee of his own.

Then go not thou in search of him.

But to thyself repair; Wait thou within the silence dim, And thou shalt find him there !

Frederick Lucian Hosmer.

Tune: St. Hugh or Peace.

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The Gospel of Thomas Editor’s note: Numerous people have said to me, “I have never seen the Gospel of Thomas.” I have heard that it contains some rather unusual sayings attributed to Jesus. I’d like to read it for myself.” It is here presented in its entirety.

Source: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/thomas-anon.html Author of this translation: Anonymous The following is a fresh translation, made from the Coptic text published by Messrs. Brill of Leiden. In the preparation of this version the following six translations have been consulted, in addition to that published by Messrs. Brill: English by W. R. Schoedel; French by Doresse and R. Kasser; German by J. Leipoldt and Hans Quecke; Danish by S. Giversen. The numbering of the sayings is that of the Brill edition.

These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.

(1) And he said: He who shall find the interpretation of the words shall not taste of death.

(2) Jesus said: He who seeks, let him not cease seeking until: finds; and when he finds he will be troubled, and if he is troubled, he will be amazed, and he will reign over the All. (3) Jesus said: If those who lead you say unto you: Behold, the Kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will be before you. If they say unto you: It is in the sea, then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then shall you be known, and you shall know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if ye do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty, and you are poverty.

(4) Jesus said: The man aged in his days will not hesitate ask a little child of seven days about the place of life, and he shall live. For there are many first who shall be last, and they shall become a single one.

(5) Jesus said: Know what is before thy face, and what hidden from thee shall be revealed 74

unto thee; for there is nothing hidden which shall not be made manifest.

(6) His disciples asked him and said unto him: Wilt thou that we fast? And how shall we pray? Shall we give alms? And what rules shall we observe in eating? Jesus said: Do not lie; and that which you hate, do not do. For all things are revealed before heaven. For there is nothing hidden which shall not be manifest, and there is nothing covered which shall remain without being uncovered.

(7) Jesus said: Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion become man; and cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion become man.

(8) And he said: Man is like a wise fisherman, who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of small fish. Among them the wise fisherman found a large good fish. He threw down all the small fish into the sea; he chose the large fish without trouble. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

(9) Jesus said: Behold, the sower went forth, he filled his hand, he cast. Some fell upon the road; the birds came and gathered them.

Others fell on the rock, and sent no root down to the earth nor did they sprout any ear up to heaven. And others fell on the thorns; they

choked the seed, and the worm ate them. And others fell on the good earth, and brought forth good fruit unto heaven, some sixty -fold and some an hundred and twenty -fold.

(10) Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze.

(11) Jesus said: This heaven shall pass away, and that which above it shall pass away; and they that are dead are not alive and they that live shall not die. In the days when you were eating that which is dead, you were making it alive. When you come in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you have become two, what will you do?

(12) The disciples said to Jesus: We know that thou wilt go from us. Who is he who shall be great over us? Jesus said to them: In the place to which you come, you shall go to James the Just for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.

(13) Jesus said to his disciples: Make a comparison to me, and tell me whom I am like.

Simon Peter said to him: Thou art like a righteous angel. Matthew said to him: Thou art like a wise man of understanding. Thomas said to him: Master, my mouth will no wise suffer that I say whom thou art like. Jesus said: I am not thy master, because thou hast drunk, thou hast become drunk from the bubbling spring which I have measured out. And he took him, went aside, and spoke to him three words.

Now when Thomas came to his companions, they asked him: What did Jesus say unto thee?

Thomas said to them: If I tell you one of the words which he said to me, you will take up stones and throw them me; and a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.

(14) Jesus said to them: If you fast, you will beget a sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you 75

will do an evil to your spirits. And if you go into any land and travel in its regions, if they receive you eat what they set before you. Heal the sick among them. For that which goes into your mouth will not defile you, but that which comes forth from your mouth, that is what will defile you.

(15) Jesus said: When you see him who was not born of woman, throw yourselves down upon your face and worship him. He is your Father.

(16) Jesus said: Perhaps men think that I am come to cast peace upon the world, and know not that I am come to cast divisions upon the earth, fire, sword, war. For there shall be five in a house; there shall be three against two, and two against three, the father against the son and the son against the father, and they shall stand as solitaries.

(17) Jesus said: I will give you that which eye has not seen, an ear has not heard, and hand has not touched, and which has not entered into the heart of man.

(18) The disciples said to Jesus: Tell us how our end shall be. Jesus said: Have you then discovered the beginning, that you seek after the end? For where the beginning is, there shall the end be. Blessed is he who shall stand in the beginning, and he shall know the end and shall not taste of death.

(19) Jesus said: Blessed is he who was before he came into being. If you become my disciples and hear my words, these stones shall minister unto you. For you have five trees in Paradise which do not move in summer or in winter, and their leaves do not fall. He who knows them shall not taste of death.

(20) The disciples said to Jesus: Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like. He said to them: It is like a grain of mustard-seed, smaller than all seeds; but when it falls on the earth

which is tilled, it puts forth a great branch, and becomes shelter for the birds of heaven.

(21) Mary said to Jesus: Whom are thy disciples like? He said They are like little children dwelling in a field which is not theirs.

When the owners of the field come, they will say: Yield up to us our field. They are naked before them, to yield it up to them and to give them back their field. Therefore I say: If the master of the house knows that the thief is coming, he will keep watch before he comes, and will not let him dig into his house of his kingdom to carry off his vessels. You, then, be watchful over against the world. Gird up your loins with great strength, that the brigands may not find a way to come at you, since the advantage for which you look they will find.

May there be among you a man of understanding! When the fruit was ripe, he came quickly, his sickle in his hand, and reaped it. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

(22) Jesus saw some infants at the breast. He said to his disciples: These little ones at the breast are like those who enter into the kingdom. They said to him: If we then be children, shall we enter the kingdom? Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inside as the outside, and the outside as the inside, and the upper side as the lower; and when you make the male and the female into a single one, that the male be not male and the female female; when you make eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then shall you enter [the kingdom].

(23) Jesus said: I shall choose you, one out of a thousand, and two out of ten thousand, and they shall stand as a single one.

(24) His disciples said: Teach us concerning the place where thou art, for it is necessary for 76

us to seek after it. He said to them: He that hath ears, let him hear. There is a light within a man of light, and it gives light to the whole world. If it does not give light, there is darkness.

(25) Jesus said: Love thy brother as thy soul; keep him as the apple of thine eye.

(26) Jesus said: The mote which is in thy brother's eye, thou seest; but the beam which is in thine eye, thou seest not. When thou dost cast out the beam from thine own eye, then wilt thou see to cast out the mote from thy brother's eye.

(27) Jesus said: If you fast not from the world, you will not find the kingdom; if you keep not the Sabbath as Sabbath, you will not see the Father.

(28) Jesus said: I stood in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found them all drunk, I found none among them thirsting; and my soul was afflicted for the sons of men, for they are blind in their heart and they do not see. For empty came they into the world, seeking also to depart empty from the world. But now they are drunk. When they have thrown off their wine, then will they repent.

(29) Jesus said: If the flesh has come into being because of the spirit, it is a marvel; but if the spirit (has come into being) because of the body, it is a marvel of marvels. But as for me, I marvel at this, how this great wealth has settled in this poverty.

(30) Jesus said: Where there are three gods, they are gods; where there are two or one, I am with him.

(31) Jesus said: No prophet is acceptable in his village; a physician does not heal those who know him.

(32) Jesus said: A city that is built on a high

mountain and fortified cannot fall, nor can it remain hidden.

(33) Jesus said: What thou shalt hear in thine ear, proclaim to the other ear on your rooftops. For no man lights a lamp and sets it under a bushel, nor does he put it in a hidden place; but he sets it upon the lamp-stand, that all who go in and come out may see its light.

(34) Jesus said: If a blind man lead a blind man, both fall into a pit.

(35) Jesus said: It is not possible for anyone to go into the strong man's house and take it (or him) by force, unless he bind his hands; then he will plunder his house.

(41) Jesus said: He who has in his hand, to him shall be given; and he who has not, from him shall be taken even the little that he has.

(42) Jesus said: Become passers-by.

(43) His disciples said to him: Who art thou, that thou shouldst say these things to us? Jesus said to them From what I say unto you, you do not understand who I am, but you have become as the Jews; for they love the tree and hate its fruit, and they love the fruit and hate the tree.

(36) Jesus said: Be not anxious from morning to evening and from evening to morning about what you shall put on.

(44) Jesus said: He who blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and he who blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven.

(37) His disciples said: On what day wilt thou be revealed us, and on what day shall we see thee? Jesus said: When you unclothe yourselves and are not ashamed, and take your garments and lay them beneath your feet like little children, and tread upon them, then [shall ye see] the Son of the living One, and ye shall not fear.

(45) Jesus said: They do not gather grapes from thorns, no pluck figs from camel-thistles; they do not yield fruit. A good man brings forth a good thing from his treasure; a bad man bring forth evil things from his evil treasure which is in his heart, and he says evil things; for out of the abundance of his heart he brings forth evil things.

(38) Jesus said: Many times have you desired to hear these words which I speak unto you, and you have none other from whom to hear them. Days will come when you will seek after me, and you will not find me.

(46) Jesus said: From Adam to John the Baptist there is none born of woman who is higher than John the Baptist, so that his eyes will not be broken (?) But I have said, He who shall be among you as a little one shall know the kingdom, and shall be higher than John.

(39) Jesus said: The Pharisees and the scribes have receive the keys of knowledge; they have hidden them. They did not go in, and those who wanted to go in they did not allow. But you be ye wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

(40) Jesus said: A vine was planted apart from the Father, and since it is not established it will be pulled up by its roots and destroyed.

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(47) Jesus said: It is not possible for a man to ride two horses or draw two bows, and it is not possible for a servant to serve two masters; or he will honour the one and insult the other. A man does not drink old wine and immediately desire to drink new wine; and they do not pour new wine into old skins, lest they burst, nor do they pour old wine into new skins, lest it spoil.

They do not sew an old patch on a new garment, for a rent will come.

(48) Jesus said: If two make peace with one another in this or house, they shall say to the mountain: Be moved, and it shall be moved.

(49) Jesus said: Blessed are the solitary and the elect, for you shall find the kingdom; for you came forth thence, and shall go there again.

(50) Jesus said: If they say to you: Whence have you come?, tell them: We have come from the light, the place where the light came into being through itself alone. It [stood], and it re- vealed itself in their image. If they say to you: Who are you?, say: We are his sons, and we are the elect of the living Father. If they ask you: What is the sign of your Father in you?, tell them: It is a movement and a rest.

(51) His disciples said to him: On what day will the rest of the dead come into being? And on what day will the new world come? He said to them: That which ye await has come, but ye know it not.

(52) His disciples said to him: Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and they all spoke concerning (lit. in) thee. He said them: You have neglected him who is alive before you, and have spoken about the dead.

(53) His disciples said to him: Is circumcision profitable or not? He said to them: Were it profitable, their father would beget them from their mother circumcised. But the true circumcision in spirit has proved entirely profitable (lit.: has found usefulness altogether).

(54) Jesus said: Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

(55) Jesus said: He who shall not hate his father and his mother cannot be my disciple, and (he who does not) hate his brethren and his sisters and take up his cross like me shall not be worthy of me.

(56) Jesus said: He who has known the world has found corpse, and he who has found a 78

corpse, the world is not worthy of him.

(57) Jesus said: The kingdom of the Father is like a man who had [good] seed. His enemy came by night, he sowed a weed among the good seed. The man did not allow them to pull up the weed. He said to them: Lest perhaps you go to pull up the weed, and pull up the wheat with it. For on the day of harvest the weeds will be manifest; they will be pulled up and burned.

(58) Jesus said: Blessed is the man who has suffered; he has found the life.

(59) Jesus said: Look upon the living One so long as you live, that you may not die and seek to see him, and be unable to see.

(60) They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb going into Judaea. He said to his disciples: Why does he carry the lamb? They said to him: That he may kill it and eat it. He said to them: So long as it is alive he will not eat it, but if he kill it and it become a corpse. They said: Otherwise he will not be able to do it. He said to them: You also, seek for yourselves a place within for rest, lest you become a corpse and be eaten.

(61) Jesus said: Two shall rest upon a bed; one shall die, the other live.

Salome said: Who art thou; O man? And whose son? Thou hast mounted my bed, and eaten from my table. Jesus said to her I am he who is from that which is equal; to me was given of the things of my Father. Salome said I am thy disciple. Jesus said to her Therefore I say, when it is equal it will be filled with light, but when it is divided it will be filled with darkness (62) Jesus said: I tell my mysteries to those [who are worthy of my] mysteries. What thy right hand shall do, let not thy left hand know what it does.

(63) Jesus said: There was a rich man who had many possessions. He said: I will use my possessions that I may sow and reap and plant, and fill my barns with fruit, that I may have need of nothing. These were his thoughts in his heart. And in that night he died. He that hath ears, let him hear.

(64) Jesus said: A man had guests, and when he had prepared the dinner he sent his servant to summon the guests. He came to the first; he said to him: My master summons thee. He said: I have money with some merchants. They are coming to me in the evening. I will go and give them orders. I pray to be excused from he dinner. He went to another; he said to him: My master has summoned thee. He said to him: I have bought a house, and they ask me for a day. I shall not have time. He came to another; he aid to him: My master summons thee. He said to him: My friend is about to be married, and I am to hold a dinner. I shall not be able to come. I pray to be excused from the dinner. He went to another; he said to him: My master summons thee. He said him: I have bought a village; I go to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. I pray to be excused. The servant came, he said to his master: Those whom thou didst summon to the dinner have excused themselves. The master said to his servant: Go out to the roads. Bring those whom thou shall find, that they may dine. The buyers and the merchants [shall] not [enter] the places of my Father.

(65) He said: A good man had a vineyard. He gave it to husbandmen that they might work it, and he receive its fruit their hand. He sent his servant, that the husbandmen might give him the fruit of the vineyard. They seized his servant, they beat him, and all but killed him.

The servant came (and) told his master. His master said: Perhaps they did not know him.

He sent another servant; the husbandmen beat the other also. Then the master sent his son.

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He said: Perhaps they will reverence my son.

Those husbandmen, since they knew that he was the heir the vineyard, they seized him (and) killed him. He that hath ears, let him hear.

(66) Jesus said: Teach me concerning this stone which the builders rejected; it is the corner -stone.

(67) Jesus said: He who knows the All but fails (to know) him-self lacks everything.

(68) Jesus said: Blessed are you when they hate you, and persecute you, and do not find a place in the spot where they persecuted you.

(69) Jesus said: Blessed are they who have been persecuted in their heart; these are they who have known the Father in truth. Blessed are they that hunger, that they may fill the belly him who desires.

(70) Jesus said: When you bring forth that in yourselves, that which you have will save you.

If you do not have that in yourselves, that which you do not have in you will kill you.

(71) Jesus said: I will des[troy this] house, and none shall able to build it [again].

(72) [A man said] to him: Speak to my brethren, that they may divide my father's possessions with me. He said to him: O man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples (and) said to them: I am not a divider, am I ?

(73) Jesus said: The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few; but pray the Lord, that he send forth labourers into the harvest.

(74) He said: Lord, there are many about the well, but no one in the well.

(75) Jesus said: There are many standing at the door, but the solitary are they who shall enter the bridal chamber.

(76) Jesus said: The kingdom of the Father is

like a merchant was who had a load (of goods) and found a pearl. That merchant was wise. He sold the load, and bought for himself the pearl alone. You also, seek after his treasure which does not perish but endures, where moth does not enter to devour, nor does worm destroy.

(77) Jesus said: I am the light that is over them all. I am the All; the All has come forth from me, and the All has attained unto me. Cleave a (piece of) wood: I am there. Raise up the stone, an ye shall find me there.

(78) Jesus said: Why came ye forth into the field? To see reed shaken by the wind? And to see a man clothed in soft raiment? [Behold, your] kings and your great men are they who are clothed in soft [raiment], and they [shall] not be able to know the truth.

(79) A woman in the crowd said to him: Blessed is the womb which bore thee, and the breasts which nourished thee. He said to her: Blessed are they who have heard the word of the Father and have kept it in truth. For there shall be days when you will say: Blessed is that womb which has not conceived, and those breasts which have not given suck.

(80) Jesus said: He who has known the world has found the body, and he who has found the body, the world is not worthy of him.

(8 I ) Jesus said: He who has become rich, let him become king, and he who has power let him deny.

(82) Jesus said: He who is near to me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is far from the kingdom.

(83) Jesus said: The images are revealed to the man, and the light which is in them is hidden in the image of the light of the Father. He shall be revealed, and his image is hidden by his light.

(84) Jesus said: When you see your likeness, 80

you rejoice; but when you see your images which came into being before you -- they neither die nor are made manifest -- how much will you bear?

(85) Jesus said: Adam came into being out of a great power and a great wealth, and yet he was not worthy of you. For if he tad been worthy, he would not have tasted of death.

(86) Jesus said: [The foxes have] the[ir holes] and the birds have [theirs nest, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head and rest.

(87) Jesus said: Wretched is the body which depends upon a body, and wretched is the soul which depends on these two.

(88) Jesus said: The angels come to you, and the prophets, and they shall give you what belongs to you; and you also, give the what is in your hands, and say to yourselves: On what day do they come and take what is theirs?

(89) Jesus said: Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Do you not understand that he who made the inside is also he who made the outside?

(90) Jesus said: Come unto me, for easy is my yoke and my lordship is gentle, and you shall find rest for yourselves.

(91) They said to him: Tell us who thou art, that we may believe in thee. He said to them: You test the face of the heaven and the earth, and him who is before you you do not know, and you know not to test this moment.

(92) Jesus said: Seek, and ye shall find; but those things concerning which ye asked me in those days, I did not tell you then. Now I wish to tell them, and ye seek not after them.

(93) Jesus said: Give not that which is holy to the dogs, lest they cast them on the dungheap; cast not the pearls to the swine lest they grind it [to bits].

(94) Jesus [said]: He who seeks shall find, and he who knock to him it shall be opened.

the manger of the cattle; for he neither eats, nor does he let the cattle eat.

(95) [Jesus said]: If you have money, do not lend at interest, but give [it] to him from whom you will not receive them back.

(103) Jesus said: Blessed is the man who knows in what part the robbers are coming, that he may rise and gather his [domain] and gird up his loins before they come in.

(96) Jesus [said]: The kingdom of the Father is like a woman who took a little leaven and [hid] it in meal; she made large loaves of it. He that hath ears, let him hear.

(97) Jesus said: The kingdom of the [Father] is like a woman; carrying a jar full of meal and walking a long way. The handle the jar broke; the meal poured out behind her on the road.

She was unaware, she knew not her loss.

When she came into her house, she put down the jar (and) found it empty.

(98) Jesus said: The kingdom of the Father is like a man who wanted to kill a great man. He drew the sword in his house and drove it into the wall, that he might know that his hand would be strong. Then he slew the great man.

(99) The disciples said to him: Thy brethren and thy mother are standing outside. He said to them: Those here who do the will of my Father, these are my brethren and my mother; these are they who shall enter into the kingdom of my Father.

(100) They showed Jesus a gold piece and said to him: They who belong to Caesar demand tribute from us. He said to them: What belongs to Caesar give to Caesar, what belongs to God give to God, and what is mine give unto me.

(101) Jesus said He who shall not hate his father and: mother like me cannot be my [disciple], and he who shall [not] love [his father] and his mother like me cannot be my [disciple]; for my mother [. ..] but my true [mother] gave me life.

(102) And Jesus said: Woe to them, the Pharisees! For they are like a dog sleeping in 81

(104) They said [to him]: Come, let us pray today and fast. Jesus said: What then is the sin that I have done, or wherein have I been vanquished? But when the bridegroom comes forth from the bridal chamber, then let them fast and pray.

(105) Jesus said: He who shall know father and mother shall be called the son of a harlot.

(106) Jesus said: When you make the two one, you shall become sons of man, and when you say: Mountain, be moved, it shall be moved.

(I07) Jesus said: The kingdom is like a shepherd who had hundred sheep. One of them, the biggest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and sought after the one till he found it. When he had laboured, he said to the sheep: I love thee more than the ninety-nine.

(I08) Jesus said: He who shall drink from my mouth shall become like me; I myself will become he, and the hidden thing shall be revealed to him.

(109) Jesus said: The kingdom is like a man who had in his field a [hidden] treasure about which he did not know; and [after] he died he left it to his [son. The] son also did not know; he took (possession of) that field and sold it.

The man who bough it came to plough, and [found] the treasure. He began to lend money at interest to whomsoever he chose.

(110) Jesus said: He who has found the world and become rich, let him deny the world.

(111) Jesus said: The heavens shall be rolled up and the earth before your face, and he who lives in the living One shall neither see death

nor (fear); because Jesus says: He who shall find himself, of him the world is not worthy.

(112) Jesus said: Woe to the flesh which depends upon the soul; woe to the soul which depends upon the flesh.

(113) His disciples said to him: On what day will the kingdom come? <Jesus said>: It cometh not with observation. They will not say: Lo, here! or: Lo, there! But the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.

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(114) Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life. Jesus said: Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Who is Jesus for Modern People?

Or Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up. By R. Lloyd Ryan, DA., PhD., Rev. (Unitarian) (This discourse is an extract from the unpublished book: Truth Seeks the Light: Pages from a Unitarianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notebook.)

Notes: 1. A number of vignettes have been utilized in this discourse. The end of a vignette and the resumption of the text will be indicated by this symbol: ~}{~.

2. In the vignettes, all of the personages and most of the contexts have been fictionalized. In some cases, instances have been combined.

3. In a very real manner, this discourse is written in the first person. I am not engaging in the pretence that the ideas are somehow outside of me and somehow objective. I acknowledge that all of the issues presented here are resulting from my personal responses to situations, although I do not, consciously, have an axe to grind.

Introduction The tongue no one can tame. It is an ungovernable evil, saturated with deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord our Father and, equally, with it we curse people made in the image of God. This should not be, my brethren. Does a fountain gush fresh and brackish water from the same vent? ... If you have bitter jealousy and rivalry in your minds, do not boast and lie where truth is concerned.

That wisdom never came from above: it is earthly, materialistic and diabolical. For, where bitter rivalry and jealousy exist, there will be found anarchy and every ugly business. (Jas. 3: 8 - 18.)

For we live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; and our time should be counted in the throbs of our hearts as we love and help, learn and strive, and make from our own talents whatever can increase the stock of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good. (A. 83

C. Grayling: The Good Book: A Humanist Bible. 2011. ISBN: 978-0-8027-1737-5.)

It is, thus, with that acknowledgment of my theological weakness and intellectual frailty, and with trepidation, that I proceed to gingerly pick my way across this marshy ground expecting, at any time, to step into the quicksand of theological dispute and find myself impotently flailing away in a lonely quest: trying to explain, with appropriately modulated phrases, sensitive to the insecurities of potential readers, Just who is Jesus for people, today, Jesus the myth, Jesus the metaphor, Jesus the symbol, even the Jesus of idolatry.

Oh, I am begging the question implicit in the quote, above, from Holy Writ: Who is qualified to answer this question, anyhow? Some time ago, a clergy acquaintance said that he was

“...eternally grateful for the gift of faith!

And, furthermore, “ ... that we should not ask too many questions because it would destroy our faith!”

It seems to me that God is rather selective in these gifts of faith because God never gave such a gift to me, as far as I am able to ascertain. I came to the awareness, decades ago, that God some God, anyhow, if, indeed, it was God - gave me the gift of skepticism and questioning, sometimes of cynicism. But, clearly, that must be a god different from that of my clergy-friend’s faith, because, otherwise, God has been inconsistent in my case. We assume that inconsistency is not a characteristic of God. That must be why my first seminary experience ended in disaster - or so I thought at the time: I was rejected after being told that my very presence in class, my expressions of questions (which I though were honest ones), my skepticism about literal interpretations, and my analysis of the professor’s declarations combined to prevent the other students from learning and the professor from teaching. My second seminary experience, although maybe a little strained, was much more positive, even though it was acknowledged at the very outset that my Unitarianism was at stark contrast with the fundamentalist Baptist ideology of the seminary. But, if nobody else wants you, what do you do?

It was not the first or only time that my Unitarianism, however muted or unstated, posed a challenge to others in theological power. I was denied a professorship at one university, a lectureship at a seminary, a potential presidency at a “Christian” college, a job with a non-secular school system, all because I do not do creeds, and I declined the invitation to “convert” and 84

assume the mantle of the new “faith” regardless how unfaithful it would be of me to do so. I was assured, in all instances, that the signed respective Statement of Faith, would be placed in a locked drawer and need never again see the light of day. Oh, yes, one Christian institution also required a signed, but not dated, letter of resignation. If they detected that I was not observing some jot or tittle, their paranoia getting the better of them, then they would simply insert a date and, Viola! - I would be out of a job.

Vignette 1 As I was bemoaning my own plight, one day to an acquaintance (me having lapsed into my childishness, feeling sorry for myself), he smiled and said, Let me tell you my story.

I was a non-union supervisory-managerial-type person at a Senior’s home. I was also fired because, exercising my Christian, and, I think, Universal understanding of ethics, I refused to engage in activity which I considered to be immoral, unethical, illegal, unprofessional, a violation of fundamental rights of another, a violation of a long-established professional code of ethics, and a violation of a collective agreement, to boot.

I had the misfortune to be judged by a panel of four clergy-people who were on the board of directors of the institution.

I was told, firstly, that, I had “... neglected to accept your station and to honour your superior officer that almighty God, in His infinite wisdom [does Infinite and Wisdom go capitalized, in this instance? I want to be careful, here] had expressly chosen to place over you.”

There was only one explanation for that, I explained. God had made a mistake. God had had an off-day. Even

God was entitled to an off-day. He had to rest on the seventh day, for example, after six days of unremitting toil in His creation, as recorded in Genesis. God had made a mistake, I averred, in placing over me a person whose activities could be demonstrated as unethical.

For some reason, that explanation made the gentle creatures representing a gentle Jesus, almightly angry. Go figure!

Then I was told that, “You have neglected to honour your superior officer in all of his undertakings.”

I explained that, even in war, a person even of lowly station, has an obligation to demur in support of one’s superior officer if, in the considered opinion of the lowly-stationed one, his superior officer has grievously erred, such as expecting a subordinate to undertake immoral, unethical, illegal, unprofessional and unconscionable activity. Even in war there can be conscious objectors in our society.

One of the gentle representatives of our gentle Saviour, about to pop her buttons in her righteous anger, red in the face, could hardly choke out the next accusation. “You have neglected to obey the express orders of your superior officer, immediately and without question!”

I gently (um, well, maybe it was not all that gentle ... or humble. Michael Servatis went to the pyre for disagreeing with John Calvin, and the four clergy who were my judges - and executioners, as it turned out - were much more Calvinistic that murderous ego-centered Old John himself). Let me begin again: I asked if they understood history, the Nuremberg trials, for example, or the trial of Adolph Eichman, where the Nazis argued that they were simply following orders of their superior officers.

I was obeying a much-superior code of 85

ethics than fascists could conseive.

Rising to his feet, the obvious self-appointed leader of that religious, self-righteous rat-pack, shook a godly finger at me and exclaimed (actually, he almost shouted in his self-righteousness) “You have neglected to refrain from dabbling in ethics which is not the province of subordinates!”

I rose to my feet and stared down at his eyeballs: I had to stare down because his self-appointed ecclesiastical status was much higher (Oh my, yes! So much higher!) than his physical stature.

Quietly, I declared, “Have I got news for you, sir: Ethics is the province of everyone, however lowly his station, and I would suggest that you learn that lesson as quickly as you can!”

Needless to say, on that day, I was crucified - metaphorically, even if not literally. They raped me! The ordained representatives of their risen Saviour inflicted their orgastic revenge, regretting, I am sure, that the pyre was not open to them as it had been to their mentor, the demigod, John Calvin, himself, the latter in his self-righteous hatred, experienced his orgasms as he delightedly pranced around the fire that snuffed out the life of poor benighted Servatis, who had thought Calvin his friend. The cries of agony from the midst of the flames delighted Calvin, that ecstatic man of God - of some god, anyway, the god of his own ego being the most likely candidate. ~ }{ ~ I applaud the man for recovering from his crucifixion and continuing his career, even if in a somewhat parallel professional universe.

So, one can understand that for me to undertake this exercise I am asking myself, first and most prominently, is the Nazi Jesus of a fascist god, the Jesus of John Calvin and the clergy of the judgment panel noted above, the only Jesus? That is not a Jesus I can trust let alone worship, associated with a god who is a monster, a god that I cannot embrace, cannot accommodate into my breast.

To undertake this exercise is to be under the distrustful gaze of generations of ancestors, including Unitarian ones, who spoke the name of Jesus in only the absolutely most venerated tones, to be avoided by my pursed-lipped contemporaries afraid to be infected by my apostasy, and to risk the judgment of future powers, earthly and, just possibly, otherwise.

But, shall I be a man or a mouse, to quote a famous dramatist?

Aw! Let’s go for broke!

Explorations: Looking in a glass, darkly Who is Jesus?

The very question, the very act of questioning, the assumed audacity makes my skin crawl and prompts me to keep one eye looking out the patio door from the kitchen table where I am writing keeping watch on the sky ......

And, although the clouds are black and heavy on this dreary April morning, it is a question like that that could cause these pregnant clouds to burst asunder, the hand of an outraged God ionizing every last micron of moisture or dust in its haste to hurl that bolt of righteous revenge at me for daring to imply, by the very act of questioning, that Jesus might be someone other than my quasi-Unitarian 86

grandmother (dead these 54 years, bless her devout soul!) said that He was: the Only Begotten Son of God, (Notice how careful I am with my upper-case letters?

Maybe, I should write this entirely in upper-case, just to make sure that I don’t miss one. Brrr, I shiver at the thought of screwing up, here, with the god of those mentioned clergy watching vigilantly over my shoulder), the willing Sacrifice - Should “willing” have an upper-case W? - of Atonement for my sins. (Notice that atonement has a capital A! I’m not taking any chances, here!) without which I would be destined to roast in the terrible torments of Dante’s Hellish fires for all eternity. I am even worried about my syntax, punctuation and grammar.

According to the likes of the before-mentioned clergy, people have been sent to the flames of that eternal Hell for much lesser sin than an errant comma, the jots and tittles assuming cosmic importance and overshadowing a life of good works by their narrow-minded god.) In fact, even that Sacrifice (note the upper-case S!) is not adequate. I have to be “saved,” to boot, or I will still be destined for that dreaded eternity; that loving Saviour will turn His (Her?) Divine back on me and allow - Nae! Inflict! - the horrors of everlasting punishment!

Grandmother knew! She was, for 40 years, superintendent of the Sunday school of the village’s Wesleyan Methodist Church where her husband, my step-grand-father, was lay-reader for almost a half-century, ministers of almost any description being a rare commodity in that remote and isolated village where I grew up, there in the wastes of forest and ocean and mountains and icebergs, where the north-east winds were as bitter, in their own way, as the fires of Hell, a little taste of how terrible and real that

things could really be, come enternity.

And, after being reminded about the terrible jealousy of a paranoid, schizophrenic and psychotic Lord, Grandmother and Grandfather would have their evening prayers: a scripture selection which I, sometimes, had the honour to read. Those selections from the KJV of Leviticus were sooo enlightening for a thirteen year old! I can still remember reading: Ye shall be holy: For I, the Lord, your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:2).. I didn’t know if it were a promise or an or-else command! I still don’t, even after I have fixed it with a few commas! (Although I don’t know much about jots and tittles, never having studied Hebrew, I do know that holy writ could have benefitted immensely if the august translators had paused to do a few lessons in punctuation!) After pausing in fear, observing the sage white heads of my grandparents nodding in acceptance, I would venture to continue: Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God. Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the Lord your God . (Leviticus 19:3, 4) and so on.

The only molten god that Grandmother ever made was a bit of spruce beer which the ladies of the village utilized for certain ladies’ complaints.

Now, Grandfather was known to produce a molten substance, a distilled molten substance, which, when imbibed, might have taken on the form of a god, or caused one to see a form as of a god.

How did I know? I was not permitted to imbibe. All I know is that this particular molten, distilled, substance was a popular substance among some of the men, church-goers among them, molten god or no.

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It was all there for my instruction, even Ecclesiastes 9: 2, which told me, quite clearly, that everybody would end up the same place, anyhow.

You don’t remember Ecclesiastes 9: 2? Oh, my land! I will refresh your memory.

2. It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice. As the good man is, so is the sinner; as the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear.3. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men.

Grandmother and Grandfather were convinced that if it were in the Bible, it had to be read and, even though, many times, I am sure that they couldn’t begin to fathom its meaning - inconsistencies, contradictions, total muddle-ups included, in some way or manner, scripture was enlightening, meaningful, significant, there for our guidance and instruction (2 Timothy 3, 16 - 17), however obtuse, abstract, dense, cryptic.

After devoutly intoning the sacred words, we all knelt in prayer, there in that mean and cold kitchen, the roaring fire in the old Home Comfort wood-burning stove not able to keep the bitterly-cold north-east winds at bay, where the old folks took turns sending heavenward, to a gentle Jesus, their petitions and pleas for forgiveness of manifold and abundant sins - which surprised me, because I thought that these two people were the kindest, gentlest people who ever walked in shoe-leather, fearful that if they didn’t account for every last tittle of sin, of word, thought or deed, that gentle, loving Jesus would morph into a wrathful, destroying monster, seemingly forgetting that their

loving, Heavenly Father already knew all of their needs, as much as he knew the kinds of raiment needed by even the birds of the field (Mat. 6: 28).

I used to quake, kneeling there, my juvenile knees punishing on that cold floor, thinking that, there I was, about to get into a feather bed with a hot Birch junk for warmth (It had been in the oven all evening!) and would be left alone, not knowing if I would see the morning or, if I did, it might be to the sound of the trump, and with Jesus breaking open the clouds and floating into the harbour with lightning flashing all over the place ... and, I wasn’t even saved! (In our village, almost everyone was expecting the trump to sound at any moment, except the men who would go in the forests and grouse about “ ... the @#$%^ idiots!, already consigned to Hell).

So, there would be Grandmother and Grandfather - not toiling at the mill, although they would have been had they one - and one or both would be taken, caught up in the Rapture! (Did a saw-mill count? Or did one have to be toiling at a wheat-flour mill in order for one to be taken? And, if both were toiling at the mill at the same time, did it mean that one of them would be left behind? I mean, these terribly important questions have no answers in Holy Writ ... and we do want to be certain! - and I wasn’t even saved!

Summer was long gone and the remains of our meagre harvest was dwindling all too quickly! Some people were wishing that the trump would sound.

It couldn’t sound quickly enough to suit them. They were sick and tired of eating only boiled salted cod fish. The fare in Heaven would be immensely better! ... and they could be sitting around making music on harps rather than engaged in the unremitting toil that was consonant with 88

trying to survive in that remote geography.)

Which begs another extremely important question: Although Grandmother could play the button accordion and Grandfather the Violin, neither had ever even seen a harp.

Apparently, only harps can be played in Heaven, golden ones!

I look out the window, worried ....

Nope! Neither cloud broken yet; no accusatory divine finger; no lightning bolts, so far. But that black cloud over to the north west seems awfully ominous! Dare I continue?

Akerson (1998) had no fear of clouds opening up, parted by a vindictive God. He says that the ....inventors of the Christian texts [proceeded] with an apparent confidence that far [exceeded] their knowledge. (P. 246) and that, contrary to the book of Isaiah (Chapters 42, 49, 50, 52, 53, say) prefiguring or prophesying a messiah whom we readily recognize in the New Testament, these Old Testament ... songs leave the reader with no conclusive idea of who the “suffering servant” is meant to be (p. 246) and that in ... the Christian re-invention of the Hebrew scriptures the old usages of the term “messiah” were yanked out of context and [made] into Christian text (P. 245- 246). Akerson sites how Matthew 12: 14 - 21 is such a re-invention of Isaiah 42: 1 - 4, and how the “servant” (in Isaiah) is turned into a fore-shadowment of Jesus Christ as Messiah and as Lamb of God. Akerson goes on to point out that the Apostle Paul, as we commonly refer to this person, in describing the central event in the story of Jesus and of Christianitynamely, the resurrection - does not say that he saw the resurrected Jesus in the flesh - not even on the road to Damascus

(Acts 9). Akenson says, That is beyond argument that nowhere in his writings does Paul indicate a belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus (P. 253) although one might feel that Akenson may be splitting some rather fine hairs.

I gaze out the window again. The clouds are still heavy, likely pregnant with snow. If God is aware of my potential apostasy, then, clearly, He has more important things on His mind, and is busy in other corners of His vineyard, likely over in Syria or Israel or Iran or Ukraine, or Iraq, somewhere.

Who was Jesus? Who is Jesus?

They are not identical questions. There is, now, a wealth of literature - much of it reviled by contemporary Christians, particularly the more fundamental ones that indicates a wide gulf between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of contemporary faith. With some scholars (e.g., Wright, 1992) pointing out that between history and faith there is ... a nasty big ditch (P. 7) and, to use Albert Schweitzer’s words, a great deal of writing about Jesus was simply imaginative fantasy (Wright, P. 5). Schweitzer (1954) says, The Jesus of Nazareth who ... preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth, never had any [historical] existence (P. 396). Jesus obviously had a Biblical and theological and academic existence; and Jesus had - and has - an existence in the churches and in peoples’ lives, not necessarily all for the better, considering they were and are willing to murder each other over it.

A quick glance out the window reassures me that the sky is basically unchanged. Maybe, I am safe to pursue this discourse. But, my eye falls on the local weekly newspaper, lying on the floor.

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My wife is gone to work; I - retired haven’t yet done my tidying up. The newspaper is open to an advertisement that she read aloud to me at dinner, last night. I pick it up and read it aloud to myself: All ladies are welcome to a meeting of Women’s Aglow on Wednesday, April 21, at the Paradise Room of Superior Inns at 7:30. The speaker for this meeting is Michelle Eamonds ....Michelle has a heart for women’s ministry and has a passion to see the body of Christ move and flow in the power of the spirit.

Where does that come from? Who is this Christ whose body can move and flow in the power of the spirit, and why? Is this some sort of dance? I don’t understand the language. I am absolutely mystified. This coming from people who claim to read the Bible literally?

I could continue this train of thought, quoting from Dimont (1991) about the seven faces of Jesus (Only seven? Read on!) or explore how the Biblical Jesus can be reinterpreted for today with Borg(1994), whose discourse I interpret as saying that when Jesus said, I am come so that you might have life in all it fullness (John 10: 10), he didn’t mean for us to be focused grim-faced towards a distant Heaven, but that we should celebrate all aspects of our present life including, but not exclusively, the spiritual: Here! Now! I could check the skies repeatedly as I read Thiering (1996) who suggests that Jesus didn’t die on the cross but, indeed, lived to a ripe old age, although she refrains from having Jesus emigrate to France, with his wife and family, as is suggested by Leigh & Lincoln (1983). Her conclusions would receive support from Fox (1992) who says that, the book that

we now call the Holy Bible does not have coherence sufficiently to support a theory of Biblical truth, and that, what we now read in the Bible is the result of padding and reinterpretation (P. 155), a tradition that seems to have been followed well up into at least as early the 16th century, when an obstinate peasant fool-heartedly insisted on thinking his own bizarre thoughts and pitted himself against the Italian Inquisition (Ginzburg, 1988), and continuing into our own day .....

I could take a sympathetic but intellectual tour of the life of the Biblical Jesus along with Crossan (1995) and conclude that much of the Biblical record is not history remembered but prophecy historicized, an interpretation consistent with that of White (2010) who explains that we misunderstand the nature of the Bible, that the stories are not history but vignettes designed to explain the doctrine - much as Jesus utilized parables which, incidentally, were not true - and where the stories had meaning only within the context of a particular community or group. White says, for example, The order, themes, and content of the individual gospels reflect the local context of their respective authors and communities as an expression of their faith in Jesus in the light of their cultural background and social experience (P. 11).

I could also try to fit Jesus into my contemporary life with some intent on wholeness (Young, 1995) and sympathize with Spong (1992, 1996) as he tries to reconcile the historical, the Biblical, and the contemporary Jesus, and tries to free Jesus from the generations of manufactured misunderstanding and deliberate misrepresentation.

So, I do all of that, and where does that leave me?

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Confused, that’s what!

My poor fundamentalist bones are totally addled. (I did say bones. My head is no longer fundamentalist. But, the fundamentalism of my childhood is still there, deep down in my bones). No wonder that the congregation that I was associated with, and whom I preached to, for almost 25 years indicated, none to subtly, that I was really not welcomed in the pulpit, anymore, once they realized that I no longer sympathized with their fundamental beliefs. I still sympathize with them.

So, who is He who said, “Whom do people say that I ... am?” (Mark 8: 27 -30; Luke 9:18) He might well have said, “Who do people make me out to be?” or “How will people re-create me?”

I have been going around - for years, now - asking myself, “Who is this guy, this Jesus?” Whenever possible, I have raised the question with numerous people or, otherwise, have listened carefully whenever the topic arises, as it does with high frequency. I have even listened in church when various ministers warn about apostasy, and when one of the lay-readers piously bemoans, in children’s moment, the fact that there really are people who do not believe that Jesus really arose from the dead. The cads! I wonder if the five to eight year olds understood as badly as I. Now, I have determined some things for myself. The historical Jesus has meaning only for a few people: academics, historians, some theologians.

The Biblical, Christian, Jesus has captured the attention of many - most! clergy, especially the more fundamentalist ones, who blithely ignore the contradictions, inconsistencies, and impossibilities (Fox, 1992), and fit

whatever is in the Bible, according to their reading, into their unique, personal, wilful, Jesus paradigm. In other words, Jesus is a personal reconstruction for each person, many reconstructions, depending on one’s belief; The belief determining the Jesus, not vice versa, Jesus never having been a “Christian” and, as an observant Jew, could never have conceived what has taken place in his name. (I am ignoring, for the moment, that the Bible speaks of at least two men with the name Jesus, or Jessie, or Joshua, or Issu, or whatever it was, and blithely does not distinguish between Jesus the Rabbi, as some refer to him; the teacher; the preacher; and Jesus the zealot, but that the two or three or more men by that name are conflated as if they are one. Talk about story-telling!)

That, maybe, should be set over against the numerous clergy who profess, in church, to believe the creeds that they lead the people in intoning, but who, in private conversation, admit that they do not believe them, a phenomenon that a Gallop Poll noted as early as 1965 (Pike, 1967), maybe admitting to themselves that the Bible is, to quote Bishop James Pike who was accused of heresy because he dared to think, “... a mishmash of idealism, common sense pragmatism, irrelevancy, incomprehensibility, inspiration, superstition, sheer evil - and, all throughout, flat contradiction” (p. 87).

But, none of that explains who Jesus is for most people, even if it does suggest what the reconstructed Jesus is.

My listening and synthesis inform me that Jesus is a shape-shifter, a pawn, a bastard, a prostitute, all pressed into service for numerous ends, some laudable - maybe ! - some understandable, some less so. Jesus, for most people, is not the Jesus of 91

academia; He is not the Jesus of theology; He is not even the Jesus of Christianity, certainly not in the dictionary sense. The Jesus of the vast majority of people who entertain a concept of Jesus, maybe as many as 99% of those who use His name, [I picked the number out of the air. But, the recent poll conducted by Trinity College (2008), the American Religious Identification Survey, would indicate that the number is, maybe, not far off] has very little in common with the Jesus who is the subject of historical or theological debate.

Let’s explore some of these contemporary faces of Jesus.

Jesus as Fairy Tale Vignette 2 The young lady was an artist, a tapestry weaver, about 25 years old, deeply into feminist spirituality. We chanced to meet at the home of mutual acquaintances. She said, There was a news article on TV, last night, about the dispute between the Jews and the Palestinians, and they talked about the tomb where the remains of Jesus had lain.

I was shocked. I had never before thought of Jesus as having remains, which would mean that he had a real body. The Sunday school Bible stories were fantastic, affecting me, and appealing to me, in much the same way as the creative and fanciful stories that I experienced at school and the fairy tales that Mom and Dad read to me at bedtime.

Jesus was just another fairy tale. I have real difficulty conceiving of the stories about Jesus in any other way. Oh, I believed in Jesus! He was right up there with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

That was my Holy Trinity: The Baby Jesus, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny!

~ }{ ~ That observation startled me. But, shortly afterward, I occasioned to attend a series of seminars, the participants of which were mostly people holding clergy credentials from a variety of denominations: Protestant, Catholic, and a few odds and ends. I listened carefully and was shocked again. (Maybe I am easily shocked!) Many, even if not most, of these ordained clergy were talking about a Jesus that was no more than the Jesus in colouring-books for seven-year-olds. Their Jesus had never had a bowel movement, was always smelling as fresh as a daisy (He obviously had no sweat glands!), always wearing a new freshly-starched robe, carefully ironed. God, for these people, was a sometimes-kindly old gentleman with strange eyes, sitting on a golden throne (must be uncomfortable!), wearing a badly-fitting bed-sheet, slightly childish, immature, vindictive, moody, capricious ....

I wondered if I were the only one in the assembled who thought that I was among a bunch of childish (not child-like!)

Christians. It was later that I discovered that I was not the only one. Another participant sat with me at lunch (We got to know each other, later, and became friends. It turned out that he was a Third-order Franciscan who had done quite a lot of religious, cultural and personal exploration). He encapsulated my thoughts when he smiled wryly, and said, What a bunch of bubble-gum Christians. I wonder why Christians become permanent eleven-year-olds.

Now, I acknowledge that I am being severe, here. No doubt, I am guilty of standing in judgment (in contravention of 92

the warning of none other than Jesus, Himself (Mat. 7: 1)) of people who, one supposes, are making a genuine and concerted effort (at least, in their own perception of these matters) to live a life of child-like faith (Mark 10: 15; Luke 18: 17). Even the disciples of Jesus, after three or four years of frequent contact with, and listening to the teachings of, the master Jesus, exhibited, at times, an amazing paucity of maturity. Osborne (1977) recognizes this and says, for example ... at the last Supper they bickered about which ones would have seats of honour (P. 29).

Vignette 3 George is a fairly well-educated man who had been a very active layman in his congregation for some years. He even took the pulpit, periodically. He decided that he would like to do some courses in theology, and went off to seminary. Because he used some offensive language in a paper, he was given a failing grade (a mere 9%, in fact!).

George gave me the offending paper so that I could read it for myself. The only word that I could determine that contained the merest whiff of uncouthness or impropriety was crotch.

George said, some of the students - all middle-aged or older - were suggesting that Bible stories could be used for enlightenment if told to people, presumably sinners.

One female minister mentioned the wonderful love story between Naomi and Ruth. I suggested, George said, that we had to be careful because some of these people, to whom we might read these stories, may be neither as naive nor as stupid as we might assume, and might choose to go and read the story for

themselves, and wonder at our own naivety.

I picked up on the story of Naomi and Ruth, George said, and suggested that, it seemed to me, that Naomi set Ruth up to have sex with Boaz in order to secure a roof over her own head, even if she did do Ruth - and Boaz - a favour, at the same time. I refrained from saying all that was in my mind: that Naomi, in fact, made a prostitute of Ruth.

George looked at me and smiled: You know, we may like to think that the times were different. But, they were not all that different! Besides, Ruth may have been no more than 10 or 11 years old.

Girls were married off, during these times, when they were mere babies. She obviously wasn’t old enough to be confident that she could make it on her own. In maybe the most fundamental way, Naomi was her mother. (Note: Kirsh (1997) provides an interpretation of the story that is quite consistent with that of George). So, although I believe Ruth had sex with Boaz, when she uncovered his .... um ... feet, George went on to say, it likely was not the kind that could make her pregnant. I didn’t quite say that ...but, I said enough.

George continued, Well, during the class break, that female clergy-person accosted me, with a degree of anger that I can only call spitten’ - and told me that she would be happy if I left the seminary and never came back: that my presence prevented her from entering fully into the spirit of the learning. She was sure, she said, that the other students felt the same way, and that the professor was evidently distraught with having to put up with me in the class. Besides, she was a mother-in-law and that she had wonderful love relationships with the two young 93

women, her daughters-in-law, relationships which she saw in the same light that she saw the relationship between Ruth and Naomi. George smiled again: I refrained from asking how she was prostituting her daughters-in-law. But I am satisfied that she was, in some way, shape or form.

George said that he saw the handwriting on the wall. He finished that course and withdrew from his foray into these exalted theological realms, vowing never to repeat the experience. ~ }{ ~ George, for a number of years, had been a high-school principal. In the course of relating to me his experience at seminary he recalled the story of how he had instigated with social services to have a thirteen-year-old girl removed from her home because her mother, who kept a bar, had her daughter, after she came home from school, stay in a room behind the bar. Men could pay the mother $5.00 for the privilege of going into the room with the girl for a half hour. Not all mothers are overly solicitous about their daughters’ welfare, Biblical times or not.

Jesus as Retribution As I talked to people, and listened to what they didn’t, and dare not, say (as well as what they did say), I began to recall my boyhood in that little fundamentalist village where the adherents of the three fundamentalist churches had as little as possible to do with each other - the Catholics having wisely abandoned the village to live in there own village, a few miles up the coast - but were all flying away to heaven with a first class ticket when in their own church

buildings. These people didn’t really trust Jesus as much as fear him. They readily mouthed their schizophrenic, mutually contradictory views that Jesus is, at one and the same time, a God of love and a God of retribution, without distinguishing between God and Jesus. But, they were afraid, and are afraid, today, to acknowledge the contradiction, afraid to think, afraid of divine punishment.

Vignette 4 I happened along and saw the door of his workshop open. I stopped in to say hello. After some time of getting reacquainted, the man who had known me for decades blurted out, in the argot that passed for English in my village, the language that I spoke during childhood, and still can speak as the necessity arises, Rhine, you’m a Christian man!?

Me: What’s on your mind?

He: You’m a Christian man!?

Me: What’s on your mind?

He, insistently: You’m a Christian man!!!?

Me: Yes. OK. I’m a Christian man.

What’s your point?

He: But, you drinks!?

Me: I drinks? Um .... I drink? What do you mean?

He: You drinks! Rum. Beer. Whiskey!

Me: I wish! All of that stuff costs money. I don’t have that kind of money!

He looked at me severely, wondering, I think, if I was playing with him. Before he could decide to be offended, I played along, wondering what was on his mind: Yes, OK, I drink. I drink a little, sometimes. Maybe a glass of wine with a meal. An occasional drink, sometimes, otherwise. What’s that got to do with anything?

He: E’nt you afeard’uv Ell? 94

Me: No! He: Don’t you believe in arr Hell?

Me: No! Nothing other than separation from God. He: Don’t believe in Ell? Then, why be you a Christian?

Me: I don’t understand.

(Actually, I did understand - all too well, in fact. I understood the beliefs of the church that this man attended. I simply wanted to understand his understanding.)

He, in exasperation: I don’t know whyn’t you’m a Christian if’n’an you don’t believe in arr Ell. Me: What’s Hell got to do with anything?

Suppose I want to live a life that I think is in accordance with that I think is the will of God, as I understand God, or simply live a good life, whether or not God is a part of that decision. I knew that I might be leading the man in avenues of thought where he had never been and in which he might not want to go. But, it was he who began the conversation. I was curious about his response.

He: Eh? ... After some moments of thought, I don’t know about that. I don’t know wat alladat means. All I knows is if’n’an I didden believe in arr Hell, I’d be out smokin’ and playing cards, and carousin’, and out wit da wimmen! ~ }{ ~ He looked at me with a toothless grin and licked his lips. I realized that, in his mind, he was already in the throes of debauchery and adultery. I am not at all sure that his wife, who had birthed thirteen children, presumably for him, would have minded a holiday away from his lusts.

Even though this man was uneducated, from a schooling perspective, in his honest naivety, he had articulated

the belief structure of many people of the laity, and of many of their clergy.

Jesus as magic, a living, spiritual magician

Vignette 5 Two years ago in a village with which I am familiar, a five-year-old boy was accidentally killed. At the funeral service, the clergyman said that the parents were being punished because they were not sending their children to the local so-called “Christian” school. He exhorted the parents to get saved and send their other children to the Christian school or God would punish them further and take their other three children. The parents promptly withdrew their children from the public school and enrolled them in the so-called Christian school. ~}{~ Many people in Newfoundland fishing villages believed that if one spoke out against the clergy, their next child - or grandchild - would be deformed, God’s punishment for apostasy. Many clergy did not bother to correct this gross misunderstanding of the nature of God my God, anyhow.

I have heard ministers warn against the sin of disbelief (where does that come from?) and of apostasy, and warn about one not getting into Heaven because Jesus said, if you profess me before people I will profess you before my Father (Mat. 10: 32) and that, by implication, if people did not profess Jesus, then He would turn his back on them.

Talk about retribution! Is the Biblical Jesus really so manipulative? So mean? So vindictive? So immature? So ego-needy?

By the way, how does one profess another, even Jesus?

Vignette 6 A few years ago, the southern United States were hit by heavy rains and severe flooding. One man sought refuge on the roof of his house. He refused a boat ride, according to the TV news, because he was waiting for Jesus to save him. Apparently, he drowned.

95

Vignette 7 Dr. John V. Is a professor of Church history. I had requested his assistance with some phenomena which were puzzling to me. I mentioned that my people, the people in the collection of villages where I spent my childhood, did not distinguish between the magic that they had inherited from their mostly Aboriginal and Celtic ancestors, and the magic in the Bible. The man became instantly angry at my conflating the two.

Apparently, the magic of the so-called miracles - turning water into wine, raising to life a man who had been dead for three days in 45C degree climate, giving sight to a person who had been blind from birth - is of a different order from the magic of the witches who dwelled in my villages, those who could make fish enter a man’s nets or make them turn away, the wizards who could turn into crows, the hexes that people could contrive to protect themselves from the Black Magic spells, the Black Arts book (about which a minister recently told me he still believed), the little people in the woods, ghosts, tokens, and so on ....

(It is worth noting that the Aboriginals of Canada’s forests deny that the little people are magical; they are simply another species of intelligent beings

whose obligation in life is to assist people however they can, especially to lead them back home if they become astray in the forest. Several years ago, CBC Radio Canada’s public broadcaster - broadcast a documentary on the phenomenon.)

Vignette 8 A fisherman, staunch member of a local fundamentalist church, experienced engine trouble with his fishing boat, several miles off the land. He refused a towline from another fisherman because the latter was a sinful man (he was smoking a cigarette). The former said, I got nothing to worry about. Jesus got everything under control.

When I was a boy, trying to grow up in that isolated and remote village, there were no doctors. I was sent to a good lady (I am not being tongue-in-cheek! She was a good person, to the best of my knowledge!) to get my teeth charmed. No, it didn’t work. But, then, neither did the gunpowder that my father stuffed into the cavity. ~}{~ What else needs to be said? The stories speak for themselves.

Jesus as Prostitute We are told of the many young women working the streets in some of our larger cities and that they are there because they have few other options. If, as we believe, God has given us free will, then Jesus has no other option when he is prostituted.

The TV preachers, faith healers, and clergy, in their regular roles, prostitute Jesus shamelessly - anything to get their hands on the money of the gullible.

Similarly, some local clergy also prostitute 96

Jesus when they use his name in their efforts to bend their parishioners’ wills to that of their own, threatening them with Hell, one way or another, however veiled the threat, if they do not believe exactly what the clergy says they should believe.

One man of the cloth - who could be named - declared from the pulpit, I have never known Jesus to fail me! But, apparently, Jesus failed to protect the women whom he impregnated during his pastoral visits!

Jesus as Weakling I never realized that Jesus was such a weakling nor that He was/is associated with such a weak God until I realized the lengths to which people will go to defend Him/Them. (Yeah! I know: People are defending their own fragile egos and beliefs. But, still .........)

Vignette 8 Just a few years ago, in one of the cluster of villages where I grew up, one of my childhood acquaintances announced that he was going to kill himself, when, where, how. He said that he was going to invite twelve of his friends to his house for a Last Supper. The good people of the village were offended and angry that this, obviously psychotic, man would be so sacrilegious. One clergyman did go to his house to pray with him.

However, on the appointed night, nobody went near his house. Not even the police were contacted to take him into care until his psychotic condition could be treated. He was abandoned, left to die alone. “He shoudna made fun of Jesus!” one Christian lady said. “Serves him proper!” ~ }{ ~

If Jesus was offended by a sick man, wherein is the truth: Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest?

Jesus as Addiction Tobacco? Alcohol? Illegal Drugs?

No way! Many people whom I know, devout church goers, anyway, are addicted to Jesus. Same syndrome, same symptoms, same unwillingness to admit their addictive behaviours, same anger if their beliefs are challenged. I recentlycompleted several graduate courses in addictions counselling.

Religion, addiction to Jesus, fits the addictive profile.

Sinclair (1998) quotes Rev. Gerald Sheppard as saying that members of the ... Church need to learn to argue profoundly with one another even as it allows people to make mistakes, in a period when we are going to make mistakes! This takes mercy .... and prayer (P. 30).

Not until we realize and acknowledge our addictions, we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t!

Argue with each other? Profoundly? Give me a break!

Vignette 9 When Iwas involved in myinitial graduate studies, a fellow student - a Christian lady, as she reminded us, ad nauseam- 30 years old, thereabouts, announced that she was goingto quit at the end of the semester to become a missionary to Africa. She had been called. She said that she knew because she knew. God had called her to do this selfless thing.

I challenged the avowed and declared altruism - maybe out of envy and jealousy - because I had never been 97

called by God to do anything. The minister of the congregation with which I was then associated had called me, numerous times, on the telephone, to do the service for the next Sunday because for one reason or another he was not able to. That was as mystical as my calls to Christian service ever were. I suggested, in graduate seminar in philosophy, that even though it might not be true in her case, I had observed that much so-called altruism seemed to me to be selfserving, meeting some or other need, recognized, acknowledged or otherwise of the selfless individual. I suggested that even Gandhi was meeting his own needs.

This Christian lady angrily accused me of being a Philistine, and declared that God would sustain and provide for her, and that I should repent of my doubt and cynicism or, otherwise, God would provide and well and good for me, but in a totally different manner, and not in a manner that I would cherish!

The professor also criticized myviews. Iwiselydid not argue. Iwas not the one being called by God. When I thought that she had calmed down, I approached the lady - I was genuinely curious and inquired how she had prepared or was preparing for this exciting adventure. Had she learned the language? Had she any information on cultural, social and climatic conditions?

Did she think she might have trouble with accommodations, food, dress, climate?

She had made no such preparations she said. God was able to provide for her, according to His richness in Glory! (Phil. 4: 19).

I stayed at my studies; she went off Africa.

Six weeks later, she was back in

Canada, hoping to get back into the graduate program before the semester were too far advanced. She discovered that Namibia (or, wherever it was!) was hot, dusty; the people (all of whom were Black! for goodness sake!) didn’t bathe very often (that might have had something to do with lack of water and the fact that there was one well for the village, the local women having to carry their water-pots on their heads for long distances.) Besides all of that, she reallycould not survive on maizeand hot pepper porridge or whatever the staple food was... and the local people had difficulty understanding her when her English was perfect!

(No! I did NOT make that up!)

She was depressed, full of doubt, disillusioned. There had, obviously, been some mis-communication between her and God. ~}{~ It was not the first or only time that the almighty omnipotent God has proven to be a less than perfect communicator.

Vignette 10 A married couple, Maisy and Bob, acquaintances of mine, used to visit me, sometimes, because we had some things in common. But, they didn’t visit very often because I didn’t usually offer more than one or two drinks, and rarely had more than one, myself. When I visited them, I limited my drinking to one, usually a bottle of beer. They would finish the dozen between them.

I used to go to church, sometimes.

They didn’t. I was too religious for them.

My religiosity made them uncomfortable.

They let me know it.

Lo and behold, Bob went to church and got saved! Apparently, he had beenunder conviction for some time.

Then, wonder of wonders, Maisie also had 98

been under conviction. She went to church and got saved. Great was the rejoicing!

Then, they stopped visiting me altogether. I was not religious enough! I still had my one drink - still do! Shortly thereafter, they announced that they were going to seminary; they were going to become ministers of the gospel. They were going to serve the Lord!

I suggested that they might be serving the Lord in their then-current honourable occupation of working in the senior-care home, with much the same meaning as Osborne (1977) who says, Every person whatever his vocation, can have a sense of divine mission if he will be conscious of the loving concern of God for all of life (P. 14), a view certainly consistent with the Unitarian view that every person, Unitarian or otherwise, has or, at least, can have - a ministry in life.

I suggested that we, sometimes, might foist ourselves on the Lord whether that was what the Lord wanted or not. My erstwhile friends became angry and suggested that I might need to get saved.

We stopped visiting. (Yeah, I acknowledge that, sometimes, my Christian charity is rather limp!)

10 years later - a few months ago, in fact - Iran into Bob and Maisie. They, apparently, have not been all that happy serving the Lord and are looking for jobs in a senior care home. They are resentful of the money that they think I make (Ah, but, if only they knew the truth!) and are resentful of the freedom that I have (like going to church only when I feel like it), resentful that I don’t have an image to maintain, able to have a bottle of beer if the spirit so moves ..... ~ }{

~ Why is it so difficult for a moderate to live in society? If one tries to live in moderation, as the blessed Buddha advises, he is reviled as being overly religious by those who live a little more profligately and promiscuously (not necessarily in a sexual manner), and dismissed and criticized, and maybe consigned to the darkest and hottest corner of Hell bythe self-righteous and the religious. Elements of addiction, me thinks!

Vignette 11 In a church in one of the villages with which Ihave some familiarity, a lady spoke in tongues, translated by another of the assembly. Apparently, the young accountant who had recently joined the congregation was shocked to learn that God was calling him to be a pastor of their denomination. Well, despite God not knowing how to call the young man, directly, he resigned his position, went to seminary and became a pastor. It was not a happy experience. He would have much preferred servinghis God as a honest accountant and in volunteering as his time and resources permitted. God had, yet again, messed up in His communication. ~}{~ Jesus as Source of Strife and prejudice How come a man, supposedly a God of peace, has become the source of such strife (Witness Northern Ireland, or the Spanish Inquisition, or contemporary Christians who try to deny equal rights to those of alternate sexuality)? Why is a man, or God, of compassion and love used as a source of hatred and prejudice.

Who, other than gay men, are most like a 99

gentle, compassionate Christ? Who is Jesus, as portrayed in the Bible, most like: 30 years old with never a twinge of lust for a woman? It makes one wonder! The Bible, by most interpretations, cut it however one likes, presents Jesus as nobody if not a gay man.

However, my reading suggests otherwise. Why did Jesus, for example, approach a strange woman, which men were not supposed to do at that time, and discuss her sex life? The water that Jesus would give her (John 4: 14), so that she would thirst for no other - the hyperbole drips! - can be otherwise interpreted! The libido of Jesus was likely as strong as any other straight male, and he needed to attend to it.

Jesus as Therapist and Counsellor A long-time friend came to see me.

Just left. He had been having some rather severe emotional problems and comes to talk some of it out. I realized, during our discussions, that Jesus serves the same function - to listen to people who are hurting, who are heavy-laden.

I have wondered for a long time about the secret to the resiliency of my people, the people of the remote, isolated fishing villages - most of them very tiny, having a mere 200 or so people - people who have managed to persevere for several hundred years under some very harsh geographical, climatic, social and economic conditions. My depressed friend has, unwittingly, assisted me in realizing that these people, my people, have had two great advantages: They had extended family with whom to commiserate, and they had a Jesus to whom they could go and cry to, collectively, at least once a week. The catharsis was, without doubt, therapeutic.

From a crass, materialistic, perspective, it really doesn’t matter whether Jesus exists in some abstract sense; the fact that he exists in the minds of these people of faith is all that really matters. Jesus is a therapist, then, indeed!

The psychotherapeutic literature repeatedly emphasizes how important it is that we talk out our problems - or articulate them in some manner, textually, visually, musically, by movement ...

Surely, despite addictions and closed minds, the opportunity to let their emotions roll must be a tremendous stress reliever. Without their gentle and receptive Jesus to cry to, I do not know how the people in my poverty-stricken village would, otherwise, have survived. I am ignoring, for the moment, those men who never allowed their shadow to violate the threshold of a church door, finding their own spirituality and stress relievers in the forests.

Fromm (1967) has clearly articulated how many people prefer not to deal with the vicissitudes of life, prefer not to take responsibility for themselves, prefer to hand over their autonomy to someone else. He says that is why people like Hitler, Stalin, and some of our contemporaries can so easily attain dictatorial power. Many people seem to use Jesus in a similar manner. Rather than take personal responsibility, they pray to Jesus and leave the problem with him.

Vignette 12 I attended a board meeting of a local seniors’ home as an observer on behalf of my congregation. I had no right to raise issues or ask questions. My role was to observe and to report back to the 100

board of management of my congregation. The chairman of the board was the pastor of one of the local fundamentalist churches. A rather contentious issue was raised, contentious in their opinion, a problem which seemed insurmountable by the Board of Directors, almost all of whom were clergy. The chairperson exclaimed, “This is much too difficult for us to deal with. Let’s us pray about it and leave it in the hands of Jesus.”

He prayed; he left it in the hands of Jesus. There being no other business, a motion to adjourn was entertained and the meeting ended.

I was astounded. The problem was a managerial one, a personnel management one, one that, to my way of thinking, not only needed rather immediate attention but, in fact, had a rather expeditious solution. But, then, I was seeing it from the perspective of graduate education in management and administration and with over twenty years of related experience. Besides, I was not in the habit of leaving things in the hands of Jesus but of taking responsibility for myself. ~}{~ Rollo May(1967) also recognizes the problem of people not wanting to think for themselves. His explanation of why this happens is because people ...feel themselves individually powerless and anxious, and that this is because there is a ... loss of belief in the worth of the person ... (p. 51).

One would have to admit that this is a strange occurrence in a religion whose puted founder is supposed to have said, I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. (John 10: 10). The message of Jesus, according to

my possibly naive interpretation, is to give value to people, to empower people, not to take away their personal potency and their belief in their own powers of agency to the extent that the engendered anxiety saps their energies and makes them powerless to think. However, my interpretation of much current religious practice is to use Jesus to dehumanize people, to make them dependent, fearful, infantile. The tremendous potential power of the life, person, message, and living spirit of Jesus for their living potency is being diluted and lost, a consequence of almost two thousand years of telling people that they were born in sin and are utterly depraved.

In contrast to this thrust, stealing people’s personal agency and potency, is the Unitarian position, maybe best articulated by William Ellery Channing (1880), maybe Unitarianism’s best theologian, whose introductory remarks of his collected works is, throughout, a condemnation of church, state and individual who has conspired to take agency away from the individual. Part of his discourse deals with how Jesus has been presented to people, portrayed as being on a pedestal, unreachable, the heights of power unattainable, the top of the mountain insurmountable, by ordinary people. He says, By looking at the sun, we lose the power of seeing other objects, and, furthermore, In most religious systems, the tendency has been to seize exclusively on the idea of the Infinite, and to sacrifice to this the finite, the created, the human. Furthermore, the mind of man ... is apt to grow servile, and man’s free activity is as important to religion as [is] God’s infinity. ... the moral power of the subject is as essential as the omnipotence of the sovereign. The rights of both have 101

the same sacredness. To rob man of his dignity is as truly to subvert religion as to strip God of his perfection. We must believe in man’s agency as truly as in the Divine, in his freedom as truly as in his dependence, in his individual being as truly as in the great doctrine of his living in God. (P. 2, 3).

It is that belief, maybe more than any other, that distinguishes Unitarian Christianity from all other religions and all other varieties of Christianity.

Jung (1958) places the responsibility of gutting humanity of its agency and belief in self squarely on the church which, he says, reduces individuals to a condition of diminished responsibility, and prefers to keep them part of the mindless mass that is the bodyof the church.

Isn’t that a rather serious charge?

And, if valid, is this not contraryto the message of Jesus, whom some call the Christ?

Vignette 13 I recently received a visit from a clergyman, for a non-religious purpose, and enjoyed some discussion with him.

He, however, paternalistically, turned the discussion towards things religious and, yes, dogmatic. Because of some of his attitudes and stated belief, I stated that, in contrast to his stance, I wanted and needed to question things, determine validity, inquire whether belief was reasonable. His response: Well, yes, it is okey to question but not to ask too many questions or to examine too closely. Too many questions lead to disbelief.

He would not be comfortable in the presence of Rev. Katie Lee Crane (Moredock, 1998), a Unitarian Universalist minister who says, I have found a Jesus

who ... challenged a system that was no longer working .... we each seek to delve deeply into the questions of life, to look at a question from many sides, to inquire, to love the quest for understanding .... (P. 1).

Jesus as shaman I grew up in an oral culture, whose foundation was the oral tradition, where fairies were as real as people, where witches lived in virtually every village (and they had real powers!). Healing was a regular ritual - whether my going to a tooth charmer to have my jaw rubbed with a piece of fat pork, which was then given to the cat, or whether it was Uncle David getting baptized in the local pond by the fundamentalists as a cure for his cancer.

Vignette 14 I was about twelve years old. One of the local churches announced a water baptism service for last week of May. The local pond was not yet entirely ice-free!

The water must have been barely above freezing. They people of the congregation that I usually attended said that the people of the neighbouring church were crazy. The non-religious had more severe criticism. The members of the church hosting the baptismal service declared that these were all expressions of disbelief (which of course, it was, but not in the sense that they meant) and showed how weak was the faith of the doubters.

I attended because this was excitement. No TV, then; no automobiles, either; no movies ... The faithful had come from three or four of the neighbouring villages.

As the singing commenced, a bitter wind came up from the easterd, blowing off the ice-fields that still surrounded our coast to an extent of several hundred 102

miles. The wind was cutting!

The time came for the people who wished to exhibit their faith and to secure the approbation of their god to follow their pastor through the waters. Several of the newly-saved went down to the sandy shore and got dunked.

I happened to be standing near a gaunt-looking gentleman, rather thinly-dressed, wearing the de rigour white cotton shirt and suit. He was already shivering in the brutal wind. I was to learn that he was from a neighbouring village, of a denomination that didn’t engage in this ritual, and that he had very recently arisen from his sick bed because he had had pneumonia almost all winter. Even I had sense enough to realize that the man was ill-dressed.

Then, he moved through the crowd and down to the water’s edge and reached for the pastor’s hand. On arising from the waters, he shouted, “Hallelujah!

Glory to God! I am Heaven-bound!” He made his way back to the singing and rejoicing congregation and again stood next to me, still in his wet clothing. He began to shiver violently and to turn blue. I was astounded that nobody made any effort to get him to someplace warm, to get him into dry clothing. He stood there for as much as another fifteen minutes, then walked another twenty minutes to the open boat which took its time to navigate between the pans of ice in the harbour and, eventually, to his home village, about an hour away, still wearing his wet clothes.

He died three days later! }{~ This was a culture where people would bottle their urine and put it in a warm place, such as behind the wood-burning stove, to allow it to fester as

a hex or protection against the local witch.

These were the same people who went to the doctor (requiring a boat trip of over twenty miles over the open ocean) and then threw their pills into the harbour when they were prayed over at the church the following Sunday evening. They also paid good money for prayer cloths that Oral Roberts had prayed over, cloths that could be placed on the affected areas of the body for instant healing.

TV healers continue the honoured tradition. I was recently told that a man who had been at deathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s door had been healed at church and was now back at work. I am not disputing it.

Jesus as shaman, and those who continue the shamanistic practices in his name, and in the name of a variety of other spirits and gods, are alive and well, and still practicing. There is no essential difference in the shamanistic practices of medicine men in aboriginal cultures and those who engage in such practices, in the name of Jesus, in our modern Western culture.

Jesus as puppet.

I continue to be amazed at how people tryto manipulate and hoodwink their Jesus-God. One gentleman of my acquaintance prayed that he be healed in order that Jesus demonstrate his divine power. People goto church to sing praises to Jesus but, outside, they go right on, behaving as almost anyone else. They pray about a problem and go right ahead and do what they had already decided on.

There was a fairly recent notable exception.

Vignette 15 Newfoundland and Labrador had, for several hundred years, a school 103

system run by the churches, initially mainly the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England (Anglican) Church and the Methodists. In the 1970s, the Pentecostal Assemblies acquired the right to operate its own government-funded schools. Eventually, because of duplication of publicly-funded services and entrenched and contradictory policies, the government decided that the system could no longer be sustained. However, rather than making a decision outright, it invited the people to express their desires in a referendum. The Roman Catholic church was confident that with its rather large plurality of the people, even if not an outright majority, the government would lose its bid to make the school system a public one. The Pentecostals prayed to their Jesus-God to do the right thing ... and there was no doubt what that right thing should be. The results of the referendum was a resounding victory for those who wanted a public school system.

(What a judgment on the church!) Jesus had obviously decided that the church-run schools did not conform to His desires and was, clearly, not serving the will of God. The Pentecostals accepted the decision, perceiving it as a negative answer to their petitions ... and, however troubling and confusing, the will of God. Vignette 16 In contrast, individual congregations of the United Church of Canada prayed for the guidance of Jesus, or God, to help them select the appropriate individuals to send to a recent general Council.

There, they prayed to Jesus-God, again, to help them select the right person as moderator of the church. Obviously, Jesus-God made a mistake. At least half

of the congregations across Canada protested the selection as moderator and directed Jesus-God to go back to the drawing board and make a better decision, one that they can support, thus serving notice to the Almighty to straighten up and get His house in order! ~}{~ It reminds me of an old story of my village: A man had two apples - a plump, obviously juicy, one and a rather gnarled, half-green, obviously tough-as-nails one.

Wanting to curry favour with a young lady, he held them out and said, “Pick Your choice!” The young lady, not knowing the rules, proceeded to select the plump red one. The distraught man exclaimed, “Oh, no, no! Put that one back and pick your choice!”

Jesus as Confusion There appear to be many people (like me!) who simply do not understand what the issues are all about.

Vignette 17 An acquaintance of mine, a lady of maybe 35 years, said that she had, just gone and gotten saved. I asked her why she did that. She said that she did it only in an effort to live abetter life. After a pause, she said that there was no real difference in her life because she had already been living a good life, all along.

After another pause, she said that she was a regular at Sunday morning service in her village. She said that she didn’t really want to go to church, didn’t enjoy going and, on many occasions, left the service feeling more depressed than when she had entered the building.

Even though my perception is that this lady’s confusion is widespread, 104

something like the man who opined that the one-time Moderator of the United Church of Canada was probably installed by the Devil to lead astray the good people of that church.

And, whose credulity is not strained by the story in the Bible (Luke 24: 13 - 35) which indicates that two of the disciples, who had been with Jesus frequently over the previous three years, did not recognize Him. Surely, one can be forgiven for exclaiming in astonishment, Give me a break!

Jesus as Model Despite my skepticism and cynicism of the practices of Christianity engaged in by some modern people, I still stand in amazement and awe and admiration at the Christian practice of others. Many people look at the life of Jesus, attempt to see beyond the Sunday school stories, and ask, Who is this man, this Jesus, and what does it really mean for my behaviour today?

These people have decided that they will live in a particular manner, and according to principles that they are able to articulate, not because of fear of Hell, nor even of promise of eternal bliss, but because it is the right way to live, coming close to Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1980) Stage 6 or moral development. This is the sort of issue that Dr. Laura Schlessinger (1996) talks about in her book, How Could You Do That? and Johnson (1999) addresses in his discussion of authentic Christianity and faith.

Jesus as Inspiration Regardless who Jesus was, historically, theologically, or divinely, Jesus has been and continues to be inspirational, at least for some people.

(The question is going begging about

whether there were two, three or a thousand people called Jesus and to what degree their stories are intertwined in the Bible.) People, some people, are encouraged to dare, to hope, to aspire, to imitate (well, somewhat, to the degree that they think they should or are able), to question. For these people, Jesus is alive, even if only metaphorically, and alive in a manner that gives people spirit, and enables them to give a spirited response to this phenomenon that we call life. It needs to be noted, though, that Jesus can be alive, even if he were not a singular historical figure. For the Unitarian, the aliveness of Jesus is an enlivening power.

In fact, the greatest aliveness potential of Jesus may lie in the fact that he may not have been a historical figure at all.

Osborne (1977) says that Jesus taught us that God is not chiefly concerned about our goodness, however important that is, but that, Our lives shall be rich and full and creative; that we should discover our highest potential (P. 16). Jesus gave no indication that this would or should be slavish adherence to religion or to a set of standardized, ritualized practices.

I asked a long-time friend, who operates a small hobby-farm, if he had any interest in going to church. He waved his hand expansively across his small holding- maybe three of four acres - and said, This is my church. I find my spirituality and my fulfilment, here.

I pressed him, saying something like, we are social creatures, not meant to be alone.

He thought for some moments and then looked at me: If I could find a group of mature people who could get together and share their thinking and concerns, be thoughtful together, maybe share a meal, 105

even in context of something that might be more or less a traditional church service, that would be meaningful for me. Going and worshiping magic is not for me. We might even sing some hymns - but not about the gory stuff such as the blood of the lamb! And, he glared at me, daring me to object, nobody died for my paltry sins.

Capital punishment for my few sins is over the top! Anyone who would die for my sins is an idiot!

Jesus as Hope and Means of Grace Many people have reason to despair. Beset by lack of opportunity, illness, disappointment, disillusionment, lack of resources, setbacks, loneliness, alone. For some of them, death would be a welcome release and relief.

But, for some people, there is something in some aspects of the Christian message - maybe in those elements that are not exclusively Christian, maybe the elements that Christianity shares with Taoism, for example - something in the teachings associated with Jesus that enables these people to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, climb back on the road of life, and plod along toward some goal, believing that some aspect of the Jesus that they understand is plodding along with them, helping them back on their feet should they stumble, providing encouragement, being a friend who is not seeking a kickback or favours. Many people have found themselves back to equilibrium from the slump of alcoholism, for example, can articulate their miracle in no other way than Divine Grace (May, 1991a), the term being one that they think they understand but their experience may not parallel what the church usually means by that term.

Jesus as Saviour My fundamentalist Unitarian grandmother, who would have been a devout follower of William Ellery Channing had she known about him, had no doubts.

Jesus was alive, alive today, alive eternally. My mother, now wearing the Salvation Army uniform for nigh unto 81 years (!!!) is equally as convinced. She accepts the storywith an unshakable faith.

Jesus paid the price for her, personally, walks by her side daily, and listens attentively to her each and every prayer, Jesus and God conflated.

But Jesus can be saviour in many other ways. Many, even if not most, of us are in need of a saviour, maybe not in the terms of traditional Christianity, not in terms of Jesus being a human sacrifice, not in terms of the blood of Jesus covering our sins, but in helping us find our lost souls again, helping us achieve a metanoia, a new commitment, realizing a new lease on life and on our search for spiritual meaning.

Jesus as Power-base And, what a power-base! The spectrum, of ways that people wield Jesus like a lead pipe is astounding. Stories continue to emerge about clerics who use their positions to abuse others , usually women and children, and about people in positions of power who actively prevent those of other sexualities to achieve full natural rights, hypocritically citing their Christian beliefs.

Vignette 18 Clarice is a warm acquaintance.

Although she holds clergy credentials from her fundamentalist denomination, she has been denied a pastorate because she has to be a helpmate to her husband, 106

a pastor in a large Canadian city. If she became a pastor, then Ephesians (5:22) and Colossians (3: 18) would be violated.

Besides, she has been told by her church hierarchy - all male, that women do not have brains.

Clarice sees me, somehow, as a kindred spirit, even as she acknowledges my skepticism. She says that she can readily detect the fire of the spirit burning in me. (Scary thought!). Anyway, Clarice trusts me sufficiently, despite the theological gulf, to confide. (Even clergy need confidants. Maybe, the more different the better.)

Clarice is also a trained counsellor.

She says, I wonder if you can assist me to understand a very troubling and confusing phenomenon. Over the past two weeks I have been consulted by three women who have been abused, physically battered, by their husbands, all three of whom are pastors of my denomination.

My explanation of that phenomenon is probably not relevant, here.

Vignette 19 Louise is a devastated young widow trying to survive and care for three young children. She and her husband were staunch church members before he developed some debilitating disease that took its course over three or four years.

Her church members guaranteed her that if she prayed hard enough, then her husband would be healed. She prayed and prayed and prayed. He husband died. Now, she is racked by guilt that she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pray hard enough and that God has turned his face from her because of her unfaithfulness.

Vignette 20 Selma, living in a tiny hamlet, had a vision that Jesus was going to return in eight months time enough to get the sinful United Church people saved and baptized into the one true faith (that, presumably most-sinful congregation being the competition in that remote village). The village was in turmoil for months. The United Church people did not respond, and the date of the second coming was only two days distant. Lo and behold, Selma began to speak in tongues; her pastor interpreted. Jesus told her that he was postponing his visit in order to give the congregation more time to get the United Church people saved. One member of that sinful congregation was heard to comment, Why the hell donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Jesus speak English?

Jesus as Intellectual Stimulant and Object of Debate If there were no Jesus, who would the philosophers dispute about? There is an unending stream of academic articles, books, news stories in Newsweek, Time, Skeptic magazine, the daily newspapers.

All use stories about people who speculate about Jesus. Virtually every issue of Skeptic magazine, for example, has several related articles, and at least half of the books advertised in its pages are discourses on issues of faith, Christian faith, most debunking it.

And, if the TV preachers were not sufficiently crass in sucking money from the gullible, magazines such a Time and National Graphic regularly prepare special issues on various aspects of Christianity.

Jesus sells magazines!

Jesus as Challenge Jesus is a challenge at several 107

levels. Jesus is a challenge to academics, skeptics, scholars. They canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave him alone! What is the power that makes the Son of Man so attractive, provocative, so enticing an object of debate and intellectual thought?

Jesus is a challenge to those who call themselves Christian, people like Bishop John Spong and Tom Harpur ( ) who try to overcome traditional theological baggage and try to discern the meaning of Jesus for contemporary lived life. What are we challenged to be? To do? Which issues should we take on? What politics should we be engaged in? Which laws should we oppose? Which people should be supported? Which opposed? Which causes should be extolled? Which principles advocated? Where are the lines - moral, ethical, biological, technological, ecological - that we must not cross?

Where do we stand and be counted?

What can we believe of our media, our politicians? Abortion, Gay rights, alternate marriage and family models, division of wealth, nuclear armaments, biological cloning, genetic engineering, welfare, work-fare, medical care, spouse/elderly/child protection from abuse, euthanasia, toxicity to the environment, greenhouse gasses, climate change, environmental protection, multi-national corporations, suicide watch, needle exchanges for addicts, teen prostitution, child porn, refugee acceptance and accommodation, warfare against extremist groups, banks .....

The issues are numerous, their consideration fascinating, complex, invariably urgent. Which of them reflect only contemporary mores and may have no theological significance (e.g., prostitution)? What is the message of the teachings of Jesus that informs these issues?

Vignette 21 A sometime pulpit minister in a congregation that considers itself liberal defended, in a sermon, a controversial decision by church hierarchy to open the flood-gates to gays and lesbians and accord them complete respect as due any child of God. That man is no longer invited to the pulpit, no longer a member of the session, hardly a member of the congregation. He felt that his understanding of the message of the teachings and the life of Jesus demanded that he take a moderate’s stand. He wasn’t quite tossed out on his ear, but he did come under severe criticism and felt it best to resign his commission and lie low.

The pain of his ostracism is great.

He requested that one the minister of the congregation during the controversy, now grazing in greener pastures, write him a letter of recommendation because he was interested in attending seminary. The minister explained that it was impossible: he didn’t know the supplicant sufficiently and, besides, there was too great a gulf in their beliefs. The latter was sufficient in itself to prevent a recommendation from being written. ~}{~ Jesus is also a challenge to many who have only casual acquaintance with church, usually weddings and funerals; maybe, an obligatory appearance at first communion or a child’s performance.

Despite their rejection of the church and, apparently, the message of Jesus - or, at least, the trappings with which the church has surrounded Jesus, Jesus is still a real, 108

living, insistence presence, maybe because - and no more than this - the dogma was hammered into their bones during their formative years. That is not, of course, to say that this presence is the incarnate Christ. In any case, it is a personal construct, however arrived at, however faulty. Maybe it is Freud’s Superego, engaged in continuing dialogue with the Ego, keeping the Id on short leash. The impact, the presence is, however, a real felt one, and is readily recognized and distinguished from a mere figment of the imagination. It is the kind of insistence that drew Bryan (1991), an acknowledged skeptic, to investigate the religious right.

Sometimes, one can detect this presence by observing with the almost instance vehemence with which the skeptics, cynics, some atheists will respond to religious issues, every bit as vehement, every bit as belligerent, as the fundamentalist will defend his or her Jesus - God. Even though rejected, dismissed, ignored, the still small voice, gently insistent, is there. What is that voice?

Jesus is also a challenge to the great atheists - e.g., Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett - who, wanting to debunk the tenets of the faith, strive mightly, admirably, creatively and eloquently, but are unable to do more than to construct a strawman, strike that down, and hope that nobody notices.

Jesus as God I acknowledge that I find it disconcerting to be present in a church service where a minister prays to Jesus,

prays to God, mixes the two, and seems not to be distinguishing between them.

One such minister has challenged me!

He warns me that I must believe that Jesus is God if I am to be a Christian.

That smacks of Christianity by definition. I cannot do that.

He offers strong arguments, quotes scripture at length and cannot understand why I cannot see his truth.

I patiently explain that there are other interpretations of his scripture selections; that Jesus never claimed to be God; that I can, indeed, be Christian without believing his interpretations. I don’t have to believe in the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, the ascension into heaven, the miracles.

He is horrified! He throws up his hands in frustration! I am a lost soul, an unredeemed sinner, for whom he will urgently pray. He wants me to read Was Christ God by Zodhiates (1981). He believes that if one doesn’t believe these essential truths then the gospel falls apart, burst like a balloon by the pin-prick of my unbelief and skepticism.

However, I am in interesting company. Fox (1992), for example, says, it would be absurd to read ... the Bible literally, marking down each sentence for exact truth or falsehood and ignoring its metaphors and wonderful approximate words (P. 14). One instance of this language, says Fox, is the creation of man in God’s image, phrases whose Hebrew meaning is still not pinned down, perhaps because it was never precise, not even to the author himself (P. 15).

There is another issue to be noted, respecting the meaning-discerning of Biblical writ. It is commonly acknowledged that the first instances of what are now the books of the Bible were 109

as oral stories, passed from one person to another by word of mouth (Kelber, 1983).

Rudolph Bultmann (1983) claims that the written versions can be relied on to carry exact meaning from the oral to the written (P. 97), a conclusion that is grossly inconsistent with those who study the transmission of folklore. The recognition of the problem of transmission is so acute that one scholar (Gerhardsson, 1961) claims that Jesus required his disciples to memorize his sayings (P. 328), this portraying an egotistical Jesus who would challenge the egos of the TV preachers.

That is preposterous! The oral tradition is, for the most part, nothing more than a form of gossip, and changes in substance can be expected to be as extensive as in the child’s game by that name. I grew up in an oral tradition. Ihave experienced how oral stories can - and do - change, and will keep changing until they are written down, cast in ink. Even that does not prevent substantial changes, especially, but not only, in translations wherein certain words in one language (Almah, unmarried woman in Hebrew) becomes something entirely different in the new language (virgin: woman who has never had sex, in Greek) because the new language may not have words of identical meaning.

I have been collecting stories from the oral tradition of my people for more than 50 years. Even within a small geographic area, among people who are extended family, different versions of stories develop, not necessarily by accident but because the nature of the transmission of a story depends on the storyteller and the audience (as recognized by White (2010), mentioned earlier. The exception to the rule, among my people, seems to be the matter of

transmission of genealogical data, which demands accuracy in a geographical area with a rather limited gene pool, and for obvious reasons: to prevent the population from becoming too inbred.

Besides, which of us has not experienced, maybe being victimized by, gossip. Some years ago, my wife and I picked up a stray, abandoned, dog, much in need of food and attention. We cared for it for several weeks and then gave it to a neighbour. It was not long before we heard the gossip: my wife and I had neglected and abandoned the dog; our neighbour rescued it.

In fact, many scholars (Kelber, P. 14) reject Gerhardsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s position, with Guttgemanns (1979) stating that, ...the Jesus-tradition as a whole does not represent scriptural exposition ... hardly needs to be demonstrated ( P. 213) Jesus as Myth Much of the material in this discourse points to a Jesus of myth, a mythical Jesus, having the characteristics of the personages of ancient Greek and Roman myth. This characterization is not confined to the reconstruction of the person and message of Jesus by the early - and late - church fathers, but is actively carried on by the typical layperson in the pew and by the typical person in the pulpit, however honestly scripture is interpreted. To speak of Jesus as a myth is to cause some people, the very ones who mythologize Jesus, to take offence, as if it were a shameful thing, something to be denied, hidden, unacknowledged, sinful.

However, in only a few specific instances am I critical of the creation of Jesus myths, and that is confined almost exclusively to those who would prostitute 110

Jesus to their own self-serving ends. In fact, with Rollo May (1991), I applaud myth-making, primarily because I believe that the scriptural account is so obtuse, fractured, and awkward, and so inconsistent, in places, and so stretching of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s credulity, in others, that only myths of Jesus are able to do the story justice; only myths are able to tie the scriptures together into a coherent whole.

This aspect of scripture points to the need for people to have myths because it is in our myths that we embody those aspects of life, including the spiritual, that are of most meaning and value. May(1986) says, people are crying for myths, for new ways of life, new heroes to fill the emptiness given them by society which has lost it means of allying anxiety, assuaging their loneliness and relieving their excessive guilt (P. Vii).

Elsewhere May (1991b) quotes Bronislaw Malinowski: Studied alive, myth ... is not an explanation in satisfaction of a scientific interest, but a narrative resurrection of a primeval reality, told in satisfaction of deep religious wants, moral cravings (P. 15), and, further, Myth ... expresses, enhances, and codifies belief; it safeguards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficiency of ritual and contains practical rules for the guidance of man. Myth is thus a vital ingredient of human civilization; it is not an idle tale, but an hard-worked active force (P. 30).

Malinowski might also have acknowledged the centrality of the need for myth in religion, be that of the primitive variety, or of a religion as modern as Christianity.

Vignette 22 An acquaintance who is a devout member of his Eastern-rite Christian

church has read one of my stories. In it I have portrayed a human Jesus wherein I have tried to imagine what the human Jesus might have said in a particular context and situation. My acquaintance is highly offended because, as he said, You have put words in the mouth of Jesus! ~}{~ If we look at the record that we have of the Biblical Jesus and every single shred of speech that is ascribed to him, what do we have? At most, incidents in thirty days over a three year span when Jesus is about 30 to 33 years old. If we take everything that Jesus said (as recorded in the Jefferson Bible [See, for example, http://www.2think.org/tj.shtml] we have about two - or at most three hours of speech. The Christian religion built upon that. In contrast, Buddhism is founded on, quite literally, thousands of pages of speech of the Blessed Buddha, and the scriptures of the Hindus can, I am told, run to the tens of thousands of pages.

If we do not extrapolate from that couple of hours, then there would be no sermons, there could not be! There would be no books or articles, no prayers.

Everybody who ever had anything to sayabout Jesus has put words in the mouth of Jesus. If Jesus is not an absolute psycho, and if he lived, then we must assume that he was, at least, consistent. With that understanding, I and everybody else - will continue to put words in the mouth of Jesus.

Jesus as Unity Jesus said, I and my father are one (John 10: 30) which has been generally interpreted to mean that Jesus said that he was God. But that assumption is enormous. It was inserted into the 111

scriptures to bolster dogma, but those who redacted the scriptures dared not be more direct, fearing the wrath of God, leaving it as obtuse as possible, but having the power to tell people what it meant. If Jesus wanted to claim that he was God, a claim grossly at variance with many of his other statements, then even Jesus was quite capable of saying I am God. But, Jesus, an observant Jew, didn’t say that, wouldn’t say that, couldn’t conceive how he would ever say that. In fact, just the opposite. The Gospel of Thomas shows a very human Jesus and Jesus declares his humanity in numerous of his statements, including, Why call me good. There is none good except my father who is in Heaven. ( Mk. 10: 18 ). (If Jesus said .... which is in Heaven, in whatever language, then we have another problem.)

Maybe Jesus was saying that the Universe is a unity, much as he says in the Gospel of Thomas, that we are all one with the father, not can be, but is! - if we but stop to realize it. Remember the lilies of the field (Mat. 6: 28; Luke 12: 27) He said, thus telling us that God is here and now, in the details. Jesus talked about everyday things for virtually the whole of the time, emphasizing the interpersonal: forgiveness, reconciliation, emphasizing that there is no distinction between the divine and the secular, all being one ... the sparrow and God’s love all in the same breath.

Osborne (1977) says that Jesus did not compartmentalize life into sacred and secular, and that Jesus did not think in terms of religious duty or even of religious act. The author goes on to say that, In making Christianity another religion instead of a way of life, we have lost the heart of the message (P. 16). He could

have added, thus missing the unity that Jesus had/has to offer.

Jesus as Paradigm Many people, especially many people who perceive themselves as Unitarian (or Unitarian Christian) do not see Jesus in any especial way, as human, that would distinguish him from any other person, historical or otherwise. Jesus is the paradigm that they have chosen to be the guide, the exemplar, of their lives.

Jesus is God only in a manner in which we can be - or are - God because we, with and like Jesus, are divine and are free to share in divinity. These people see the teachings of Jesus as important and worthy of adherence, not because Jesus said them but because they can be independently established as reasonable, reliable guides for life. From this perspective, Jesus does not need any historicity because Jesus is not worshipped. Indeed, neither are his teachings worshipped, but accepted, but not necessarilyas complete. If Jesus is God come down to us it is only because any of us can fill that role to each other; if Jesus had a ministry, it is only because we all can have a ministry equal in importance; if Jesus is the completion of God on Earth, it is only because we can all be - and are - the completion of God on Earth. Just as we, with Jesus, are completed in God, God is completed in us.

It is this perspective that enables Unitarians to see Jesus as the Tao (Dao), the way, the gate to the divine.

So, Who is Jesus?

Despite the theological and academic debates about the person, the message, and the divinity of Jesus, that 112

construct, called Jesus, of academia is not the construct of Jesus perceived by the Jim and Josie in the street. The Jesus of the common people is exceedingly complex, multifaceted, and multi-personalized, a divine of enormous power but incredibly gullible; omnipotent yet manipulable; omniscient but with blind spots in His vision; all-loving but having a vicious temper; truly God but curiously having intensely human qualities; a God that people have remolded, reconstructed into manageable dimensions; a divine one, yet seeming having a different accessible reality for each person.

I suppose, if I had really worked on it, I might have been able to write a thoroughly academic paper and let it join the dozens of other academic papers that I have written over the years. But, by doing so, I would, thereby, join the ranks of those who see Jesus as a source of academic debate and discourse. But, I perceive that is not who Jesus is for most people. Moreover, I acknowledge that Jesus is much more multi-dimensional than presented, here.

Jesus lives!

Oh, yes! There is no doubt about that - figuratively, metaphorically, psychologically, or, in some sense, literally. Most people in Western society respond to Jesus in some manner: some with rejection; some seeking and accepting as opiate; by others to calm the masses who are seeking, demanding meaning. Others respond to him, react to him, or engage with him. Whatever or whoever He was, whatever or whoever He is, Jesus still plays a tremendous role in everyday life and in individual lives.

Clearly, maybe more than anythingelse, Jesus is an enigma. Maybe, that is the source of His power. Maybe,

God would have it no other way.

Eh, Look! The sun is coming out!

The clouds have rolled away!

References: Akenson, D. H. (1998). Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press.

Borg, M. J. (1994). Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. New York: HarperCollins.

Borg, M. J.&Wright, N. T. (1998). The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. New York: HarperCollins. Bryan, M. (1991).

Chapter and verse: A Skeptic Revisits Christianity. New York: Random House.

Channing, W. E. (1880). The Works of William E. Channing. Boston: American Unitarian Association.

Crossan, J. D. (1995). Jesus: A revolutionary Biography. New York: HarperCollins.

Dimont, M. I. (1991). Appointment in Jerusalem: A Search for the Historical Jesus. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Fox, R. L. (1992). The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible.

New York: Knopf. Fromm, E. (1967) Escape from Freedom. New York: Avon.

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Ginzburg, C. (1988). The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller. New York: Penguin.

Gerhardsson, Birger. Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. ASNU 22.

Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1961.

Guttgemanns, Erhardt, Candid Questions 113

Concerning Gospel Form criticism: A methodological Sketch of the Fundemental Problematics of Form and redaction Criticism. Eng. Trans. William G. Doty, PTMS 26. Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1979.

Johnson, L. T. (1999). Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel. New York: HarperCollins. Jung, C. C. (1958).

The Undiscovered Self. New York: Atlantic-Little Brown.

Kirsch, J. (1997). The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible.

New York: Ballantine.

Kohlberg, L. (1980). Counselor and Counselor education: A Development Approach. In M. Bloom (Ed.), Life Span Development: Bases for Preventive and Inventive Helping. New York: Macmillan.

Kelber, W. H. (1983). The Oral and the Written Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Leigh, R. & Lincoln, H. (1983). Holy Blood; Holy Grail. New York: Dell.

May, G. G. (1991a). Addiction and Grace: Love and spirituality in the Healing of Addictions. New York: HarperCollins.

May, R. (1967). Man’s search for Himself.

New York: New American Library.

(1986). Forward. In A. R. Mahrer.

Therapeutic experiencing: The process of Change. New York: Norton.

(1991b). The Cry for Myth. New York: Norton.

Moredock, W. (1998). Who do Men (People) Say That I Am? The UUs Take a New Look at Jesus. (Internet. UUA.org).

Osborne, C. (1977). The Art of Understanding Yourself: An Invitation to Wholeness and to Life Itself. Grand rapids: Zondervan.

Pike, J. A. (1967). If This Be heresy. New York: Harper & Row. Schweitzer, A. (1954). The Quest for the Historical Jesus. (Eng. Tr.). London: A &

C Black. Schlessinger, L. (1996). How Could You Do That?! The Abdication of Character, Courage and Conscience.

New York: HarperCollins.

Sinclair, D. (January, 1998). The Jesus Question. The United Church Observer, P. 27- 30. Spong, J. S. (1992). Rescuing the Bible from the Fundamentalists. New York: HarperCollins. ! (1996). Liberating the Gospels. New York: HarperCollins.

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White, L. M. (2010). Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite. Ney York: HarperOne. Wright, N. T. (1992). Who Was Jesus? Grand rapids: Eardmans Young, P. D. (1995). Christ in a Post-Christian World.

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Zodhiates, S. (1981). Was Christ God? Privately printed and published.

Cold Patrol by Gabriel Charles Ryan Charles Ryan, one of the regular readers of TIUJ, had a career in Canadian Public Service. He served for 12 years with the Canadian Military and was recognized by the Canadian Minister of Defense for his services to Canada. He was deployed in Europe, Alert, Thule and at various sites in Canada. Then, with his expertise in Electronic Communications well honed, he spent 20 years as a civilian employee of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, almost all of that time in Canada’s far north where he helped develop the RCMP communications system across Canada’s Arctic, from Yukon, in the west, to Baffin Island in the east.

He is now retired and living at his natal village on the north-east coast of Newfoundland Island. He is attempting to record some of his many experiences in service to the Great White North. This is one of his stories.

Cold Patrol Fred Carper was born in March 1930, and passed away from cancer in early December of 2004. Fred was originally from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories (NWT).

Sachs Harbour is in Canada's Far North on the Southwest tip of Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea. Fred was a Special Constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Inuvik, NWT. I first met Fred, in 1986, shortly after I was transferred to Inuvik, as the RCMP’s Radio Technician. Although my tour of duty at the Inuvik Detachment was only 4 years, I came to know Fred quite well in that short time.

Fred was a very quiet man. But when he spoke it wasn't idle chatter. Fred had spent most of his life on the land, which simply meant that he would be hunting for several days at a time, or he would be out on a patrol for the RCMP. There were few Southern comforts, in either case.

When one prepared to go on the land, in those remote northern climes, one was well 115

aware that he had to be prepared for the harshest terrain and coldest climates that one can imagine. In the Far North, you were entitled to one mistake! Many did not survive their first! So when someone with Fred’s experience spoke, you paid close attention. I did survive my first mistake and, when I told Fred, he had a simple solution that, in my wildest imagination, I would never have thought of.

In the winter of 1987, I had been hunting by snowmobile with some friends. I was breaking a trail around a large lake, through deep, powdered snow when, all of a sudden, the machine seemed to fall straight down, and I ended up in overflow. Overflow is water being pushed up around the edges of the lake due to the weight of snow in the middle.

So, here was running water, flowing over the ice, with ambient temperature of 40 degrees below zero, Centigrade (which, incidentally, is also -40F).

I was 50 miles from Inuvik, and had to get my machine out of that water. So, I

committed ... and got my feet wet. By the time we had the machine out of the water, my feet were actually frozen. We made a fire with gas and moss and whatever else was burnable. I had no choice but to cut my mucklucks (native-made moose-hide boots and leggings) and socks off my feet. I then placed my feet as close to the flame as possible, but not so close as to burn then. I held my feet in my hands and, when I could no longer manage the pain from the direct heat on my hands, I would remove my naked parts from the heat and try to massage the heat through the frozen outer surface.

Being rather curious as to how much damage I had done - and maybe not thinking very clearly because of the cold creeping into my body - I pushed my hunting knife into my foot about half an inch before I could feel the sting from the blade. I repeater the thawing process for well over two hours before life started to return to my extremities, and, along with it, searing pain. Having burnt my now useless boots in the fire, I fashioned boots out of a piece of polypropylene tarp and rope.

Luckily, I had had the foresight to bring along extra socks. I made a second pair of socks from the sleeves of my sweater.

Because of the real fear of re-freezing my feet and losing them through lack of circulation, I choose to stand on the back of the toboggan and run /walk behind for the 50 mile trek to the highway. However, knowing that I could be in very serious trouble, and out of fear, I actually ran most of the way, which I think was what saved my feet.

I returned to work on Monday morning, and after I had told Fred my story, he told me four things: 1. If you ever have to get in water at those temperatures, the first thing to do is dip your boots in the water and build up a thick layer of ice. However be careful not to break your ice boots by bending. 2. Carry a couple of 116

thick garbage bags in your pack to wear as water proofing between the muckluck and duffle; 2. If you become wet, get back into the powder-snow as soon as possible because powder-snow not only has insulating value, it will also absorb much of the water, thus improving your chance of survival, especially if you are alone. 4. Finally, remember that having feet to walk 50 miles home is much more important than having a snowmobile to ride on and no feet afterwards.

Fred had seen the results of mistakes On The Land and, too often, had had to help search for and retrieve the body of an acquaintance or friend. Because of his manner in speaking with me, like father to son, I knew he was concerned that my love for the outdoors might get me in trouble, some day, sooner or later.

With Fred, there was a time and place for everything and, in his expressed opinion, some things did not mix, such as alcohol and traveling On The Land. He was not heavy into details or explanations, but kept things simple.

For instance, he advised to, "Leave your parka outside at night in the winter.” It took me a while to figure that one out. But, after a time, I came to realize that it was better to put on a cold parka and warm it up with body heat, than to walk out in the cold with a warm parka, that may be full of moisture, which would cool down and you with it. But, I suppose with today’s breathable clothing, created expressly for harsh winter conditions, this little bit of advice might no longer be valid, or not as valid as it used to be. One still has to try to generate a little bit of common sense. It’s your life, after all. It is in your hands. It’s much too important to leave that little detail to someone else, someone else who may be much too busy saving his own skin.

Fred had had a lifetime of experience, and was willing to share his knowledge. I was

a willing student. Fortunately, I went to the north-lands having already had extensive experience in the winter bush in Newfoundland, although, admittedly, the climate and terrain of the latter was much less harsh. What I would learn with Fred would imprint on my soul for the rest of my life, namely the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.

I remember so very well my first time doing a boat patrol with Fred. He simply said, "Look where you are coming from". The Mackenzie Delta, on whose eastern shore is locate the small town of Inuvik, is a maze of tributaries, much like the Florida Everglades.

Take one wrong turn and you can be lost for days because each branch on the river looks pretty much like every other one.

So I paid attention to where I was going to and coming from. I quickly realized that the scenery behind me was much different than that up ahead. So, I searched for, and tried to remember, land marks: A tree with a broken branch, a stump poking out from the shore. I counted the number of side creeks to the next turn. On a clear day, I paid attention to the Richardson Mountains, off to the West. And, very importantly, I tried to observe changes in the colour of the water. The fastest flowing water, in the main branches, of the river was darker, carrying more sediment, than the slower branches that were beginning to give up the sand it carried, thus constantly changing the depth of the river. Finally, I tried to remember where the river water ran clear ... one of the purposes of the clear water was making tea.

Tea is almost the staff of life in these regions!

Every year, the river changed a little, closing off an old channel in some places, creating crescent-moon shaped ponds and opening up new channels in other places. However, the main channels - the East, Middle, and West Branches - remained fairly constant except for a new sandbar here and there.

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The Mackenzie Delta was not a playground for those who were not able or willing to observe and to pay attention to every subtle detail. But, for those who did and, I like to think that I did - it was a wonderland with which I fell absolutely in love. I drew my own maps, measured distances, noted landmarks, and cabins, and owners. I learned the way of the people - the local Aboriginals, the Dene - when they were on the land and, over time, I came to gain their respect.

To these dignified and proud people, I was the Mountie (the familiar name for a RCMP officer) who wasn't a Mountie. When out on patrol, I would take along rabies shots to give to the dogs, because almost every family, out on the land, had, and relied heavily on, their teams of dogs. So, I became known as "the man who gives needles to dogs.â&#x20AC;? Carla, my wife, was "the woman of the man who gives needles to dogs."

By the summer of 1988, Carla, our two children (daughter and son), and I were as much of the land as the locals. However, we knew that we would never truly be one of them because my tour would end; my children would go off to college in the south; my wife and I would have no reason to stay in the north; and we, also, would eventually move back South.

One day in February, 1988. Fred came into my office and told me he was going on patrol.

He had a couple of summonses (court documents) that he had to serve, in his capacity as Special Constable, and I could come along if I wanted. It was his way of asking but not asking, and he knew that I was never one to turn down a trip out on the land.

That afternoon, Fred loaded the toboggans and serviced the two snowmobiles.

We were heading out, first thing in the morning, and intended to be back by suppertime. Fred, however, always packed for

the just in case eventualities. Aside from what Fred had packed, all my pockets were full of some very basics: strike-anywhere matches, hunting knife, quick lunch of dry meat that I would munch on all day long. It had a high fat content and could constantly replenish the body heat.

Fred was very comfortable taking me wherever he went. I was a good sidekick who didn't need his undivided attention. He didn't have to look after me. Fred had talked more with me about understanding the snow and, for example, cautioned me to note that a stream in an unexpected place could conceal running water from a newly formed creak and, thus, had to be avoided. My childhood, playing in the woods in Newfoundland, had prepared me for living of the land in the far North. I could hunt, fish, cook and build a shelter. I could tell a story and I could be counted on to keep my wits about me or do almost any job. Most importantly, I paid attention to every little detail, to a fault!

It was a rather balmy -20C when we left Inuvik and headed North, up the East Branch of the Mackenzie, traveling fast and comfortably on the frozen river. It was just breaking daylight, at 9 am, as the river ice stretched itself out before us. The weather forecast called for clear skies, no wind and no change in temperature. It was the best weather we could have hoped for, for a day sledding the Mackenzie Delta. As much as this was an official trip, it was, equally, a social visit for the people who lived, sometimes all alone, along the delta. Our objective was just to check up on them, on pretext of a social call, and to have a few cups of tea.

Out first stop was about 10 miles up (actually down) the river. (So up North equals down the river. The Mackenzie River flows northward and empties out at Shingle Point and at Tuktoyaktuk on the edge of the Beaufort 118

Sea.) We would be stopping in to see Lilly Cornier, just to say hello. Lilly was probably around 80 years old, at the time. She was everyone's grandmother as well as a wellrespected elder. During the summer, Lilly would have teenagers live with her, kids who had mis-behaved in town, who had gotten into trouble with the law or with the community.

These teens would be sent to spend a week with her instead of being sentenced to some other type of punishment if the infraction were considered by the authorities to be sufficiently minor .

Lilly had a way of seeking out the best in every child, and would entertain while teaching them by telling stories about the old days, while the children helped her make bannock for dinner. She believed in leading by example, and she believed in second chances.

In my opinion, Lilly outranked the local justice of the peace and the judges and magistrates, especially where children were concerned. She wanted her people to be respectable and to make a difference. I had stopped in to see Lilly, one day the previous summer and, at that time, she had four children with her, all of them around 14 years old. They were doing all the chores, and were obviously very happy to please Lilly. She taught them life skills from ancient stories. She taught them about the Creator, and she taught them how to live and survive the challenges that they would face as they became adults.

As we skidooed up to Lilly's cabin, she was standing outside the door, waiting to see who she could hear coming. She recognized both of us and invited us in for tea, which we immediately and graciously accepted. Lilly knew this would be a very brief stop for us, and she knew that we knew that she always had tea on the stove, at the ready, just in case.

This being Fredâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show, I simply sat back, near the stove, and sipped my tea as he

and Lilly talked about who was sick, who was in in hospital, basic politics or, in some cases, who was spending a few months in the Territorial capital, Yellowknife, in a holding facility, compliments of the crown, which is the Canadian way of, sometimes, referring to the justice system.

We said our farewell to Lilly and we headed out to start the skidoos. She spoke with me for a moment and said that she expected to see me and my woman again in the summer. I was very pleased with the invitation. Of course, Lilly knew that her son worked with my woman in Inuvik. It was a very small world even if the distances were vast. Hearts were still warm even if the temperatures were cold; affection filled the miles which, otherwise, had only stunted trees, rivers, mountains, and hillocks of snow and ice.

Our next stop was halfway across the delta to Henry's place. Henry had a cabin just up Skooner Channel, not far from the RCMP cabin. We - the RCMP - had a small cabin halfway between Inuvik, on the East shore of the Mackenzie Delta, and Aklavik, on the western - just in case. We had a few supplies to drop at the cabin. We expected that these supplies would, quite likely, mysteriously disappear before spring, because doors were never locked. We left behind, there, the basics like matches, candles, sugar, flour and tea. We made sure there was dry wood - just in case (The RCMP might not be the only people needing them) - and, then, we headed of to see Henry.

Henry was at home when we arrived at his cabin, though we weren't actually expecting him to be there. Fred figured that he would be out on his trap-line, like all the times before.

There was no knocking on the door. We simple walked in. That was the way.

Henry was sitting at the table of his 119

small cabin, having a smoke. He didn’t get up but simply looked up and said hello. I am sure that Henry would rather be on his trap-line, at this moment. Fred just walked over to the table, placed the paper in front of Henry and said, "You got to be in court, in Inuvik on Wednesday”.

That was it. The official document from the Queen’s representative in these frozen wastes, summoning the man to appear in court, had been served. There was nothing more to it than that.

Now that that official business was out of the way, there was an offer of tea, and the basic transfer of information as with Lilly.

When we had our tea, it was time to head off again. Fred reached into his pocket and placed a box of .22 bullets on the table. This was a small gift just to say that he was sorry for having to serve him the summons. Fred also mentioned that we had just put some stuff in our cabin, just in case. Henry understood that the supplies were there if he needed them.

We went outside and prepared to get underway. Henry looked at us and said that he thought that it was getting colder. He was right! We could hear the change of the squeak in the snow and the bite of the frost on the cheek. We said our goodbyes, started our skidoos and headed South.

Our next stop was about an hour away.

We had planned on stopping, part way, lighting a fire and having our lunch. But, we decided to have our lunch at our next stop instead. Fred and I were both concerned about this sudden change in temperature.

Fred was leading, on the back by-way of Skooner Channel, and then South, up the middle channel of the Mackenzie River. After we had traveled for about an half hour he stopped. I pulled up next to him. “It’s getting really cold,” he exclaimed, looking at me intently, pressing his lips together and moving

his head from side to side. I agreed. He then suggested that we head back by the most direct route, as directly as possible back to Inuvik rather than following the meandering of the river. So, we changed our direction to the East. We would have to cross many smaller channels and small lakes to get to the East branch of the Mackenzie and, from there, North to Inuvik. At our average speed, we thought that we should have been able to make it in a couple of hours or so.

About half an hour later, I could notice the cold on my belly, my feet and fingers, and the frost was biting through the folds of fur of my hood to nip at my cheeks. I was getting cold very fast, and my previously frozen feet were telling me to hurry faster. I also knew that Fred was noticing that he, as well, was losing body heat. Fred had slowed down a bit. I knew that he was thinking as I was: that we needed to change our plan. Either dig in for the night by making a makeshift shelter, or find a closer cabin.

He pulled to a stop without shutting down his machine. I pulled up beside him. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Inuvik is too far,â&#x20AC;? he said. I agreed. We also agreed that Robbie Day's cabin was the closest real shelter and quite likely there was a fire going, there, because there was normally someone there. So, we turned around and headed back West, again, and, then, a bit South. Although it wasn't really very far, geographically, maybe 10 miles, it was a very long twenty minutes. I remember the false sense of warmth when I saw the smoke from the chimney and the kerosene lamp light shinning out the window unto the snow as we approached the cabin. We pulled up by the door and left the machines running. Because we had topped-up the fuel tanks at the RCMP cabin, we weren't worried about the machines shutting down, and we still had extra fuel. Pullstarting a snowmobile engine can be quite the 120

challenge in very cold temperatures. You have to be so careful that you don't pull too hard and break the pull cord or, God forbid, flood the motor with fuel.

We entered the cabin without knocking and, without any formalities, walked over to the 45 gallon steel drum that had been converted into the stove. Not much goes to waste in the North! We stood on either side and opened our parkas to let the heat warm us up. What a wonderful feeling! I really can't describe it other than to say it was very wonderful. I think we stood there for ten minutes before we moved, just soaking up the heat. We finally took off our parkas and sat down. Although Robbie was not at home - he had gone to Inuvik - his wife was there. There was very little conversation other than very basic information.

On the stove there was a pot of caribou stew cooking, and on a flat piece of iron that was bolted on the side of the drum was a frying pan full of freshwater cod livers and eggs. Fred got a plate and helped himself to lunch, as did I. We sat down at the table and ate. I hadn't realized that I was so hungry. On the table there was also a plate of fresh bannick (a form of unleavened bread) which, obviously, was intended to go with the meal. There was no permission needed to eat. That was just the way it was. Mrs Day just sat on her daybed (couch) and went back to her knitting. Mrs Day knew who I was and also knew that her son, Robbie Boy (boy being junior), also worked with my wife back in Inuvik. Like I mentioned before, this was a very small world.

After we had finished our lunch, I got out my VHF radio and called the Inuvik RCMP office. I advised them of our present location and situation. They informed me that the temperature in Inuvik had dropped to -50 C with no wind. The revised forecast was that this sudden drop in temperature would change

in a couple of hours, and it was anticipated that the temperature would warm up - up to 40 or better. They would also call Fredâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family and Carla, my wife, and tell them that we might be late getting home. Otherwise, we would be back in the morning, depending on the weather.

A couple of hours, later, it did warm up, and Fred and I headed back to Inuvik in the dark. We reached Inuvik around 7, parked the skidoos in the garage and headed home.

Later on, in April, we were back into normal days and nights, and the average temperatures were much warmer. But, lest there be any misunderstanding, we were still into deep winter!

My wife and I bundled up the two children and went for a ride on snowmobile.

Around 2 in the afternoon, we pulled into Robbie Day's camp. We walked into the cabin without knocking, as is normal, and sat down for a few minutes to warm up. We greeted Mrs. Day and explained that we were just out for a ride, and that we were heading back to Inuvik after we warmed up. Like before, there was very little conversation. As we were preparing to leave, I placed a small package on her table.

Although she noticed what I had done, as was her way, she did not get up to see what the package contained.

A couple of weeks later Fred told me that Mrs. Day was very pleased with the gift of home-made jams that we had left for her, and that she had said that the man who gives needles to dogs has a very nice woman.

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I left Inuvik on January 9, 1990. I had been transferred to RCMP HQ in Yellowknife.

Technology had changed, and the radio repair shop in Inuvik was closed permanently. I returned to Inuvik on many occasions to maintain the communications system, but the saddest of all trips was when I participated in Fredâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funeral in December, 2004. All family and friends helped with the burial and with placing the soil back into the grave. I was honored and proud to be considered part of Fred's family of friends.

Rest well my good friend and thank you for the life lessons. I was a good student and taught my children in your fashion. Fred used to say, believe in God in your own way, respect the animals and birds, respect the land, and respect yourself.

Gabriel Charles Ryan - Civilian Member, RCMP C3625, Retired; Master Corporal, Canadian Armed Forces, Canadian Decoration, Retired.

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