More Unitarian Videos

Hi all, I haven't posted for a while. I've moved house and there's been a lot going on at church. For now I want to post two videos I found on YouTube of Irish Unitarians. Both quite different, but very interesting and showing, I think, a dynamic to Irish (North and South) Unitarianism that is missing in British Unitarianism.

How do you do outdoor liturgical fire?

A practical worship question:

I'm going to do a Summer Solstice Worship in a couple of weeks and want to do it (or start it at least) outside the chapel on our forecourt. I want to light a flaming chalice or fire of some kind but wonder how to do this 1. safely and 2. in a way that won't just blow out in a gust of wind, as a candle might.

Any ideas?

The Accord Coalition: changing the terms of the debate on faith schools

Sometimes it's worth saying when something is brilliant. The Accord Coalition is brilliant and I really want to celebrate it.

For many years I've wanted a group like this to be campaigning for reform of state-funded faith schools in this country. It's simply unfair, unjust and unchristian for schools funded by all to be only available to some. Everyone's taxes go to support these schools and yet these schools, to a greater or lesser extent, discrimate against people not of their own faith. How Christian is it for Christians to keep the best schools (and they do argue they are better schools) to themselves? I understand Christianity to be about putting others first, service, making the last first. Yet we have people in this country defending their right for Christian-only (or majority) schools. This ain't right.

And now there's the Accord coalition, a multi-faith coalition of groups arguing from a faith and ethical base against the systematic injustice of this system. I'm hoping the terms of the argument are changing and the defenders of faith schools can no longer claim that the only people against this system are "hardline secularists."

There's been a few letters in the Times about this, here's how the debate's been going.

Multifaith plea: State-sanctioned discrimination must not continue

Faith schools and contraditions

Faith and confusion

Vote!

What is Unitarianism? Video

For those of you who don't know me personally and wonder what I look and sound like: here I am:



Well done to the DUWIT folks for getting us some good videos on YouTube at last.

Spiritual evangelism

"Religious people have so often pretended to have all the answers. They have seen their mission as being to persuade, to enforce, to level differences and perhaps even to impose uniformity. There is really something of the Grand Inquisitor in most religious people. But when religion begins to bully or to insinuate, it has become unspiritual because the first gift of the Spirit, creatively moving in [human] nature, is freedom and frankness; in Biblical language, liberty and truth. The modern Christian's mission is to resensitize [their] contempories to the presence of a spirit within themselves. [They are] not a teacher in the sense of that [they are] providing answers that [they] has looked up in the back of a book. [They are] truly a teacher, when, having found [their] own spirit, [they] can inspire others to accept the responsibility of their own being, to undergo the challenge of their own innate longing for the Absolute, to find their own spirit."

John Main (1926-1982)

How does Unitarianism bring about spiritual transformation?

We often talk about "Unitarian beliefs" when we talk about Unitarianism, which is somewhat ironic given we're non-creedal. I often think we're not entirely sure what non-creedalism means. Anyway I'm starting to think that it's the wrong sort of question. I'm more interested right now in what techniques Unitarianism offers for spiritual transformation. There are different ways of asking this: How does Unitarianism help me to walk closer with my God? How does Unitarianism liberate me from my suffering? How does Unitarianism dissolve the illusions I have built up in my head and help me confront the Really Real? These are the deep questions a religion must eventually deal with, and I worry we're not very good at dealing with them, which is the reason for our failure.

Yet the Unitarian tradition I believe does offer some spiritual guidance on going deeper. I've identified a few of these ways below, in no particular order. These techniques may not be unique to Unitarianism (indeed most spiritual techniques are universal) but they are distinctly Unitarian, though overlapping with much else.

Look within
The Unitarian tradition has often said that the Divine is within: "the realm of God is within" Jesus said. What this means, crucially, is that there is not some book or teaching its necessary to get hold of to understand the nature of reality. Truly looking within (deeper than the superficial ego) we can find God. Someone can go a whole life without hearing the gospel or the dharma and still "get it." Although for most of us, having teachers helps, but only in pointing us back to ourselves.

Communion with nature
Whether in the form of Transcendentalism or paganism Unitarians have always found God in the natural world (or found that God IS the natural world). Going to church doesn't make you a Unitarian, you have to go to the forest too. This is one of the most reliable ways to receive spiritual refreshment and transformation.

Thinking
"All truly profound thinking becomes religious" said Albert Schweitzer. The struggle to work things out, to explore religious questions, to explore the universe is itself a spiritual practice. Doubting may even be more spiritually useful than believing, as doubting suggests a process, while believing is a static state of affairs. The divine is found in deep thinking.

Loving the world around you
This spiritual insight is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, though it isn't always acknowledged as such by Unitarians. "How can you love God without loving your sister? You can't." Whatever highfalutin spiritual techniques you have, even if you spend hours meditating, it's all for nothing unless it leads to love for others. Love for others is a spiritual practice, and it deepens other spiritual practices. Love extends beyond the purely personal to include the political.

Wholeness
Spiritual transformation is brought about by a process of integrating every part of the human self: the soul, the mind and the body. You should not leave your doubting mind or your sexual body at the door of the church as you do something for your soul. All parts of ourselves need to be accepted and integrated. It is spiritually harmful to deny a sexual orientation or a doubting mind.

Dialogue
It is only by truly and deeply listening to the other (and not just to ourselves) that we can hear the voice of God. A process in which we speak honestly, and are heard, and listen fully to an other creates a place where we meet the divine. This is a challenging process that we're not always good at. But perhaps this is a spiritual practice that we need to take on more fully.

What is Unitarianism?

I'm working on our new website at church, and writing a bit about Unitarianism. This involves striking a balance between my understanding of Unitarianism, my congregation's, and my national community's understanding. Here's what I've got.

Unitarianism is a liberal and creedless faith, rooted in the Christian tradition, yet on a spiritual adventure in search of truth, justice and healing for the world. We are a faith community for those on a spiritual journey, for those who believe there is still more to be discovered in religion. We believe in religious exploration – through the intellect and through the spirit. Through the intellect we explore religious questions in sermons, lectures, courses and dialogue. Through the spirit we explore through worship, music, ritual, meditation and prayer.

Though we are on a spiritual journey, we are not only concerned with our own spiritual enlightenment, but know that the world today cries out for justice, compassion and healing. We believe religion is useless if it does not result in real prophetic compassionate living in our everyday lives. Therefore our religious journey also includes service to humanity and the world.

Unitarianism draws on many sources:

First and foremost the direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder that some of us name as “God.” Unitarians believe that there is a divine spark within each person, and that each person can have direct access to that divinity, without needing a priest or book to mediate between us and the Divine.

Secondly the teaching of the first century rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. Unitarians see Jesus as a fully human teacher and seek to follow his radical teaching of justice and love. Jesus taught that the realm of God is within us, that love comes before law, and that we should be on the side of the poor and oppressed of this world.

Thirdly the spiritual insights of all of humanity. Unitarians believe that revelation is not sealed or limited to only one particular religion. So many of us draw inspiration from many world religions including Buddhism and neo-paganism.

Fourthly the intellectual insights of all humanity. Unitarians see reason and science as giving important insights into the world. We believe the search for truth must involve both head and heart, both reason and intuition, both doubt and faith, both science and religion. We seek truth in science and philosophy and all of humanity’s (and our own) rational enquiries.

Drawing on these sources each Unitarian is free to come to their own beliefs, to name the Holy in a way which makes sense for them, and to be themselves in a community that celebrates diversity.

GA 09: Day Four

I managed to agree to do the 7.30am worship on this last day of the Annual Meetings. Urgh. It was a shame I couldn't enjoy the last night of GA but had to go to bed reasonably early. I was suprised that a good number of people actually turned up. The crazy idiots, they should have been in bed like any reasonable person.

Last day of Business

Emergency motion came from my district where Unitarians have suddenly been banned from a state-funded Church of England school: passed.

A motion calling for a set of "behavioural principles" I guess what they mean is something like the Seven Principles of the UUA. But just observing the debate about the revision of these in the blogosphere has got me feed up of it all. I can't be bothered with arguments about words. And I don't think we should be directing our energy at this when we could be investing in practical mission and spiritual renewal. I voted against. The motion passed.

A motion calling for the Scout Association to allow atheist leaders. I was undecided and abstained. The motion passed.

A motion calling for the results of the Executive Committee elections to be published. At the moment only the three-member electoral panel know the results. We only get names not numbers. I voted against and the motion was defeated. That's the first time in the four years I've been going to GA that a motion has actually been defeated.

Overall there was a lot more debate, and a lot closer votes this year than any other year I've been to before. Instead of voting for motherhood and apple pie these motions actually represented a debate, and personally I voted against more motions than I ever have. But I found the debates to be cordial and good-humoured and I enjoyed them.

It's also worth saying that the youth got a proper voice this year too. Horah!

Procedural and ceremonial stuff:

The new Executive Committee were installed. Bob Wightman became the new President, Derek McAuley became the new Treasurer.

Joyce Ashworth as retiring President gave a very moving address.



Overall not the most exciting Annual Meetings: no stand-out talks by anyone. No really amazing worship. No great clarion-call or great commission. Sorta luke-warm. Not bad, not great.

Right, I'm off for a week now. Tara.

GA 09: Day Three

Business Meeting

Motion calling for a shorter, more dynamic title for the denomination to be brought next year was passed. I supported this. See post below.

Two motions naming James McClelland and Eric Jones as Honorary Members.

That's about it.

Growth session

We finally got somebody who actually knows something about growth to talk to us. Jane Dwinell, a small congregation specialist in the UUA (we're all small congregations in American church growth terms) spoke very well about a lot of good things. I was reading an Anglican book a while ago that was talking about the so-called "Decade of Evangelism" (1990s) being in fact more of a decade of learning about evangelism. I think that's kind of where we have been in the last few years, learning, thinking, not really doing. This can be a bit frustrating. But I hope we're moving on now. It's not brain surgery to learn best practice from thriving congregations in our community and in other communities.

Anyway it was all good. After lunch we split into region-defined groups and talked about various things, but came to no conclusions. It was alright, and good to see Kendal Unitarian Church's fantastic postcards they've just created, but I get a bit tired of such processes. I get tired of a room of 30+ people, all giving their opinions but with no sense that the group actually comes out with an end product. It's the kind of thing that happened at the Minister's conference too. I just get a bit tired of it.

Then we returned to the main room and talked about "elevator speeches" (we're yet to find a good Britishism for this) which is always fun. But much better to do the course Articulating Your UU Faith to do it a bit more intentionally.

Anyway, it got me thinking so I was able to give a good answer when I was asked to go and talk to a camera for a video that will be put on YouTube. I'll post it here, when it's online.

Radical Hospitality

This was a bit of a strange session, not what I was expecting at all. It wasn't about congregational hospitality, but about 'opening our hearts.' At the risk of sounding a stiff-ass Brit it was all a bit American. We were asked to do some pretty raw sharing, and it was all very emotional, and a bit much. My worry was people were asked to dig out some pretty emotional stuff, and then the session just sort of ended. At a conference like Hucklow Summer School I could imagine this being pretty powerful. After such a session I could go for a long walk, talk to the chaplain, I could have time to process it all. But GA is not a time to process a lot of emotional stuff. It's much too busy and hectic, and not supportive or safe enough. I felt the session and context didn't hold the emotional baggage we were asked to unload well enough.

Anniversary Service

I was being welcomed onto the Roll of Ministers so was on the stage for part of the service. It was a nice service, but much too hot. Shame we couldn't be in a cool cathedral.