Don't forget to vote

... In the English and Welsh local elections tomorrow. I'm in danger of forgetting as I'm off to London for my final interview to be accepted on the Roll of Ministers. I must try to go to the polling station before I leave.

Plumbing the depths

"The old watchwords of liberalism – freedom, reason and tolerance – worthy though they be, are simply not catching the imagination of the contemporary world. They describe a process for approaching the religious depths, but they testify to no intimate acquaintance with the depths themselves. If we are ever to speak to a new age, we must supplement our seeking with some profound religious findings."

O. Eugene Pickett

OK, ya'll have helped me articulate what it is I really want to say.

The foundation, and central purpose, of religion is for people to go deeper within themselves. To live a transformed life through our acquaintance with the religious depths. Committing to this process involves learning to pay attention, to quieten our busyness, to open to something greater than our ordinary selves.

I accept, joyfully, a diversity of experiences and languages in these religious depths. I'm happy for any atheist to join in a Unitarian community dedicated to this purpose. But I'm not prepared to accept that this commitment to the inner journey is optional or unimportant. It is central and necessary.

If someone involved in this journey doesn't want to use the language of traditional religion, and calls themself a religious humanist, then that's fine. But I think I want to challenge humanism to come up with a more articulate language to deal with these things, and to be able to dialogue with other languages around these things. I don't think humanism has such a language at the moment and so where it predominates I think it tends to create communities that are unable to deal with the religious depths.

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says

"The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism"

This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion.

The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here:

"Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others."

Quakers are also non-creedal and say here:

Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that there is that of God (or the spirit or divine) in all people and that each human being is of unique worth. This shared belief leads Quakers to value all people and to oppose anything that harms or threatens them.

So there is more than one way to be creedless.

What I want to say is that we are a creedless religion. And that word "religion" has to have some meaning. And it has to be something more than ethics and politics.

My answer to this question is that we gather around the Sacred - "that transcending mystery and wonder" but accept that it is mysterious. It cannot be contained in a creed or any static form.

Humanism, as I understand it, refuses to engage with the Sacred. So I don't see how it fits. If it does fit within this understanding, then I don't really understand what it is.

Is humanism theologically tolerant?

OK, well this might be controversial, but I feel the need to say it.

Is humanist tolerant? Please note I'm not asking about humanism within society. Clearly humanism certainly believes in tolerance within society and I'm forever glad they are often the only people in the media calling for a separation of church and state.

No, what I'm talking about is descriptions of Unitarianism like this and adverts like this, discussed at Peacebang here, which say that humanism is one option, Christianity is another, God is one option among many.

The trouble is, humanism, by definition is theologically opposed to theism. This is very different from the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism. These two traditions may be vastly different, but Buddhism, by definition, is not opposed to Christianity, and Christianity, by definition, is not opposed to Buddhism. But humanism is consciously defined in opposition to Christianity and theism.

So to say that humanism and theism can both be in the same religion is indeed to make God optional. The problem is if God is optional God is not God. You can't have both humanism and theism in the same religion, one will always dominate. The problem with this kind of thing is that it says to people who are theists, "you are welcome here as long as you change your definition of God. As long as you admit God is not important." But what's the point in being a theist if you believe God is not important? What's the point in going to church if it's a place that insists that your ultimate concern is not ultimate? How does that grow your faith?

God is a transforming life-changing reality, not an idea for a discussion group. I go to church to grow in my walk with God. But if my church says "you can believe in God, but only if you think of God as an optional idea, and you admit that it makes no difference if you are in relationship with God or not" then I have a problem. Because God does matter, God is the ultimate orientation of my life. I cannot with integrity say that God is an optional extra, that is asking me to lie about the truths I have found in my spiritual walk.

Of course the word "God" is just a word that points to a reality, which, while transforming, is still deeply mysterious. I am prepared to accept that. I am prepared to go along with people who have a different understanding or language about God. But only by saying "what I call God you may call by a different name and understand in a different way" but never by saying "what I call God is something that doesn't really matter anyway."

I hope I have expressed myself clearly, forgive me if I have not.

Moving to Bolton

I've been putting off reporting this on here because I wanted to make sure I'd contacted people before hand. If you do know me in real life, and this is the first you're hearing about this, accept my apologies for not telling you earlier.

I've been appointed as minister of Bank Street Unitarian Chapel in the town centre of Bolton (just outside Manchester for Americans and southerners with no sense of geography). I start in September. It's a good congregation and there's lots of potential for some interesting ministry.

I hope it goes without saying that the opinions expressed in this blog will remain mine, and not the congregation's in any way. I was almost tempted not to even reveal the name of the congregation on here but this is really silly because if you're a British Unitarian you'll either already know or be able to look it up very easily, and if you're not you could still look it up easily in a Google search.

I'm really happy for the next step to be sorted and something I don't have to worry about anymore. Just need to finish my studies now.

Official Unitarian Annual Meetings outcomes

Bless them, Essex Hall staff have actually got up the results of the Annual Meetings soon afterwards. Good good.

So have a look at the Resolutions, Growth and Renewal Day outcomes and the Anniversary Sermon. Worth having a look at.

More Annual Meetings coverage

Eric Cherry of the UUA International Office has written some more coverage about the British Annual Meetings. More formal and official than mine. Gives a slightly different picture.

Announcing.... The Unitarian Life

Well, it's been a long time coming, but my book, the Unitarian Life, has finally been published. The first 50 copies made it to the Annual Meetings and sold out, which I'm really happy about.

What is it? Well, it's an anthology of short texts 99% of which were written by Unitarians, Universalists or Unitarian Universalists. It's not a historical book, although it does contain writing going back five centuries. It's a book that helps people to answer the question - what is Unitarianism? - not by giving one answer, but by giving 300 answers! And it answers the question not only by trying to define Unitarianism but also by talking about Unitarian attitudes to sex, death, God, friendship, justice, love, spirituality, peace - in other words, life.

It comes out of a conviction that Unitarianism is not just a blank slate onto which we can paint anything, but a living, breathing spiritual tradition that it worth celebrating.

You can get copies from Essex Hall, Amazon UK and possibly Amazon USA. I would hope we'll be able to get some over to the UUA Bookstore as well, but I'll have to chase that one up.

GA 08 Day Four (Saturday)

Morning communion

I suprised myself by actually getting up and going to the morning communion worship. I would have liked to have stayed in bed. But this is usually the only time in a year I take communion in a completely Unitarian setting, and that's important to me. The service was pretty traditional, too traditional for me really. I think a lot of non-Christian Unitarians go to this service so it would be good to show them something really radical one year, instead it rather comfirms the idea that the Christian end of the movement is pretty traditional, which it is. But good not to have a sermon I think, good to show that you can have a service without a sermon.

Business meetings

Celebrating our congregations, procedural motions and these motions:

The government should set up a body that deals with all religious bodies equally since Unitarians and Jews have been thrown out of the Churches Main Committee when it was reorganised. Apparently such an advisory body is beeing set up, so not really a motions with much bite.

We believe that same-sex civil partnerships should be able to be carried out in those places of worship that want to peform them. As the law stands religious language is banned from civil partnership ceremonies. Some people made the perfectly legitimate argument that we should not be involved in working for the state in this way. The state should always do the legal bits of all marriages and civil partnerships with an optional religious part for those who want it. I've got no problem with that, it's a much better solution long term, but I think we needed to say this now. It passed, as did all motions, with a clear majority.

One incident during the debate is worth reporting, the youth, who usually go bowling or some such babysitting activity at GA, have begun to get political, which is quite right. There is no voice for youth in our movement right now. We have no youth on the Youth Panel, and they have no right to speak at the Annual Meetings. Well this year they had their own mini-debate in their own time and decided they wanted to speak to and support this motion. They prearranged this with the President, who can allow non-delegates to speak within her own discretion.

At the microphone the other delegates let the youth representative go in front of them, but Celia Midgley, the President, wanted to hear from delegates before she let the youth speak. Fair enough but it was very badly handled I'm afraid. She rather embarrassed this 14 year old girl by asking if she was a delegate or an associate member, after the youth had said she was talking on behalf of the youth. The nervous youth representative didn't reply and then Celia made her sit down and wait until later to speak.

I think this showed the institutional problem of the disempowerment of our youth. Hopefully this will bring about some change in policy and we can regular make a spot for the youth to speak for one minute. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Last motion: Roy Smith, former General Secretary, is given Honorary Membership



Overall I enjoyed GA. The best bits aren't necessarily the formal bits but the conversations over coffee, breakfast or drinks in the bar. There are some really remakable people in our Unitarian community, and it's good to rub shoulders with them. One snatched 20 second conversation is going to stay with me for a long time.

I would like to see a big cut in the time for business meetings. We managed to cut a lot out this year to get a whole day for growth, but we could do more. We could cut down the motions to no more than two or three, and use the rest of the time for training and education and worship.

The facilities were excellent, too good in fact. I'm sure it all comes as a package but to have such good food three times a day seems unnecessary. And all that bottled water is not good for the environment.

Next year I would like to see another whole day devoted to growth but this time have people leading workshops on how we can achieve growth, British Unitarians, and UUs, and evangelicals and experts in church growth and evangelism and mission and the emerging church. Us talking only to ourselves is really not enough!

GA 08 Day Three: Growth Day (Friday)

(Not exactly live anymore but still faster than any other news source)

This is my continuing coverage of the Annual Meetings, I only report on events I attended.

Morning worship

Another friend of mine, Csaba Todor, the Sharpe Scholar from Transylvania at Unitarian College, led this worship. He asked me to do a reading, so I had to be there by 7.30. It was good though, he was a very hypnotic way of preaching without notes, really draws you in.

Business meetings

Reports from Commisions, celebrating our congregations, Motion that Mike Tomlin (former GA Treasurer) be given Honorary Membership.

Growth Process

This was a sort-of open space technology process in which the whole assembly talked about what we meant by growth and what priorites we wanted to have as a national community to bring about growth and renewal. I think this was a useful process and I hope it got people excited about working for growth, and a lot of people worked hard to organise this process (including myself as I was scribbing onto the big screen in the feedback process, which is quite stressful considering what I said about grammar and Unitarians below), but I do have some criticism of the process.

First in break-out sessions we were asked the questions "what is growth?" and "what is renewal?" In some ways I wasn't happy with this as we were seeking to broaden the definition of "growth" whereas I would want to continue to understand growth as numerical growth and seek to include that as one area of what I would call "mission." So we talked about numerical growth and how that comes from internal health etc etc.

This was then collatted into a number of categories like "numerical" "spiritual" etc etc. We were then asked which area we would like to look at in a further break out session. But I'm sure some things got missed in the process. For example I wanted to talk about church planting but that didn't come up in the group I was in because we were told that answering the question "what is growth" not "how do we grow" so I didn't talk about church planting because I thought that was a "how" issue more than a "what" issue. Luckily someone else had mentioned it so it did become one break-out session that I attended.

We did have quite a few people to talk about starting new congregations and did have a good conversation and made some demands of the Exectutive Committee to look at.

But honestly I do not want the EC's priorities to be shaped by what came out of this process. The EC should not do what 200 Unitarians think will lead to growth, because, honestly, what do we know about it? If we knew how to grow, we would be growing. Priorities should be set by what actually will lead to growth. And we find that out, not by talking to ourselves, but talking to those communities that are growing. We do that by looking at empirical research and theological reflection on growth, evangelism and mission. I don't want the EC to do what we tell them, I want them to lead.

Anniversary Service

This was excellent. Choir was very good, and the preacher was great. It was Art Lester from Croydon. Guess what he said? He said we should pray. He said it very well, but that was the gist of it. We have these symptoms: our decline, our struggles; but the real issue was that we have lost our soul. That is the cause of all our symptoms. We will never grow unless we find a spiritual core to our religious life. I take this to be a "practice of reverence" sermon that I hope will become symbolic of a turning point as William Sinkford's "language of reverence" sermon was. It was the perfect thing to say at the end of the "growth day." Before all our strategic planning we need to seek the presence of the Living God, and let that guide us. Amen.

A bad photo of Art Lester