As I have thought about the development of my Unitarian tradition I have come to the conclusion that there was a point when it took the wrong pathway. The point was 1838.
In 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson preached his Divinity School Address - a seminal sermon in the history of Unitarianism. In that sermon Emerson preached a religion based not on repetition of the stories of the Bible, but on an unmediated relationship between the soul and the divine.
He said, in part,
"It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.... dare to love God without mediator or veil... Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, -- cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity."Emerson's writing is not that easy to read in the twenty-first century (and perhaps it wasn't that easy in the nineteenth) but amongst all the flowery language I think these words seem to me to be very profound. For me these words open a door - a door to God. Emerson says, "It's right there - the door is open - go through - God is right there - freely available."
I'm not an Emerson scholar or historian but it seems to be like this was the challenge that Emerson gave to Unitarianism - and it was a challenge Unitarianism failed to take. Instead of taking this pathway to mysticism it took the opposite pathway. Instead of being inspired by this mystical teaching it took the worst parts of Emerson's philosophy - his individualism and dogmatic anti-traditionalism and defined itself by that. In my view that represents precisely the worst of Emerson.
I don't think Emerson himself stepped through the door. I've never seen any evidence that Emerson did what he was advocating - developed a deep spiritual life, an intimate relationship with God. The problem I suppose, was anti-Catholicism. Emerson and other Unitarians would have been too prejudiced against Catholicism to delve into spiritual practices of contemplative prayer developed by Ignatians or Franciscans. Emerson didn't realise that the very repetitive patterns that he criticised actually represented a trusted practice to achieve a first hand acquaintance with Deity.
In Britain James Martineau, influenced by Emerson, developed a similar theology of divine communion. But again, although in theory he advocated a deep prayer life, I'm not sure if he really worked out how to do it.
Instead, Unitarianism in both Britain and the United States, failed to step through the door, and kept arguing about intellectual ideas and beliefs. Without a solid spiritual foundation Unitarianism has spent 150 years trying, and failing, to find "right beliefs". It has kept up an amateurish philosophical task of trying to define truth and trying to define itself, a task that has always failed. And so we have thousands of sermons about "What is Unitarianism" (while still failing to come up with a good answer) and very few sermons about "How to know God first hand". And yet if we took Emerson's challenge seriously - if we actually stepped through the door - that is what all our sermons would be about (and the sermon would only be an introduction to a time of spiritual practice).
It's not too late I think (but it might be soon). I think there is time to step through the door Emerson opened. I think it is still possible to develop a Unitarianism that is deeply rooted in the mystical. God is still there. It is still possible to know God first hand.
(Image by Konstantin Somov. From https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Somov_open-door-garden.jpg)
Comments
Julian.
Emerson gives descriptions that would be hard to give from book-learning alone - with personal-sounding touches, too. I feel fully convinced they arise from his inner experiencing:-
"The idealist['s]... experience inclines him to behold the procession of facts you call the world, as flowing perpetually outward from an invisible, unsounded centre in himself, necessitating him to regard all things as having a subjective or relative existence."
"The act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one."
"The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. The announcements of the soul are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. For this communication is an influx of the Divine mind into our mind... Every moment when the individual feels invaded by it, is memorable."
"Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul."
"How dear, how soothing, arises God, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments!"
"It is the infinite enlargement of the heart. It inspires an infallible trust: not the conviction, but the sight, that the best is the true, and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears. One is sure that one’s welfare is dear to the heart of being. One believes that one cannot escape from one’s good."
"We will cease from what is base and frivolous in life, and be content with all places, and with any service we can render."
and, strongest evidence of all, this:-
"I am somehow receptive of the great soul, and thereby come I to live in thoughts, and act with energies which are immortal."