A Heritage of Covenants and Conflicts

Story for All

This congregation was founded by Unitarians 75 years ago, but 63 years ago the Unitarians merged with the Universalists, and this congregation became Unitarian Universalist. Today I will talk about how both traditions organized themselves, but with you I want to tell you about the great Universalist evangelist named John Murray.

John Murray had been a minister in England and for a number of years he lived with great fear and in judgment because he believed in a God that would punish people if they didn’t accept Jesus Christ and so he tried very hard to save as many souls as he could. Then one day he had a dream that God is love, and because God is love, God would not send anyone to hell in the afterlife but instead everyone would go to heaven. He was so certain of this, he began sharing this with anyone who would listen. But then something awful happened his wife and his baby passed away. His uncle said, “John, you need to start a new life. I’m paying your way to take a ship from England to New York.” So he got on that ship, but back then they didn’t have GPS. That ship didn’t land at New York but a little south in Barnegut Bay, in New Jersey in the village of Good Luck. So Murray goes on to land to find food for him and the crew and he runs into Thomas Potter. They get to talking theology, about the nature of God, and to their surprise, they both are Universalists and Thomas Potter learned that Murray is a preacher, so Potter says, “I built a chapel on my land and I’ve been waiting for you. You’ve got to preach about Universalism this Sunday.” Murray says, “I’m sorry I’m done preaching, it has only brought me bad luck. Besides it’s Tuesday and we won’t still be here come Sunday, we’re leaving tomorrow.” But there was no wind the next day, nor the next, nor the next. And then it was Saturday and there was no wind that day either, so Murray agreed to speak in Thomas potter’s chapel. Now a lot of people knew about the eccentric Thomas Potter and the chapel on his land, and they were curious, so a good number of people showed up. And John Murray stepped into the pulpit and said things like “God is love, and it makes a huge difference to believe in a loving God.” “We are here to live with hope and courage.” Can you say that with me? “We are not to live in fear and judgment,” Say that with me. “We are here to spread the kindness and everlasting love of God.” Say with me, “We are here to spread kindness and love.”

All the people who were there had a change of heart experience right then, right there. They felt God’s love in their hearts and urged John Murray to go all about the land preaching the good news, the good news that we’re here to live with hope and courage.

He went on to start the first Universalist Church of America and was a chaplain in George Washington’s army. So what do you think I want you to remember about John Murray taught people? Yes!

We are here to live with hope and courage, not in fear or judgment.

We are here to spread kindness and love.

Sermon – A Heritage of Covenants and Conflicts

Yesterday was the anniversary of Lincoln’s speech, entitled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions” where he said that the enemy of democracy is not other nations but the passions of individuals within that want to flaunt the rule of law. Lincoln had a profound understanding of this country built not only certain principles, but a notion of covenant that undergirds the Constitution and its laws—not that all laws are good but that a government by, for and of the people will work together to develop laws ever more in line with the principles that undergird the country.

Today I want to talk about the perpetuation of our religious institution of Unitarian Universalism and look back at our history, for we have a heritage of covenants and conflicts that both our congregation and our association can learn from today. There’s a lot of history I hope to cover, so I may speak a little faster than normal, and don’t worry if you don’t get it all, I’ll share a text later.

Ultimately, we are here today because people like us of generations past covenanted together to hone their most cherished ideals and allowed them to shape their faith, their community, and eventually their nation. The seeds for our faith tradition were planted on this continent when the Pilgrims first settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts and how they agreed to be together. What their covenant essentially said, minus the Calvinist theology of the time, was the following (taken from The American Creed by Forrest Church):

We pledge to walk together
In the ways of truth and affection,
As best we know them now
Or may learn them in the days to come,
That we and our children may be fulfilled
And that we may speak to the world
In words and actions
Of peace and goodwill.

That was essentially their covenant.

This term, covenant, may sound awfully religious to your ears, and I assure you, it is!

Covenant is at the heart of our faith tradition. Covenant means simply, coming together, or more specifically, coming together by making a promise. Just as two people who love each other can commit to one another to create a life together, so can a community of faith. A community of faith changes over time as new people come in and elders pass on, and so it is important to revisit the notion of covenant. Religious community based on covenant is what distinguishes religious liberals. Orthodox religion looks to a creed. The boundaries of an orthodox community are defined by a specific belief—those who adhere to it are in, those who don’t are out. The free church tradition does not have a creed which everyone must accept. The boundaries of the community are determined by participation and commitment, rather than belief. The central question to pursue is not “What do you believe?” but instead, “How shall we live? What are our shared hopes? What do we promise one another? How shall we live to support our common goals?” These questions answered are shared covenant.

There is much to be critical about the Puritans of colonial America, from their religious bigotry to their treatment of indigenous peoples, from their colonialism to their prudish and somber ways, but their understanding of covenant underlies who we are as a faith tradition today. They remind us that without choosing to be so, we are inextricably linked through a web of relationships with each other and with our ultimate concern.

As the Puritans set up towns along the New England coast and began moving inland, each community had its own church which served as a beacon for the community. However, in those early churches, there were all sorts of conflicts that emerged, no congregation wanted anyone outside their circle to tell them how to worship. And they recognized the need to be of support to one another.. So 28 years after the Pilgrims, there were 29 settlements each with their own church. Delegates from each came together and created the Cambridge Platform that said that each church will be a beacon for their community, essentially autonomous, but connected to do 6 things:

taking thought for each other’s welfare
consulting on any topic or cause where another church has more familiarity or information about a topic
admonishing another church, even to the point of convening a synod of neighboring churches and ceasing communion with the offending church
allowing members of one church to fully participate and receive the Lord’s Supper in another church
sending letters of recommendation when a member goes to a new church
financial support for the poor

Each congregation chose its own minister, typically from its own ranks. Now this form of governance is called congregational polity. It wasn’t new. It had emerged in Europe and was the defining element of what today is called the Radical Reformation.

So a little tangent here: In the Catholic Church religious authority is in the pope and church teachings, shared by priests. When Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door critiquing the Catholic Church, he didn’t mean to usher in the Protestant Reformation, but the wake of his action shifted the locus of religious authority from the pope and church teachings to scripture. There was only one problem. The question dogged Luther and others as to who should interpret scripture, and Luther back-pedaled and said the state-sponsored church—and sought to squash traditions that didn’t abide. But there were all sorts of small religious groups that noted that Jesus had no relation to the state; they insisted it must be the gathered community, the congregation, that reflects and prays together to discern ultimate religious truth. This way of congregations discerning religious truth and governing themselves is called congregational polity.

The development of churches practicing congregational polity throughout New England was a grand experiment. Never in the history of the world had a religion spread where the gathered community was the authority. And it was a recipe for conflict! Town hall meetings were held where everyone could be heard from. People would speak their minds, speak from their hearts, and ultimately the gathered community would have to agree upon a collective course of action or split… Although challenging and requiring a lot of time to discern the right course of action, these gatherings laid the foundation for democracy.

Nearly every church founded by the Puritans split between those who wanted to adhere to orthodoxy and claim they had the truth and others who recognized that all interpretation is just that, interpretation. And that reason should be used to discern the truth. These progressives became the Unitarians. The first church in Plymouth, First Parish, is today a UU church. And about 1/3 of all the original Puritan congregations became Unitarian, while 2/3 the progressive faction of the congregation split off and built another building. For example, I did my internship at The First Unitarian Church of Worcester, Second Parish. And don’t forget “Second Parish”! Interestingly that congregation’s liturgy hasn’t changed much as they still say the Lord’s prayer every week and the covenant is “In the love of truth and the spirit of Jesus we unite for the worship of God and the service of all.” It was only that last word that has changed, from “the service of man” to “the service of all.”

The Universalists on the other hand, didn’t really begin until the mid 18th century as preachers like John Murray traveled by horseback from community to community, sharing the good news that God is love and all that flows from this. The Universalists grew by such itinerant preachers and organized themselves by state conventions and by the umbrella Universalist Church of America.

In 1803, the members of the Universalist Church of America agreed to affirm the Winchester profession of faith that had three articles of faith:

Article I. We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God, and of the duty, interest and final destination of mankind.

Article II. We believe that there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.

Article III. We believe that holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to maintain order and practise good works; for these things are good and profitable unto men.

Interestingly, a liberty clause was included. The Winchester Profession expressly affirmed individuals believing what their conscience led them to believe—and it called the congregations to affirm these three articles but not using them as a litmus test for membership. This was the case for nearly 100 years until the Universalists began to decline

Denominational leaders of the Universalist Church of America used the 1870 centennial of John Murray’s arrival to America as an opportunity to bring together the largest gathering of Universalists until that time. It was a time when Universalist Churches were beginning to decline, and denominational leaders felt it was high time to insist on a shared theological commitment—and they took out the liberty clause from the Winchester Profession. You can only imagine that it caused even more decline—and there were other reasons for the decline, but the Universalist “anchor” and compass became a calcified rudder that plunged the Universalist movement into nearly three decades of a stormy doctrinal battle.

When there is great anxiety, there is a rush to censuring people, there is a rush to quashing certain forms of dissent. That has always been a part of this faith tradition from its beginnings and we still see it both in the wider movement and in congregations. And the Unitarian side of our heritage wasn’t spared by this anxiety of declining membership.

A huge conflict emerged between the New England Unitarians and what became known as the Western Conference. They disagreed on whether ministers should be held to a doctrinal test. In New England, the denominational leaders wanted all ministers to affirm a Christian identity, and those that didn’t were sometimes banished from the Unitarian ministry. The leaders of the Western Conference included Jenkin Lloyd Jones, the great church builder in the Chicago area and Frederick Lucian Hosmer, who wrote all three hymns we’re singing today, including Forward Through the Ages. It was William Channing Gannett whose “Commonly Held Beliefs Among Us” led to a shared resolution. For this document affirmed meta-beliefs and not traditionally theological ones. And it affirmed an ethical basis for ministers, not a creedal one. This was when the Unitarians re-affirmed in spirit the notion of covenant.

I believe in the use of covenants, but I understand that in many congregations, the notion of covenant has been used as a cudgel. It is not uncommon in our ranks throughout the denomination that people use the language of covenant to silence certain positions and drive some people out. This is a manifestation of deep anxiety, and the only way to address this is for congregations to ensure that a critical mass of their members are engaging the practices of conflict transformation. This includes helping people become less reactive and judgmental and more curious for the sake of understanding. It includes slowing down conversations to ensure that all voices are being heard and respected. It prioritizes process, not outcome. Conflict transformation doesn’t mean that we will agree. We won’t. But the goal is to get to that place where people who are in the minority decisions recognize that their points of view have been heard

So many of you have said how wonderful the last few months have been as congregational life has settled down and there aren’t isn’t as much acrimony, that my presence of just being myself with you has helped many of you to be yourselves. Hurray, that’s my goal! I want to connect with you and catalyze your connections with one another. And this second piece of work is going to take courage and curiosity. It’s going to require us all to be willing to be uncomfortable when other points of view are causing reactions in us. I ask you to give yourself and to give others the benefit of really showing up. I will continue to do so, because that’s my role as your transitional minister.

Now that I’ve gotten to know you, I believe in you. You have so much talent, commitment, and longing for loving the good and living the good together, and there’s a lot of real connections that need to happen. And this is the work of authentic covenant. It’s the hard work that congregations have had to engage on this continent since 1848. And so let me close with that covenant of our forbears that I believe is a foundation for not only this congregation but for the wider community of Fairfield County and for this country.