One could say that how we talk about religious and spiritual ideas is the most important part of how Unitarian Universalist churches minister to the needs of our members. The Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman, Senior Minister at the First Unitarian Church of Dallas, Texas, delivered this essay to the Ministerial Conference at Berry Street in 2003, somewhat in response to the Unitarian Universalist Association President William Sinkford’s call for a greater “language of reverence” in our churches earlier that year.

This essay is quite lengthy, but very, very worth your while. I have broken it into sections — come back Friday for part two! (If you just can’t wait, the full text is linked at the bottom of this post.)

“Images for Our Lives”

by Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church of Dallas, Berry Street Essay, 2003, part 1 of 3

I want to dedicate this essay to the memory of two men who died the same week in March. The first is Harry Scholefield, who was my mentor and friend and partner in the work of articulating a spiritual practice for religious liberals. The second, perhaps less known by many of you is Hardy Sanders, a layperson in my congregation in Dallas—a more passionate and devoted and generous UU I have not known. These two losses, and what these men stood for, in the midst of so much we have had to bear this year, have weighed heavily on me as I have prepared this essay.

Each one was devoted to our faith. At the same time, Hardy felt that we were frittering away our message with petty diversions. And Harry felt that we, especially we UU ministers, ‘used’ poems and wisdom literature, without having lived them. In many ways their lives and concerns shape what I have to say today.

(Read on … )

Today is the birthday of Bobby Henderson, founder of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The what, you may ask?

In response to the Kansas State Board of Education’s decision in 2005 to require the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in the state’s schools as an equal alternative to the science of evolution, Mr. Henderson wrote a very entertaining, and apropos, letter, insisting that the schools must also teach his version of the creation story, glorifying the Spaghedeity, since it seemed to him to be just as probable as the theory of “Intelligent Design.”

The Wikipedia writeup of the ensuing phenomenon is quite hilarious.

To bring this back to the subject at hand, Unitarian Universalism, today we explore the relationship between science and religion. Rev. Preston Moore, co-minister of the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, gave this sermon this past Earth Day (PDF), in which he posits science in our Unitarian Universalist churches as a spiritual value, and Unitarian Universalism as uniquely poised to mediate the balance between the “holy work” of scientists and theologians alike:

Working at the Water’s Edge: Toward a Reunion of Science and Religion

worship service led by Reverend Preston Moore, Williamsburg Unitarian Universalists, April 22, 2007

A little over a hundred Aprils ago, a twenty-six year old clerk working in the Swiss Patent Office dashed off a whimsical, newsy letter to a friend. “Conrad!” the letter writer began, “What are you up to, you frozen whale, you smoked, dried, canned piece of soul?” After asking about the condition of Conrad’s soul, the letter writer brought his friend up to date on his somewhat eccentric hobby: theoretical science. Squeezed in alongside being a husband, a father, and a government worker, it seems he had found time to write a few science papers.

This chatty correspondence is still around for us to peruse because the writer was a guy named Albert Einstein. In one of those spare time science papers from 1905, he worked out the special theory of relativity, the foundation for work that transformed physics forever. I bring Einstein to church with me this morning because religion and science are acting like antagonists these days; and yet Einstein, who became the living symbol of science, was passionate about their interdependence.

He described the deep religious feelings of scientists this way — “a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection . . . It is beyond question closely akin,” he said, “to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages . . . [T]he cosmic religious experience,” he declared, “is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

(Read on … )

Today, a short newsletter column from the newly called minister of the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., Rev. Lillie Mae Henley.

UNMC is slightly unusual in the Unitarian Universalist Association, in that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are central to the worship life of the church, though there is no creedal “test” for membership in the congregation. The church itself was built as the “headquarters” of the Universalist Church of America, before that organization merged with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961.

Enjoy:

Words from Rev. Lillie, June 1, 2007

Newsletter article by Rev. Lillie Mae Henley, Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, D.C.

My father said, more than once, “Never argue about religion.”

I don’t know whether it was my father’s wise words, or my own nature, but I’ve never been inclined to debate or argue religion. I have had discussions about religion, but when the other person(s) become argumentative, I find a way to extricate myself from the discussion.

I won’t argue, because my father was correct. Beliefs and religion are highly-invested and internalized, and it takes more than words to change personal beliefs.

What people believe are their experiences, and what changes their minds and their lives, is living out the stories of their lives.

Perhaps you remember the news story of the rabbi and the skin heads surrounding a synagogue on the west coast a few years ago. The details for me are vague, but the story is clear. There was a group of skin heads who routinely desecrated a synagogue with graffiti and threatened the lives of the rabbi and his family.

It happened that one of the skin heads became chronically and critically ill. He had no one to take care of him, and the rabbi and his congregation became his constant support system. It was not very long before the skin head changed his mind about his “enemies.”

Reaching out, caring for, forgiving, and reconciling are the actions that changed the lives of everyone involved. It was not words; it was behavior that changed their lives.

When we think about making a difference in the world, it is not necessarily what we say, but who we are and what we do that changes people and conditions.

Making a difference is about how we involve ourselves in relationship with others, and how we involve ourselves in the stories of others’ lives. Because we all realize, eventually, it comes down to our shared existence.

Living out our religion changes not only others’ lives, it changes our own lives, too. If our lives are a witness to our beliefs, then we never have to argue with anyone about religion.

Source: Rev. Lillie Mae Henley, Universalist National Memorial Church, Washington, D.C., June 1, 2007 newsletter.

As the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly gets underway today, I bring you words from Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd of the Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Manassas, Virginia. Nancy’s words call us to remember what it is we commit to in joining a Unitarian Universalist congregation, and what a church is really for, anyway — a message I find apropos as we go about the business of the denomination.

“Why Church Matters”

by Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, November 27 2005

Today, I was supposed to preach about Joseph Priestley. In fact, this is the third time I have been scheduled to give this same sermon about Joseph Priestly from this pulpit and the third time, that, for one reason or another and with no intended disrespect to Mr. Priestley, one of the greats of English and American Unitarian history, I’ve found myself on the appointed Sunday preaching something quite different. Once it was because of a snow storm. Once I just had a better idea, but today, in this season of thanksgiving, I shelved old Joseph Priestley because I felt the need to give praise to something other than a fine historical figure in our long tradition. There is so much to be thankful for, here among us, in this place, this congregation, this church to which we come week after week. There is so much more to be thankful for about our tradition, and I’ve determined that the aspect most in need of praise today is the impulse that brings us here, the religious impulse itself, which, even unnamed, lies at the heart of all of our actions.

Since it’s prominent in the sermon title, let me begin with the word church and explain from the outset that by using this word I am not taking a measured stand on the official name of this, our congregational gathering. To be honest, I really don’t care nearly as much about what our name is as I care about is who we understand ourselves to be. In other words, I don’t care if we call ourselves a church. What I care about is whether or not we are able to live out the very best aspects of what a church can be.

For the purpose of this sermon, I’m defining the word “church,” as a specific religious community bound together by common religious purpose, and I believe that a church like ours can and does to do more than just get us in its doors. I say this because I have seen people, including myself and so many of you, be profoundly changed by the opportunity to live a deeply religious life within Unitarian Universalism.

(Read on … )