Retreats » Spring 2009 - Theme Talk
UU Visions of the Earth today
Theme Speech for the European Unitarian Universalist Retreat
Spa, Belgium, April 4, 2009
Rev. Brian J. Kiely
President, International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU)
By way of introduction, I am an unrepentant optimist. I not only see the glass as half full, but I am willing to swear on a stack of scriptures of your choice that it is getting fuller by the second. That said, even I have to admit that the world is not in good shape and that the prospects of the future of the human race look dicey at best.
All citizens of this planet face the same kinds of challenges, whether they are well-educated and well-to-do Europeans, slum living Brazilians, factory-working Chinese, activist Australians, rural villagers in the mountains of north eastern India, or a UU minister while reflecting on the family farm in the oil rich wilderness north of Edmonton.
In large measure, the challenges are the same as they have always been: How will I make my living? Can I keep myself and my family safe and secure and maybe even a little prosperous? Can I live a happy and maybe even satisfying life?
Of course the answers to such questions are greatly affected by the social context in which they are being asked.
I have never lived in a place where there is war. My safety concerns have more to do with a good furnace against -40 winters, and whether or not the exploitation of the Alberta tar sands will pollute all of our vast water resources. A Chinese factory worker may be most fearful of the thick black smoke and the funny chemical smells at the plant. The African farmer might be most frightened of the drought that have killed his crops and driven food prices into the stratosphere.
The context in which we live affects the very way we state our hopes and dreams… and our fears about living. Religion, which frames our response to those things, is equally shaped by our context. The most interesting thing I have learned since becoming active as a UU on an international stage is that our creedless ‘faith’ is not a single religion at all. Rather it is a collection, a loose federation of widely varied responses to social conditions around the world.
This discovery fascinates me, and I have spent the last while puzzling over how each of these sometimes quite disparate groups finds their way into the tent marked Unitarian Universalist. I’d like to explore that with you today, and then spend some time thinking about what we Unitarian Universalists have to offer the world locally and globally. Finally, after the break I would like to share some of the activities of the ICUU and some of the elements of a strategic plan the Executive to bring to the September Council meeting in Koloszvar – give it a test run and do some brainstorming about what you think our International organization should be trying to do.
Plan for the day:
First Half:
What conditions exist that give UUism a chance to matter in the world?
What are the key themes that describe early Unitarianism?
Are they relevant in UU expressions around the world?
Taking a trip to a few UU places-
Conclusion and discussion
Break
Second Half:
Where should the ICUU fit into this? (Discussion)
The ICUU’s Mission and developing Strategic Plan
Are we on the right track? What should we be doing? (Discussion)
So my questions for today What unites us as Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists**? What common values do we share? And finally, What is it that we can bring to the world and its troubles?
I suspect one thing that unites us is our love of ideas and communication. After last night I am pretty convinced that you are a lot like other UU’s I know. Making and maintaining connections are important to you. We build community by choice, not because we live down the road from each other. Keeping in touch is important.
It always has been. Making use of the tools of communications is a hallmark for us.
Today, we live in the most connected and highly populated world we have ever known. Six centuries ago Gutenberg** invented the printing press a few hundred kilometres down the road in Strasbourg. Before then many priests had never even read the Bible. As for lay folk…almost none. In many places, the church forbade the reading of Scripture by those not under Holy orders, a prohibitions that lasted well into the middle of the 20th century in some places. Letters and public decrees, if they ever arrived, could only be read by a few and took days if not weeks to get to their destinations. In short, information that really mattered rested in the hands of very few and was quite tightly controlled.
Now, we can find the Bible on-line in an enormous variety of languages, along with the Qu’ran, the Buddhist Sutras and the Hindu scriptures and everything else under the sun.
The fact is, there are few secrets anymore. A year ago February, I went to Nairobi, Kenya to be part of the ICUU Leadership Conference faculty. You may recall that that nation had fallen into tumultuous times only two months before after bitterly disputed elections. In the isolated and rural west part of the nation, inter-tribal violence erupted killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands. It began to look like this progressive African nation would be swept under a wave of genocidal violence as had happened in Rwanda 15 years before. That didn’t happen. There were many reasons, including a fairly well grounded democratic tradition. But I think we have to give credit to advances in communications technology. Within minutes of the first atrocities, mobile phones were ringing across the country and around the world. Reporters were overflying remote areas within hours with images digitally broadcast the same evening to homes worldwide on TV’s and computers. Within days, international condemnation was such that the instigators were calling back their forces.
There are no secret purges anymore.
With radical new telephone technology and an internet that has quickly moved from desktops to laptops and now to hand held devices, traditional news agencies as well as non-mainstream journalists have direct access to us. Add in the opinions of the plethora of bloggers out there and there is more information that any one person can digest in a lifetime. But with ever improving search engines, it is becoming almost effortless to find out anything we want to know. Probably the greatest single example of this democratization of information is Wikipedia, the extraordinary on-line encyclopaedia created by everyday people.
And I suppose I should shamelessly insert here that telephones were invented by the Unitarian Alexander Graham Bell (in Canada!) and that this marvellous Internet capability was invented in part by the Unitarian Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Now if we could only figure out a way to claim Gutenberg!
In a way, that’s no surprise. Unitarians have a long tradition of seeking the free flow of information, of pursuing truth in all things including science and religion. Indeed one of the UUA’s Seven Principles, also adopted by the CUC and widely respected around the globe, is an affirmation of ‘the responsible search for truth and meaning’.
If there is a value we share around the globe it is the interest of learning more and thinking more and asking more questions.
Why? What’s behind our inquisitiveness and our desire to share our discoveries? The Unitarian historian Earle Morse Wilbur postulated three key themes in our intellectual and institutional history: Freedom, Reason, and Tolerance**. A quick anchoring of the three can be found in the story of our philosophical founder, Michael Servetus.
Servetus was a Spaniard educated in law, in medicine and with a deep and abiding interest in theology. His medical research was cutting edge. He uncovered facts about the body and the circulation of air and blood that was well ahead of his time.
But, as I say, he was deeply fascinated by religion. He read the Bible and noticed that there was nothing in the Gospels nor in the writings of Paul that suggested the existence of a Trinity. This, of course, is a basic required belief of Christianity.
In 1519, the same year that Martin Luther was kicking off the Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, the youthful Servetus published On the Errors of the Trinity, asserting that insisting on an unscriptural required belief did not make rational sense. He applied REASON to Scripture and found belief wanting. The book was immediately condemned pretty much everywhere. John Calvin ordered it burned and swore that he would try Servetus on heresy charges should he ever get hold of him. In fact, Servetus was tried by the French Inquisition and sentenced to death. But it seems like no one had the stomach for carrying out the execution, so he was conveniently allowed to escape. For years he would pursue his medical research and stay out of the public eye for 3 decades.
And then, one day he decided to go visit his ‘old friend’ Calvin in Geneva** thinking that he could persuade the humourless reformer to see the light. By this time Calvin had a pretty firm grasp on power in that city, both religious and secular. Though ruled by a council, not much got done without his approval. It’s worth noting that after Calvin, the most headstrong, arrogant and just plain stubborn reformer was probably Servetus himself. His decision to go to Geneva clearly falls into the “What was he thinking?” category. Who among us would go all alone and take on so powerful a figure who had sworn that he would see us dead? We can only assume that he expected that Calvin would respect his FREEDOM to believe and listen to reason.
Calvin immediately had him arrested and guided the prosecution from a distance. Again Servetus was sentenced to die. Calvin himself went to his cell to persuade him to recant so there could be a swifter and more merciful beheading, but Servetus refused. He was burned alive at the stake in 1553.
Now as I said, Servetus was probably not the guy you would want to take to lunch more than once. For all of his gifts, he was not a religious leader, nor did he ever try to become one.
Unlike Jesus or Buddha, no religious movement sprung up in his name. No one was ever tempted to revere him, except possibly as a ground breaking physician.
But if he had few friends and no followers, Michael Servetus did have sympathizers. What did spring up after his death was a deep concern among other religious reformers. “If they can try and execute him, what’s to stop anyone coming after us? Have we not just thrown off the Roman church so we can have Freedom of belief?” It was a great test for the Protestant Reformation: What will we do with those who disagree?
The death of Servetus would set off what would come to be known as the Toleration debate across the continent. Though it would take a couple of hundred years, every European nation, and most nations later influenced or colonized by European countries would guarantee – or at least tolerate- religious freedom. That is Servetus’ greatest legacy.
Freedom, reason and tolerance. These are the cornerstones of the Unitarian, and to a lesser degree the Universalist traditions.
These would also become critical values of the Enlightenment starting in the 17th century. The use of freedom, reason and tolerance allowed the flowering of science, philosophy and social theory as well as theology. In the last hundred years we have discovered more about the world than the entire sum of human knowledge up to that time, and we have probably created more technology in a decade than ever existed before that. I have already referred to the boom in communications capabilities, advances so mind boggling that even the science fiction writers of a few decades ago couldn’t envision it all.
Our world is becoming ever smaller. We have uncovered ways to go anywhere we want to go, even to hold back death, to manipulate the world and Nature to our advantage…
…but is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Where do we go with our problems?
The human race grew up in tribes. If history teaches us anything it is that when the tribes got too close to one another, either warfare or commerce broke out. The destructive consequences of warfare are obvious. However, it may be that we are only coming to understand the potential negative impact of commerce and technology. I need not tell you the challenges facing the global economy nor the environment. Both are the product of human enterprise.
On top of that many nations are wrestling with immigration issues as societies struggle to match openness and generosity with the desire to preserve cultures and ways of life. There is no shortage of problems facing us.
As these issues grow more complex and pressing, where can we turn for inspiration, for support, for help in finding solutions? Well, that’s a mighty big question and there are a lot of good answers. But for those of us with a certain predisposition, what some of my colleagues call ‘the church gene’, some of us turn to religion. And within that vast field, there is a minority’s minority who claim the title Unitarian Universalist.
I have always believed that all human societies and every human being shares a religious impulse. By that I mean we all wrestle with the biq questions. Why are we here? How did the world begin? Is there something beyond this life?
Sometimes these questions arise out of our own musings. Other times they grow out of a response to wonder or tragedy. Probably the most famous question in that realm is why do bad things happen to good people? To me, no matter where we seek the answers, these are religious questions.
If you have been to enough of these retreats, you have probably heard one of my predecessors remark that the Latin root of the word religion (religare) literally means to tie up or bind together. The religious impulse** is the desire to find explanations that tie the world together for us, both the physical world we can see and the metaphysical world we can only vaguely sense. Religion (with a small r) is the combination of notions, beliefs, assumptions, morals, philosophies and just plain guesses we use to make sense of things around us.
Like everything else, how and where we seek our answers is partly dependent on our own personality, but it is also heavily dependent on our cultural context…where we were born, family of origin, the culture in which we live.
From this we can make a key assumption that applies to all religion including Unitarian Universalism.
Religion (formal and informal) is part and parcel of the culture in which it arises. They are inseparable. This is particularly intriguing when you look at the state of our faith around the globe. Unitarian Universalism is a free faith. There are no set doctrines, no required beliefs. In fact we are so free, that some critics argue that we are not a religion at all. There is no center, no one size fits all ritual or core value.
If there is anything uniting us, and we shall test this idea this morning, it is those vague notions of freedom, reason and tolerance, locally interpreted. If that is the starting point, then it’s likely that each expression of our faith will have as many differences as similarities. Why? Because each national expression responds to a different set of cultural values, conditions and challenges.
So let’s test that out by looking at a few very diverse Unitarian and UU expressions.
I began this morning by talking about the incredible boom in communications. We will see in awhile that this new technology is the means through which many new people are discovering our liberal message. The history of our tradition is closely tied to our ability to communicate the gifts of reason, to share our understanding of faith.
Transylvania
A few years after Michael Servetus was planning his ill fated trip to Geneva, an Italian reformer named Giorgio Biandrata** was finding Italy, religious upheavals a little to threatening. He too was a believer on one God and the use of reason. He left for Poland, then a place of burgeoning culture and intellect. There he would become a leader of the Minor church, later called Socinianism after Biandrata’s successor. That movement would flourish in Poland for a time only to be crushed in the violence of the Counter-reformation. It has never fully recovered, although there are a few keeping the flame alive.
For his part, Biandrata met Queen Isabella and her son John Sigismund. They were the exiled rulers of Transylvania. In 1563, when they returned to the throne and Biandrata went with them, for there were intrigued by this new Unitarian Christian faith. Biandrata would play an influence in the conversion of one Frances David, who would become the court preacher.
Now if I keep repeating a theme, it is that religion is influenced by culture. At that time, Transylvania sat in a very precarious place. It was in the middle between the Christian empire of Europe and the Islamic Ottoman Turks of Asia Minor. Isabella had gone to Poland in the first place when the Ottoman invaded as far as Buda. I have to think that there was a measure of politics of survival involved when King John proposed the radical notion of getting along. With the help of David, he presented the idea of religious toleration to the Diet. A furious debate ensued, but when it was done, perhaps due to a divine lighting effect**, Transylvania passed the first Edict of Toleration in 1568.
His majesty, our Lord, in what manner he – together with his realm – legislated in the matter of religion at the previous Diets, in the same matter now, in this Diet, reaffirms that in every place the preachers shall preach and explain the Gospel each according to his understanding of it, and if the congregation like it, well. If not, no one shall compel them for their souls would not be satisfied, but they shall be permitted to keep a preacher whose teaching they approve. Therefore none of the superintendents or others shall abuse the preachers, no one shall be reviled for his religion by anyone, according to the previous statutes, and it is not permitted that anyone should threaten anyone else by imprisonment or by removal from his post for his teaching. For faith is the gift of God and this comes from hearing, which hearings is by the word of God.
For a time Unitarianism would be the national religion of the land. Unfortunately, John Sigismund died in a suspicious hunting accident, and in time Francis David was imprisoned in Deva** for heresy where he died. He preached that it was an error to pray to Jesus. The Edict was repealed for a time, but ideas cannot be undone. A Unitarian church structure was formed in Transylvania which continues as the oldest expression** of our religion. It is liberal Christian in outlook but with a unitary God and the motto Egy as Isten- God is one.
Ideas Travel
I noted that the Polish Brethern or Socinian Church was crushed in the Catholic counter-reformation, but not before they had established a printing press in the town of Rakow. Among other publications was a Unitarian catechism.
Following our theme of communication, many of these works were sent out of Poland and across Europe. One place where they landed was Holland where they furthered the thinking of a Jacobus Arminius. Arminianism sought to throw off the most repressive aspects of Calvinism, but he was not a Unitarian. However, his ideas inspired John Wesley and several generations worth of dissenting English clergymen including Theophilius Lindsey. In the 1760’s this friend of Charles Dickens would connect with a Unitarian rationalist message and hold the first Unitarian services in the Strand, London over top of the Feathers Tavern.
The idea of rationalist religion was very attractive to Enlightenment thinkers, even as it created strong negative reactions among traditional Christian leaders. A few years later scientist and Unitarian minister Joseph would carry the faith to the New World…just steps in front of an angry mob. In Philadelphia he would start the first church that in time would grow to become the American Unitarian Association and eventually the UUA we know today.
The ideas of freedom, reason and tolerance were so in tune with the Enlightenment inspired philosophies of the new United States that Thomas Jefferson would call himself a Unitarian by myself, and predict that it would become the dominant religion in the U.S. Well, still a bit of work to do on that one.
Today Unitarian Universalism in North America is mix of humanism, atheism, paganism, Christianity, a few other religious traditions and liberal social ethics. The particular mix in any congregation also often depends on the local cultural context, but that level of detail is beyond the scope of this presentation.
So far we have seen ideas spread slowly in person or in literature passed hand to hand with each new recipient either drawing their own new conclusions or reshaping received ones.
We have also seen the significance of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance, but in a sense that has all been defined within a western mostly Christian cultural context. Now I would like to journey to places with origins different from the European tradition. Here we will see Unitarian and Universalist ideas born independently and then merge with western ideas as they are received. But we will also find ourselves as westerners being challenged in our understanding as Tolerance evolves into a commitment to Diversity in faith. The most meaningful part of my journey into international UUism has been the need to expand my horizons. My Unitarian Universalism must now encompass all the diversity we already know, but add to that, things like ancestor worship, faith healing, evangelical passionate Unitarianism. In correspondence to good Unitarians and Universalists these days I now find it necessary and appropriate to include phrases like “Blessings on you and your family!” and “I trust you are moving forward in faith.” For a humanist like me it feels a little odd, although I do have a good handle on the language thanks to my Jesuit upbringing!
Khasi Hills Unitarians
Within a radius of 50 miles in the highlands of northeast India live 98 percent (over 9000 people) of the country’s Unitarians. At that size, they are the fourth largest national group within the ICUU.
So how the heck did they get to be so significant in such a remote and apparently non-European place?. MAP
The early Khasis were a matrilineal tribal people who came to India from Southeast Asia and settled in the upland center of Meghalaya, the mountainous north eastern most part of India. The Khasis have never been Hindu or Muslim but have always retained their own indigenous animist religion.
The Khasi culture and ethnic background is more southeast Asian than Indian. They are not vegetarians, they do not typically cook with spicy curries, and they do not wear saris.
The native Khasi religion had no temples or churches, holy books or ministers. It was a religion based on the belief in one formless living god (UBlei) who was omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. The religion taught that through service to others, one serves God.
At the same time they believed in gods and goddesses of rivers, streams, jungles, etc. Their religion was based on conciliating good, evil and ancestor spirits through animal sacrifices to these gods and goddesses. The indigenous Khasi religion is still practiced by many in the region.
In 1835 the British built a road into and through the region and made it part of the Indian state of Assam. With the arrival of the British came waves of the Welsh Calvinist missionaries. By the early 1840s they had written the Khasi language using Roman (Western) letters and had translated the Bible into Khasi. They opened missionary schools and created a monopoly in education.
John Rex points out that “with a written language tied to the imposition of colonial government, the only way for tribal people to progress was to learn to read and write by attending missionary school and enduring proselytizing” By 1887 Christianity had established a stronghold in northeast India and had launched a large-scale evangelical movement.
Christianity was soon followed by the arrival of scientific humanism and rationalistic ideas which stimulated thought and questioning. (and for these details I have to thank my Executive Committee colleague Pearl Green Marbaniang). Also factoring into the broader context of the time were the 19th century social and religious reform movements.
It was into this culture that the founder of Khasi Unitarianism was born in 1865. Hajom Kissor Singh** was well-read, inquisitive and even in his childhood, showed interest in spiritual and religious matters. He attended missionary school and at age 15 Singh converted to Christianity.
Singh’s inquiring mind propelled him to study and question religious ideas and led him to disenchantment with Calvinism. He concluded that there was no basis for belief in the Trinity or for the Calvinist preoccupation with sin, hellfire and damnation. The missionaries’ threatening message was, reasoned Singh, incompatible with the teachings of Jesus as he read them in the Gospels. The heart of the Gospels is divine love not judgement. This love casts out fear, overcomes evil with good, and recognizes the essential divinity and potential splendour of the human spirit.
Drawing on traditions from both the Christian and tribal religions, he formed a “new” religion which he called a Religion of One God (“Ka Niam Mane Weiblei”).
Singh’s new religion merged tribal customs and a positive Christian theology. Singh maintained the core of the Khasi traditional belief system including the covenant requiring Khasis to follow a code of clan behaviour in all personal, family and tribal matters, but omitted beliefs and practices such as the reading of omens and animal sacrifice. Singh’s religion of one God provided many Christian elements to Khasi religion as it had been practiced: churches, a liturgy, Sunday services, and group worship.
Singh made contact with an American Unitarian minister in Calcutta George Appleton Dall. There ensued an eager exchange of letters and through those and the writings of William Ellery Channing (which Mr. Dall had sent him), Singh discovered that there were many others, called Unitarians, who shared his faith. He thereafter called his faith “Ka Niam Unitarian” (The Unitarian Religion).
Though Hajom Kissor Singh, was never ordained, he devoted his life to preaching, starting churches, and growing the religion he began.
He provided strong leadership and by example set the precedent for lay-led rather than clergy-led services. Today, ministers in the Unitarian Union are called Church Visitors. Each is responsible for 3-5 congregations. Church Visitors are usually unpaid volunteers with some special training. Efforts are underway to develop standardized training for Church Visitors.
Sunday is the day of worship - and I mean that literally - for Unitarians in the Khasi Hills. This day begins at 7:00 AM when the children gather for the Children’s Worship service which they conduct themselves. Children’s Worship is followed at 10:30 by Sunday School classes.
Worship for all begins at 1:30 in the afternoon. Each service is comprised of readings, hymns, prayers and a sermon given by a member of the congregation who is the service leader for the day. The evening is spent in “home service” which begins at 6:30 PM. A different family hosts the service each week.
The principles of Unitarian faith in India that sustain this dynamic, strong community of believers are as follows:
UBlei - There is only one ever-loving God who creates and sustains the universe.
As we are all God’s children it is our duty and responsibility to “cultivate universal human brotherhood, love and peace. We are also to promote concord and harmony and go hand in hand with science”.
God’s word is not only found in Biblical scripture and holy books but can be found in the universe itself which is God’s creation and in all things created which are his words. Significant to the belief in God is the Khasi Unitarian belief in the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God. This concept is deeply rooted in traditional Khasi culture and faith which is matrilineal and commands Khasis to know maternal and paternal relations and follow a strict clan behavior.
Jesus is seen not as the actual son of God but as a great teacher and a leader to follow. His two teachings were to love God and to love fellow humans. The Bible was written by God-searching people and has both truths and errors in it. Holy books from other religions can help gain a better understanding of God.
Salvation depends on our character and how we live this life. “Live a good life, spreading the love of God and you will experience heaven. Live a life of doing wrong and your life will be hell.”
The flaming chalice is a symbol of Unitarianism used lavishly in the Khasi Hills: atop buildings, in windows, on gates, even knit into sweaters. In illustrations it is frequently seen with the phrase (adopted by Singh), “To Nangroi” (TOO-nahng-ROY) which means “Keep on Progressing” – a simple command but one which demands a lot from those who wish to follow it.
In the end, the fusing of ideas of Khasi culture and western Unitarianism appear seamless. To me a Khasi service feels like a simple western liberal Protestant service. The concept of UBlei or God will feature more prominently than in many UU services, but the foundational ideas behind that usage are very similar.
One last point: Because of their numbers, because of the relative poverty of the country of India and because of the extreme remoteness of the Khasi Hills, Unitarians there have never had to fight for freedom or live in fear. Over it’s very long history and until quite recently, India has been a more religiously tolerant land than most. In addition, the Unitarians as the dominant group, play a strong hand in the government, civic and educational administration of much of the region. It is perhaps the only place in the world where Unitarian values explicitly shape the secular authority.
Philippines
In the Philippines, our tradition emerges from Universalism. And like India, it began with someone first discovering the core ideas within himself, and then learning that there were others who thought like him elsewhere in the world.
Toribio Quimada was born on the island of Cebu in the Philippines. His father, Zolio, a farmer and a carpenter, was Spanish in origin. There was no Bible in Zolio’s home, for it was forbidden by the Catholic Church to which most of the people on the island belonged. Zolio believed without question what his church taught him. He expected his wife and children to do the same. No asking questions about what the church taught!
Toribio Quimada had wanted to own and read a Bible for a very long time, for he had doubts about the sometimes harsh message he heard from the priests. He wanted the freedom to decide for himself…or at least the freedom to read the Bible for himself and learn what it said. He did not get that chance until he was 20. He grew concerned that the loving God of which he read was not the God he met in church. His natural inclination would lead him to develop his own doctrine of Universal Salvation.
He left the Catholic church and became a lay minister in the evangelical Protestant Iglesia Universal de Christo. But he didn’t like all of their answers either. Nevertheless he was asked to teach Sunday School and do some preaching. Five years later Toribio was ordained and became a traveling minister, going to churches in nine different villages, usually many kilometers from each other. He walked all the way.
In 1951, chance led Quimada to a discovery that he was not alone in his private Universalist faith. He had been asked to baptize an infant. The letter asking him to do this had come wrapped up in an old newspaper to keep it from being damaged. Toribio looked at the newspaper and discovered to his surprise that it listed the religions in the United States. He hoped to find Iglesia Universal de Christo, but it wasn’t there. What he did find was the Universalist Church of Wisconsin.
He wrote, “This is my first time to meet such a word (as) ‘Universalist’. What is this? I was puzzled over the similarities in the two words ‘Universal’ and ‘Universalist’.” He sent a letter to the Universalist Church of Gloucester, Massachusetts, the oldest Universalist church in America.
The minister of the church, Carl Westman, was surprised to receive a letter from the Philippines. He sent Toribio’s letter to the Reverend Carleton M. Fisher of the Universalist Service Committee and for two years the Universalist Church of America supplied Toribio with much needed religious education materials and other items.
Quimada began to emphasize his personal beliefs more publicly teaching that “God is Love” and preaching that there is no eternal condemnation. In God’s love everyone is saved, and the Christian teaching of eternal damnation is irrelevant.
In 1955 the Universalist Church of the Philippines was registered by the Philippine Government and Toribio Quimada was licensed as its minister. In 1985 it became the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines and a member of the UUA.
Sadly, Toribio was branded as a leftist in the politically turbulent Philippines. He was attacked by armed men, shot and died when his home was set on fire. The case is still dragging through the courts. But his work continues through his daughter, Rebecca Quimada Siennes, the first woman ordained UU minister in the islands.
The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines is largely a church of poor rural peasants. The Rev. Fred Muir writes in the book Maglipay Universalist that peasant life in a village is somewhat comparable to small-town rural life in the United States 200 years ago. The day begins before sunrise and ends at sunset. “Children attend the local elementary school but high school is optional, especially since distance is often prohibitive; public high schools are regional and closer private schools charge tuition.”
Five influences shape Filipino Unitarian Universalist theology: Roman Catholicism, political oppression, independent Protestantism, faith healing, and absence of a common heritage. “Faith healing is a religious and social phenomenon by which many UUCP members find Unitarian Universalism appealing and sustaining. At least half of UUCP ministers practice faith healing as do some lay people, while virtually all Unitarian Universalists in the Philippines believe in it.”
Bob Guerrero is the Congregational President of the more urban Bicutan Congregation in Manila, and about six months ago he delivered a sermon entitled “My Jesus.”
“My Jesus is my Lord and Savior. I am not afraid to say this. I may no longer believe that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, but I do think he is my Lord and Savior. I try to live my life according to his teachings. That makes Jesus my Lord. I believe that in following Jesus, I am saved from a life of sadness, selfishness and suffering, both for myself and for others. That makes him my Savior. I don’t know if he will judge me on those final days, but I do hope that he will lead me to a fulfilling life in this lifetime.”
While most Unitarian Universalists in the Philippines live in small rural villages, there is an emerging church in urban Manila. I recently talked with the Rev. Joseph Santos Lyons, who completed his ministerial internship in the Philippines. He characterized the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines as one megachurch with 28 “satellites” (congregations). To my surprise, he said that the church is rapidly moving into “post-Christian” culture, similar to the culture of Unitarian Universalists in the United States, especially among young people, among people who live in urban areas, and among middle class people.
Here again we see the impact of improved communications making the world smaller. An indigenous rural Universalist faith is slowly urbanizing and adopting a theology and practice more in keeping with the kinds of elements it is finding in travel, visits from abroad, and electronic correspondence with the larger American UU community. As the old Buddhist story goes, I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing…, but again we see our religion locally evolving alongside the culture in which it grows.
African Unitarianism
What did the Congolese totem worshiper, the Kenyan Seventh Day Adventist and the Burundian Roman Catholic seminarian say to one another as they sat down for tea??
When did you become a Unitarian?
I offer that rather sad attempt at humour to make a point that Unitarianism in Africa is anything but uniform in history and tradition. Africa is a place that before European colonization was a collection of very local cultures, tribes and economies. There had been a few empires over the centuries, but for the most part religion, language, and government remained local. That history infuses the African continent today. Wars are often tribally and ethnically charged as are politics, dress and culture. Improved transportation and the explosion of mobile phone accessibility have started to expand the worldview in many African countries, especially in the cities, but the ties of tradition are still strong. We saw that at work among our participants from five different nations.
A couple of points of contrast were obvious. Unitarianism has been in South Africa since 1867 when a young Dutch Reformed minister turned his back on his church and preached the message of a loving – not wrathful- God. Our South African congregations are also culturally Caucasian and European.
The only other Unitarian group with historical roots is in Nigeria where the tradition dates from 1915. There, a black Anglican Bishop, a ‘liberal and principled man’ pulled away and began holding services in Yoruba, using native instruments and writing Yoruba hymns.
But Unitarianism in Burundi, Uganda, Congo and Kenya are pretty much brand new. In Bujumbura, Burundi, Fulgence Ndagijimana was a fallen away Catholic seminarian. He went to the World Wide Web and in 2003 found Unitarianism, made contact with an English minister, and on his advice gathered his own church. In a landlocked, utterly impoverished country, 15 years after a tribal war that paralleled the Rwandan genocide, it pays to be cautious with new and different things. Since 2004, Fulgence has quietly gathered a community of 25 like-minded people. Their growth is limited by several factors, one of them being a lack of French worship and program resources.
In English speaking Uganda, Mark Kiyamba also found us through the Internet. With no language barrier and relative peace in his nation, Mark has been able to gather a congregation of 150 in Kampala. But the Ugandan story is even more remarkable. Seeing a need, yet having no resources, no space, and no teachers, they just went ahead and started a congregation and school for AIDS children in the countryside. Right now they have 50 members and 450 students. It boggles the mind.
Congo-Brazzaville is another French speaking country. Alaiin Yengue is an anthropologist. Unlike other African Unitarians he did not come from a Christian background, but from an animist tradition of ancient tribal religion. In 2005, he was waiting for his brother to get off work in a Brazzaville hotel one day when he fell into a conversation with an American gentleman. They talked about religion and there Alaiin learned about Unitarianism. The man suggested that with our liberal views and our acceptance of paganism, it might be a bridge from the old world to the new in Congo. Alaiin used the Internet (are we noticing a theme here?) and made connection with Jean-Claude Barbier the secretaire of the Assembleee fraternelle des Chetiens unitarianne in France. The group now meets regularly and is looking to grow.
By far the fastest growing Unitarian community is in Kenya. There appear to be four main communities, but all owe their discovery of Unitarianism to Rev. Patrick Magara. Patrick is our only ordained minister in Kenya, although his ordination came from the Seventh Day Adventist tradition. He discovered Unitarianism in 2001 and soon convinced his congregation to follow him into his new faith. How he discovered us and the why of his conversion is a little murky. Like most Kenyans, English is Patrick’s second, or perhaps third language. Sometimes this gets in the way of a meaningful conversation with him, but most of us who know him suspect that the language difficulties can sometimes be a convenience.
Because of these faster connections, these newest expressions of our faith are growing up in full and instant communication with their big brothers and sisters. This is providing a new kind of challenge. First, there is real economic need and hardship in many parts of Africa, especially these days. The western expressions of our faith have money. That incentive coupled with easy communication means that our western world is part of the culture of African Unitarianism in ways that was not true in India or the Philippines. It requires us to be cautious in our connection and support. I am not sure that creating another western predominantly Caucasian missionary effort in Africa is a good thing. At present the ICUU is encouraging the emerging African groups to develop indigenously.
It’s hard to pin down a firm number of Unitarians in Kenya, but it is certainly over 500. Five years ago there were none...Zero. They all learned our faith from him, and now, though the Internet. Right now there is some tension between the more progressive and urbane groups and the more rural groups led firmly by Mr. Magara. They are working slowly towards the forming of a meaningful national body.
The growth is hard to ignore. Why so much growth so fast? Kenyan Unitarians are willing to spread the word of their faith. Some preach in market places. Some talk to groups from other churches. There are many cases where entire congregations have ‘converted’ to Unitarianism. And then there is the outreach of their community social programs and schools. Anyone can participate, but the WILL hear about our faith. No one is forced to convert, but all who come in contact with Kenyan Unitarians will learn something about us.
Good heavens! Conversion? Proselytizing? Unitarians doing that? Amazing!
But here’s something worth thinking about: If their success continues, within a few years there will be more Unitarians in Kenya than there are in Germany, Canada or the UK. Wow!
How to live our Unitarian Universalist faith into our daily lives is a challenge facing many in the developed world. We may tend to do constructive work to better society, but we seldom fly a church banner when we do so. In Kenya that separation of faith and living is literally unthinkable. Ask the Kenyan Unitarians about their church and they won’t talk about worship or membership numbers. Instead they will tell you about their projects: the women’s groups, the working cooperatives, the AIDS orphanages, the volunteer-run schools. To be a Unitarian there is to be involved in the community in a faithful way. Let me tell you about Cyrus Itare. He is a young man in his 20’s. He and his wife have a one month old child. Cyrus is unemployed (not unusual around there and not a shameful thing.) He and his wife have taken in eight orphan children into their tiny home. I am in awe.
Patrick’s wife Alice Magara is an inexhaustible bundle of energy and the closes thing I have seen to an irresistible force. She runs the Kisii women’s groups and plays a lead role in the AIDS orphans program. The word ‘No’ barely slows her down.
Closer to Nairobi are two other groups, one in rural Ruai and one in the city. The Ruai group week in and week out feed 100 schoolchildren a hot lunch. And both groups played an active hand on role supporting some of the more than 400,000 people displaced by last year’s violence.
Let me stress something here. I am not personally feeling guilty nor am I trying to engender that in you. Nor do I think, are the African Unitarians. They do what they do because their faith and their culture call them to do these acts of radical neighbourliness. They do it because in the face of the crises of AIDS, poverty, war and whatever else, it is impossible to remain aloof and distant. There is safety in neighbourliness, because the person you save today might save you next week or next month. And, of course, it’s the right thing to do. Sure, they ask us for help. Why shouldn’t they? We have money. They don’t. In their understanding of neighbourliness, this is not greed, it’s community.
So Unitarianism in Africa is developing as a social and community based faith. Churches are more important for what they do than for what they think. Faith is a thing to be demonstrated in action. In North America, and I expect in this gathering, we tend to think of our church as a place where like-minded people come together to think and explore, to seek answers and find moral support. That is fine and noble and suited to our culture and our time. But to state the obvious, Africa is not Europe. African Unitarians expect their church to be a place ... Well, no, they don’t necessarily expect it to be a place. Church often happens under shady trees. They expect church to be a community where people tied by kinship, proximity and shared need come together to find strength, hope in prayer, work opportunities and practical support like food and clothing. The church needs to function as a social service agency first and as spiritual home second.
It’s no surprise then that African UU ‘ministers’ are almost all lay leaders. The Kenyans have no training beyond that gleaned from monthly meetings with Rev. Magara. Leaders in other countries may have taken a course or two here and there, but nothing equivalent to a professional standard. Their need for education is high. That was the purpose of the Kenyan conference. Our job was to provide information and to open minds beyond the limits of local tradition and the village church.
By way of bridging into talking explicitly about the ICUU, let me tell you a bit about this Leadership Conference, a major programmatic undertaking for an organization the size of the ICUU.
After an ingathering we began the first full day with definitions of religious terms. Many were surprised, for example, that there could be different ways of understanding words like ‘faith’, ‘god’ and even ‘religion’. One session covered Unitarian history and theology. Another explored conflict resolution. We held a discussion of worship practices that raised awareness of the immense variety in worship around the world and across Africa. My role was to discuss different kinds of church structure, locally and nationally.
The programs were content-rich, but with a lot of room for discussion. The excellent and focused questions from participants suggested that they were hungry for such information.
I did not speak for long. Instead I asked people to talk amongst themselves about how structure impacted their communities. And then we had an open conversation. That’s when it got very deep. Two main issues emerged. The first was the obvious struggle of social context. Wars, poverty, AIDS, these are the soil in which our religion is finding root. You have seen a little of how they approach these challenges.
The second issue is also deeply felt. Unitarianism is a new kind of religious thought in most of Africa. But African is a collection of cultures where elders are revered and given and extraordinary amount of power. That’s quite different where democracy and the power of ideas hold sway. Perhaps half of the tension-laden conversation dealt with how to build something new in a place where ‘new’ is often resisted. It is a painful issue for the young ministers who are torn by their inbred respect for elders, and their passion for moving ahead with the new ideas associated with this bold religious adventure. For them it’s not just a matter of making change. They must find loving answers for a difficult situation. Right now the ICUU is working to bring the various Kenyan groups together in a facilitated conversation. The goal is a unified national Kenyan UU organization.
The best we could offer at the time was a North American analogy about the equality of women in our movement. In the 1970’s, UU women came together and in gentle ways and harsh, demanded their place at the table. That place was given grudgingly at first, but in time a new generation of ‘elder’ males grew up as supporters of women’s full equality, and the struggles eased. We suggested that the people in the room were the elders in training. When their time comes to assume that role, perhaps they will be the ones to share power.
Well, these are preliminary observations from someone who has had a beginner’s first taste of African Unitarianism. I know I am only scratching the surface, but I and the rest of the ICUU leaders are learning as fast as we can.