"Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout"

A Light Goes Out—Rev. Forrest Church

: patrickmurfin; September 25th, 2009

September 23, 1948 — September 24, 2009

News came yesterday of the passing of Rev. Forrest Church one day after his 61st birthday. It was not unexpected. Church had been fighting a brave—and very public—battle with esophageal cancer. First diagnosed in October of 2006, he long out lived his first terminal diagnosis. But in February of 2008 he informed his congregation that the cancer had returned and was terminal.

His final year and a half were a study in grace, courage and wisdom. I last saw him shortly after his announcement on speaking tour in support of his great book So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State. At that point it was something like the 22nd book Church had written or edited. It would not be his last.

Church made the experience of facing his own mortality an opportunity to share a life time of reflection in his next book Love & Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow. He expected that to be his last book, but as he outlived his doctor’s expectations he found time to finish at least one more book, The Cathedral of the World—A Universalist Theology which will be released by Beacon Press later this fall.

The new book reportedly sums up Church’s thoughts on religion, faith, and God in a single volume and definitively framing his theological teachings.” Raised in Unitarianism he evolved an expansive universalist theology fit for the 21 Century. This book is eagerly awaited by all of us who care deeply about our faith.“

Forrest Church was first and foremost a minister. He held the prestigious pulpit of All Souls Church in New York City for thirty years and continued to serve as “Public Minister” after stepping down as senior pastor. It was from that pulpit that sprang remarkable sermons, many of which became the nuggets around which his many books were built. A brilliant and original thinker as well as a gifted preacher he became a leading voice in American religion. He became a familiar voice and face on radio and television and his books reached an audience far beyond the members of his Unitarian Universalist faith. Not since the heyday of Preston Bradley in Chicago has a minister of our tradition been reached such a broad audience. And one might have to go back to Theodore Parker in ante-bellum Boston to find one more widely influential.

As a minister Church, the son of the great liberal United State Senator from Idaho, Frank Church, was an advocate of engaged, thoughtful social action.

Along the way Church co-authored Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism with his friend John Buehrens, which has become the standard “catechism” for those exploring our faith.

As a man, minister, philosopher, theologian, historian, humanitarian, and teacher Forrest Church will be missed. But his legacy will endure.

Tags: forrest church, frank church, john buerhens, preston bradley, theodore parker, unitarian universalism

The Death of Mine “Enemy”—Sharing Grief, Outrage, and Humanity

: patrickmurfin; September 14th, 2009

James Poulillon was murdered for doing this.

The murder of anti-abortion crusader James Pouillon the other day in Owosso, Michigan has occasioned much discussion—and some back and forth accusations of hypocrisy.

Yet another of the lone, crazed gunmen who have become a staple of our culture shot Pouillon as he held up his graphic anti-abortion signs outside the local high school. He was a regular feature there and at other locations around the community.

The murder, one Harlan James Drake, reportedly lived mostly in the cab of his over-the-road semi touching base in his home town a day or two a month. But he had enough time to draw up a list of men to be eliminated. Pouillon was on the list. But so was a local gravel pit owner, who was also killed, and a real estate agent who escaped harm because Drake was arrested before he could get to him. Motive for any of the violence was at best murky. Police report that Drake told them it was not Pouillon’s views that marked him, but the graphic images on his signs, which Drake did not think was suitable to showing to high school “children.” But apparently blasting the life out of a crippled (on oxygen and in a wheel chair) eccentric in front of those same “children” was just fine.

Poulillon’s blood was hardly dry on the grass by the school before he was elevated to martyred saint by the anti-abortion movement. Fair enough. And outraged charges of hypocrisy were leveled against pro-choice organizations for not being as vocal in their outrage as for the death of “baby killing” Dr. George Tiller. Of course, they hardly gave those organizations time to answer their phones, let alone formulate a response. When the response came, it uniformly condemned the killing and disavowed any violence against pro-life activists. Most staunchly defended the free speech rights of Pouillon as well.

The UU Blog-o-sphere has taken up the subject. Self described conservative UU bloger Bill Barr at Pfarrer Streccius predictably took up the taunt tying it to the UUA’s new Standing on the Side of Love campaign. Paul Oakley at Inner Light, Radiant Life echoed a challenge to UUs, including President Peter Morales to publicly speak up. Chalice Chick doubted that the murder could be considered a hate crime, a term she has little use for any way.

At the risk of sounding like I am chiming in only because the smugly moralistic Bill Barr has called me out, I want to make it clear that murdering folks for their opinions, for the exercise of their rights to free speech, or just because they belong to some class of people we have come to hate is an abomination. No matter which “side” does it. Period.

While it is true that neither side can be wholly responsible for their most delusional supporters, both sides need to tone down the rhetoric which empowers the loonies among us. We are drifting to civil war in this country. That drift is made easier by the fact we don’t even see each other as human beings any more, just monsters promoting some hideous evil. And who doesn’t want to “wipe out evil.”

But neither am I going to lay down a line of perfect moral equivalency here. In the abortion confrontations no organized pro-choice group that I know of has advocated violence against their opponents. Some of the most well know, if extreme, leaders of the anti-abortion movement have been talking for years about “rivers of blood needed to cleanse the country from its sins.” And thus far Poulillon is the only known casualty on their side. Several murders, bombing, arsons, assaults and relentless threats and acts of intimidation have been committed by anti-abortion crusaders.

Randall Terry and his ilk cried crocodile tears over Dr. Tiller. Rest assured that I, at least, consider James Poulillon’s life, worth and dignity just as precious at the doctor’s. A hate crime is a hate crime no matter the hater, no mater the victim.

“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

--John Donne

Tags: anti-abortion, dr. george tiller, harlan james drake, hate crime, james pouillon, john donne, pro-choice, pro-life, randall terry, standing on the side of love, unitarian universalism

The Working Class Virtue of Solidarity: A Labor Day Worship Service

: patrickmurfin; September 6th, 2009

Call to Worship:

Times are hard and getting harder. Few among us sitting here have been untouched by the economic collapse that has turned our safe, secure world upside down. If we have not lost our jobs, had our wages or hours slashed, lost the value of our homes and investments, we have loved ones who have and we live in gnawing dread that we are next. If soup lines do not stretch around the block and broken men in gray overcoats and battered fedoras do not shuffle forlornly by, it seems only a matter style and time until something very like those old grainy scenes are visited upon us again.

In other times and other circumstances Thomas Paine wrote that “These are the times that try men’s souls.” And Shakespeare lamented the “winter of our discontent.” They aptly describe our common condition today.

These times challenge our old assumptions about ourselves, our communities, and our place in the world. We no longer feel we are the captains of our own destiny. The gulf that divides our old identities as beneficent givers of alms to the less fortunate and the alien recipients of that charity has collapsed. Suddenly we are not us and them.

To survive—even to thrive—in such a time calls us to turn, quite unexpectedly, to a new way of being, and a new ethic. It is time for us to consider the unique working class virtue of solidarity.

Sermon—The Working Class Virtue of Solidarity

We have to start somewhere. This is a sermon on working class virtue of solidarity, so maybe the best place to start is by asking what solidarity really means. Like so many other things, it is easier to say what solidarity is not.

Solidarity is not sympathy. Sympathy is a passive emotion. It also implies a separation from the object of sympathy and can teeter on pity, which is just sympathy tinged with revulsion. Empathy might be closer to the meaning in that it implies a common understanding of the distress. But empathy is also passive. Solidarity demands action.

Solidarity is not charity. Charity implies a power and privilege differential. The more powerful and more privileged deign to give to the less fortunate who are expected to respond with appropriate gratitude and humility. Solidarity is mutual aid among equals.

Solidarity is not altruism. Altruism is supposedly selfless giving requiring sacrifice but expecting no reward—except perhaps praise for being saint-like. Solidarity recognizes the commonality of our conditions and expects to by right receive support as well as give it.

Solidarity is not family. Families—and by extension surrogate families like clans, nations, religions, races and others—are expected to support their members out of blood obligation. Solidarity demands respect for commonality with the other. Solidarity with the stranger dismantles walls and promotes peace instead of a mad scramble over scarce resources.

Solidarity is not utopian. Utopians conjure up sweet dreams of the perfect. Utopians may simply drift on in the opium cloud of that dream. More dangerously, some utopians construct rigid ideologies around their vision which eventually require the ruthless suppression of anything and anyone not in conformity to that ideology. Solidarity is rooted in the common realities we face together and is interested in addressing the roots of the problems as well as ameliorating the immediate effects.

Solidarity is not all warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy denies oppression. Solidarity recognizes that there are those whose own narrow self-interest causes them to exploit, subjugate, and abuse others. And solidarity demands common action to defend against such depredations and—yes—boldly to ultimately defeat the oppressors.

Solidarity is a recognition of our place in humanity, an ethic, and an active response to our common interests.

The roots of solidarity are ancient. Most fundamentally they can be found in the variations of the Golden Rule that, famously, can be found among all of the great religious traditions

Let’s go back to that fellow Jesus, an itinerant preacher in a dusty and insignificant corner of the Roman Empire a long, long time ago. We only know of him maybe third hand. The oral stories of his life and teachings only got written down nearly a century after his death and reported resurrection. Depending on who was telling the tale, the message that he preached was either a narrow call for Jewish renewal and rebellion against Roman authority, or an expansive new message of hope for all humanity. Hundreds of years latter squabbling Bishops would pick just a few among many “gospels” and declare them authoritative. And since that time many interpretations of the words attributed to him in the approved stories have been offered—and often bloodily fought over. So it is hard to declare with certainty what he said or meant.

But if he really did say the things attributed to him in the Beatitudes and elsewhere, then to my ears, he was talking about something very like solidarity. He was arguing for a mutuality of respect and support. Elsewhere the story is told thus:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Christians, who came to believe that Jesus—on whose life, teachings and behaviors they were supposed to model their own—were thus powerfully instructed in the rudimentary basis for solidarity.

But the question is, to whom did this concern apply? Jesus and his disciples considered themselves observant Jews. For them the poor and the sick were their own people, Jews like themselves. The prisoners were likely not just common criminals, but Jewish victims of the occupying Romans. And who was the stranger? The parable of the Good Samaritan taught that even despised aliens were capable of kindness and were thus worthy of respect. Yet the Samaritans were Semitic kinsmen who had lived cheek to jowl with Jews for centuries and whose religion was a variant from the same root stock. Jesus did not preach about the Good Roman, Greek, Egyptian or Babylonian whose people and cultures were seen as historic enemies and oppressors of the Jews.

When Paul and others transformed the Jewish sect that had grown up around the memory of Jesus and took it to the Greeks, Romans and other Gentiles, the pool of those who were included in the community of concern was greatly expanded. But after the defeat of the paleo-universalists of Egypt and the Levant who argued that Jesus’ sacrifice saved all humanity, the Church codified itself as the sole legitimate custodian of the Truth in the West, sharing authority with the waning temporal power of the Roman Empire.

Under this formula it was critical that only those who were “saved” i.e. members of the Church constituted the community to whom succor and support were due.

And now the very Jews from whom Jesus and his disciples sprang, were branded, by virtue of their status as “Christ killers,” the ultimate outsiders unworthy of aid or support and deserving of suppression and persecution.

After the collapse of the Empire when the Church was consolidating itself as the only unifying power in the West, it adopted for itself the duty of providing charity and alms to the poor and sufferings—as long as they were loyal to the church. They ruthlessly suppressed all other agencies of support save the occasional direct gift of a noble to a vassal or serf. Private agencies for mutual aid were crushed, their adherents often fell victim to the Inquisition. Thus the simple teachings of Jesus were subjugated to the political needs of the church.

It took the worst natural catastrophe in Western history to change things. The Black Death swept Europe in successive waves over nearly two hundred years. By some accounts it depopulated the continent by as much as two thirds. And the Church, for all of its power was helpless against it. But the sudden loss of population empowered the survivors in startling ways. Those with skills—masons, weavers, smiths of all sorts, coopers, wainwrights and others—suddenly found themselves unteathered from traditional relationships and free to travel anywhere they found their skills in demand. They set up guilds to protect their craft secrets, but also for mutual aid and to protect them from the demands of the Church and of the crumbling feudal civil authority. Membership in the guilds created new wealth and a new locus of power. And in turn the guilds encouraged the establishment of city and town governments to protect their interests from the land based aristocracy. The growing independence of the city states and the growth of a burger class challenged the Church as the sole dispenser of charity and thus de-legitimized its endless accumulation of wealth, fueled by the corrupt sale indulgences and participation in Feudal land holding. Thus Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation.

Of course the invention of the movable type printing press in the middle of all of this changed things, too. With a printed Bible available relatively cheaply and an expanded class of literates, the Roman Church lost its authority as the sole interpreter of scripture.

Increasingly reformers including John Calvin in Geneva and John Knox is Scotland maintained that scripture itself, not the Church was the authority. But that meant that each reader must interpret for him or herself the meaning and intent of scripture. That led to no end of doctrinal squabbling—and not a little bloodshed. But it elevated the Individual.

The Enlightenment took the ideas of late Renaissance Humanists like Erasmus, and enthroned reason and the individual side by side as the highest authorities. Our own founders were the direct inheritors of the Enlightenment, particularly its Scottish variant. Thus Jefferson’s great declaration speaks of “inalienable rights” and cavalierly calls for the “severance of the bonds” that had tied the colonies from the previously undisputed legitimacy of the English Throne on the basis of those rights.

And philosophers like Adam Smith would find in the rise of Protestantism and in the Age of the Enlightenment a justification for a whole new economic system which would become known as Capitalism and would be described in the Twentieth Century as the product of the “Protestant work ethic.”

On the whole this new individualism and the vigorous emerging capitalism that accompanied it, had little room for the old charity of the Church or any tolerance for emerging alternatives. Indeed the poor were seen as shiftless and sinful, poor because they did not possess the strength of character to succeed. Strict Calvinists sometimes held that wealth was a sign of God’s approbation and that the wealthy might be wealthy because they were among the tiny fraction humanity, the Elect of God, who were destined since the dawn of creation to be saved. Thus the poor were not only immoral, they were damned by birthright.

There were some countervailing tendencies. Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan “Commonweal” implied an obligation to each other among its members. The Pilgrims in their “Mayflower Compact” and the Puritans with their church covenants recognized mutuality—but only among the subscribers and members of the group. No responsibility to “strangers” was recognized.

Half of our tradition, the Unitiarians, have their roots among those New England Protestants and, to a lesser degree, among the national Founders, who were often Deists in the Scottish Enlightenment tradition.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the erstwhile Unitarian minister and Transcendental philosopher, took individualism to new heights in his most famous essay, significantly titled “Self Reliance.” “Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique,” he opined. Every man/woman could build his character by dint of appreciation of his or place in the cosmos as received directly in moments of Transcendent experience, and application of steely resolve. But he believed that, while all humans possess the potential for self-realization, in practice only those who belonged to a class allowing for the leisure to ready, study and speculate could effectively could actually achieve true self reliance. Thus the great unwashed legions of the laboring classes and the poor were at best children who should rely on enlightened to look after their interests.

Emerson, like his Unitarian contemporizes, was a social reformer. He shrewdly observed, “Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.” He advocated many reform movements, including abolition and contributed to the private charities that were springing up around America, the “voluntary associations” that Alexis de Tocville in Democracy in America identified as the critical counter weight to heedless individualism in a democracy.

When the early Unitarians responded to the rapid growth of the urban poor in Boston, they created the Beneficial Fraternity, commonly know as Benfrat. This was one of the first forerunners of what became the settlement house movement. It offered direct relief to the poor, but also tutored children and adults alike. It even operated chapels that were widely attended among the poor. But the Unitarians never allowed these chapels to become self governing congregations. Ministers were appointed to them and worshipers given no role in either running the affairs of the chapel or in supporting it. Nor were the ragged worshipers welcomed into the many existing congregations in Boston. It never occurred to the generous hearts of the benefactors that the poor might be capable of managing their own affairs—or their own spiritual development.

On our Universalist side things were somewhat better. After all if a loving God will eventually gather all souls to his bosom, then his grateful children on earth should be willing to do the same. They participated in—and often led—the same social reform movements and some of the same charities as the Unitarians. But they welcomed the poor and the wretched into their congregations as equals, encouraged them to found and maintain their own congregations, Famously although abolitionists and early women’s rights advocates can be found in both camps, the Universalists often even embraced blacks and women as leaders, not just as passive recipients.

Meanwhile working people were developing their own institutions. Most early unions had two sources. The first was basically an extension of the old guild system. It strictly followed craft lines. But when master craftsmen morphed into capitalists employing journeymen and bound apprentices the employees and bondsmen often united against them. This was the model of British craft unionism, and, to a lesser extent, the American craft unions that eventually evolved into the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The word solidarity began to crop up. But it was solidarity within the craft. Workers of one craft felt no compulsion to support workers of another, even when they might be employed on the same job or in the same industry

The other source was the beneficial societies, brotherhoods and lodges that were created often in support of “the widows and orphans of the brothers and the lame and aged in their need.” Some of these societies were ethnic like the Loyal Order of Hibernians among the Irish. Others were organized within an industry or across a community. They often aped the popular Masonic lodges with mysteries, rituals, and secret wisdom of their own. But if workers gathered for mutual support, it was no stretch for them to come together under the auspices—official or unofficial—of these lodges and brotherhoods to confront their employees to address grievances, demand reductions of hours and boosts in pay.

In the dangerous Pennsylvania coal fields, where any dissent was ruthlessly suppressed by employers, Irish miners came together in the Hibernian lodges to create the super secret Molly MaGuires who terrorized their bosses with blasting powder and assault until they were finally penetrated and broken up by an Irish Pinkerton detective.

The first truly national American labor union, the Knights of Labor, was just such a fraternal organization complete with its own mysteries and ritual. But its lodges admitted workers of all industries, skilled and unskilled alike, immigrant and native, and sometimes even including non whites. Its leaders, including Grand Master Workman Terrance V. Powderly, abhorred strikes and sought to prevent them. But the members thought otherwise and freely exercised the option. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, while not called by the Knights was spread and supported by its lodges.

It was in the Knights, and in the anarchism, socialism and other working class movements developing in Europe, that the modern concept of solidarity was honed and developed.

The Russian Anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin laid out the basic principles in his classic book Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. For the first time he argued that commonality of interest and mutual support was a positive trait in evolution both among animals and among humans. Mutual aid countervailed against “the law of fang and claw,” and the Spenserian corruption of Darwin’s theory into the ruthless “survival of the fittest” then used to excuse exploitation of the working and poor classes.

Karl Marx applied the same idea and based his hope for liberation of the masses on the basis of solidarity of the working class across all artificial divisions.

Internationals—global associations of working class union and political organizations—began to promote solidarity across borders as a way to end wars. Workers, they argued, should not be “recruited to shoot holes in each other just because they wear different uniforms.

Of course the dream of international solidarity to end war was shattered by the First World War when the labor unions of Europe and the extensive Socialist Parties by in large failed to rise up against the war and sometimes enthusiastically enlisted in patriotic support of their various Fatherlands.

In the aftermath of the dreadful carnage of that war, the dream revived. But now it was identified with the new Bolshevik regime in Russia. Communism became the international bugbear of the ruling elites across the globe. And although the apparent success of the Revolution in Russia appealed to many workers, the eventual realities of Stalinism dimmed their enthusiasm.

Capitalists everywhere furiously attracted every demonstration of working class solidarity as part of the “Red menace.” In this country it let loose the worst repression in our history, the Red Scare of 1918-20, during which thousands were deported, labor unions and socialist organizations suppressed, and hundreds jailed—including the entire leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World and the man who had attracted three million votes for President of the United States in 1912, Socialist Eugene V. Debs.

In Europe it was even worse. Fear of Communisms was the door through which the Fascists and Nazis swept to power unleashing their own forms of “White terror.”

Debs may have been the most articulate advocate of solidarity. He said:

“We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; 'Am I my brother's keeper?'…Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.”

Since that time we have gone through much, including the Great Depression, war on an unspeakable global scale, unprecedented prosperity, a civil rights revolution, the women’s movement, more war, and now economic emergency again. All during those years the advancements that have changed world for the good have come through the exercise of solidarity. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, all recognized its power. Their victories would have been impossible without it.

Conversely, the ills we have suffered have occurred when solidarity failed, when we allowed ourselves to be divided against each other by race, religion, language, age, or sex. Certainly the beneficiaries of inequality recognize the value of solidarity—and practice it among themselves.

The Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko asked with exasperation, “Why is it that right-wing bastards always stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity, while liberals fall out among themselves?”

Now, to survive and thrive we must turn away from unmitigated individualism without losing respect for the individual. We must observe true solidarity in our community, nation and the world or we are all doomed to an ugly future.

Maybe Holocaust survivor Ellie Weisel said it best:

“This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.”

--Patrick Murin

Tags: catholicism, emerson, eugene v. debs, history, iww, jesus, labor, protestants, socialist, solidarity, unitarian universalism

UU Blog-o-Sphere Sizzles—Of Covenants, Blasphemy, and Atheists

: patrickmurfin; August 25th, 2009

Theism (Christian variation) and Humanism—Can they co-exist in Unitarian Universalist congregations? From the Centennial Windows at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock, Illinois.

My, my. Peacebang, one of the most popular and esteemed contributors to Unitarian Universalist blogging, sure stirred the post with her recent post Who Initiates the Covenant? In an innocent sounding theological reflection, she argues that “The ancient covenant tradition that comes to us from the Hebrew Scriptures through the Christian Scriptures and to the congregational Puritan church that established our polity is one wherein the covenant is ALWAYS initiated by God, never by God’s people.” She rejects out of hand any suggestion that a covenant (for a church or congregation) can be an agreement by its members to walk together in common purpose.

Why is this important? Because evolving UU thought has become more and more concerned with covenantal relationships as the basic building blocks of an Association based on rigid congregational polity. It is the covenants of each member congregation that establish them as units entitled to be respected and accepted in a free Association. And individuals have no formal place in Unitarian Universalism except in so far as they subscribe formally to a member “covenantal community.”

Peacebang is a superb scholar, as well as a gifted minister and prolific writer. She is currently engulfed in writing her doctorial dissertation on the topic of covenants. After spending four years on the subject she has STRONG opinions on the subject. And that’s fine.

But, whoa! In her passion, she has stepped off the deep end. To wit: “We cannot create covenant without reverent hearts. To attempt to do so is, in my opinion, a blasphemy. I just said BLASPHEMY! But dern it, I mean it.”

She tries to soften the blow to the many Unitarian Universalist Humanists who would be repelled by—and would never join in—a covenant initiated by God or any euphemism for God. She does so by blithely telling agnostic or atheist UUs what they should put up with: “I think it’s possible for non-theists to accept that some spiritual force greater than ourselves calls us out of our individual concerns to do the work of growing, healing, serving, learning, celebrating, grieving and repenting.”

At least one UU Humanist is having none of it. MoxieLife is positively plaintive in her response post Is There No Room in the UUA for an Atheist? She responds: “I think it is a huge leap for members of my denomination to expect me to warp my view of both humanism and atheism to accept a "force greater" in our lives. If I were to suggest that they move their idea of God to the realm of fairy tale I think they would be offended.”

MoxieLife sees this as the latest assault on non-theist UUs. A second generation humanist UU who grew up in a congregation where God was, at best, a question mark and more likely an affront to “rational thought,” she finds herself increasingly a stranger in congregations “moving into a new age of spirituality.”

Her teenage offspring, who grew up in UU religious education, feels the same alienation. They have stopped attending services. She fears if PeaceBang and others like her insist on affirming a covenant to which she cannot subscribe, she will be permanently deprived of a congregational home. She asks “why can't there be room for those of us who come from the long tradition of humanists? Why must we change to your needs? I am a second generation UU, my daughter a third and it feels like that might be the end of the line for our family. Is that ok with the UUA? Is that ok with you?”

I have some thoughts for both bloggers. First, Peace Bang.

I know what it’s like to fiercely cleave to a useful definition and challenge any one who tries to stretch it in unusual or uncomfortable ways. I used to fight tooth and nail against those who wanted to use “fundamentalism” as a description of any extreme and intolerant version of a religion. It deluted the usefulness of the original, very specific, definition—a tendency in American Protestantism dating to the early 20^th Century embracing absolute Biblical literalism and a personal relationship with God. It did not mean simple orthodoxy or conservatism. That definition invited a liberal religious response with in American culture. But it was a useless endeavor. Fundamentalism has become “extremism coupled with the rejection of any other view with in any sect or philosophic tradition.” It happened because we had no concise word for just such a concept and so extended the Christian term as analogous to other religions. Now even I sometimes write about things like “congregational polity fundamentalism.”

Likewise the esteemed Alice Blair Wesley used to rail against the term “denomination” as applied to the UUA. We are an Association of congregations, she would insist. Denomination implied a much different organizational principle. And she was correct, as far is it goes. But for lack of a better word commonly understood both within and outside our own bailiwick, most of us now use denomination to describe our particular sect among a plentitude of sects.

Language, particularly English, evolves. Words flow down hill to fill hollows and make pools where they will. We have no French Academy to defend us from the encroachments of “le drugstore,” no word police with the power to punish those who scratch a new ditch and divert the stream. You may as well join Lear on the heath to rage against the storm.

People—and congregations—will use covenant however they damn well please.

More troublesome, PeaceBang, is your use of the powerful word “blasphemy.” As a believer, you know that blasphemy is an insult and offense against God Him/Her/It self. It is a sin of arrogance more deadly than any offense against another mortal. The blasphemer is cast out from the community of the holy. He or she becomes “the other,” the enemy, something less than human. That way leads to the stake of Servetus

Abner Kneeland, now considered a minor UU saint, was the last man in America jailed for blasphemy in 1838. Let’s leave blasphemy where it belongs—moldering in a past best le.ft behind

As for MoxieLife:

I understand your pain. The transformation of the familiar is almost always painful.

For a few decades Humanists were the dominant voice in Unitarianism and then in the UUA. Once triumphant, by the 1950’s they were often less than gracious to the lingering minority of Theists. They often ran roughshod over congregations banishing “God talk,” expurgating hymns, spurning prayer. They drove more than a few ministers from their pulpits for being insufficiently zealous in the refutation of “mystic-tristic bullshit.” And they often demanded that the entire Association, including congregations with a nostalgic fondness “magical thinking,” bow to their exquisite sensitivities.

But, as you have noted, things are changing. Even though most UUs still describe themselves as Humanist, the hard edge has been knocked off. They are apt to hedge the term with modifiers. They are more apt to embrace a tolerant, bemused agnosticism than an adamant all-or-nothing atheism. They share with the general culture, a yearning for spirituality and often find ways to embrace something “Greater” without acknowledging theism.

Many folks were astounded a few years ago when Rev. Bill Sinkford successfully argued for greater use of the “Language of Reverence” with only a modest, if furious, rear-guard action by old line Humanists. Indeed many Humanists found new ways to accommodate both the language and the increasing numbers Theists of one stripe or another who were sharing the pews with them. Some found refuge in the awe and wonder for the universe expressed by Carl Sagan and later developed into The Great Story. Other found no theistic forms of Buddhism and Taoism acceptable.

But to the committed rationalist Humanist of the old stripe it is all disgraceful trimming and surrender to popular delusion as a form naked marketing.

The trouble is your loss at a transforming, living religion, is re-playing a repetitive theme. In America the first generation Unitarians—William Ellery Channing et.al.—offended the orthodox within the New England Standing Order. That first generation was hardly yet gray when the Transcendentalists upset their apple cart. And so it would go, one generation’s radical reformers would become the beleaguered guardians of timeless tradition. The Humanists in their time supplanted the genteel respectability of the rational Christianity advocated by the Eliots and the old Brahmin establishment. Yet none of the new transformation, however powerful, ever fully supplanted the earlier ones. They eventually learned to live, however uncomfortably, together. What makes you think that Humanism can defy this evolution and freeze Unitarian Universalism into a kind of rational orthodoxy?

Humanism in our traditions flourished from three sources. First was 19^th Century Free Thought which matured through the short lived Free Religious Association in the east and which thrived in many congregations in the Mid west that were part of the Western Unitarian Conference. Many of these congregations maintain a Humanist flavor to this day. Second are those congregations founded as part of the Fellowship Movement, which planted small lay, led congregations in many areas of the country where liberal religion had previously seldom thrived. These congregations became beacon for outcasts in regions, like the South, with a dominant church going culture. They provided cover to heretics and needed re-enforcement for otherwise isolated individual. Finally, in large numbers of secularized Jews infused congregations with the Humanism of Felix Adler.

By the time of the consolidation of with the Universalists in 1960 these three sources had spread over much of the movement. Pockets of Unitarian Christianity, particularly in the old tribal homeland of New England remained. But they--and the supposedly backwards Universalists--were expected to slowly shrivel and eventually disappear in the face of superior, rational Humanism.

But it never really happened that way. The rise of Feminism and the Ecology movement in the denomination each contributed new strands of spirituality divorced from traditionally patriarchal Old-Man-In-The-Sky God that most Humanists had been rebelling against. Stubborn Universalism refused to die and began to take root in even the stoniest of Unitarian hearts. And there was no escaping the general cultural influence of New Age religion, particularly on the West Coast. Like it or not, “Spirituality” has been the incoming tide of UUism for nearly twenty years.

These kinds of sea changes in our movement have often followed the ministers. Young ministers, enrapt of Ralph Waldo Emerson, brought Transcendentalism to all corners of the country. A wave of Humanist ministers, many of them returning war veterans, washed over and transformed Unitarianism in the Post War years. Now every seminarian new minister I meet subscribes to some form of Theism, many embracing some sort of Christian identity. They begin to fill even the most Humanist pulpits and slowly coax their congregations to acceptance of “the new reverence.”

So should an old school Humanist be discouraged? Take heart. This, too, shall pass. Our new congregations and our new ministers are no more immune from the general culture than were earlier generations. The New Atheism has asserted itself in a number of recent best selling books. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Americans describing themselves as “unaffiliated,” including self-confessed atheists and agnostics as well as those too reticent to admit it, now fall behind just Catholics and Southern Baptists in total numbers. From a growth standpoint, it may be better to market Unitarian Universalism to theses discontents than to Theists who can find many havens.

My guess is another generation may find Spiritual UUs gnashing their teeth over the triumph of some kind or evolved and re-branded Humanism.

In the mean time, how can we live together? Well, that brings us back to those covenants. The ones where we agree to walk together for mutual support in our individual quests for truth, meaning, and justice in our lives. They just can’t be handed on down from on high by somebody’s idea of God.

Tags: atheism, christianity, covenants, humanists, moxielife, peacebang, spirituality, theists, unitarian universalism

A Question About Books

: patrickmurfin; August 1st, 2009

I was recently asked to become the co-moderator of the UUA’s Newcomers e-mail list. That’s a list for folks who are interested in Unitarian Universalism or new to it can come to ask even the most basic questions without feeling embarrassed. It is also a place where a lot of folks share their faith journeys that brought them to consider becoming UUs. An amazing number find us first by being diagnosed as Unitarian Universalists after taking the famous BeliefNet Quiz

For several years, I served as an “old timer” on the list to be available to answer questions and direct seekers to resources. Then I got this “promotion.”

I’ve was asked to post a question for discussion once a month. This is the topic for August. I thought it might interest more than just the newcomers. Feel free to play along. And it you know anyone who might find our Newcomers list useful, send them on over to join the fun. Here is what I wrote to the list:

One of my favorite UU bloggers Peacebang started a lively discussion on her page about “pop spirituality” books and other books that “have changed my life.” Check it out that post here.

What about it? Do you read books like The Alchemist, The DaVinci Code, The Four Agreements, The Purpose-Driven Life, The Celestine Prophecy, The Power Of Now , The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Eat, Love, Pray, The Shack, The Sparrow, The Secret etc.? Do you find any meaningful in your life? Did you find any offensive or off-putting?

And what about non-spiritual or religious books. Many of us have had our lives most profoundly changed by novels, poetry, biography, and other non-fiction. Can you share some of those titles with us?

I’ll get things started. I, frankly, don’t get much out of a lot of pop spirituality. Some of it, like The Secret, profoundly offends me. But that’s just me. Your results may vary.

I have had my life changed by many books. At a discussion at church recently I mentioned just one of them. The Moon is Down is a slender, nearly forgotten novel by John Steinbeck. I read it in high school many years ago as the Vietnam War was raging. The story is about a sleepy Norwegian mining village that has been occupied by the Nazis during World War II. The villagers join in an underground resistance movement despite the fact that their beloved Mayor and Doctor are being held hostage and will be executed if the railroad from the mines is sabotaged. Of course it is. Meanwhile, before they are executed the Doctor reminds the Nazi commander that his attempts to squash resistance are futile. “The flies have captured the flypaper.” That one phrase has stayed with me all of these years and has often fueled my own resistance to oppression.

OK. Now it’s your turn.

Tags: books, peacebang, sprirituality, unitarian universalism

Remembering Knoxville

: patrickmurfin; July 27th, 2009

It was just a year ago today when the peace of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville (TVUUC) was shattered by gunfire that took the lives of two and injured several others. The Knoxville Church Shooting, as it came to be known, was a traumatic not just for those who were there that terrible morning, but for Unitarian Universalists around the world.

Yesterday, at the request of TVUUC minister the Rev. Christopher Buice and the Rev. Mitra Jafarzadeh of Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, many of whose members were in the audience that morning for a children’s performance of Annie Jr., our congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock joined many others across the country in lighting the Chalice in memory of shooting victims Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger.

Rev. Brice has written movingly about the shooting and its aftermath in Their Spirit is Still with Us, an article posted on uuworld.org. I urge you to read it.

Besides paying tribute to the many heroes who came to the fore that dark day and in its aftermath, he reminds of the special resilience of the children, whose performance was interrupted by horror. He recalls how they volunteered—no insisted—on being a part of the city wide memorial service conducted two days later at the near-by Second Presbyterian Church which was attended by UUA President William Sinkford and Knoxville residents of all religions. At the close of the service the children united to sing the song that they never sang that Sunday--Tomorrow. The crowd, moved to tears, rose and spontaneously joined in the song.

That’s what I had in mind when I wrote the following poem, which I first posted on this blog a few days after the shootings. I read it again in church yesterday, following the chalice lighting.

KNOXVILLE: 7/27/2008 10:26 A.M

They are about to sing about Tomorrow,

as fresh and delicate as impatiens in the dew,

when Yesterday, desperate and degraded

bursts through the doors

barking despair and death

from the business end of a sawed of shotgun.

Tomorrow will have to wait,

Yesterday—grievances and resentments,

a life full of missed what-ifs

and could-have-beens,

of blame firmly fixed on Them,

the very Them despised by

all the herald angels of perfect virtue—

has something to say.

Yesterday gives way to Now,

the eternal, inescapable Now,

flowing from muzzle flash

to shattered flesh,

the Now when things happen,

not the reflections of Yesterday

or the shadows of Tomorrow,

the Now that always Is.

Now unites them,

victims and perpetrator,

the innocent and the guilty,

the crimson Now.

Tomorrow there will be villain and martyrs,

Tomorrow always knows about Yesterday,

will tell you all about it in certain detail.

And yet Tomorrow those dewy impatiens

will sing at last—

The sun will come out Tomorrow,

bet your bottom dollar on tomorrow

come what may…

How wise those little Flowers

To reunite us all in Sunshine.

--Patrick Murfin

Tags: christopher buice, church shootings, knoxville, patrick murfin, tomarrow, unitarian universalism, unitarian universalist congregation, uuworld, william sinkford

Reagan is In, Starr King is Out in Capitol Musical Pedestals

: patrickmurfin; June 8th, 2009

Thomas Starr King in his former glory in the U.S. Capitol before being usurped by Ronald Reagan.

It is sad that Thomas Starr King has been demoted from his place as one of California’s icons in the U.S.Capitol’s Statuary Hall. He was replaced by another transplant—King was a New Yorker—Illinois’ own Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, the highest saint in the pantheon of conservative Republicans, is not bereft of memorials. Even before he died Congressional Republicans announced a drive to have something major named for the Gipper in every Congressional District. They may not have succeeded, but they came damned close. Across the country airports, highways, bridges, schools of all levels, parks, libraries, and museums now carry his name—and that’s in addition to an aircraft carrier and a Congressional office building. Some were new, but many other were already in existence, and many were previously named for local notables. Starr King is hardly the only one elbowed aside by GOP school boy adulation.

Perhaps the current shriveled rump of the once mighty Republican Party that Reagan restored to glory is particularly gleeful that a Unitarian got the hook. Modern UU’s, with our advocacy for same sex marriage, support of abortion rights, a propensity to always be loudly protesting something that the Religious Right holds dear, and our harboring of atheists and pagans is loathed by the party’s “base.” A few years ago a Rockford, Illinois conservative think tank said something like, “pick the scab off of any social abomination and the puss that oozes out is Unitarian.”

They probably don’t care that Starr King himself was a loyal Republican who carried the state in 1860 for Abraham Lincoln and who worked tirelessly to elect at Republican legislature to prevent Democrats from swinging the state to the Confederacy. His barnstorming speaking tour of the Golden State and legendary eloquence was credited by no less than Winfield Scott, Commanding General of the Army, with “Saving California for the Union,” a sentiment echoed in the Eastern press.

That was no small thing. Although California was too far from the main theaters of the Civil War to provide many troops for the blood soaked battlefield in the East, the wealth of its gold mines was largely the economic engine that kept the Union afloat.

Neither do the religious zeaots who dominate the modern Republican Party, such as it is, seem to know or care the Reagan was maybe the least religious and most secular of Twentieth Century Presidents. Even Richard Nixon could at least claim a Quaker upbringing and famously forced secular Henry Kissinger, a secular Jew, to kneel with him in prayer. Only another Republican icon, Dwight Eisenhower, came as close to total indifference to religion as Regan.

I don’t want to begrudge Regan the honor. But it is interesting that Illinois never thus enshrined Lincoln. Our state is represented by the justifiably obscure James Shields, a forgotten politician and sometime soldier, and Frances E. Willard, founder of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. New York never elevated either of the Presidential Roosevelts, both of whom are commonly listed as among the top five best occupants of the White House. The Empire State is represented by members of two of the state’s early political family dynasties—George Clinton, the State’s first Governor and Jefferson’s Vice President, and Robert R. Livingston, a lesser Founding Father who served with Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence (although he is unknown to have contributed even a comma to the document.)

Any way, Starr King will not be without honor. His statue will be relocated to a place of honor at the California Capitol in Sacramento. Maybe busloads of future students on class field trips will pause before it to learn of his distinguished career—that is assuming bankrupt California still has public schools and busses. He is also commemorated by two--count them two--mountains, one in New Hampshire and a more significant peak in the Sierra Nevada range. Another statue adorns San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Unitarian Universalism’s West Coast seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry honors him and will continue to do so if it can survive the current UUA Board’s—the hey-most-ministers-go-to-other-schools-anyway-what-do-we-need-them-for-anyway crowd—hostile indifference to denominational schools. Sigh. Maybe in the end they will give him a greater break the California legislature gave Starr King’s statue.

Modern UU’s are apt to remember Starr King most for an oft quoted, and oft paraphrased, bon mot. The young preacher, who served both Universalist and Unitarian congregations, famously observed, “Universalists believe that God is too good to damn them. Unitarians believe that they are too good for God to damn.”

Tags: california, history, republican party, ronald reagan, thomas starr king, u.s. capitol, unitarian universalism

MY CHRISTMAS CARD

: patrickmurfin; December 23rd, 2008

Dear Family, Friends, Fellow Workers and Other Worthies—

We are definitely going to have that White Christmas everyone sings about here in McHenry County. With more than a foot of snow already on the ground, we are being blessed today with several fresh inches. While cars in ditches along Route 14 lack some of the charm of a Currier and Ives sleigh ride scene, we are all getting in the holiday spirit any way.

I was casting about for art for an e-card—hey, It’s late and have you seen postage rates lately?—I stumbled across this. Absolutely perfect! But I was unsuccessful in finding a way to send it out as a card without having to manually load a lot of addresses into a YouTube program in batches of 25. Too tedious for me. So welcome to all of you on my “Christmas card list” who got here by link. I hope you will find the trip worth while.

One of the loveliest of the many great contributions to the Christmas tradition by Unitarians and Universalists is the plaintive I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Christmas Day 1864 upon hearing that his son had been grievously injured in a Civil War battle. Originally set to music in the 19th Century, holiday songsmith Johnny Marks set the poem to this haunting melody in the 1950’s. Many artists have recorded it, none better than Karen Carpenter with her rich, clear voice.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah, Joyous Solstice, and a Happy New Year!

Patrick Murfin

Tags: christmas, henry wadsworth longfellow, unitarian universalism

BAH HUMBUG—A UU Seasonal Greeting?

: patrickmurfin; November 28th, 2008

In the UU minister’s study—preparing the Christmas sermon?

(PeaceBang’s reflections the other day on Buy Nothing Day set off a spasm of comments, mostly about simplifying Christmas. Something about the discussion set off the inner crank. This is what I posted in the comments. Re-reading the comment now, it seems that it paints too bleak a picture of my home church, the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock. Although we do get doses of cold-water-on-the-holidays, there are also wonderful, bright moments. The annual Church School Pageant and the Choir Concert are always eagerly anticipated highlights. And our Christmas Eve Service, packed with extended families, is always moving, beautiful and reverent with its reading of the Christmas story from the Gospels, beautiful music, a touch moment in which a congregation family shares their own Christmas traditions, and the climax—lighting candles hand-to-hand around the darkened sanctuary as we sing Silent Night. On the other hand, I do read a lot of UU blogs and participate in chat lists where I hear plenty of the scolding, harping and grousing which elicited this, my own rant.)

Nothing brings out the latent Puritan in UUs like Christmas. Some years the tisk-tisking and finger waving seems to start as soon as we put away the sugar skulls from our Day of the Dead service. And sometimes the harping and scolding never lets up. Sermons emphasize the “stress of the holidays.” And not a year goes by in our church without our minister giving what some congregants call his slash-your-writs sermon sometime during the season. This is the one where he goes on—at great length—about all of the folks who are depressed and lonely over the holidays. He never says anything that cheers those folks up, but he sure does make everyone else feel guilty if they take a scintilla of pleasure in the season. Spokes folks from a parade of committees light chalices in competition with each other over how austere we should make our holidays in order to save the rain forest or save an African AIDS orphan.

Look, like everyone else I enjoy simplicity in the season. Lord knows the two nickels left in my pocket preclude a consumerist orgy. But I do love the season. Stripped of way too many faux Santa Clauses, there is still something warm and even inspiring in the festivals of light and the sense of generosity and community. I’m already humming carols under my breath and looking forward to the magical lighting of Woodstock Square with carolers singing in the Gazebo this Friday night.

Maybe we should reflect a moment how our Unitarian ancestors rejected Puritan priggishness about Christmas and did a whole lot to make the holiday we celebrate today—Rev. Charles Follen (Christmas trees in New England), Rev. Edward Hamilton Sears (It Came Upon a Midnight Clear), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day), Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol), James Lord Pierpont (Jingle Bells), Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Robert Shaw (too much glorious Christmas music to count), and actress Michael Learned (all those Walton Christmases.) I’m sure I’ve left someone out.

Anyway, have yourself a merry little Christmas. I will.

Tags: bob dylan, christmas, unitarian universalism

PLUGGING MYSELF--I Will Commit Poetry at Sunday Service

: patrickmurfin; January 16th, 2008

Many of the poems featured at a special service at the Congregational Unitarian Church are drawn from the Skinner House Meditation Manual WE BUILD TEMPLES IN THE HEART.

Patrick Murfin will lead a unique worship service at this Sunday’s 10:45 worship services of the Congregational Unitarian Church, 221 Dean Street. The service, Don’t Be Alarmed, Ma’am, He’s Only Committing Poetry, will feature Murfin’s poetry and commentary.

Many of the selections will be drawn from Murfin's 2004 collection, WE BUILD TEMPLES IN THE HEART, published by Skinner House Books of Boston. Several poems from that book and other sources have been used in Unitarian Universalist worship across the country and in Canada, Britain, Australia, and even in Hungarian translation in Transylvania.

Other poems will be drawn from Murfin’s collection in progress and will include observations of nature, commentary on war and social justice and personal reflections.

The Adult Choir, under the direction of Tom Steffens, will present the Midwest premier of Rainbows are Not Enough, one of Murfin’s poems set to music by California choral composer Scott Henderson.

Murfin is a long time member of the congregation and a social activist as well as a writer. He is best known locally as the on stage host of the Diversity Day Festival held annually on Woodstock Square and as a leading member of the McHenry County Peace Group and other organizations.

He has twice led Poets Against War public readings in the county and presented a special reader’s theater style production of his Four Hundred Years of Unitarian Universalist Poetry From John Milton to Sylvia Plath at conferences and academic forums.

Copies of Murfin’s book will be available for sale during the social hour following the service.

Tags: congregational unitarian church, mchenry county peace group, patrick murfin, poetry, poets against war, scott henderson, unitarian universalism, we build temples in the heart

MATHEW'S QUESTIONAIRE--A UU Tries to Answer Some Big Questions

: patrickmurfin; October 21st, 2007

Mathew is a student at a private, religious school in my old home state of Wyoming. He was given an astonishing assignment—find people of various faith tradition, have them respond to a questionnaire, then write a paper on what you learn. The questions were more on the level of a college philosophy or theology question than one would expect for a high school freshman.

Now in Wyoming religious diversity tends to run the gamut of A to B. There are mainstream Protestants, Evangelicals and Mormons. In some areas there may be Catholics. If you are anything else, you tend to keep damn quiet about it. So naturally young Mathew was having trouble finding diverse religious folks to respond to his questionnaire.

His mother, as mothers a wont to do, came to the rescue by e-mailing friends around the country asking if they, or any one, they knew could respond. One of the mom’s friends is an old childhood friend of my wife Kathy, who volunteered to respond with her own particular take on Catholicism. Then she volunteered me as a Unitarian Universalist.

I was busy with Diversity Day and other stuff, so it took me a while to get around to it. Boy, was it tough. But I got it off to Mathew yesterday. I hope he can find it useful

I don’t think it will compromise Mathew’s research if I share my responses here. It was a very illuminating exercise. May be you’d like to try it for yourself!

So here it is, along with my introductory note to Mathew, who I was told had never heard of Unitarian Universalism.

Mathew—

Sorry for the delay in getting this to you. I have been quite busy. Before answering your questions, I thought I should explain a bit. I am a Unitarian Universalist. This faith group is rooted in two traditions. Unitarianism historically held that the Trinity was an artificial construction with no roots in the Bible itself. Unitarians held that there is only one, unitary God and that Jesus, while perhaps in some way the “son of God” or chosen by him, was not the same substance with God. Unitarians also believed that the “revelation was not sealed” and that humans should use reason to interpret scripture. Universalists believed in some way Christ’s sacrifice saved all humanity—universal salvation—and denied the existence of eternal punishment. In the United States both were liberal religions with strong interests in social justice. And both continued to evolve. The two traditions merged in 1961. For a brief historical overview of the development of my faith tradition, I immodestly recommend my own article “A Brief Overview of Unitarian Universalism” on the web site of my home church, the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock, Illinois.

Unitarian Universalism is a “creedless” religion, meaning it demands no one belief in the nature or existence of God. Members are encouraged to support each other in their own quests for understanding of the Divine, or what I call the Greater. We are guided in this search by Seven Principles and several sources of inspiration which include not only traditional Judeo-Christian scripture, but other world faiths, nature itself, and science and rational inquiry.

I try to explain what we do as a worship community in the title poem from a collection of meditations I wrote, We Build Temples in the Heart.

Because each individual Unitarian Universalist is responsible to “build his own religion”, my answers to the questions below are only my own. What is more, they are subject to revision as my life journey teaches me more. Thanks for the understanding.

Patrick Murfin

1. What exists? In other words, what kinds of things are really real? Only matter? What about non-material things and abstract things (such as mind, spirit, ideas or numbers)? What kinds of non-physical things might exist?

We come to know and understand existence by our personal experience, but that experience is filtered through the cultural interpretations of meaning we absorb from birth. For instance, if our culture believes that the Sun is really the fiery chariot of a god we will incorporate that cultural understanding into our perceptions. Abstract thing like numbers are in some ways artificial creations, but as long as they are useful in describing perceived reality we incorporate them into our reality as if they were “real.”

As for “spirit” and the like, these thing come from the deepest parts of each individual’s experience. Those who have been touched by the “spirit” incorporate it into their reality. Those who have not, dismiss it as a fairy tale. Recent brain research has indicated that our brains my be hard wired in some way that makes some people able to have a spiritual or mystical experience while others cannot. Neither the mystic nor the skeptic can comprehend or account for the reality of the other, causing gulfs of understanding between the two.

2. Has the universe always existed, or did it come into existence at a specific point in time?

It depends on what you mean by “universe.” If you mean the universe that we can observe and feel part of, the best evidence is that it came into existence in a “big bang” billions and billions of years ago. But that does not explain what might, or might not, have existed before the universe exploded from a single infinitely dense point. And recent cosmetology research and theory based on quantum mechanics speculates that ours may only be one of an infinite number of universes.

3. Reality is made up of many different things, or is it essentially one substance that just appears to make many forms?

Good question. I don’t know. Einstein spent his life striving for a vast Unifying theory which would encompass all reality. He failed but others have pursued the search and some feel they are close to answers. My guess is that what ever the ultimate answer of physics, metaphysically we are all part of a single, if unknowable, reality.

4. When we look at the world around us, we see many different things. This question asks you to develop your answer to the previous question just a bit. It concerns how these different things relate to each other or whether they fit into a larger picture.

Is there anything that unites all those different things, or are all the particular objects in the world isolated from one another?

If there is a unity to all things, what do you think it is?

See above. Unitarian Universalists often refer to “The web of all existence, of which we are a part.”

If there is not anything that unites all the individual, particular things of our experience, how are we able to under the mean of the world around us? In other words, don’t we have to somehow relate these different things in some way in order to make sense of them?

Epistemology: Your Understanding of How you know What you know

5. Is knowledge possible? If so, how do we know anything? You may choose one of these options. (Show options on attached sheet) Could you develop your thoughts just a bit?

We learn only by experience through sense perception…

We can learn by thinking logically…

We learn by…

Alternate answers allowed for question 5:

Options for II. Epistemology, Question 5:

I believe we learn everything from our experiences in the world – by sense perception: seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, hearing

I believe we can know some things just by thinking logically; we don’t need to perceive everything through our senses; we can know some things independently of our experience. If this is your point of view, can you give some examples of things you know independently of your sense perception?

If I have a third point of view, which is …

This is one of the deepest and most persistent of philosophical questions. As stated above, I believe we learn about existence first through our senses, interpret that first through the filter of our culture, but as we mature we are capable of applying our own reason. And occasionally, if we are very lucky, and perhaps gifted by our genetic possibilities, we are open to flashes of awareness of the Greater as described by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay The Oversoul. I call these movements “epiphanies.” The various schools of mysticism in the world are an attempt to reach this union with the Greater through spiritual discipline.

Axiology: Your Understanding of Values and Ethics

6. What is the most important thing in life?

The most important thing in my life is being kind and respectful to my fellow sojourners in the world including an abiding commitment to peace and justice

7. Does every society have some sort of value system? If so, where do you think it comes from?

All societies have value systems. What is surprising is that despite wide variations in environment and culture, core values fairly universal. Note the variation on the “Golden Rule” that can be found at the heart of most religions. Values arose as a survival necessity from our earliest existence on the planet. Primitive humans had to rely upon each other and build a sense of community. The story of humanity is the widening circle of that community from the family to clan, tribe, village, nation, to the world. On the other hand cultures can and do vary greatly on particulars. But things like food taboos, sexual mores, property ownership, caste and class, etc. are overlays to a common understanding of what it means to be human in community.

8. Do human beings have a kind of built in sense of right and wrong? If so, where does it come from?

Our most primitive survival instincts teach us that we must rely on other human beings—first our mother and then the others of our immediate group. Out of this comes the human emotion of love, upon which all right and wrong relies. We know that it is wrong to harm those we love. We learn from our culture and experience how far that love extends—i.e. who is “us” and who are “the others” to whom the constraints of love are not extended. This is internalized at a very early age. But at a certain point each individual can and must examine the collective conscience handed to him/her and apply their own reason to it. It is this process that has gradually extended our understanding of communality

9. Are any values absolute? In other words, are there some values that every person – no matter what culture (s)he lives in / no matter what period of history (s)he lives in – should believe in? Can you offer some examples?

Only the most primitive of our values might be considered absolute—those growing out of the bonding of mother/child and immediate family. Theoretically a child raised in total isolation would develop no values other than the impulses to personal survival i.e. obtaining food, water, warmth and shelter at whatever the cost to anyone else. Yet we know that even feral children bond with the packs that raise them and obey the culture of those packs. But most of us grow up in wider societies and thus extend the values arising from “love” in wider circles. There are, however, evidently a tiny minority of people born with all sense of the empathy necessary for love switched off. They may learn to mimic the values of the society that surrounds them for survival, but are willing and able to commit the most brutal crimes without the slightest twinge of regret. Modern science calls these people “sociopaths.” More primitive societies may have believed that they were possessed by some external “evil.”

10. How do you personally decide what is right or wrong?

Most “moral decisions” are made on auto pilot without active thought. Every action we take in the world has moral implication. We decide what to do in 99% of the cases without thinking about it because we have internalized our cultural morality. When harder cases present the necessity of conscious choice my standard is “the purposeful infliction of harm on another individual is wrong.” Am I successful in making decisions based on that criteria when the action may conflict with my self interest? Only sometimes. But the greatest moral act of all is recognizing we are not perfect but not letting that realization stand in the way trying to do better.

11. Is there such a thing as tragic moral choice? In other words, are we sometimes place in a position where we have no choice except to do evil? If you think so, can you give an example or two?

All moral choices of importance fall into this category. It is easy to make a moral choice where a bright line divides “good” from “evil.” But the world is complex. Even the most selfless act may cause knowing or unknowing harm to others. An example from my personal experience: I was deeply opposed to the Vietnam War. I was drafted. After much consideration, I decided I could not lend my body to use in an unjust war. I refused induction, was prosecuted and served time in prison for draft resistance. I could easily have congratulated myself on making a “noble” sacrifice of my freedom for my deepest beliefs. Yet I also knew that some other young man, probably poorer and less educated than I, would fill my slot and might be sent to his death in Vietnam. Had my high minded righteousness condemned another to death? Perhaps. Would my acceptance of being drafted, being sent to a war, and then forced to murder a man I did not consider an enemy be a better moral choice?

12. How would you evaluate this statement: All truth and values are relative (This means they are not absolute and that they are conditioned by individual or culture factors). Why do you agree - or not agree – with the statement?

I agree in the broadest terms

13. According to Situation Ethics, there are no rules that are to obeyed in every situation, and there are times when we have to break the rules) even one of the Ten Commandments) in order to do the loving thing. In the end, the only rule we always need to follow is law of love. How do you evaluate this point of view? Is it right or wrong? Why?

I agree. The problem, of course, is determining what is the loving thing.

Religion: My View of God and What it Means to Be Human

14. Does God exist? If you answered yes, what do you think God is like? Is God…

Personal? If so, what does that mean?

Impersonal? What does that mean?

What other words would you use to describe God?

I do not believe in an anthropomorphic God, Nor one who tinkers with the universe or one who chooses to heed and answer this prayer and not another. But I do believe in a great unifying presence in the universe of which we are part and parcel. I call this The Greater.

15. If you believe God exists, how do you think people come to know God? If you do not believe God exists, how do you account for the fact that so many people do believe?

People come to know God through their experience. Most people will internalize what ever their culture teaches them about god without question. They will interpret their experience in that light. But for some folks the easy answers are never satisfying. They will quest to learn about God through exploration of other religious traditions, spiritual disciplines and practices like yoga, Zen meditation, or native American sweat lodges that they believe will bring them into union with The Greater. Others find God quite simply in nature. Those who do not believe that God exists have found no confirmation of his/her/its existence in their personal lives and refuse to believe in what cannot be “proved.” Many, as noted in an answer above, may simply be genetically incapable of the mystical experiences that affirm the existence of the Divine for others.

16. How many Gods are there?

One, a dozen, a million—who knows? Is it important? I tend to believe that there is one Greater. But that doesn’t mean that those who find the Greater manifested in multiple deities are necessarily wrong. Those deities are often just ways of describing aspect of the Divine. As someone once observed “There are more gods than Hindus.” But that doesn’t mean that a devout and serious Hindu is not aware that any individual god or goddess in whose temple he or she may worship is just a face of god.

17. What is the Bible? Do its teachings play any role in your daily life?

The Bible is a collection of writing by men (and maybe women) written in a dozen languages and dialects over centuries. These stories were selected, translated, and edited by men long after they were written and assembled into one “authoritative” book.

Many other writings, stories, and spiritual lessons widely circulated among the same people as the originators of the Bible stories, were omitted for a variety of reasons. So to me the Bible is not “authoritative.” But as a great source of Western culture it cannot be ignored and should be studied. I am particularly drawn to the inspiration of the teachings of Jesus, particularly as recorded in the Beatitudes, as a great source of moral inspiration. I also respect and can learn from the scriptures of many world religions.

18. How would evaluate the claim that down deep all religions are basically the same?

The superficial differences over the number and name of God/gods/goddesses, the prescription of particular rituals and such are cultural artifacts of humanity’s struggle to discover its relation to the Greater. What is striking is that the moral core of the teaching of so many religions is so similar. In the end religion becomes a way of teaching individuals in societies to live in harmony with one another

19 What does it mean to be human?

We are fully human only in so far as we have the capacity to live with one another in some kind of community.

Are we really distinct from lower animals, or are we part of a continuum?

Biologically, we are mammals, genetically not much different from our first cousins, the great apes. We are animals. We are all part of a “web of existence.”

How do we differ from lower animals?

It used to be said that man was the only animal aware of itself. But recent research has shown that at least several other mammals are also self-aware. It has been said that we are the only mammal that recognizes its own mortality and is thus the only mammal that creates stories about what happens after death. Yet research now shows that elephants and whales, at least, also comprehend not only death but that they will die. Do they also construct narratives about their fate?

Do you believe that humans have a soul (or are souls)? If so, please explain what you mean.

There is certainly something intangible in the ambulatory meat we call human. It may be necessary for “life.” It certainly is not present when that same hunk of meat “dies” and becomes an object rather than a being. Want to call that a soul? Fine by me

20. Has the modern theory of evolution discredited the Christian faith? If so, how?

Evolution should only discredit a shallow faith. The Bible is full of metaphors for deeper realities. If we understand metaphor, we are undisturbed when the “objective reality” of this or that tale is challenged by new information. Underlying truth is more important that contradictory creation tales in Genesis or where Jonah could dwell in the belly of the whale. It certainly discredits none of the moral teaching of Jesus.

Indicate which of the follow options (Show options on attached sheet) best represents your own views. Please explain your answer just a bit.

Theistic Evolution – God guided the process

Naturalistic Evolution – Universe is the result of nature forces

Ok, I’ll pick this one. On the other hand, I believe it is impossible to separate the process from an originator. The unfolding process is The Greater.

Seven 24 hour days Creation – God created in seven 24 hour days

Genesis account gives spiritual meaning rather than a scientific account

Others...

Alternate answers allowed for question 20:

I believe in Theistic Evolution. God guided the process of evolution.

I believe in Naturalistic models of Evolution. The universe is the result of

I believe in literal 24 Hour Day Creation. God created the world in seven 24 hour days.

I believe in Creation, I reject evolution, and I accept the truth of the Genesis account; but I think that the Genesis record was intended to convey Spiritual Meaning rather than a scientific account of origins.

I have another point of view, which is …

Tags: christianity, creation, ethics, evolution, god, jesus, patrick murfin, soul, spirit, unitarian universalism

WHERE ARE THEY? Unitarian Universalism and the working class.

: patrickmurfin; September 4th, 2007

I'M NOT BEING RAPTURED. I AM SINGING DARK AS A DUNGEON BY MERLE TRAVIS FOR THE LABOR DAY SERVICE AT THE CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH IN WOODSTOCK.

A Labor Day Service by Patrick Murfin

Congregational Unitarian Church

Chalice Lighting

It is Labor Day weekend, the book-end holiday of summer for most, but a celebration drained of significance for most. For many years we never held services here. Why bother? Everyone had better things to do on the last long respite before life resumes its serious demands of work and school. A couple of years ago, I seized the day. If no one else wants it, I’ll take it, I said. I knew it would be the only chance that I would have here to talk about a subject that causes most Unitarian Universalists to squirm in their seats and causes near apoplexy in a few—class. I figured on Labor Day weekend I could get a pass and those who don’t want to hear about it have a good excuse to stay away and not be offended. I’m glad that you have decided to come to church this morning and are at least willing to listen.

I am interested in class issues because I have spent my life as a member of the “rent-me-by-the-hour working class.” This comes as a surprise to some people. But I had many dirt-under-the fingernail jobs over the years including almost 25 years as grade school custodian. I also generally worked a second job as well. Shortly before I was “retired” by my school district I wrote a little poem. It is my experience, but I think reflects on that of millions of others.

SHIRTS

I have spent my years in shirts

with stitching above the pockets

proclaiming the names of my employers.

They hang in blue ranks in my closet,

multiplying always,

pushing inch by inch

along the rod against the

plaids,

pearl snaps,

oxford button downs.

Eight a week in the laundry hamper heap

they smother--

the pale green of Monday’s meeting,

the open throated cowboy for Saturday errands,

the smooth dress front with matching tie

of Sunday morning sanctuary.

“Forget who you think you are,”

they demand.

“Disabuse yourself of vanity and pretence.

We own you.

You belong to us.”

This morning I light the Chalice for Working People.

Call to Worship

What a surprise! When I opened my new issue of UUWorld a couple of weeks ago, I found the cover splashed with teaser “Liberal Religion and the Working Class.” Could it be that my beloved denomination was going to come to grips with the thorny issues of class? Inside there was a thoughtful article—is there any other kind?—by Doug Muder called “Not My Father’s Religion: Unitarian Universalism and the Working Class.” I read it avidly. I came away impressed by Muder’s grasp of the chasms of world view that often separate piously liberal Unitarian Universalists from working people who we believe often often cling to a rigid and simplistic form of religion that we abhor.

Using his own downstate Illinois factory worker father as an example, Muder patiently explained why his dad would never feel comfortable in a UU church typically packed full of the kind of folks who dribble credentializing letters behind their names and who have important, challenging, and rewarding jobs. For the professional folks who make up most UU congregations, the primary spiritual challenge is what he calls “discernment,” how to choose among the “many good things we could do with our lives.”

That is not the issue for the working class, Muder says. Working class people do not have endless choices to make. They can be reckless—what they might call sinful. But then they or their families would suffer. Or they can bite the bullet and do what they have to do to provide for themselves and their children. That usually means trying to hold down a steady job where someone else makes most of the decisions for you. You do what you are told, at least as long as you are on the almighty time clock that rules your existence. Muder puts it this way:

“…that’s working class life in a nutshell. You are not following your bliss. You’re not pursuing your calling. You’re selling your time for money. The way out of the maze, and the way to get your kids out of the maze is to get up every day and do something you would rather not do.”

Such an existence, he argues, finds more resonance in the harsh, either/or sin or salvation message of conservative Christianity than the mushy “you can be what ever you want” message of UU churches. Not only would most working persons feel uncomfortable with our message, but the folks they would encounter likely are so alienated from that world view that they are likely to dismiss those who lead such lives as either too stupid to grasp our “liberating” theology or, worse, too lazy—read sinful—to break free of their restraints and “actualize” their lives.

Fine, as far as it goes. I certainly found myself nodding in agreement as I read the article. But typically UU, it intellectualized the problem and bemoaned the separation, but could not come to grips with the emotional reality of it. Worse, Muder, could find no common ground that might bridge the gap. In the end the article amounted to mere wistful regret that the sheep and the goats were fated for different paths.

One other thing about the magazine caught my eye—the cover. In attempting to portray the working class they pictured a fat old man eating a sandwich in what has been identified by UU blogers as a famous Manhattan delicatessen. The only clues that he is supposed to be a worker and not a college professor are his work boots and jeans. Hardly a heroic figure, or one even engaged in labor. I thought of the images of workers from my youthful days as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the historic radical labor union known as the Wobblies. Illustrations from the INDUSTRIAL WORKER, the covers of pamphlets, or on the “silent agitator” stickers we used to slap up in factory bathrooms showed workers as strong, resolute and heroic. Typically they were shown with powerful arms folded or reaching out to a better world. For some reason they were usually shown only from the torso up. Take a look at the drawing on the cover of your order of service. It is by Ralph Chaplin, the composer of “Solidarity Forever.” We had a joking name for this guy. We called him the “nutless wonder” because he disappeared below the belt. Nutless or not this guy is a hero. The fat guy with a sandwhich is not. Neither view is truly representational of the working class. But I’m afraid that the UUWorld view is condescending.

Today we are going to look back into our past to examine what shaped our Unitiarian Universalist attitudes about class, look at some of the realities of working class life today, and see if there is not something we can learn from working people that can enrich our own communities. For it is only when we honor their strengths and contributions that they will feel truly welcome.

( Read the sermon )

Tags: labor day, unitarian universalism, uuworld, working class

LABOR DAY SERVICE AT CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH--Hear Murfin Preach

: patrickmurfin; September 1st, 2007

My, my, how the immage of the working class has changed from RALPH CHAPLIN'S defiant rebel to some fat old man gnoshing on a pastrami sandwhich at a Mannhatten deli. What does this tell us of UU views of working people?

As far as I can tell, the LABOR DAY services that I have been leading at the CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH for the last couple of years have been the only religious observances of this secular national holiday in McHENRY COUNTY. Oh, maybe the occasion might get a passing remark from the pulpit, some BIBLE verse endorsing the dignity of labor might be stapled awkwardly on to the proceedings, or some progressive cleric might utter a prayer. But no one else devotes an entire service to the occasion.

Many churches are less than jammed this weekend. Parishioners are off celebrating the last big weekend of the summer. Many Protestant churches are more interested in gearing up for the “homecoming” service next week when the Church Year roars off into high gear after the summer doldrums and Sunday School resumes. We used to skip services entirely because so few people showed up.

Then I asked if I could “have” the day to do the summer service that was usually assigned to me. I had wanted to do a labor service for years—on or around MAY DAY, the real INTERNATIOAL LABOR DAY. That idea was shot down pretty firmly by the Worship Committee and the Church Council, who wanted “more spiritual” content and absolutely none of this “class nonsense.” Even the usually supportive REV. DAN LARSEN, my friend and collaborator in numerous progressive causes, didn’t feel like stirring up complaints from members who might decide on next year’s pledge based on their level of offence at my red ravings.

I pointed out that on the Labor Day weekend those who would be offended just by the topic would have plenty of excuse to stay away. It didn’t hurt when I pointed out that those who did show up might throw a few extra bucks in the collection plate—summer being a financial dessert for the church. And so I was allowed to hold my worship service. Thirty or forty people showed up the last two years, enough to make unlocking the church worthwhile.

Anyway, any readers of this blog are welcome to hear me “preach” this Sunday at 10:45 a.m. at the Congregational Unitarian Church, 221 Dean Street in Woodstock. The topic is Where Are They? Unitarian Universalism and the Working Class. I will even sing JOE HILL’S The Preacher and the Slave and Dark as a Dungeon by MERLE TRAVIS.

You don’t have to be a Unitarian Universalist to attend. Hell, you don’t even have to be a Christian. If you are agnostic, you don’t have to worry that the roof will cave in on you. If you are religious, you don’t have to be concerned that you will be struck by lighting for apostasy.

Hope to see some of you there.

Tags: international labor day, labor day, may day, mchenry county, ralph chaplin, unitarian universalism, uuworld

STATE OF THE BLOG REPORT

: patrickmurfin; June 27th, 2007

Poll #1010888
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 0

How do you like your blog?

View Answers

I would like to read a more conventional blog with lots of news, short articles and links
0 (0.0%)

I prefer aimless ramblings and bloviation
0 (0.0%)

Huh? This is a blog? I thought it was Toledo!
0 (0.0%)

World's Ugliest Dog, 2007
A Mascot for HERETIC, REBEL, A THING TO FLOUT?

When I started HERETIC, REBEL, A THING TO FLOUT a year and a half ago, I imagined that I would regularly review and comment of the news of the day, then rise to the ranks of the big boys (and girls) who become blog-o-sphere super stars—ass kissed by politicos caught up in the promise of the activist base and fawned over by the established pundocrocacy that once scorned them.

No such luck. This blog remains pretty much as I described it in a very early post—“the little lemonade stand at the far end of the cul-de-sac in February.” We count our readership in the dutiful dozens, spiking upwards into the scores when our reporting here hits a local (McHENRY COUNTY) nerve—the GAY GAMES controversy or the current dust up among the CRYSTAL LAKE GALA, McHENRY COUNTY PEACE GROUP, and the McHENRY COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

It’s easy to see why.

First, I set this thing up on LIVEJOURNAL, a distant third to MYSPACE and FACEBOOK as of a social networking site and only tangentially a blog host. It flies under the radar of many blog aggregators specialized search engines. That makes it really hard for folks who are not introduced first hand to find it. But, hey, I am a technological idiot and have at least figured out how to use this platform. Plus I am too lazy to haul it over to somewhere else and too cheap to pay for anything.

Second, with two jobs and multiple volunteer responsibilities, I could never maintain the sheer pace necessary to keep up with all of the news.

Third, by the time I was ready to write about something about a jillion other folks had already said the same thing I would, very often much better than I could.. Following the practice of some bloggers, I could just link to all the good stuff I find (and thus encouraging mutual links back here), but I wanted this site to be an original voice. Besides, I figured that most of my readers were already looking at many of the alternative sources I do—ALTERNET, TRUTHOUT, TOM PAINE, DEMOCRATS.COM, HUFFINGTON POST, DAILY KOZ, etc.

And fourth, as advertised, this blog is truly eclectic—and often obscure. Any reader whose eyes have glazed over upon encountering one of my seemingly interminable posts on, say, military history or UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST minutia will know what I am talking about. One has to have both infinite patience and a specialized interest to wade through them. Then there’s that damn poetry. Sometimes I can almost hear the groans coming back at me through the computer. There are a lot of announcements for McHenry County organizations for whom I am the designated flack—at least I know one place where the press releases will get published.

All in all, not the kind of stuff that will build a general readership. I understand. I really do

But in the interest of building that wider readership without abandoning all of the quirks that make this blog adorable in the same way as the WORLD’S UGLIEST DOG, I will try an experiment today. I am going to post three short pieces in the more traditional blog format. Read them below. Then, vote in the poll at the begining of this entry. Do you like a more conventional blog format with short, newsy posts loaded with links or do you prefer the current mix aimless ramblings, over-the-top bloviation, bulletin board announcements, and god-only-knows-what-else-swept out from under the bed?

Tags: alternet, crystal lake gala, democrats.com, gay games, health care for america now, heretic rebel a thing to flout, huffington post, mchenry coumty democrats, mchenry county, mchenry county peace group, tom paine, unitarian universalism

If These Walls Could Talk--A Congregational Unitarian Church Centennial Skit

: patrickmurfin; October 22nd, 2006

The cast of IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK belt out the finale number, “Our Church is Here to Stay” at the Congregational Unitarian Church. The skit was written by Patrick Murfin and was part of the Centennial Celebration of the church building. From left to right are Ron Relic (Jack), Sue Kazlusky (Jill), George “Kaz” Kazlusky (Walls), Tom Steffens (seated at the piano), Annette Jasiota (Organ), Allison Neff (Chalice), and saxophonist Jim Hecht.

“IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK”

A Centennial Skit for the Congregational Unitarian Church

By Patrick Murfin

CHARACTERS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

Jack—Male half of visiting couple

Jill—Female half of visiting couple

Walls—Off stage male voice of the church walls

Organ—Off stage female voice of the pipe organ

Chalice—Female voice of the Chalice

(Jack and Jill enter social room from front entrance talking as they cross slowly to the door of the Minister’s study)

Jill—I’m so excited we found this place! When we moved to Woodstock from Punxsutawney I didn’t think we would ever find another UU church.

Jack—(Looking toward the stained glass windows in the sanctuary with trepidation) I don’t know. This is different from the fellowships I’m used to. This seems so, well, so damned churchy!

Jill—Don’t be such a pin head, Jack. Give the place a chance. (They find a note pinned to the door of the study. She reads) “Had to take Jose and Maria to hospital to have another baby. Back by 3. Dan.”

Jack—Well then, lets get out of here, (Turns to walk out)

Jill—(Grabbing him by the elbow none too gently) Hold on there, Buster. (looking at watch) It’s just ten minutes. We can wait. (Crossing to center, looking out over the sanctuary) I know it’ not all glass and marble, austere and modern like our old church. It’s old. But it’s kind of beautiful. There’s something about it…

Jack—(Crossing to her interrupting) Don’t go all mistic-tristic on me, Jill. You know I a Humanist—neither god nor master for me!

Jill—Still, if these walls could talk---

Walls—(Off stage. Voice booming very like the voice of God from the burning bush) Who says they can’t?”

(Jack and Jill. Startled leap into each other’s arms)

Jack—Who said that!?

Walls—I did, the Walls of this church…

Jack—(Interrupting) That’s impossible!

Walls—Why? I’ve stood here for a hundred years now. Thousands of people have found shelter here. I’ve seen them baptized or dedicated, married them and buried them. Preachers have orated, ruminated, and occasionally sedated from that pulpit. There have been Christmas Eves with candles and canned goods for hungry folks. In my time there have been six major wars and a dozen little ones. A Great Depression and a bunch or ordinary hard times. I’ve seen Prohibition, drug experimentation and sexual liberation. I’ve seen motor cars and airplanes, radio and TV, the internet…

Organ—(Interupting from off stage) Isn’t that just like Walls. All war and rumor of war. Big things, dramatic things…

Jill—Who are you.

Organ—Oh, I’m just the pipe organ. But I’m the real spirit of this church. I am its art and peace and beauty. And I notice all of the little things that big, strong Walls over there is too busy holding up the roof to notice. Like little Bobby Mather spending his Sunday mornings pumping my bellows before the Elders got around to getting an electric motor to do the job. And the ladies of the Friendly Aid collecting their nickels to keep the coal fires lit during the Depression. The women were always busy. Some of them had time to start Woodstock’s first Girl Scout troop. the Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, the local Red Cross, Easter Seals of McHenry County. Helen Wright and others helped save the Opera House and make a center for the arts. And Walls didn’t notice all of the children in the Church School and their teachers either when they were upstairs crowded into the nooks off of the social room or when they moved to the basement. Walls remembers the big, important ministers, but does he remember Bob Vieregg ringing the bell every Sunday or George Mills keeping the Usher book all those years?

Walls—Your too hard on me, Organ. Just because I have to be strong doesn’t mean I don’t have a soft side. But I have to be careful at my age. Just thinking about all of those wonderful folks nearly makes me burst my water pipes. (Cue music for THIS OLD CHURCH)

This old church was filled with children,

This old church just brimmed with life,

This old church was home and comfort

Through the bitter storms of life.

This old church has rung with laughter,

This old church has known some doubt,

Still it stands brave in a new world

And it knows what it’s about.

(Walls and Organ together)

Gonna need this church tomorrow

As we need this church today,

Grab the tools and fix the shingles,

Get the mop and wash the floor,

Put oil on the old hinges,

Add a Chalice window pane,

Gonna need this church tomorrow,

We gotta do all the work of saints.

(Organ)

This old church has deep foundations,

Though the walls are gettin’ old,

This old church can fight for justice,

This old church is brave an’ bold.

This old church welcomes the homeless,

The outcasts, and Gays that they defame,

This old church can speak in Spanish

And every body learns your name.

(Walls and Organ)

Gonna need this church tomorrow

As we need this church today,

Grab the tools and fix the shingles,

Get the mop and wash the floor,

Put oil on the old hinges,

Add a Chalice window pane,

Gonna need this church tomorrow,

We gotta do all the work of saints.

This old church has heard some prayer,

This old church has heard some song,

This old church has stood for freedom,

This old church knows right from wrong.

This old church had many preachers,

Some were great and some were not,

This old church has filled with people

Many gone but not forgot!

Gonna need this church tomorrow

As we need this church today,

Grab the tools and fix the shingles,

Get the mop and wash the floor,

Put oil on the old hinges,

Add a Chalice window pane,

Gonna need this church tomorrow,

We gotta do all the work of saints.

(Jack and Jill applaud)

Jack—That’s very nice and all, but I want a UU Church. This place looks so Christian.

Walls—Part of us will always be. My father wasn’t made of brick. He was wooden clapboard, put up by the old Congregationalists in 1866. When I came along in 1906, folks put in these nice windows. I still think they are beautiful. But my doors were nearly closed in the Depression when no one had any money. My people decided to join with the Universalists, partly to get some money from a bequest. They called Rev. Merton Aldridge, a wonderful, kind Universalist minister. He never got the money but he saved the church. When he died in 1949, his wife Irma stayed for many years and helped hold the folks together. She even lived to see the congregation finally get that Universalist $5000 in 1963. The Unitarians joined the Universalists nationally in 1960 and there were so many great UU ministers here.

Organ—Weston Stevens built the membership up, founded the Woodstock Ministerial Association, and traveled all over the world in the summer time, brining back stories for the congregation. One time in Moscow he watched Nikita Kruschev debate Vice President Nixon at a kitchen exhibition. Jack Dunn and half of the UU clergy in the country responded to the call to march in Selma after Rev. James Reeb was killed in 1964. Barbara Merritt was called as our first woman minister and built the church up again from a low point. And she gave wonderful sermons about poets and the like. Stephen Washburn and Dianne Arakawa shared the pulpit and their gifts. The church changed its name to the Congregational Unitarian Church during that time. Then came Dan Larson, who has been here longer than anyone. He rolled up his sleeves and went right to work fixing up the tired old sanctuary and speaking up for justice all of the time. Through it all, the congregation was part of both the Congregationalist United Church of Christ and the UUA. But over time, most folks in the pews identified themselves as UUs. They finally decided it was time to drop the old and honored affiliation.

Chalice—(Enter from the door by the pulpit. Costume: Maybe something long, flowing and graceful She carries a flaming chalice in both hands and seems to float to center stag .Cue music for IT HAD TO BE UU)

It had to be UU, It had to be UU,

We talked it all out, hadn’t a doubt that’s what we knew,

Could make us be true, could be what we do,

Making us glad, not a bit sad being UU.

The past that we’ve had, made us feel glad,

The old rugged cross wasn’t a loss,

We treasure it too,

But nothing else gave us a thrill, freedom’s fair flame, we love you still,

It had to be UU, wonderful UU,

It had to be you!

(Instrumental break

The past that we’ve had, made us feel glad,

The old rugged cross wasn’t a loss,

We treasure it too,

But nothing else gave us a thrill, freedom’s fair flame, we love you still,

It had to be UU, wonderful UU,

It had to be you!

But nothing else gave us a thrill, Freedom’s fair flame, we love you stil,

It had to be UU, wonderful UU,

It had to be you!

(Crosses to small table by pulpit and puts the Chalice down. She fold her hands in front of her and stands silently by)

Jill—Wow! I guess this place is a real UU Church.

Jack—That’s great, but I need a church that walks the walk. It has to be more than Sunday mornings.

Walls—Well, this is the place, brother. Folks here aren’t shy about standing up. Back when the PADS homeless shelter was starting up they wanted to use the church. But the city of Woodstock said they needed a Hotel license and would shut ‘em down it they put up the homeless. Our church people “Do what you gotta do, we are opening anyway.” And the city backed down. PADS has been here ever since. And there is the Direct Assistance Program for the poor and the Minister’s Discresionary Fund, too. The folks here have marched and spoken for peace. They welcomed Gays and lesbians and stood up for same gender marriage. They work for tolerance, support the Latino community, and founded Diversity Day. They work tirelessly on the environment. Why almost every day and night someone is doing something here to make the community and the world better in my rooms.

Jill—Does that leave any time for me? I need my spiritual batteries charged.

Organ—Don’t we all. It like the big booming bell up in Wall’s tower. When it rings the whole town can hear. But at the beginning of services here, they tinkle some little chimes. (Chimes tinkle off stage) That’s the call to refresh the soul. They do it with music of all kinds and types, not just from my old pipes but from the choir, for musical shows like Paradise People and Dille’s Follies, from concerts of all types. And there is quite time for yoga and Buddhist meditation. There are study groups. And Dan always has time to listen when you are in pain. It’s like a family here with people helping each other grow and evolve.

Jill—It sounds good to me. What do you think, Jack?

Jack—I think we found just what we were looking for. This is our church now. (Cue music for OUR CHURCH IS HERE TO STAY)

It’s very clear,

Our church is here to stay.

Not for a year.

But ever and a day.

The cable TV and the internet,

The soaring jet planes that we know,

May just be passing fancies

And in time may go!

(Entire cast joins Jack on stage center)

But we are clear,

Our Church is here to stay,

Together we’ll

Re-build a brand new day.

In time the nation may crumble

And icons may tumble,

They’re only made of clay,

But our church is here to stay!

(Reprise from top with Congregation—lyrics printed in Order of Service)

It’s very clear,

Our church is here to stay.

Not for a year.

But ever and a day.

The cable TV and the internet,

The soaring jet planes that we know,

May be passing fancies

And in time may go!

But we are clear,

Our Church is here to stay,

Together we’ll

Re-build a brand new day.

In time the nation may crumble

And icons may tumble,

They’re only made of clay,

But our church is here to stay!

finis

Tags: congregationalism, tom steffens, unitarian universalism, united church of christ, woodstock

Forgotten Labor Day--Murfin Preaches!

: patrickmurfin; September 3rd, 2006

FORGOTTEN LABOR DAY

A Worship Service by Patrick Murfin

September 3, 2006

Congregational Unitarian Church

Woodstock, Illinois

It’s Labor Day. For most Americans it is just the left bookend of the summer, one last extra day off to spend time with family or to relax. It’s a guilt free holiday. Unlike Memorial Day there will be no pesky editorials or old guys in VFW caps to complain about forgetting the sacrifices of our troops. There will be no Fourth of July calls by politicians to take time out to remember the Blessings of Liberty. No body nags you about Labor Day, except maybe the merchants who stuff you Sunday paper full of extra ad inserts eager to goad you into one last buying frenzy before the long dry spell until Christmas.

When I was searching my clip art collections to put together the order of service for today, I found dozens of illustrations of cook outs and barbeques. I found pictures of guys dozing in hammocks. I even saw a couple of graphics of women about to deliver a baby. I found one—count them one—that showed working people gathered to mark the holiday. And my clip art collection includes not only the package in Microsoft Word, but a program called “Big Box of Art” which advertises 350,000 images and thousands more in the Print Shop Deluxe program I used to create the bulletin in your hands.

I was an elementary school custodian for more than twenty years. At this time of year classrooms were still festooned with back to school decorations or generic symbols of fall like turning leaves, acorns, and footballs. Ground Hog Day got more decorative attention than Labor Day. And there were no special lessons, hand-outs, or videos. In the rush to get the kids settled back in for the school year, Labor Day is forgotten. Kids just weren’t taught about it.

You get the picture by now. Labor Day is the Rodney Dangerfield of holiday—it gets no respect.

So how did this come to pass? I submit that it is because American culture in general does not value the people the holiday is supposed to celebrate—the working class. In fact high school civics ideology holds that America is somehow classless. Not classless in the leveling way of despised communism, but absent permanent economic castes. Even the most humble may rise. In fact it is generationally expected. Your great grandfather may have started pushing a cart and sweeping up horse dung from the city streets, but here you are with a three car garage and a six figure income. In fact failure to make those leaps is generally regarded as moral and intellectual failure.

Then there is the image that the word “worker” conjures in the mind. Think of our opening song, Tennessee Ernie Ford’s famous version of “Sixteen Tons.” The coal miner is born in want and degradation. His job is dangerous, back breaking, and filthy. He is the victim of the bosses in the pit and the company store which keeps him in a kind of permanent serfdom. Naturally he is angry. But he is ignorant and brutish that he can express his violent rage only against the hapless victims who cross his path. He is more to be feared than pitied. Who wants to identify with that?

Most Americans of the professional, managerial, and entrepreneurial classes—and that includes most of the folks in this room—don’t think of themselves as “workers,” a term evocative of dirt under the fingernails, sweat, and dumb toil. More over they associate “Labor” only with unions, now viewed mostly as at best a quaint but irrelevant remnant and often reviled as an impediment to modernizing the economy and rationalizing the work force. What’s to celebrate about that? Better to throw one last steak on the barbeque and start thinking about football.

Class is a dirty word in this country. We prefer not to think about it. Good, middle class Americans are thought to believe that they have more in common with John Welch, Bill Gates, and the Walton family—Sam’s kin, not the scruffy denizens of a Depression mountain top—than with blue collar, pink collar, no collar schlumps chained to a time clock. Is it any wonder that a cultural disdain is widespread. It may not be as in-your-face as the British class system, but it is just about as pervasive. We need to face it. There is a wide spread predjudice—yes predjudice against those who are precieved as working class in this country.

As Unitarian Universalists, we may believe we are above that. We are famously open minded. We treasure our historic connection with the women’s movement from suffrage to the ERA and gender equity. We brag about our abolitionist roots and our embrace of the Civil Rights movement. The Unitarian Universalist Association identifies itself not just as racially tolerant but as “anti-racist.” We have embraced the gay, lesbian and transgendered, flown our rainbow flags, and proclaimed our support for same sex marriage. Surely we wouldn’t harbor any kind of lingering prejudice. Think again.

Almost totally missing from the parade of progressive causes that have been supported by Unitarians, Universalists, and UUs of today is the cause of labor. In the 19^th Century, especially around the Unitarian Jerusalem of Boston, dominated by the wealth families of merchants, bankers and mill owner collectively know as the Brahmins, there was a bristling hostility toward the emerging labor movement—and the filthy immigrants who swelled the ranks of the working class.

Famously, the sons of Unitarianism’s finest families were part of a Harvard College based Massachusetts National Guard company that eagerly responded to the call to suppress the famous Lawrence Textile strike of 1912. They shot and bayoneted the strikers, overwhelmingly immigrant women. They bragged about it in letters home, some of which were approvingly read from Boston pulpits. By the way, today’s hymn, “As We Come Marching, Marching” commemorates that strike.

Out here in the Midwest the Western Unitarian Conference led by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, did try to connect to the labor movement. Back east mavericks like John Jayne Holmes also tried. But there efforts were largely marginalized. Except for here and there, the great wave of unionizing during the 1930’s passed by without Unitarian or Universalist support.

Today, demographers tell us that Unitarian Universalists enjoy the second highest per capita income of all American denominations. Only those silk stocking Episcopalians bring down more. This is not because there are a lot of really rich folks in UU churches. There are not. Former UUA President John Buehrens ruefully observed a few years go that we had driven away the traditional old money Unitarian families making his job a chief fundraiser a lot more difficult. The high average income of UU’s is due to the overwhelming preponderance of college educated professionals among us on one hand and the almost total absence of both the truly poor and those with less than college educations on the other. Our current view of the working classes may have less to do with an investment in economic lordship than a lingering arrogance based pride of academic achievement and professional standing.

A couple of stories may illustrate some unspoken attitudes.

Some years ago I led a work shop at a Central Mid West District conference. The discussion was lively and several people lingered to talk after the session ended. One woman, a delegate from Peoria, was effusive in her praise for my presentation. But she called me “Reverend.” I gently corrected her, “I’m not a minister, I’m a school custodian.” She looked like she had been slapped in the face, spun on her heals and departed without another word. I later was seated at the same table with her at lunch. She was a school teacher, she told those around her. Then she went into a bitter denunciation of striking Caterpillar tractor workers, who had been out for more than a year. “They divided Peoria,” she said, “They tore our community apart.” It never occurred to her that the company might be at least equally to blame. I asked her if she had any Caterpillar workers in her church. She said there were some retired managers, but no union workers. But she did have the children of some of “those people” in her classes.

An aberration you say. Perhaps. Certainly an extreme case most of us would be more circumspect in our comments. But consider this.

In 2000 delegates to the UUA General Assembly in Nashville adopted a Statement of Conscience on “Economic Injustice, Poverty and Racism.” It was the culmination of years of work by organizations like UU for a Just Economic Community and a handful of committed congregations to get the Association to take on the issues of class in America. To say that it was hard fought to come to fruition is to put it mildly. I participated in some of the drafting sessions and I believe even contributed a phase or two to the final document. But the procedure cut out some of the toughest provisions of the original proposal and generally softened the language. The final document called on UU congregations to do things like work toward fair wage and benefits; access to adequate housing and social services; and the removal of environmental and occupational hazards that disproportionately affected low income people. Hardly revolutionary stuff. But supporter looked forward to UU congregations tackling these issues with the energy that they had applied to the civil rights, gender equity, and gay rights movements.

In an e-mail to me, UUA President Beuhrens, predicted that nothing would come of it. “We are not ready for a tough conversation on class.” He was right. The Statement of Conscience was widely ignored by congregations, including this one. Those few who were committed to the struggle soldiered on, but effectively no one else did.

On the insert in the order of service you have probably noticed and insert quiz titled “What Do You Really Think of the Working Class.” Don’t worry, we are not going to collect them, or even ask any one to stand up and recite their answers. The questions are tongue in cheek. But if you answer them to yourselves honestly, some of you may be surprised by what you learn.

Given all of this cultural baggage, it is to be expected that most Americans do not want to be identified with the working class or feel that they have much to celebrate this holiday except some time off work.

But consider this: The great majority of Americans are totally dependent on wages and tips or social security and pensions for virtually all of their income. The ownership society so beloved by our president and conservative ideologs is largely a myth. The overwhelming majority of capital assets, including stocks and bonds are held by the top ten percent of the population. Those in the top fifth through ninth deciles of the population typically have less that $5000 in total assets invested in securities, including mutual funds, IRAs and pension funds. Virtually all of their wealth is in the value of their homes. Those in the bottom half of all households generally have no investments at all.

While most families are dependent on earnings from employment, the share of wages and salaries now makes up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since record keeping began in 1947. Real wages have declined 2 percent since 2003 while corporate profits are at the highest levels since the 1960’s. A decline like this during an economic and as worker productivity has skyrocketed is unprecedented.

Yet the administration boasts that during the same period average family income has increased. How can that be? It is because virtually all income growth has occurred among the top 10 percent, the true ownership class in America. That growth reflects not only return on investment, but the fact that compensation packages for top corporate leaders have soared. CEO’s of Fortune 500 firms now typically make more before lunch on the first business day of the year than an worker at the statistical mean earns in a year.

The fact is that virtually all of us are just hired hands--even those with six figure incomes, professional titles and status, and who may be charged with the direction of many other employees. As much as we may be loath to admit it, most of us are wage slaves.

Further consider these other alarming trends:

Income from wages has stagnated, and by some measurements steadily fallen over the last thirty years relative to inflation. A rise in the value of benefits which has tended to soften wage erosion has been reversed as more and more employees are stripped of health benefits and pensions.
As work forces in industry after industry have been cut to the bone, productivity has soared—but American workers now routinely put in more hours at work than when the eight hour day supposedly became standard in the 1930’s. And that does not include the rising number of people holding down second jobs or those who cannot find full time employment and stitch together two or three part time positions totaling more than a standard work week. American workers also have much less vacation time available and paid holidays than in comparable industrial nations.
While the demands for overtime have grown, recent administrative law changes have redefined millions of workers who give even casual instruction to others as “management” and others who require almost any level of “special training” to hold their jobs as “professionals.” In both cases employer are free to convert the workers to a salary basis, ineligible for per-hour overtime premium pay.
Despite recent efforts, the Federal Minimum Wage remains frozen at a level that fails to raise even a full time worker above the poverty line. Due to inflation the Minimum Wage buys less today than at any time since its inception. Friends and foes of increasing it agree that it also serves as a floor to wages for workers in other low wage jobs.
Employers in all categories have “shifted the burden” of health care onto employees. That means dramatically raising premiums, increasing deductibles and co-payments, slashing or capping benefits, and even eliminating health coverage for workers altogether.
Traditional pension funds are in jeopardy. Over the decades companies under funded their pension plans to pay for other priorities. As a result many plans are now or soon will be in bankruptcy. Hard pressed industries, lead by commercial aviation, are getting court permission to walk away from their plans entirely leaving the Federal Government holding the bag. Workers will get pennies on the dollar of expected retirement income. Recent pension reform law signed into law this summer gives companies seven additional years to fund their pensions. In fact it is expected that many more companies will terminate their plans or convert them to largely employee funded IRA accounts over the next decade. Millions of wage dependent workers will never be able to fully retire until they are literally too ill or feeble to continue to work.
The cost of higher education, traditionally the ticket out of the working class for the children of laborers, has skyrocketed while financial aid has stagnated. Students must turn increasingly to loans to pay for their education. And federal student loan rates just went up again. Students are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in debt which will strangle their ability to use their income to start a family or buy a home. The old idea that any one who is good enough to get into college can get an education is going by the wayside.
Dramatic spikes in energy costs threaten to further eat away further at stagnant income and many economists believe we may be entering a period of sustained inflation.
The housing boom is bust. Falling home prices erode the value of the only asset of most working families.
World economic policies continue to encourage the out-migration of jobs. While in the past this was confined largely to manufacturing, it has spread to the service industries, and now even to professionals.
While jobs have been created during the current boom, they have been concentrated on the low end and on the very high end. Most of those whose jobs evaporated never replace their old earnings.

I could go on, but you get the picture. As one expert dryly noted “There are two economies out there. One has been just white hot, going great guns. Those are the people who have benefited from globalization, technology, greater productivity, and higher corporate income. And then there are the working stiffs…they’re not getting ahead despite the fact they are working very hard. And there are a lot more people in that group than the other.”

Another observes that the bottom half of the middle class is sliding into poverty and most of the rest is barely treading water.

So welcome to the club. We are all workers after all. Once we realize that the grease monkey and college professor are in the same boat, maybe we can get over our old dreads and suspicions and work together to get ourselves out of this pickle.

Happy Labor Day, Fellow Workers!
*************************************************************************

You might find our concluding song a bit odd. I wrote it more than thirty years ago when I was a young organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World in Chicago. At the time the taxi industry was undergoing a sea change. Checker and Yellow Cabs, which held 80% of the city cab licenses, were trying to rid themselves of their hourly unionized drivers and their benefits. They were shifting to a lease/independent contractor model used by their independent competitors. They were replacing their veteran drivers. A lot of the new ones were recruited from the large pool of local hippies. One evening while enjoying two dollar pitchers of beer with a bunch of fellow Wobblies at our favorite Lincoln Ave hangout, Johnny Weiss’s, a large bunch of these long haired drivers came in and took over a table. They were complaining. Now that they had been used to ease out hourly drivers, the companies had imposed a dress code and were firing them, replacing them with the first wave of immigrant drivers who would come to dominate the industry. Inspired, I went home and wrote a song stealing the tune from Woody Guthrie’s “Oklahoma Hills.” It was printed in the INDUSTRIAL WORKER and sung in folksy saloons before becoming quickly forgotten. I resurrect it now because like the long haired taxi driver in the song, many of us share in denial of our working class roots and depend on one “drug” or another to help us forget.

HE WE ARE IN AMERICA, GLORY!

Lyrics: Patrick Mufrin (writing as Wobbly Murf)

Melody: Woody Guthrie—The Oklahoma Hills

From the INDUSTRIAL WORKER circa 1972

Here we are in America, Glory!

Livin’ through this wonderful story,

In the dark and dreary slum where I was born,

Steel mills ridin’ on my daddy’s shoulders.

‘Til he just couldn’t get older,

In the dark and dreary slum where I was born.

Now I’ve left home for good,

Wouldm’t live there if I could,

Cause workin’ all your life is such a drag,

Oh, my daddy was a fool,

I won’t stay in his old bag,

I’ll hitch hike, smoke dope, and sure be cool.

Here we are in America, Glory!

Livin’ through this wonderful story,

In the groovy part of town where I live now,

Sun shines day, and moon shines night

And I’m just too stoned to fight,

In the groovy part of town where I live now.

Now sometimes I drive a hack,

And I get stoned when I get back,

Workin’ to get high is what I do.

Now don’t give me your stuff,

For the real world makes me blue,

And I been hearin’ ‘bout it quite enough.

Here we are in America, Glory!

Livin’ through this wonderful story,

In the groovy part of town where I live now,

Sun shines day, and moon shines night

And I’m just too stoned to fight,

In the groovy part of town where I live now.

But they’ve thrown longhairs of the job,

Treated me like any slob,

Last month’s rent is waitin’ to get paid,

There’s no food upon the shelf

And I really am afraid,

What can I do a standing by myself?

Here we are in America, Glory!

Livin’ through this wonderful story,

In the dark and dreary slum where I was born,

Sittin’ and a starvin’ on grass and acid,

I may be hungry, but I sure am placid,

In the dark and dreary slum where I was born.

Tags: economy, industrial workers of the world, labor, labor day, unitarian universalism, unitarians, universalists, wage slavery., wages, wealth

Smelling that UU Rose--What's in a Name?

: patrickmurfin; June 27th, 2006

On the Unitarian Universalist History Chat e-list there has been a discussion, not for the first time, about the name Unitarian Universalist Association, its clumsiness, and the careless habit of many to speak only of Unitarians, offending the historic Universalists. What follows is an excerpt from a post by Janeen Grohsmeyer of the UU Fellowship of Southern Maryland and my response.

“Richard Kellaway asked: “Simple question. What percentage of Unitarian Universalists
Identify themselves as such, rather than as simply Unitarians? Is any Further explanation really needed?’

“The main issue for newcomers is that Unitarian Universalist is an unwieldy name. No slights are intended, no disrespect is meant, no theological attitude is implied ... to newcomers, it's simply our first name.”

I think Janeen is right on the money for very many contemporary members of our congregations. Relatively few of them come in with more than a superficial understanding of either historic Unitarianism or Universalism. I am an “old timer” resource person on the Newcomer chat list. Most folks say they found us through Beliefnet or some other source which indicated that we are broadly inclusive a variety of religious belief. For them, our religious pluralism and tolerance are the primary motivations for seeking out our congregations. Therefore they are attracted to “Unitarian Universalism” or “UUism,” not either of our historic roots. They may, however, come to use the short hand Unitarian without implying any particular identification to that source.

By the way, Universalists, who often feel marginalized, should take heart. Knowingly or unknowingly so many contemporary UUs are attracted to the essence of what might be called post-Christian universalism and not, like a generation or so ago, by the strictly agnostic humanism then dominant among Unitarians.

The clumsiness of our name is widely acknowledged. I am fond of the story of the present-at-creation witness to the consolidation of the Unitarians and Universalists who referred to Unitarian Universalism as akin to “rhinoserous-hippopotumus” in tripping lightly over the tongue.

Perhaps, like many had hoped, it would have been better in 1961 to abandon both names and to strike out with a defiantly new identity. But I suspect the rebellion in the pews of both Universalist and Unitarian churches, resentful of loosing their identities, would have been overwhelming and might have doomed the new Association from the start.
And the alternatives were not all that good. The most popular, some variation on The United Liberal Church in America, sounded even then theologically tepid. Today, when the perfectly respectable term “liberal” has been transformed into a kind of linguistic pariah, it would greatly restrict our appeal and growth opportunities over wide swaths of this country.
If you think it is difficult trying to explain UUism to the uninitiated in an elevator, try nuancing political and religious liberalism.

Like it or not, Unitarian Universalism is our brand. At least it has some recognition. We are stuck with it, just as we are stuck with the sometimes careless habits of verbal short hand. Not that I mind. I’m kind of fond of that horny toad.

Not a LiveJournal member? Comment by e-mail to pmurfin@sbcglobal.net

Tags: history, unitarian, unitarian universalism, universalist

What About Theocracy?

: patrickmurfin; June 22nd, 2006

            Is the United States becoming a Theocracy? Tough question and one much on our minds these days. Two recent books have stirred discussion, Michelle Goldberg’s KINGDOM COMING: THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM and AMERICAN THEOCRACY: THE PERIL AND POLITICS OF RADICAL RELIGION, OIL AND BORROWED MONEY IN THE 21st CENTURY (whew!) by Kevin Phillips
            On top of this they have been organized by their leaders and the Republican Party into the most disciplined mass voting block since white southern Democrats once held sway over the South. The ascendancy of the Republican revolution owes its success largely to this irreducible and reliable base.
           Goldberg, a senior writer for SALON.COM, is positively alarmist. Evangelicals, she points out represent 30-35% of the population. Add other religious conservatives including right wing Catholics, traditional Jews, and disaffected members of mainstream Protestant denominations and the figure approaches half of all Americans. That makes this group, by far the largest identifiable and cohesive sub-culture in an increasingly fragmented society. By sheer numbers they are bound to have enormous influence.

For his part Philips, the former Republican strategist who developed the “Southern Strategy” before defecting to the left, put this raw power in perspective as part of the Republican juggernaught.

Republicans have risen to power in an intricate and sometime contradictory coalition which has included fiscal conservatives, libertarians, neo-imperialists (usually called neo-conservatives), main street business types, and traditional reactionaries. But the two dominate pillars have been the so called Religious Right (RR) and the corporate interests of the super rich. The RR has provided bodies, votes, and fervor. The corporatists have provided unlimited money, a pervasive willingness to engage in flagrant corruption, and a determination to use ideology to free business from all constraint to accomplish the largest transfer of wealth (poor and middle class to the oligarchy) in history. Woven together by the genius of the likes of Newt Gingrich, Carl Rove, Pat Robinson, Ralph Reed, Tom DeLay, et. al. these two forces drove the Republican Party to unheard of political dominance over all three branched of government in record time. They dragged the other members of the coalition behind them on the roller coaster thrill ride to power.

But just when it seemed that total and permanent power was within their grasp, trouble appeared in Paradise. That trouble came in the guise of a failed war in Iraq which shook public confidence in their leadership and exposed the too, too apparent frailties of the stooge-front man for the operation, George W. Bush.

All of this time the religious conservatives were sure that they were using the corporatists and the Grand Oligarchs were equally sure that the gullible church folks were their tool. They were able to stroke each others pet projects--“tax reform” for action against abortion and Gay marriage.

Yet in the end, despite all of their power, neither side was able to pick the golden fruit of their most cherished dreams. The RR’s dutifully supported gutting Social Security, slashing taxes, rolling back environmental, health, and other regulations. But other than a lot of rhetoric and the appointment of a few judges, they never really got the Mogul’s full support for their most cherished dreams. Despite their best efforts the Corporatists could not get repeal of capital gains or the estate tax, drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, or the dismantlement of Social Security. They blamed insufficient zeal on the part of their religious allies.

While the pillars of the coalition are under strain, the fringe participants are jumping ship. First to go were the traditional balance-the-budget fiscal conservatives, appalled by the Bush spending frenzy yoked to relentless tax cuts which has sent the budget from surplus to mega-deficit in just six years. Hot on their heals are the social libertarians equally frightened by the RR’s zeal to regulate every aspect of personal behavior on one hand and the neo-imperialists gleeful embrace of a coercive “security state” on the other. Small and mid-level business types, the back bone of the Eisenhower Republican Party, no longer see their interests tied to those of ruthless multi-national conglomerate corporations. The neo-imperialists are frustrated by the neo-isolationists. And to top it off the immigration issue pops up cleaving corporate interests from the nativist populists.

This bodes ill for the political future of true theocracy. But never discount its tenacity and power.

There are also problems within the RR itself. It was never as monolithic as it seems from the outside, where it is identified almost exclusively with Evangelical Christianity. Certainly the Evangelicals are the biggest part of the pie, but they are not the whole bakery. Most deny that they are actually seeking temporal power, only that their cultural sensitivities be respected and their moral norms adhered to. The vast majority, even of the leadership, do not seek a Christian theocracy.

The Southern Baptists, now the nation’s largest Protestant church and surely its most muscular, is the eight hundred pound gorilla of the RR. At their recent convention, they elected a “moderate” who seemed less interested in making cultural and political warfare the central mission of the church. A move to direct Baptists to withdraw their children from public schools as inherently and irredeemably secular, failed. But in an ominous move, Baptists were instructed to return to their communities and capture school boards, library boards, and local governments. Essentially the Baptists were telling the national Republicans that they were withdrawing their focus on Congressional action, where they cannot win their goals, to the local level where they know they can demographically hold sway over most of the South and a good deal of the West. That’s bad for the Republicans nationally, but may also be bad for proponents of church/state separation locally.

One relatively small sliver of the RR actually has its eyes set on true Theocracy. The Christian Dominionist movement grew out of Calvinism arisen from the ashes just about everyone one thought it was consigned. It lived on in a few academic corners and in a strain of rock-ribbed Presbyterianism that long split from their now liberal main denomination. Taking Calvin’s dictatorship of Geneva as a model, this hearty band advocates the establishment of a “Christian Nation” with only certified Christians able to vote or hold office. This group has grown from a handful of intellectuals and thinkers into a real movement which has infiltrated the larger RR and the Republican hierarchy. Several top Administration figures are at least tangentially associated with this movement.

Ironically the main allies of the Dominionists are Catholic intellectuals rooted in “Natural Law” philosophy on one hand and an admiration for rigid hierarchy on the other. Bob Jones University not producing many first class legal minds, it has been from this group that Catholic lawyers have been recruited to top justice department posts and the judicial appointments so dear to the RR. These are the men, and they are almost exclusively male, that George Bush taps to take over the appellate bench and Supreme Court. They are the insurance policy that even if Republicans loose power in the legislative or executive branches, their revolutionary changes to American governance and society will remain in place.

But there is something inheritably unstable and ultimately unsustainable about an alliance of resurrected Calvinists and Opus Dei Catholics.

Another shaky alliance is between Evangelical Protestants and the neo-imperialists, largely Jewish intellectuals keenly interested it the use of American power to advance Israeli safety and interests. Evangelicals have become a powerful block in the pro Israel lobby. But that comes not out of any fondness for Jews, indeed Fundamentalists and other Evangelicals have a history of anti-Semitism, but out of their end-time fantasies in which Armageddon is played out on the Ashes of the Holy Land.

All of these stresses mitigate against the ascension to power of a true theocracy, but none prevent it. Vigilance and action are always needed or the nation can, as many hope it will, slip quietly into a virtual theocracy draped in the empty forms of Enlightenment democracy.

As Unitarian Universalists, the religious heirs of the Enlightenment, we have a special responsibility to fight the good fight. But we can’t do it alone. We must find allies among the fading Mainline Protestant denominations, progressive Evangelicals like Jim Wallis of SORJOURNERS and former President Jimmy Carter, Reform and other liberal Jews like Rabbi Michael Lerner of TIKKUN, and other spiritual voices to present an authentic Religious voice that stands against Theocracy and in defense of Democracy. Fortunately, that effort is now underway in organizations like the INTERFAITH ALLIANCE.

Tags: jim wallis, kevin phillips, natural law, newt gingrich, ralph reed, religious right, republicans, sojourners, theocracy, tom delay, unitarian universalism

"McHenry County Blog"--Deception in Practice

: patrickmurfin; March 31st, 2006

Just today an aquaintance let me know that I had shown up in a Google search about the Crystal Lake Gay Games controversy. Not only were my own blog entries on the subject noted, but so were refrences on Cal Skinner’s McHenry County Blog. Since Cal was kind enough to help readers find my blog, I thought I would return the favor.

A big part of Cal’s time is now evidently spent on the McHenry County Blog. The man must never sleep. At least during the recent election period and during the controversy over the Gay Games, and the High School newspaper censorship dust-up (see my next blog entry for more info on that) Cal managed to make multiple lengthy posting daily. He is a regular source of the red meat that keeps Conservatives agitated, outraged, and angry at all times, sort of a local Bill O’Rielly. It is frankly flattering and encouraging that such a busy man would bother with the likes of me even in passing.

And it was very much in passing. Both entries mentioning me were made on March 2^nd,

early in the controversy over the Gay Games. The first makes passing reference to my blog entry “Don’t Let the Religious Right Kill the Gay Games in Crystal Lake.” After quoting the concluding sentence of my letter on the topic to the Crystal Park District, Cal wrote:

Murfin describes himself as “an active member of the Industrial Workers of the World.” He is a member of the Congregational Unitarian (which he also describes as the “Unitarian Universalist)” Church and President of the Interfaith Council for Social Justice in McHenry County, according to his web entry.

Although benign sounding, that entry contains a couple of the little tricks that are evidently taught to conservative commentators in some intense training camp somewhere. First is a selective quote from my blog profile. By placing the quotation marks one word to the left of the verb in the original sentence he makes it appear that I am still a member of that notoriously dangerous bunch of reds, the IWW. In fact the original quote said “was an active member…” Not that I am at the least embarrassed by my association with the fighting union, but in point of fact I have not been a member since the early 1980’s, before I moved to Crystal Lake in 1985.

Secondly is the wonderfully sinister sounding insinuation that I am somehow misrepresenting my religious affiliation—“…a member of the Congregational Unitarian (which he also describes as the 'Unitarian Universalist') Church." As some one who has been on the scene in McHenry County all of his life and who supposedly is conversant with religion, Cal surely knows that the Congregational Unitarian Church is the name of my Woodstock Congregation (a congregation dating to 1866 by the way and celebrating the Centennial of its current building). The congregation is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA.) This is not something we try to hide. In fact we proudly proclaim this association. For more than a decade I have personally prepared worship notes for the congregation that appear in the local press and send out other press material. We regularly identify our UUA affiliation.

His next post wins a prize for either high paranoia or shameless pandering in the time honored tradition of Joe McCarthy. Click here for the full text of “Gay Games Intrigue Getting Curiouser and Curiouser.”

In it he describes learning how Off Square Music has booked Judy Small to perform at the Congregational Unitarian Church “the night before the date of the Gay Games…” Small, he reports, once recorded a gay themed CD. Ergo this is evidence of a long term plot and collusion by the church to exploit the games by packing crazed but paying perverts, who will be flooding the county for the games, into the performance.

There are a number of problems with this scenario. First, as Cal himself acknowledges, the concert was booked months ago, long before the controversy over the rowing events erupted in Crystal Lake. He papers over this with vague recollections that the games were being planned last August. Indeed, they were, after a dispute with Toronto over who would host the events. But discussions of the rowing component did not begin for months. In fact Crystal Lake was identified as a potential site rather late so that the application had to be rushed to meet Park District deadlines. In other words there was no connection between the booking of the show and the Games at all and Cal knows it perfectly well.

Additionally, Off Square Music is totally independent of the Congregational Unitarian Church. They have been producing folk concerts at various venues for several years. For the past two years they have rented the church for their monthly concerts. The church has a similar arrangement with for concerts sponsored by the Woodstock Folk Festival, and occasionally rents to other musical events like recitals.

In Cal Skinner’s mind the butt-buggering, baby-murdering, family destroying Christ killing, atheist, Bin Ladin loving, Bush hating, communist conspiracy is a well oiled machine capable of stupendous feats of organization. It must be our long apprenticeship under our masters, The Elders of the Protocols of Zion and the Council on Foreign Relations. Yeah, that’s it.

Cal sure convinced one loyal reader. Donna Clasen posted the following comment on the blog:

I just don't know how that man can be called a Pastor. What is the Unitarian Church? It's like the church of nothing and everything. Someone should look into them further and see about that "church" losing its tax exempt status.

Well, of course I’m not a Pastor nor ever claimed to be. No matter. Mere facts mean nothing. What is interesting is her call for an investigation into our “church” (note quotation marks.) We should evidently lose our tax exempt status for speaking our mind. Never mind the Skinner’s own blog reproduces official statements from other local churches opposing the games. That alright. They have God on their side while the Unitarians are at best apostates. It is this mindset of intolerance, which identifies opponents as not just mistaken, but actively evil. As sworn “enemies of God” we deserve no civil rights.

Cal might claim that Clasen’s sentiments are not his own. Maybe. But he cannot demure from calculatingly encouraging them.

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Tags: cal skinner, crystal lake, gay games, mchenry county, religious right, unitarian universalism

Am I a Universalist?

: patrickmurfin; March 8th, 2006

(Note: I earlier posted a plug for THE UNIVERSALIST HERALD, the oldest continuously published liberal religious periodical in the U.S. and to which I contribute. The following article appeared in the January/February edition, Vol. 157, No. 1. For subscription information contact Doug Shaheen, 21 Cheverus Rd. Dorchester, MA 02124-2401.)

The other day I was taken aback when a member of my congregation introduced me to a newcomer as “our Universalist.” I have written on Universalist history. I once designed and taught a course in Unitarian and Universalist history in which the Universalists received equal time as the Unitarians and was told that was almost unheard of. I talked about it in a couple of lay sermons. But until that moment I never stopped to consider if I might, indeed, be a Universalist myself.

I entered the Unitarian Universalist orbit through the Unitarian door. It was thirty years after the consolidation of the two faiths when I finally knocked on the door of the Congregational Unitarian Church in Woodstock, Illinois. The writers and thinkers who brought me there after an adult lifetime of traditional radical contempt for religion were the great Unitarians who had so enriched American letters and culture. I literally had never heard of Universalism. When given the shorthand description in early orientation, I regarded it as a quaint vestige of superstitious Christianity on my new rational faith—the appendix of a modern body, useless but perhaps apt to infect and lethally explode at any moment.

In short, I was one of seekers who regularly found UU churches. I was a work in progress. My new found religious home gave me just the right combination of support while I tried to sort out belief systems and a platform from which to act on the social issues of day in an ethical way. With the help of my minister, my fellow congregants, classes and reading, my world view deepened and widened. It was my nature to try to understand things through their history. So I delved into this and that nook and cranny, this discovery taking me inevitably to another. Revelation was indeed not sealed. It was an ongoing process.

As I read and studied I came to have a deepening respect for the overlooked Universalist tradition. It resonated with me in important ways. I could look back at my own childhood and youth, raised in a lackadaisical Protestant household, exposed at different times to various Sunday Schools in the vague hope that I would eventually select one and settle into some respectable faith. I remembered the disconnect I felt when it turned out the Gentle Jesus surrounded by adoring children in gaudy prints, the one of whom we sang, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world,” was also the judge who would cast sinners into unremitting hell. And he would condemn not only bad men like murderers, but little children who were Jews or Hindus who had never done a bad thing to any one. It made no sense to me then.

By my junior high years, I decided I would just as soon stay home on Sunday morning and mow the lawn as listen to any more of it. I walked away from religion without regret. By my twenties I was an anarchist, an anti-cleric who made a point of literally pissing on churches.

Looking back,I came to realize that my childhood reaction was the same one that struck the earliest Universalist preachers and compelled them to saddle up and harangue strangers in obscure hamlets.

But that didn’t make me a Universalist, I thought, because I wasn’t personally concerned with the fate of my soul after death. Like most UU’s it was not central to my faith. It is not that I disbelieved in an afterlife, or believed in one. It was that any condition after death was simply unknowable and open to only one avenue of discovery. The world provided an array of explanations from panoply of religions, none more certain than any other. It made no sense to lay my chips on red or black, odd or even, let alone on some specific number. The wheel will spin, the ball will drop where it will. So if Universalism’s main point was to promise me a happy eternity, it bore no greater truth than any other system.

The issue of God or no god was dicier. I was grounded in scientific rationalism, but I had experienced a few of those moments of personal epiphany (some of them not even assisted by the ingestion of psychedelics) described by Emerson. I had a sense of reverence for what I called The Greater. But this unknowable Force was not anthropomorphic, nor an omnipotent busy body. Its eye was not upon the sparrow nor was It attentive to the whining petitions for personal benefit constantly directed toward It by millions. Most importantly, The Greater could not be vain or jealous. I told a semi shocked congregation one morning that a god who needs his ass kissed is not a god worth worshiping. That did not seem to jibe with a Universalism which I still believed still clung to some form of old Sky God.

Years have passed. I have learned how Universalism grew and evolved in ways that seemed more congenial to my own conclusions. My understanding deepened. My respect grew. And yes, on alternate Thursdays I might be a Universalist. But on Friday I might be a Deist, Tuesday a Transcendentalist, Sunday a Humanist, and fifteen minutes every month or so maybe a pantheist. I learned and drew from them all and they grew in me. Hard questions sometimes had many answers or none at all. And the firm anchor of my conviction yesterday was apt to be swept a mile down stream today.

I have resisted any label other than Unitarian Universalist, which is a process rather than a credo and broad enough for both my convictions and confusions. Within that umbrella I have demurred from being lassoed into this or that ideological camp with the implicit necessity of defending my position while sniping at the incursions of others. I have no interest in feeling like a persecuted Christian or Humanist marginalized by “the language of reverence.” I want no part of the quarrel between neo-pagans and righteous monotheists.

So when my friend hung that label “Universalist” around my neck that coffee hour morning, I was tempted to take the Fifth. But something held me back. I took another slurp of Fair Trade Coffee. I could think of no better definition for the breadth and minutia of my belief. “Perhaps I am,” I said, “Perhaps I am.”

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Tags: unitarian universalism, universalism, universalist herald

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patrickmurfin

"Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout"

An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, Poetry, and General Bloviating

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