The front cover of the April 14, 2008 issue of Time featured
Pope Benedict XVI and "Why the Pope Loves America." Perhaps
coincidentally or perhaps strategically, the Unitarian-Universalist
Association took out a full-page ad (p. 58) with the slogan, "WHEN IN
DOUBT, PRAY. WHEN IN PRAYER, DOUBT." The bottom of the ad makes a free
DVD offer: "Voices of a Liberal Faith." The DVD is a brief exploration
of what it means to be Unitarian-Universalist today and can be obtained
here. What is striking about watching the DVD and reading other UU publications is how familiar it all looks and sounds like the voices of a liberal agenda in western Anglicanism. The difference, however, lies in what Unitarian-Universalism concedes in its approach to its faith.
The Unitarian-Universalist Association does not try to convince itself that it really is Christian after all. It does not pretend to be Christian.
It is openly, unabashedly, and nonapologetically non-Christian. Such,
however, was not always the case. There was a time in its history when
Unitarianism believed that it was a genuine expression of Christianity.
In his 1960 book, Why I Am A Unitarian, Jack
Mendelsohn references a sermon preached by the great nineteenth-century
Unitarian and former Calvinist William Ellery Channing. "Channing's
celebrated sermon at Baltimore was an assertion of Unitarian
Christianity. He denied the doctrines of the Trinity, predestination,
and depravity, but otherwise remained, in a parochial sense, a
Christian" (p. 73). Mendelsohn himself, though, writing a century after
Channing, argued for a "fervent espousal of reason that transcends all
parochialisms, even as impressive a one as the Judeo-Christian
tradition. Either we are 'more than Christian' or we are just another
portion of religion's lag" (p. 76). Mendelsohn treds carefully but
assertively in his apologetic for a Unitarianism that "transcends"
Christianity--there was still a strong strand in 1960's Unitarianism
that saw itself as Christian.
Finally, thirty-five years after Mendelsohn, in 1995, the
Unitarian-Universalist Association "has affirmed officially that it is
not a subset of Christianity (although its roots are Christian), but
encompasses spirituality from all the major world religions as well as
primal-indigenous/tribal faiths" as cited here. Regardless of what might have been argued in the past, modern Unitarian-Universalism is officially
not Christian. This great concession is important to the UU ethos of
today and the logical conclusion of the trajectory it followed in its
interaction with modern western culture. It is also important for its
public witness, for many people, unless specifically informed
otherwise, assume that Unitarian-Universalism is just another Christian
church. The epithet "Unitarians who like drama (i.e., liturgy)"
is often hurled at the liberal leadership of western Anglicanism. What
is one to make of bishops who deny a high view of scripture (or even suggest that since we wrote the Bible, we can rewrite it) or question that Jesus is the Way to the Father? What should one do when, on Easter, leaders make ambivalent reference to the resurrection of Jesus? How should one respond to those who ask the church to abandon a Christian view of marriage just to allow for same-sex blessings, or who give the Sacrament of Holy Communion to those who have not been baptized into the faith?
These are views consonant with modern Unitarianism, or, in the case of
such a "democratic" approach to Communion and the unbaptized, would
certainly meet with its approval. Is it no wonder that, for instance,
the well-respected, veteran theologian J.I. Packer has lamented that
his own Canadian Anglicanism "has been 'poisoned' by a liberal theology
that 'knows nothing of a God who uses (the Bible) to tell us things and
knows nothing of sin in the heart and in the head'" and "is being
ruined by its attempts to 'play catch-up with the culture' by adopting
whatever 'is the in-thing'" (from here).
Defenders of the institutions of western Anglicanism will argue that
these representations are extreme examples (though one must wonder why
such extremes are tolerated in the Body of Christ). In fact, they are
not as extreme as they were in the past, and they will continue to
become more mainstream if western Anglicanism continues in its present
trajectory, as did the old Unitarianism. If the above cited bishops and
academics continue to exert their unchecked influence over dioceses and
seminaries, the arrival at the predicted end-point of the trajectory is
only a matter of time. The old Unitarianism, with its
experimental theology and social agenda, finally came of age and
realized that it was no longer beneficial to its cause for it to
maintain continuity with Christianity. They should be congratulated for
conceding this major point. The proponents of the so-called "extreme"
elements in western Anglicanism (whose views are embraced more and more
by clergy and laity at the diocesan and seminary levels) should be
honest with themselves, as Mendelsohn was with his fellow Unitarians in
the 1960's, and admit that they are following a path that leads
ultimately out of the Christian faith and to something else that transcends it.