Sex, God, and History

When Harold invited me to speak to you on Association Sunday, he said he thought I had an interesting job and that the congregation would like to hear about what I do. As the UUA's director of information and public witness, I handle media relations for the Association and help shape the presentation of UU values to the wider world. And as the archivist for the Association, I'm involved with the preservation of our history both at the institutional and congregational levels. So, hoping to give you an idea of my work, I entitled my sermon "Sex, God, and History." Now, an experienced minister could probably get three sermons out of that topic….maybe six sermons. But I'm not a minister, and it's rare that I have the heady pleasure of occupying such a high pulpit, so I'm going to cram all three into this sermon….except that, following a suggestion made to me by Tom Stites, my colleague at 25 Beacon St. and the superb editor of the UU World magazine, I'm going to save the sex for last. Tom said that would ensure that you all stick around until the end.

I told you he was a superb editor.

David Robinson, the eminent historian of Transcendentalism and a member of the UU church of Corvallis, Oregon, recently wrote:

Even though our tradition is spiritually and intellectually rich, Unitarian Universalists have an uneasy relationship with their past, finding it daunting in its complexity or troubling in its embodiment of something they have struggled to escape. In a religious movement centered on an ever-renewing embrace of innovation, the past can become a burden or an embarrassment.

But history is memory, and memory is vital to all beings - and to all movements, organizations, and institutions. Our history is our identity, and even though that identity is constantly evolving, it is also being shaped by what has gone before. This is all the more true in a religious movement that….has foresworn creeds and universally binding definitions of belief. This makes the unifying power of a collective experience and a collective memory - of a history - all the more important.

For thirty years, from the end of Civil War until the mid 1890s, these three groups vied for leadership of the Unitarian movement. For reasons too complex to go into here, the American Unitarian Association emerged as the dominant organization, but there was nothing inevitable about this, and the AUA survived by becoming a representative body of congregations (like the National Conference) and by accepting, if not immediately embracing, the ideas of the Western Conference.

Our collective history has taught me this: the fragile nature of institutions, the truth that no institution is inevitable no matter how much it appears so, the fact that all things pass away.

These lessons from our history inform my work in representing Unitarian Universalism to the wider world. When speaking with reporters, especially if they're not from New England, I often need to describe the historical progression that led to contemporary Unitarian Universalism, how we are non-creedal, and how our congregations include UU Christians, UU Jews, UU Buddhists, followers of earth-centered spirituality, and humanists who might describe themselves as agnostic or atheist. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that my work leads me to talk about notions of God. Here are two examples of how the UU views (note the plural) of God have been portrayed in the national media.

Just over two years ago, Bill Sinkford, the President of the UUA, was preaching at the UU congregation in Ft. Worth, TX. As is our procedure, my office had sent press packets to the congregation so they could forward them to the local media in hopes that the visit from the national leader of the Association would be covered in the press, and indeed, the Ft.Worth Star-Telegram sent a reporter to the Sunday worship service and published a story in the Monday paper.

That story ignited the biggest controversy within Unitarian Universalism in recent memory, and definitely resulted in more phone calls, letters, and emails to 25 Beacon St. than any of us working there had ever seen.

In his sermon, Sinkford spoke about his concern that the foundational language of the UUA, the Principles and Purposes of the Association, were not adequate to express the depths of religious belief. Sinkford quoted the Rev. Gene Pickett, a former president of the Association, who said of the Principles and Purposes: "they describe a process for approaching the religious depths but they testify to no intimate acquaintance with the depths themselves."

Sinkford also quoted from an essay entitled "Toward a Humanist Vocabulary of Reverence" by the Rev. David Bumbaugh, a religious humanist: "We have manned the ramparts of reason and are prepared to defend the citadel of the mind….But in the process of defending, we have lost…the ability to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us, the language which would allow us to enter into critical dialogue with the religious community."

Sinkford ended his sermon by asking all assembled to develop their own conception of the holy, the life force, the ground of being, no matter what name they use for this.

Why should this have caused such a stir? Well, the headline in the Star-Telegram shouted "Unitarian Universalists May Add 'God' to Beliefs." The story went out on the wire and was picked up by newspapers across the country, many of which substituted their own headlines. "Ex-Atheist Pushes 'God' for Unitarians" was one example.

Well, you can see why many Unitarian Universalists would be upset. This erroneous news item led many to believe that there was some nefarious plot being hatched at 25 Beacon St. to undermine the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism, and even worse, to restrict this new creed to Christian theism.

We very quickly published the entire text of Sinkford's sermon so folks could see how wrong the newspaper article was. We established an online discussion board so people could air their opinions. And we turned this problem into an opportunity by telling the media that periodic re-examination of the language we use to describe ourselves and what we believe is part of the history of our movement. This is what William Ellery Channing did in his 1819 sermon "Unitarian Christianity." This is what Ralph Waldo Emerson did in 1838 when he took orthodox Unitarianism to task in his Divinity School Address. This is what the Western Unitarian Conference did in the years following the Civil War. This is what the Humanist movement within Unitarianism did in the early decades of the 20th C. And this is what the Women in Religion movement did in the 1970s and 1980s when they called us to face the sexism inherent in some traditional language and established ways of worship.

As a result of this media work, very positive stories about Unitarian Universalism ran in the New York Times, on the national Religion News Service wire, and on the front page of the Boston Globe.

By the way, the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram ran a clarification the following week. And in a phone call to me the editor explained part of the reason for the error. It turns out that the reporter who covers religion for the Star-Telegram also covers another beat: rodeo. And the same weekend that Sinkford was in town, there was a big rodeo going on. So the paper sent another reporter to the church to cover Sinkford's visit, a reporter who didn't have much of a background in religion.

Religion and rodeo: only in Texas.

Another example of how Unitarian Universalist notions of God and creeds are perceived also comes from Texas. Last May, the Texas state Comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, denied tax-exempt status to the Red River UU congregation in Denison on the grounds that Unitarian Universalism was "not a real religion." Strayhorn based this opinion on the fact that the church "does not have one system of belief."

We were immediately in touch with the leadership of the Red River congregation to ask how we could help. The congregational president, an attorney, told us that he'd already been contacted by a number of constitutional lawyers eager to bring suit against the state. He asked us not to issue press releases or do pro-active media work until he got a better sense of the situation at the Comptroller's office in Austin. We agreed, though, that my office would respond to reporters if they called us for comment.

And they did, giving us an opportunity to demonstrate that the Comptroller's decision revealed her ignorance of both history and theology. The resulting press coverage was uniform in its ridicule of Strayhorn's decision. Here's how one syndicated columnist began his column:

"As I noted the other day, that Texas Republican in the White House seems to have gotten himself into a religious war in the Mideast with no idea of how to get out. But if Texas Republicans are not up to handling religious wars in the Mideast, don't worry. They're doing a great job handling the domestic threat.

You know, the one from the Unitarians."

Ten days later, Strayhorn's office revoked the earlier ruling and granted tax-exempt status to the Red River UU church. The announcement was made by an assistant. Strayhorn, who was front and center with colorful language when the tax-exempt status was denied, was now unavailable for comment.

By the way, this June our General Assembly takes place in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm hoping there's not a big rodeo in town at the same time.

Notions of god were at the center of those two incidents, but there is no issue more controversial these days than sex and sexuality, both in religious circles and in the wider world. And our Association is in the middle of many of these debates.

At a time when the fundamentalist ideas of the religious right are ascendant, Unitarian Universalism offers a counter-voice in our culture. Together with the United Church of Christ, the UUA developed Our Whole Lives, the comprehensive sexuality curriculum that in its five separate age levels provides age-appropriate information grounded in our religious values. In a coarsened, sexualized culture and at a time when sexually transmitted diseases can prove fatal, OWL assists children, youth, and even adults to develop the skills to deal with issues of sex and sexuality, skills that ensure that our youth will be neither victims nor victimizers, and nurtures the values that underlie healthy and loving sexual relationships.

But OWL is not an "abstinence-only" program, and thus has been attacked by the religious right. In a soundbite reply to these attacks, the Rev. Meg Riley has said, "Abstinence-only didn't work in the Garden of Eden, and it doesn't work now."

As part of our advocacy work, the UUA is now working with a number of religious and secular allies to support a new bill to be introduced in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Rep. Barbara Lee of California. Called the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, it would provide funding to allow states to implement a comprehensive approach to sexuality education in the schools that includes information about both abstinence and contraception, from both a values and public health perspective. This is another way we try to bring the values of Unitarian Universalism to the wider world.

Perhaps the most controversial issue these days involving sexuality is the issue of marriage equality for same-sex couples. Time does not permit me to tell you even a small portion of what our Association, both our congregations nationwide and the Boston headquarters, have done on this issue, but suffice it to say that our support for the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens, our friends and neighbors, our brothers and sisters, has placed us at the center of this public debate.

On May 17th, 2004, the seven Massachusetts plaintiff couples in the landmark Goodridge case were married, and four of those couples were married in weddings officiated at by UU ministers. Hillary and Julie Goodridge were married in a ceremony at 25 Beacon St. officiated at by Bill Sinkford, and we hosted an overflow crowd of national and international media. Photos of that ceremony were published worldwide, from Boston to Borneo.

One of the reasons we have been so prominent in this debate is that the objections to marriage equality are largely religious in nature, based on biblical prohibitions against homosexuality, and Unitarian Universalism offers a religious voice in support of loving and committed same-sex relationships. When asked about the anti-gay arguments of the religious right, John Buehrens, another former president of the Association, was fond of saying, "Puritans and pornographers have in common an obsession with sex acts. We prefer to emphasize relationships."

And we will continue to do so as publicly and vocally as we can. As Bill Sinkford said recently, "…Unitarian Universalists will continue to do all we can to work for marriage equality. Standing on the side of love, our ministers will preach for equality, our congregations will mobilize for equality, and our Association will voice support for marriage equality in the public arena. For Unitarian Universalists, this is a matter of justice. And in the long run, I know justice will prevail."

What I've described to you is just part of the work the Association does to serve congregations and to bring the message of Unitarian Universalism to the wider world. I very much appreciate having this opportunity to tell you about it.

By the way, Harold was right: I do have an interesting job.

Thank you.

John Hurley