The Ideal of Inclusiveness

May 7, 2000

Unitarian Universalists have always been a welcoming bunch. Not that we have always been friendly, though we like to think that we are, but we have almost always gone out of our way to make sure that people are included among us if they want to be. Membership requirements in most of our congregations are so loose as to be almost non-existent. Faced with the prospect of removing recalcitrants from our membership rolls, we scan our bylaws in vain for any guidelines on membership termination. If you think you are one of us, that's usually a good enough reason for us to keep you on, and its practically impossible to get rid of you, unless you want to go, anyway.

Newcomers may wonder about this laissez faire attitude toward church membership. One only needs to look at our history to understand how we got to be this way. After all, we are a movement of heretics and dissenters, and heretics and dissenters like to stick together. We have to stick together in order to survive the efforts of all the righteous ones who would have us "straighten up and fly right"--that's "straiten," as in s-t-r-a-i-t, and that ain't country singer George Strait I'm talkin' about, either.

Persecution and exclusion have tended to make us shy about membership requirements, and so, if you want to join us, our usual attitude is, "you can join us if you can stand us."

Our earliest ancestors in the Christian Church were subjected to persecution for belief in such heresies as universal salvation, and during the Reformation we were burned at the stake for denying that the Trinity is a biblical doctrine, even though it isn't.

Here in America, our liberal Christian ancestors were excluded from fellowship in the Congregational Church by their more conservative Calvinist colleagues. Among other things, the conservatives accused us of being small-u unitarians--which we were--so we decided to make the name our own. Universalists like John Murray had to get a special dispensation from the government in order to serve as chaplains in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, lest they taint the conscripts with their liberal doctrines.

But the real issue in the beginning of American Unitarianism, as my church history professor Conrad Wright used to say, was one of fellowship much more than of theology. The liberals at first had no intention of leaving their colleagues in the Congregational Church, but the conservatives drove them out. And so the liberals began to band together, to form their own organizations, and, unwillingly at first, to become more of a church unto themselves.

Having thus been excluded from fellowship themselves, the Unitarians--or Liberal Christians, as they preferred to call themselves--were loathe to exclude anyone else from their ranks. The closest they ever came was in the case of Theodore Parker, who is now considered to be one of the three or four greatest prophets of religious liberalism. Wouldn't you know.

The year was 1843, and the theological world was still quaking from the tremors set off by Parker's famous sermon on The Transient and Permanent in Christianity, which he had preached in May, 1841. In his sermon, among other controversial things, Parker had said that Christianity could stand even if Jesus Christ had never existed--which in fact Parker never questioned, though he doubted that it could ever be proved. Such speculations were not welcomed even by the liberals of the time, and Parker we severely chastened by his Unitarian ministerial colleagues. Conrad Wright has described the gathering which sat in judgement of Parker as follows:

[The] matter came to a head at a meeting of the Boston Association of Ministers in January, 1843. At meetings as early as the previous September, the members had discussed Parker's Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion, which was just off the press; but they felt some delicacy about commenting on his views when he was not present to reply. At the same time, they hesitated to request him to attend a meeting at which he was fully entitled to be present without a special invitation, lest it look like a summons. But they suggested that he come talk things over in a friendly way, and he responded.

There followed one of the most extraordinary episodes in the whole history of American Unitarianism. Dr. Frothingham, of the First Church, characterized Parker's book as "vehemently deistical" and declared that "he could have no ministerial intercourse" with its author, "though still he hoped to have a friendly social intercourse." Others present complained that Parker criticized them unfairly for their part in an ecclesiastical council, recently held to settle a controversy in the Hollis Street Church. In response to Frothingham, Parker asked to know the "precise quiddity" that must be added to his absolute religion to make it qualify as Christianity. The answer was obvious: miracles and the authority of Christ. Someone then said: "It is plain we can't have ministerial intercourse with Mr. Parker: he denies the miracles."

Chandler Robbins finally came to the point: "Since Mr. Parker finds the feeling in respect to him so general, I think it his duty to withdraw from the Association." Parker replied that he considered the principle of free inquiry to be at stake; that theological uniformity had never previously been required; and that he had no intention of resigning. It then became apparent that, while the members would have been very much relieved if Parker had taken the hint and resigned, they were not disposed to prescribe a doctrinal test for membership. Parker had been asked to withdraw; he had declined; and there was no way to exclude him without abandoning the principle of free inquiry. So several of the members said kind things about Parker's sincerity; he burst into tears and left the room, where Dr. Frothingham shook him cordially by the hand and expressed the hope that he could come to see him soon; and the closest the Unitarians ever came to a heresy trial was over.

Perhaps this historical episode will help you to understand, if you have ever wondered about it, the theological diversity which sometimes exists among us Unitarian Universalists to this day; and why people who self-describe themselves as pagans and Christians, theists and atheists, humanists and Buddhists--and you name it-- continue to gather together in our congregations under the single banner of Unitarian Universalism.

Even in 1865, at the time of the formation of the National Conference of Unitarian Churches, the closest we had yet come to a Unitarian "denomination," Dr. Henry Whitney Bellows, a theological conservative himself, wrote, "I believe a large part of the spiritual life of the denomination lies in the very [persons] whose theological opinions many of us utterly reject. . . . Let us keep them among us: don't let us drive away any of [those] who for any reason are in their own consciences and in their own hearts able to work with us."

We have struggled over the need and desirability to be inclusive ever since, and it remains a tension in our movement to this day. In the late 19th century it was framed as the so-called "issue in the West," which posed the questions, "Is western Unitarianism ready to give up its Christian character? Is it ready to give up its theistic character?" More recently it was framed as a debate among Christians, Theists, and Humanists within our ranks. Most recently, it has involved the question of the inclusion of pre-Christian, "pagan" or "earth centered" religious practices. As always, our tendency has been to remain inclusive, ever fearful of the consequences of exclusivity.

Also in recent years, our inclusiveness been challenged by various non-theological, social issues, such as feminism, racism, and homosexuality. In keeping with our history, we have almost always leaned toward trying to be more inclusive. We have not always succeeded, as the Black Empowerment controversy in the 60's demonstrated. We have been somewhat more successful in incorporating the insights of women and gays and lesbians into our faith and practice than we have been in attracting people of color to our congregations, but it is not necessarily from a lack of trying. We are finding race and socio-economic status to be a tougher nut to crack than even homophobia. The question of political inclusiveness is also an ongoing challenge to our supposed open-mindedness.

We still have a long way to go to achieve real inclusiveness.
And some even worry that in our attempts to be more inclusive, we have begun to lose our center; one colleague even wondered a few years back if we have become so tolerant as to become "indifferent."

I trust not. In fact, in looking back upon the case of Theodore Parker, I am encouraged that we continue to strive to be ever more inclusive. With my Unitarian ancestor Henry Bellows, I believe that we have been strengthened by all those we have included, even those eccentrics who, at the time, may have seemed beyond the pale even to us. Because of them, we have grown in many of our understandings, and we have been stretched by the different and often quirky perspectives that we have welcomed among us. I think that the Boy Scouts of America, in their present anguish over homosexuality, could learn something from us. I hope they do.

In spite of the diversity that exists among us, I believe that we continue to be held together by the foundational principles of freedom, reason, and tolerance which have characterized our religious movement since the time of the Protestant Reformation. Those principles are the bedrock of who we are. What is important to recognize, however, is that these principles, in a truly inclusive community, may legitimately lead us to some very different conclusions concerning a myriad of issues. Are we really ready to be truly inclusive?

It is my deeply held belief that we must be, for to purposely exclude people who differ with us would be to negate another of our cherished values: the idea that all people have the potential to change and grow. If any religious people believe in redemption, it is, ironically, us! And my observation, during this Violence Prevention Month here in Newburyport, is that far more violence has been perpetrated in the world by exclusivity than by attempts to be more inclusive.

But inclusiveness is never easy to achieve. Indeed, our inclusiveness has always been both the bane and the glory of our religious movement. Time and again, the divisions among people over different theological and sociological positions have threatened to tear our movement apart, and on the local level they have sometimes succeeded.

The point is, I suppose, that problems arising over the issue of inclusiveness are not new to our movement; in fact, they are as old as our movement is and are to some extent inherent in our experiment with a non-creedal approach to religion.

History has shown that there are those who will abandon liberal religion because they are unable or unwilling to live with our inclusiveness. And there probably are those who are so tolerant as to be indifferent.

But I believe that it is possible to be both inclusive and committed. And I am still idealistic enough to believe that our way of being religious may be the way of the future, waiting only for discovery by the many who will come to share our commitment to an inclusive church and faith.

I want my church to stand for something. I want my church to carry on an argument with the world. I want my church to continue to welcome all those who would gather to worship with us, and I want it to continue to go easy on its membership requirements.

A few years ago, my colleague Judith Deutsch wrote the following words for a ceremony of new member recognition:

It is the most inclusive Unitarian Universalism that nurtures me, the Unitarian Universalism that recognizes the diverse contribution of the world's people to the covenanting whole, the Unitarian Universalism that works toward human interchanges that are mutually enhancing, the Unitarian Universalism that recognizes human interdependence with the rest of the ecosystem.

May ours always be that inclusive Unitarian Universalism, now and in the days to come. I welcome our new members among us; may they feel truly included among us, and may this place eventually feel like home for each and every one of us. So be it. Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock