The Effective Role of the Universalist Church

May 15, 1959
Illinois State Convention


This paper attempts to propose that religious dissenters gathered as members of Universalist Churches, have continuing, important functions to perform and significant tasks to accomplish. Furthermore, these functions, and the important duties to be achieved, can be fully understood only in apprehending and accepting the social reality that religious liberals are a minority in a culture that is at least somewhat constricted by pressures which tend to mold attributes of acquiescence and conformity.

If I am at all correct in interpreting the signs of our times, the Universalist Church, in any given community, is an organized, but numerically small group of religious non-conformists. Apart from some who are in the church because it is a family tradition or habit, most of the persons who are responding to our liberal message and participating in the worship and work of our Universalist churches, are enthused about release from out-moded religious ideas, and stimulated by our prevailing heady climate dominated by a freedom-conscious mood and the challenge of individual fulfillment. The brotherhood basis of all the world's religions, with no obeisance to a Christianity considered to be the uniquely-revealed "only, true" religion, is becoming an increasingly attractive motivation for association with us.

In the blending of these patters of ideas can be viewed the various operational phases of our religious movement -- preaching that appeals to common sense; religious education which seeks to develop the potential goodness, emotional health and ethical social participation of the growing individual; an attitude toward human need which is justified solely on the value of service to One Humanity, rather than missions to "win the world for Christ;" group attention to group programs (our AUW national office is to be commended particularly) which direct serious concern to informing us about efforts to bring about a better world and motivating us to do something which will advance practically some accomplishment of our ideals.

Seldom, however, is the pattern clear and frequently the operational phases seem to bog down. There is a considerable degree of confusion. "What do Universalists believe?" is a question not only asked by the seeker and the critic, but also a question asked regularly by many young and old veterans of the "faith."

In his latter years, the late, great newspaperman, Heywood Broun was a disillusioned liberal who once described a little boy fascinated by the merry-go-round at the county fair. The lad screamed to be put on the merry-go-round. When father lifted him on, the boy yelled and insisted on getting off. When father took him and backed away, the youngster raised another fuss. After observing the inconsistent uproars voiced by the child who wanted to ride, but actually couldn't muster the courage to commit himself to the whirling horses, Broun said to himself, "Now I know what a liberal is."

Because I feel that organized liberalism should be something more than a cocktail of three parts togetherness with one part confusion, plus a dash of bitterness, let me be audacious enough to define a Universalist.

From where I stand, one can assume rightfully that a Universalist accepts the body of tested truth accumulated by the geologist, astronomist, biologist, physicist, social scientist and all other authentic, learned professions. The Universalist follows reason as a guide and validates propositions by experience and experiment. The Universalist places freedom and the supreme worth of every human personality at the top of his hierarchy of values. Furthermore, the Universalist looks hopefully on the problem of the nature and destiny of man.

Now while my subject today does not deal with worship in the liberal church, parenthetically I would direct your attention to the imposing fact that adult group worship is the experience which consistently realizes the largest participation and most regular support. In my opinion, persons attending worship in liberal churches participate because of two paramount needs. First, they seek self-renewal because the treadmill of anxiety, pain, boredom, routine, or defeat has torn the edges of their inner selves. Worship has the power to stimulate the cells of spiritual growth necessary to heal the abrasions which are a consequence of living regularly with manifold difficulties. Secondly, worship is the great reminder of the obligations of a religion committed to the atmosphere of fellowship, the dimension of freedom and the basic assumption of the dignity of every person. In worship, these ideals should press on our inertia to the end that we shall depart only in peace, but also in commitment to action.

But, as T.S. Eliot phrased so tellingly, ("The Hollow Men")

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow.
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the shadow.

In our land, one of the enveloping clouds considerably larger than a man's hand already, is the continuing cultural pressure from the constrictions of which it is a formidable task to escape. Contemporary literature, social studies and various research assignments have established in some scholarly detail certain perils to the liberal image.

In his classical study, THE LONELY CROWD, David Riesman vividly writes of the "other-directed" representative man of our day. Having forsaken the conservative "tradition-directed" position and no longer possessing the courage or desire to be "inner-directed," modern man extrudes his motivational radar screens in order to receive the signal of the class in which he aspires to be accepted. Erich Fromm in a different frame of reference describes the inner state of modern man as geared to a "marketing" personality. One strives to sell himself; in other circumstances, unpleasant nouns are used to define this sort of peddling. [crossed out: In a classic chapter of Sloan Wilson's, MAN IN THE GREY FLANNEL SUIT, the hero striving to get a job, anxiously watches the prospective employer, trying to catch a facial cue so that he may answer what the prospective boss wants to hear, rather than that which is really the truth.] The social scientists have performed painstaking research in elaborating the thesis that we are a culture which combines what could be termed attributes of cat and chameleon. We strive for a place in the sun. When we "get it made," we readily accept the protective coloration of the surroundings. Then we will resist any venture which might provoke the other chameleons to notice differences.

You can find documentation for a rather alarming spread of a conformity which has few aspects of creativity. William Whyte's, THE ORGANIZATION MAN, and Vance Packard's, THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS, are both cogent reiterations of our creeping mediocrity in the realm of ideas. Judging from the reviews, Vance Packard's new book, THE STATUS SEEKERS fortifies the thesis that we are in danger of finding ourselves destitute of ideas amid a wealth of mechanical devices. If we sharpen our ethical sensibilities, we may find the "sweet smell of success," has become cloyed with the insidious odor of decay. Aldous Huxley (BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED, p. 24), comments, "To parody the words of Winston Churchill, never have so many been manipulated by so few."

At the same time that our mass media of communication are pounding our malleable motivations into a state properly conditioned to respond with alacrity at the tinkle of the huckster's bell, as a culture we are concerning ourselves less and less with the opportunities to acquaint ourselves with ideas and facts which are not being dinned into our ears and limned into our eyes through the well-beaten paths of the airwaves. The April issue of the Journal of National Education reports a poll by the nationally known Roper firm. In the article, "The Lightly Travelled Road to Wisdom," Mr. Roper reports the reading habits of a cross-section sample of Americans. Because he had secured a similar sampling some years ago, he was able to compare the increase or decrease in American reading habits. 18% of our people never read a book they were not compelled to read. In the earlier survey, when asked the question, "Do you happen to be reading any books or novels at present?" only 21% of the adults were currently reading a book. In the more recent survey, taken ten years after the first sampling, only 17% were reading. It is sobering to note that 55% of adults in England were reading a book. Other countries, Canada, Australia, and West Germany had reading records nearly twice the percentage of Americans. While no statistical percentages are available of course, visitors to the Soviet Union report the amazing popularity of libraries, and the intense fashion in which the Russian people are seemingly taking advantage of learning opportunities.

Even more alarming is the impact one feels after studying the historic report by Philip E. Jacob, CHANGING VALUES IN COLLEGE. (Harper & Bros., NY 1957).

If you have studied the famous Jacob's report, you will need no exhortation from me to persuade you that it is not hysterical fear to feel alarmed that we are in danger of captivity to contemporary cowardice, as Martin Luther recognized in his day the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church."

Some of the generalizations supported statistically by the Jacob's report on college students are these:

Students tend to think alike, feel alike, and believe alike.

Students are gloriously contented and optimistic in outlook.

Self-centered, they aspire for material gratification for themselves and their families and expect others to be similarly self-centered.

The students expressed a need for religion but had no expectation that it would or should carry over into their daily lives.

They possessed an easy tolerance for diversity, but didn't care to become involved in any reforming crusades.

The students, by and large, had no desire to play an influential role in public affairs. Most of them would fit the description, "politically irresponsible and politically illiterate."

While almost to a man the students asserted that honesty is a moral virtue, "frequent cheating is admitted by 40% or more, with no apology or real sense of wrongdoing."

From their college experience students hope to acquire vocational or professional skill and experience in social adjustment. This is no real desire for intellectual development, no concern for strengthening character, no hunger for warm, responsive human relations.

This list of generalizations is not intended to make the average college student the target of special indignation. The massive threat of the Jacobs' report is not that the average college student has trivial concerns, only, but that those disheartening characteristics accurately mirror the society in which these students acquired these values, which surely seem of a quality not calculated to be a good omen for our civilization.

The question really is, "Are we motivating our children to seek acquisitive goals and "satisfactory" social adjustment only, rather than the moral values we profess?"

In recent research at the University of Michigan, (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 4/11/59), Dr. E.E. Jennings, the director of the study, reported "majority of the (business) men we interviewed admitted they believe self-interest is the basis of all human nature, that it is safer to be suspicious of men and assume their nature is more bad than good."

American business attitudes in major areas of human relations were summarized as follows:

"Friendship -- loyal subordinates are the mark of a competent executive but he risks a loss of flexibility by making close friends in areas crucial to his interests.

Agreement -- Agreements should commit the other person; past promises need not stand in the way of success.

Decision Making -- An executive should not allow free participation in decisions crucial to his interests; a decision once made should not be open to doubt.

Communication -- The executive should not expose his hand; superior information is an advantage; never tell all you know and give out information sparingly; don't take advice you didn't ask for."

Dr. Jennings canvassed clergymen to secure their anticipations on what the surveys would disclose about business attitudes and the director comments, "The clergymen were generally way off in their judgments. The majority underestimated how distrustful the executive is and how difficult it may be for him to accept the brotherhood of man."

This rather scattered summary of some of the social research in our country could be summarized in a barbed comment once made by Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it." Or to dramatize the cultural dilemma in a different framework: "A computer attendant annoyed at the independence of the machine he is supposed to control, mutters, "All right, if you're so damned smart, tell me: Is there a God? Booms the machine, 'There is now!'" (TIME magazine, 4/6/59).

This leads me to certain directions which, perhaps, many of our groups have long ago charted. These suggested approaches may be "old-hat" to some of our churches and some of the possible ventures well-advanced in implementation. Nevertheless, in order to attempt a fairly complete review of the role, as I see it, of the Universalist Church in the cultural setting described, practices which may be routine to many of you will be advanced.

First, all varieties of the more orthodox Christian [churches], as well as those tending to be tinted with the colors of the more liberal end of the spectrum, are being subjected to the same smoothing-out process as other institutions. The strong tide of Christian oecumenicity, the growing "we" feeling of the various churches banded together in local councils, the increasing number of joint enterprises such as supporting educational chaplaincies and the tendency toward mergers, (Presbyterian and U.P., Congregational-Christian and Reformed, e.g.) and the undeniable social and political influence of the National Council of Churches, all support the view that doctrinal differences in the regular order of Christian churches are far less divisive than heretofore. If one should possess the point of view of middle-of-the-road Protestantism, one would be considerably comforted in the possibility of a coming united witness.

However, for those of us in the caps of unabashedly liberal religion, this growing Christian conformity represents an opportunity we can both seriously underestimate and sadly overestimate.

We can underestimate our appeal if we fail to recognize several facts about our age. There are additional factors, but first let me refer briefly to education, mobility and international cross-fertilization.

The Jacobs' report which offered so many discouraging facts about young America, also pointed out a salient item for religious liberals. The study showed that as a person matured from freshman to senior, he showed considerable increase in ability and desire to make intellectual distinctions; he grew in capacity to think. With the tide of college enrollments pushing the ceiling from matriculation statistics, we have a rapidly growing number of persons graduating from college who will respond to a religion intellectually sound and emotionally honest. For us to overlook publicity opportunities to acquaint this large group with what Universalism is and does, would be an oversight of considerable magnitude.

Mobility is no small force in our potential growth. 25,000 people move every day in the United States. America is a land of people on the "go." Born in Waukegan, growing up in Milwaukee, going to school in Ann Arbor, marrying in Cleveland, the young executive, labor staff-man, technician or salesman moves from Oak Park to Pasadena to Cape Canaveral.

The task of moving from the orthodox church to ours has some social inconvenience, at least, when one is born, lives, and dies in one home-town. But in new situations such difficulties are largely absent. We have an opportunity to present a soundly-inspiring religion in such winning fashion that mobile America will have an additional immediate target after the goods are unpacked -- not only find a doctor and dentist, but also the nearest Universalist or Unitarian church or fellowship.

Cultural cross-fertilization is far more widely accepted than we dare to hope. Students from Asia, Africa, Europe, Israel, Japan, and all the world are finding more about us; we are getting to know them. Even a casual observer can sense that the old religious jingoism is passing away. Even the standard Christian groups are asking serious questions about missionary proselytizing.

The fact of religious universalism is tacitly acknowledged. The word "pagan" is disappearing from the language -- except when liberals describe Christian Easter.

The times demand that we shall not fail to make attractive a Universalism which maintains clearly the universality of man's religious impulse, assumes the dignity of many ways of worship and spurns forthrightly the claim of any religion to be uniquely revealed and singularly authoritative.

In an alternate rhythm, let me postulate that we may tend also to overestimate our chances if we do not perceive that all opportunities have built-in hazards. The liberal religious organization is subject to the same pressures for conformity as all other institutions. Then, too, we are exposed to the peculiar temptation to confound anarchy with freedom, confuse mediocrity with simplicity and label idle curiosity, universality.

In one of the finest books in years, CRITIQUE OF RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY, (Harper, 1958, p. 289-90), Walter Kaufman points out in another connection the subtle danger of confusing broad universalism with a collection of trivia,

"The eclectic collects; he builds a museum; he is sovereign. He does not go behind the work of art, the idea, the philosophy, to reach the disturbing experience that prompted it; he stays at home. His taste may be excellent, but something is lacking. He is like a man who assembles snapshots of works of art and prides himself on catholicity of his appreciation, but knows only the surfaces; what is lacking is dimension, depth, going out of one's own safe world to enter into what is strange.

"In the study of art, religion and philosophy, we ourselves are the clay and the biggest question is what becomes of ourselves."

The most serious hazard to a meaningful role for the liberal church is that we shall be non-conformist enough to satisfy a mild, intellectual revolt against religious fantasy proposed as revealed truth, while at the same time maintaining a position so non-committed that we will stay in the middle of the road to the end that no one in or out of the organization will be seriously disturbed and there will be no chance that anything important will be accomplished.

Consequently, I would maintain that religious universalism, in the doctrinal or sectarian sense, is not enough to insure our survival as a minority group. Religious universalism, narrowly considered, may not even be justified. Historically, in much of the first half of this century, when our organized movement declined, it occurred tangentially at least during a period when the great body of Protestantism stopped preaching about fire and brimstone and tacitly, at least, accepted the Universalist position on this ancient controversy about damnation. "No hell" preaching became neither wrong nor controversial. I suspect, too, that it became dull. It was like fighting at Gettysburg after some of the combat had shifted to Guadalcanal.

Today we must recognize that on the minorities hinge the door to survival -- physical and moral. The real struggle in our world is to win the minds of men before they are enslaved. There is not the slightest reason to be content that "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world." The horrors pictured in George Orwell's 1984 are approaching reality apace. (Read Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED.)

Daniel Lerner in a recently published volume, THE PASSING OF TRADITIONAL SOCIETY, MODERNIZING THE MIDDLE EAST, states in a scholarly framework, "A mobile society has to encourage rationality, for the calculus of choice shapes individual behavior and conditions its rewards. People come to see the future as manipulable rather than ordained and their personal prospects in terms of achievement rather than heritage."

The future can be manipulated! The ethical minorities must decide whether the process will be democratic discussion and expression or totalitarian brain-washing.

The world struggle for the minds of men pivots not on a single axis, the Western vs. the Soviet bloc, but also on vigilance and effective progress on all the questions involving the body and soul of humanity;

Underdeveloped and hungry nations.

Education

Church and State

Integration in the United States

The role and rights of organized labor

Over-population

Radiation poisoning

Urban planning and renewal.

This is, obviously, not an exhaustive list. But a minority cannot be significant and at the same time maintain a blissful ignorance of these thorny issues which are pivotal in the struggle for freedom and human dignity.

Ministers need to be reminded of the savagely ironic words of Gibbon (VOL. 1, Ch. 3, p. 290), "The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between throne and altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people." The only realistic way to refute that criticism is by action.

The problem of the religious dissenter becomes acute at this very point. Religious dissenters in our age are far from unanimity in the problem areas named. How can we achieve an actable consensus in a group in which a majority of opinion could be elicited on a controversial question only when the issues are precise and completely clear, which they seldom are. The minister speaks for himself; the social action committee speaks for itself and is sometimes the target of violent criticism in a church. There just is no health in a vague revolt even though it may placate some, which skirts all real issues in double talk with a consequence of stalemate and impotence.

Without exaggeration, we may find ourselves in the position on the legendary farmer who was asked how his cotton was coming on:

"Ain't got none."

"Did you plant any/"

"Nope, fraid of boll weevils."

"Well, how is your corn?"

"Didn't plant none, fraid there wa'n't going to be no rain."

"Potatoes?"

"Nope, scared of potato bugs."

"Really, what did you plant?"

"Nothin, I jest played safe."

Let me suggest that [a] partial solution to the dilemma of consensus on social questions in a liberal religious organization may be discovered in recognizing that apart from theological questions as such, there is no such thing as a universalist public. Because we are ministers, housewives, technicians, engineers, production workers, salesmen and all manner of occupational diversity, and because the forming influences on our attitudes have been indescribably various, there is no possibility of a united viewpoint. But there are Universalist publics. I believe they can be assembled.

[Achievable Goals]

Therefore, one Universalist public will be motivated to gather and discuss, and take a position on integration in housing; while another public, with probably some of the same persons, might gather for a discussion on fission bomb testing. The list could be extended to all issues which impinge on the ethical sensitivities of more than two persons. Now while there will be a handful of persons with wide catholicity of taste and ample time to participate in most of the minority interest groups within a minority church, for the most part a consensus wide enough to represent a majority of church members will be difficult to achieve.

This means that while no little group can be the authentic voice of the church except under regulated parish meeting disciplines, the consequence would be each group would speak for itself in the worthy effort to present facts and persuade people. The consequence is that on different issues the persons allied would not represent the same personnel.

In order to achieve this process of discussion, conviction and communication there must be certain basic assumptions about the nature of man and how he is influenced.

Lepidus says to Caesar and Antony, (Act 2, sc. 2),

"Noble friends

That which combines us was most great and let not

A leaner notion rend us. What's amiss

May it be gently heard. When we debate

Our trivial difference loud, we do commit

Murther in healing mounds. Then noble partners,

The rather for I earnestly beseech you

Touch you the sourest points with sweetest words."

Now while our debates may neither be "gently heard," nor with the "sweetest words," because we appraise human nature as fundamentally promising good rather than evil, our educative process must be coherent with confidence in man.

Martin Buber in his essay, "On National Education," (From ISRAEL AND THE WORLD), points out that there are two basic ways to educate.

One way, all too common, is that of the sculptor who chips the natural human material to the form of his vision or plan. This is the authoritarian way of the manipulator. This is not acceptable to Universalists.

The second approach likens the educator to the gardener, "who fertilizes and waters the soil, prunes and props the plan, and removes the rank weeds from around it. But after he has done all this, if the weather is propitious, he trusts the natural growth of that which is inherent in the seed...."

Admitting that the growth approach may be more passive, in the long run I believe we will function most effectively within our Universalist context, and in all society, if we prepare, present and announce our convictions, confident that the nature of man is such that he will not forever damn his own redemption.

One thing more -- I have assumed that a high degree of empathy is not only possible but already operating in Universalist societies. By empathy, I refer to a "real capacity to see ones-self in the other fellows' situation" (Daniel Lerner). Lerner points out effectively that in our type of liberal, mobile society, we can achieve consensus only through a participating organizational life. We will need to develop great skills of person-to-person relationships. Furthermore, our common worship must be not only prophetic, but integrating.

The stakes are large -- the survival of humanity with widening boundaries of freedom and human dignity. in the SRL review of Stanton Coblen's book, THE LONG ROAD TO HUMANITY, this paragraph appeared, "A gladiator in the Roman arena standing over his prostrate foe (and) looking to the spectators for the fateful sign. Will it be thumbs up or thumbs down? It is along these two lines that human history has taken its course: war vs. peacemaking; slavery vs. the freeing of the slaves; religious massacres vs. religious sanctuaries; head-hunting cannibalism, human sacrifice vs. care for the maimed and oppressed; ... These contrasted types of behavior have been with us all through history and everywhere in the world, thumbs up or thumbs down."

If the final verdict is to be "Thumbs up" rather than "Thumbs down," then we must be more than spectators, we too must enter the arena.