A Theology for Free Persons

September 13, 1964
Rochester

A Theology for Free Persons

If you resist theology because you may believe that it either restricts your intellectual freedom or violates your common-sense view of the realities of life, this sermon is for you, because theology can be a liberating power we may not have fully used.

I do not speak of someone else’s theology, whether creed of a church or the instruction of an authoritative personality. Freedom of individual belief is unrestricted among us. But if such freedom breeds inertia to the need for spiritual self-determination then its greatest benefit remains unused.

Theology is the person’s achievement of an orderly way to think and feel about himself – his relationship to his fellow man and to his God, and that neither the blows or bounties of life, nor the miseries or grandeur of human experience can irreparably ruin the conviction that conscious life is the greatest gift of the power that made us.

An “orderly way of thinking and feeling has the consequence of form in our system of religious values. A theology for a free person is not the absence of thoughtful patterns but the presence of inter-related reasonable propositions.

Consider the verse by Edith Lovejoy Pierce:

FOG

Outline is lost
While drift devours
Both rock and steel,
Iceberg and hull,
Nil are the stars.
Let no ship move
Nor yet at anchor ride.
Distinctions must be made,
Lest mind with mad collide.
That chaos may creation be,
Let there be light,
Let the eye see!
Unless outline is found
The adventure runs aground.
(The Pulpit, 6/64)

Without form, a theology for free persons is chaos. But when form hardens into doctrinaire thinking, then theology has no distinctive merit.

There is a phrase which has remained with me long after the name of the author has been forgotten, “the significance of history is found in the struggle for freedom.” Even as Jacob wrestled with the angel all night, so the free person must struggle to fasten a secure hold on the realities of existence.

No person congregating among us for longer than a week can help but be aware that there are wide differences in the premises and implications of our several ways of appraising the creation and meaning of life. There is no natural growth in ignoring our differing convictions; there can be no reconciliation if points of view are submerged in polite irrelevancies. Thus a theology for free persons does not have a destination for pilgrim’s progress but paths of understanding, roads of dialogue, highways of personal growth. As a base for a new season in this free church will you consider three propositions that are necessary for a theology for free persons:

1)Embrace the search for truth which will keep us free.
2)Engage in the dialogue with others to ensure our contact with what is real.
3)To respond to a dynamic pulse which will keep us growing as persons.

First embrace the search for the truth which will keep us free. If this great equation “the truth makes us free” sounds like an empty platitude, then perhaps you have never taken the search for truth seriously enough. Martin Luther once said, “I did not learn my theology all at once, but I had to search deeper for it, where my temptation took me. (quoted Erikson, YOUNG MAN LUTHER, p. 251). There is a loneliness to the search for truth, because to be faithful to its urgency, one must weigh in reasonable balance all propositions offered for belief. One must examine critically, not only the authorities of ancient religious institutions, which is easy, but also the assertions of friends, parents or current political powers, which requires considerable more courage and self-honesty.

A modern philosopher, Dagobert Runes, commented, “Thinking is a luxury of the mind, most people stick to necessities.” (COGITATIONS TREASURY, p. 25)

The search for truth demands much from us. We nurture pre-conceived pictures in the mind and resist intrusion of facts and logic which may alter such prejudice. The search for truth implies that we are neither born with the truth, nor is it revealed to us thruough supernatural or occult means. We embrace the search for truth when we expose our unexamined notions to the facts as they are offered to us in life. Whether one is treasuring religious ignorance or nurturing comfortable, but untrue legends of political or social life, the change-over to truth-seeking will be arduous and painful. Think of the effect on our various political candidates if we citizens should take our nation’s destiny seriously enough to demand that they should embrace the search for truth for freedom’s sake. Think of the religious revolution which would happen if many millions would ask, “Is this true?”, rather than pleading, “keep me feeling good.”

In spite of various semantic devices, that some language is neither true nor false, e.g., “how are you?” is not an inquiry of one’s health, but a ceremonial greeting, one of the great opportunities Unitarian Universalists have is to emphasize that most words have meaning that [?] affirmation can be true or false! There is an Arab proverb (quoted SR), “Language is a steed that carries one into a far country.” It may seem to some that UU reluctance to repeat creeds or prayers, or sing gospel hymns for old times’ sake, or to provide inoffensive comfort to a few, is straining at gnats, but words have meaning. It is said that a famous movie tycoon when he was urged to make a decision, said, “I’ll give you a positive ’maybe.’”

There are numerous faiths which provide musical liturgies, chanted services and antique creeds with a great deal more skill and art than we. But we have no excuse to concede that any group should be more interested in the truth of words than we. Once in response to a student’s question about the nature of truth, Alfred North Whitehead answered, “Truth means that life matters and has consequences,” adding that “life matters most when we realize most deeply that what we are and do has consequences for others.” (quoted by Nels Ferre, GODS NEW AGE, p. 44).

While it is true that while there is much lonely creativity as the individual searches for the truth, it is just as true that a theology for free persons needs engagement in dialogue with others in order to insure our contact with what is real.

A theology for free persons is produced by dialogue, for without interaction with other connections, our view of life may become seriously distorted. Do you know the parable of the gull and the earthquake told by William March (99 FABLES – Univ. of Alabama Press), “A seagull tired from a long flight over the ocean, flew toward land and lighted on a crag, but as it happened, an earthquake occurred at that identical moment, the shoreline trembled, lifted upward, and collapsed beneath him. At this the gull flew back to sea, screaming tragically “see what I’ve done, I lighted on the crag to rest and I wrecked the whole coast!”

When we fail to try to understand the diversity of opinion and varied inter[pretations] of fact that exist between persons, we fail to apprehend the testing and the strengthening power of a theology for free persons. It is appropriate to refer to Paul Tillich’s definitions of mind (p. 24, Vol 3, SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY), “Mind is the consciousness of a living being in relation to its surrounding and to itself.”

The mind becomes a human response because of the perceptions brought to it from the world beyond self. A theology for free persons can be trivial and barren if there is no listening to what the people of the world are saying; how one’s associates deal with problems they believe to be either vital or ultimate; how diverse are the assumptions and conclusions that preface and terminate the discussions of similar facts.

The late poet John Holmes had the poets sure touch of understanding when he defined the eleventh commandment, “to listen.” As a somewhat unreformed interrupter from way back, let me suggest that this eleventh commandment may have more real power for individual liberation than some of the original, legendary Ten. How many times have you observed two persons in wordy contention pass each other like parallel lines that never meet, because neither one was listening?

I clipped an anecdote from a Sunday supplement which seems illustrative:

A clerk in a general store was serving a customer. The manager was at a desk some distance away, but he overheard the clerk say, “No, madam, we haven’t had any for a long time.”

Dismayed that his clerk should give way so easily to failure, the manager rushed over to help. “Oh, yes, we have,” he interrupted. I’m sure that if Mr. Johnson here sends a boy to the warehouse, he can locate what you want and have it brought over immediately.”

The lady laughingly thanked him, turned, and left the store.

“Never refuse anything,” he admonished the startled clerk. “Always send out for it.”

“Well, you see,” replied the young man timidly, “she was just saying to me that we hadn’t had any rain lately.”

Whether religious, political, or whatever, if our convictions are so fragile and insubstantial that one does not dare participate in dialogue, then those convictions are built on shifting sands. If our theological believes are so insecurely held, that the eleventh commandment, “to listen” is ignored, then those believes are far advanced in the process of decay.

The consequence of a search for truth and dialogue is the response to a dynamic pulse which will keep us growing as persons.

Change is the most characteristic process we can observe about our universe. Force is in motion and everlastingly causes change. This is the dynamic action, not only of corn and beans, but also of theologies and moral values.

You and I learn from others as we search for truth by dialogue. When the eleventh commandment is obeyed, you learn and I learn. To learn is to change.

Although Joan of Arc may not represent the best illustration because she listened most to her own “voices,” she was one of the prime movers of dynamic change in the medieval world. Maxwell Anderson in his play, “Joan of Lorraine” has Cauchon say, (p. 73), “For Joan has begun a heresy, She appeals from the Church on earth to the Church in Heaven. She does not recognize the necessity for an agent between the individual and its God. And this heresy of hers begins to affect the whole Western World.” This was dynamic change.

There is a declaration attributed to an Appalachian mountaineer, which succinctly, although ungrammatically, comprehends the nature of dynamic change and the reasonable hope it contains, “We ain’t what we want to be, and we ain’t what we’re going to be, but we ain’t what we wuz.”

In truth-seeking, dialogue and dynamic change are the dimensions of a theology for free persons. Progress is not only uneven, but also difficult to find at times. If our theology has identifying values it is the willingness to think and re-think, learn and re-learn. These we accept as our task and recognize as our glory.

One thing more, I have attempted no answers to specific problems today. The sermon may be too theoretical. Some may be surprised that John Dewey, too often caricatured as too pragmatic an educator once wrote (quoted SR 8/15/64 p. 48) ”Theory, in the end, is the most practical.” I put this before us also, for if we thoroughly believe, we will find ways to speak and act on the lively and sensitive issues that are pressing on human events.

A theology for free persons is a most difficult assignment of thought, for you must not only develop your own convictions, but be willing to alter them when evidence and new experience calls for that change. One must be willing to learn as well as teach; to listen as well as speak – and this is a task no less formidable for self-styled “liberals” than for others.

Insert: Am I human enough to acknowledge fact and new experience? That is the search for truth.

Am I sympathetic enough to listen to others and understand their feelings as well as their facts? That is dialogue.

Am I sufficiently open to the basic nature of life to change position or direction when the impact of truth and dialogue demonstrate the need? That is dynamic change.

All discussion about thorny problems and tense issues has a theological base. When one argues for equality for all persons, underneath it is a theology about the nature and worth of the human creature. When another holds back, qualifies his support of constitutional right of recriminations about the necessity of waiting for some rights, a withholding of full privilege for now, he too is revealing his theology about the nature of man. Is man a person from whom freedom, fellowship and human dignity should never have been withheld? If you believe that, then there is and has been an obligation to apply that theology in society. That is why insistence on underlying social justice has been a central plank in pulpit platform holding a theology of man’s worth.

The full achievement of a theology of free persons is a huge task, demanding the most mature attitudes and actions. For most of us this is a reach always longer than our grasp for we do not always assert our freedom; again and again we fail the tests of self-discipline; we shrink from obvious applications of truth. Yet there are reasonable goals for us individual[ly]. In member socieities of our [?] we can add the sound of our ....