How My Affiliation With Unitarian Universalism Has Impacted My Life

June 13, 1993
Location Unspecified

Dorothy asked me to take 15 minutes to describe how Unitarian Universalism has impacted my life. Can’t be done – to do that subject justice, I would have to write a book. But I’ll try to give you at least some notion.

For four years of my life I was a Unitarian; 47 years as a Universalist; 32 years as a Unitarian Universalist. I was brought up in a Universalist church; taught Sunday school while still in high school; at age of 16 I was Youth Sunday preacher to a large congregation who were most kind to my youthful and brash extravagance of rhetoric. You see, that Universalist church was not only a shelter when I needed it; it was also a free forum where I could express radical ideas about religion without any necessity of leaving the church or being put down. In the 1920s to early 30s, that one Universalist church had five young men enter the ministry – Owen Whitman Eames, Wallace Fiske, Frederic Harrison, Robert Sterling, and a few years later, yours truly as one of the so-called “second career” people. Years later, while living in a southeastern Massachusetts town, I was recruited for the Universalist ministry by two students from Tufts Theological Seminary (Tufts was established by Universalists), but I went to St. Lawrence (also established by Universalists). I have been twice married; once (in pre-consolidation terms) to a Universalist and once to a Unitarian.

[CJW notes: There was an active youth group – which related to county; 200 turnout at monthly meeting; Potter; my one and only stay ... “the Valiant”; Fred & Al; CHM – Theol Dist Pres n Exec; I rebelled against the central authority of the UUA]

How has Unitarian Universalism impacted my life? What you see (and hear) is what you get. [CJW note: tear-jerker ballad - “You Made Me What I Am”]

But to add to that, one of the major ways that Unitarian Universalism has influenced me is that I learned to wrestle with the large questions of life: Who am I? What can I believe? What must I do? I was not always on top; my shoulders have been pinned to the mat often enough. But I have tried and still try to deal with the big ideas. Even though I am now a Unitarian Universalist, in the following remarks I will use the word Universalist, because, as mentioned, most of my life has been in Universalist churches. It is also my way of reminding persons that the neglect of Universalism, in many ways, ignoring half our heritage, pisses me off and is a constant temptation to wave goodbye. But I never claimed to be an unemotional creature. [CJW notes: ident. conv.; is a dis to a great heritage]

One of the ways I have learned to deal with the large questions could be condensed in the title of a pamphlet written by my friend, teacher, and fellow Universalist, the late Angus Hector MacLean, distinguished professor of religious education at St. Lawrence: “The Method is the Message.”

One of the most frequently asked questions of my life has been, “What do Universalists Believe?: The theological origins of Universalism – that all souls would be saved; there was no Hell into which sinners were cast forever – this theological basis did not have much relevance in the 20th century, because persons did not believe in Hell after death (there were sufficient hells on earth). [CJW notes: before ... television; the fund of ... small churches stopped preaching]

So, I would answer something like this: Universalists do not believe alike; in many ways we differ. The proper question is “How do Universalists arrive at their beliefs?” From where I stand, one can assume that a Universalist accepts the body of tested truth accumulated and continuously refined by the historian, the geologist, biologist, astronomer, physicist, social scientist, and practitioners of other authentic learned professions. The Universalist believes reason to be a guide, and validates propositions through experience and experiment. The Universalist places freedom and the worth and dignity of all persons as the highest values. The Universalist still looks with hope on the nature and destiny of the human venture, in spite of calamitous and cruel events.

[CJW note: all theologies to be an interpretation of experience, not a divine revelation]

Sometime about 1926-29, my minister, ... Milburn, placed in my hands an essay written by Professor John Erskine, then a distinguished professor of literature at Columbia University. I have never entirely forgotten it – the title was, “The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.” With provocative wit he wrote of the need to combine intelligence with other desirable qualities of life using as a text Kingsley’s lines, “Be good sweet maid and let who will be clever.” Erskine criticized the all-too-common attitude that there is division between goodness and intelligence. In Erskine’s words, “stupidity is regarded as first cousin to moral conduct and cleverness the first step into mischief, that reason and God are not on good terms with each other; that mind and heart are rival buckets in the well of truth, inexorably balanced, full mind, starved heart – stout heart, weak head.” [CJW note: This attitude prevails; egg-head, ivory-tower; liberals = minions of Satan]

Of course the intention of my Universalist minister was to impress on this teen-age rebel that the application of intelligence to religion is necessary. Can a religion for our time be anything but a thoughtful religion? Should not religion make sense? I may not be all that intelligent, but I try. Erskine was right – at least I think I have developed a “Nonsense Indicator” which works at least some of the time. Speaking of time – mine is up!