Sermons

“Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.”
~William Ellery Channing

READING ~ from William Ellery Channing's public faith by Jack Mendelsohn in UU WORLD, March/April, 2005.

To Channing, the spirit in liberal Christianity was a hunger for more freedom, more justice, more fairness, more inclusion, and more fulfillment for ever more people. He lifted his voice against slavery, strengthening the abolitionist cause. And he supported Horace Mann’s ideas for a revolutionary American approach to public education, Joseph Tuckerman’s ideas for the creation of a new American profession—social work among the victims of urban poverty—and some of the liveliest harbingers of early American feminism, including Elizabeth Peabody, a pioneer of early childhood education.

READING No. 592 The Free Mind

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842)

SERMON

A few weeks ago, the Sunday we celebrated Kay Hansen’s retirement as our Religious Educator, we shared one of only two pieces written by William Ellery Channing found in Singing the Living Tradition – our gray hymn book. That reading begins with the words “The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own …” A few of you mentioned to me then that you were unaware of this particular reading and that you found it refreshing and meaningful – and surprisingly relevant in our day.

The other Channing piece, we read just now – “I call that mind free which masters the senses, and which recognizes its own reality and greatness …”

Another message for our own day.

And so, today, I want to talk with you about William Ellery Channing.

I am reminded that it is too often only seminarians and religious historians who know much about the ancestors of our faith on whose shoulders we ride today and without whom we may never have come into our own as a distinct faith group.

What Channing preached in the beginning of the 19^th century during a time of religious division and deep mistrust about faith and the role of faith in both public affairs and personal spirituality was pivotal to the establishment of Unitarianism and remains extremely relevant for our circumstances today.

So, it’s time for a little history and a bit of contemporary application.

Channing was born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1780. He graduated at the top of his Harvard class in 1798.

By way of the briefest theological biography, I turn to Jack Mendelsohn and his article in UU World.

From the time he was called to the pulpit of Boston’s Federal Street Church, Arlington Street Church’s predecessor, in 1803, Channing provided the intellectual leadership of a burgeoning liberal movement within the Congregational churches of Massachusetts. In challenging his Calvinist peers to see reason and intelligence, tolerance and fairness, as qualities to be fostered in religious life, he laid the foundations for an emerging Unitarian movement. In teaching that we derive our ideas of God “from our own souls,” he opened the gates through which his younger Transcendentalist admirers passed.

Then, as now, liberals found themselves under attack. Channing and his fellow liberals were accused of being closet heretics whose faith and very sanity were questionable. Goaded by these attacks and at the urging of like-minded colleagues, Channing reluctantly agreed to set forth the tenets of this liberal faith. His Baltimore Sermon of May 5, 1819, embraced the Unitarian label; in print it became a runaway bestseller, stamping Channing as a prophet of a new spirit of freedom and reason in religion.

Remember, if you will, the timeline. Channing was born in 1780, graduated from Harvard in 1798, began his ministry in 1803, and delivered this sermon in 1819. He was not yet 40 years old. Let it not be said that 30-somethings cannot be leaders of a liberal movement that takes the country by storm and fires the hearts and minds of many. Of course, he had his detractors who were equally firm in their devotion to their Calvinistic Christianity and a different interpretation of the scripture and the place of faith in public discourse and works.

Let’s turn now to some important lessons in Channing’s 1819 sermon. And, I freely, though perhaps sheepishly, admit that I had not looked at the Baltimore sermon since seminary until now, and even now, I can only rather skim through it with the help of commentary from scholars better suited to its explication than I. The entire text, or an abbreviated version, are available on line at no charge for those of you who may be inclined to dive into the text more deeply.

I give you a taste of Channing in his own words from an abridged version created under the responsibility of Dr. Jan Garrett – written with the style and sensitivities of his time. Awkward to our ears and sensitivities, I ask you to listen with an open heart for the underlying truth and not get hung up on the language and images that today we rightly deem inappropriate.

The Bible and how to understand it.

[There is no] book [that] demands a more frequent exercise of reason than the Bible. ... [I]ts style nowhere [has] the precision of science or the accuracy of definition. Its language is . . . . glowing, bold, and figurative, demanding more frequent departures from the literal sense . . . than that of our own age and country, and [thus] demanding more continu[ous] exercise of judgment. -- We find . . . that [various] portions of this book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer . . . to the times . . . they were written, to states of society, . . . to feelings and [customs] which have passed away, and without the knowledge of which we are . . . in danger of extending to all times, and places, what was of temporary and local [value].

[W]e feel it our . . . duty to exercise our reason upon the Bible. . . , . . . to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature of the subject, and the aim of the writer, his true meaning; and, in general, to make use of what is known . . . for explaining what is difficult, and for discovering new truths.

. . . Deny us this latitude [in reading the Bible], and we must abandon this book to its enemies.

The worst errors, after all, hav[e] sprung up in that church, which [excludes] reason. . . and demands from its members implicit faith. . . . God has given us a rational nature, and will call us to account for it. We may let it sleep, but we do so at our peril. . .

The Unity of God

1 . . . we believe . . . that there is one God, and one only. . . . We object to the doctrine of the Trinity,

We . . . protest against the irrational and unscriptural doctrine of the Trinity. "To us," as to the Apostle and the [original] Christians, "there is one God, even the Father." . . . We challenge our opponents to [point out] one passage in the New Testament, where the word God means three persons . . . .

We believe that God is infinitely good, kind, benevolent, . . . good in disposition, as well as in act; good, not to a few, but to all; good to every individual, as well as to the general system.

The nature of human beings

We look upon this world as a place of education, in which [God] is training [us] by prosperity and adversity, . . . by conflicts of reason and passion, . . . by a . . . discipline suited to free and moral beings, for union with himself, and for a sublime and ever-growing virtue in heaven.

We believe that all virtue has its foundation in the moral nature of man, that is, . . . in the power of forming his temper and life according to conscience. We believe that these moral faculties are the grounds of responsibility . . . and that no act is praiseworthy [unless] it springs from their exertion

Among the virtues, we give the first place to the love of God. . . . But . . . we believe that great care is necessary to distinguish it from counterfeits. [Much that] is called piety [today he would say "spirituality"] is worthless.

We [regard those and only those as] pious . . . who . . . conform [in practice] to God's moral perfections . . . ; who show [their] delight in God's benevolence, by loving and serving [their] neighbor[s]; [their] delight in God's justice, by being resolutely upright; . . .

Respect for Religious Differences

I need not express to you our views on the subject of the benevolent virtues. . . . but there is one branch of benevolence . . . I ought not to pass over in silence, . . . I refer to the duty of . . . charitable judgment, especially towards those who differ in religious opinion.

An enemy to every religion, if asked to describe a Christian, would, with some show of reason, depict him as an idolater of his own . . . opinions, . . . shutting his eyes on the virtues, and his ears on the arguments . . . of his opponents, arrogating . . . all saving power to his own creed, sheltering under the name of pious zeal the love of domination . . . and the spirit of intolerance, and trampling on men's rights under the pretense of saving their souls.

we dare not assume infallibility in the treatment of our fellow-Christians . . .

Unitarian Christianity

We [Unitarians] have embraced [our positions] not hastily or lightly, but after much deliberation; and we hold [them] fast, not merely because we believe [them] to be true, but because we regard [them] as purifying truth, as a teaching according to godliness, as able to "work mightily" and to "bring forth fruit" in them who believe. That we wish to spread it, we have no desire to conceal; but . . . we wish its diffusion. . . because we regard it as more friendly to practical piety and pure morals than the opposite doctrines . . . because it recommends religion at once to the understanding and the heart

These, then, are the points I take as being most valuable for us today in understanding the legacy of our Unitarian branch of faith and its enduring relevance:

1. The scripture is a collection of the writings of men. Written in a particular social and religious context with a particular audience in mind.

Using reason and critical analysis, we may gather some truth and meaning for our own time from our interpretation of scripture.

2. The unity of God is certain. Nowhere in scripture or human experience is there any indication that God is three. The doctrine of the Trinity is nonsensical and harmful to the relationship between humans and the divine. Jesus is not God.
3. The nature of God is perfect Love.
4. The nature of human beings is imperfect love, not depravity. We are living to be perfected through our relationship with our loving God and by our actions that lead us toward justice and loving our neighbor. Our faith is demonstrated by our actions in the world.
5. It is our duty and responsibility to treat those of differing religious opinion or practice with respect.

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Reluctantly accepting the label of Unitarianism, Channing described his faith as “a rational and amiable system, against which no man’s understanding, or conscience, or charity, or piety revolts.” Although he did not wish to found a denomination, believing that a Unitarian orthodoxy would be just as oppressive as any other, he formed (1820) a conference of liberal Congregational ministers, later (May 1825) reorganized as the American Unitarian Association. (WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica)