Universalism: Love's Winning Wit

by the Rev. Charles A. Gaines D.D.

A sermon delivered by Charles A. Gaines on March 11, 2007 in the West Valley Unitarian Universalist Church of Glendale, AZ

Some of you know that before 1961, the Unitarians and Universalists were separate American denominations dating from the early nineteenth Century. Since 1961 we are identified as Unitarian Universalists - a rather long, many syllable name.

Just three weeks before that happened, I was ordained into the Universalist ministry. Since then our ministers feel comfortable with this Unitarian Universalist name. I have never really felt comfortable identifying myself as a Unitarian Universalist because, for me, there are significant differences between the Unitarian and Universalist identities.

In addition, I carry with me some memories of and nostalgia for my Universalist heritage. And until those of us who remember back when die off, claims like that will continue to be made; only perhaps privately, because so few newcomers would understand.

When the consolidation occurred, the Universalist denomination was about one-half the size of American Unitarian Association. After merger, many people still identified themselves as Unitarian. There were so many more Unitarians and almost no Universalists in the western U.S., I felt left out of their circle. Similar, I suppose, to how women felt before the feminist movement changed the shape of our language that once used "man," "mankind" and "he" for all beings. Even today the media, when referring to Unitarian Universalists, often only use the work Unitarian, and I again feel left out.

This morning I want to talk about Universalism and mention some of the differences between Unitarian and Universalist identities.

One difference was referred to at the time when the two denominations merged. People would say that Universalists believe a loving God is too good to damn them, while Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned. That yhumor had more truth than many realized, for the humanist and scientist movements were more embedded in Unitarianism than in Universalism where naturalism was more prevalent.

Universalism, in its earliest theology - the one dating back to the early Church Fathers in the Christian church - is the belief that everyone will be saved. This idea was promoted by such Catholic church leaders as Tertillian and Clement of Alexandria. Both these men, unlike other Christian leaders at the time, believed in universal salvation. And for a while, the idea was openly debated in the Christian church. Then at the 5th General Council in 553, universal salvation was condemned as a heresy.

Centuries later, during the Reformation, the idea of universal salvation re-surfaced within the Anabaptist movement in Europe. And once again, it was condemned; this time by Zwingli and Calvin, two of best known Reformation leaders. Their influence was widespread. In 1648, for example, the English Parliament passed a law condemning the concept that "all shall be saved". A few years later here in America, a Joseph Gatchell of Marblehead had his tongue pierced because he had declared that all men should be saved.

One profound difference between Unitarians and Universalists has to do with their culture. It can be seen in the story about how Universalism began in America. John Murray who is called the founder of Universalism in America, arrived from England in 1770. Before leaving for America, Murray had been a preacher connected with George Whitefield's Tabernacle in London. George Whitefield was an important evangelist, a Methodist whose visits to the American colonies resulted in several awakenings. While serving at Whitefield's church, Murray met a Joseph Relly, who had written a treatise on Universalism, claiming that eventually, all people are saved. Murray began identifying himself as a Universalist. This confession resulted in his being dismissed from Whitefield's temple. Soon afterward his wife was taken ill and died. Then he was imprisoned for his debts. After His sister-in-law obtained his release, Murray was so shaken by these events that he decided to abandon his ministerial career and begin a new life in America.

So the story begins when the brig "Hand-in-Hand" - on its way to New York - gets lost in fog and becomes grounded on the New Jersey coast. Before proceeding, the tide and headwinds needed to shift in order to free up the ship. Murray goes ashore and there meets a woman cleaning fish. He inquires about buying some, but the woman refuses to sell him any. Instead, she sends him to a house down the road. Murray arrives at the house and notices that a church had been built next door. He meets a man named Thomas Potter. Potter invites him to remain the night.

Potter describes himself as being unable to read or write. But he had listened to Scriptures and he had decided that God was a great, good being. This discovery led him to invite any traveler who was a preacher to conduct services in the meetinghouse he had built next door. Potter told Murray that one day God would send him a preacher who "was a different stamp from those who have heretofore preached here" Someone, Potter said, "who believed that all mankind are equally dear to Almighty God."

Potter then claimed that a voice told him the preacher he's been waiting for would be arriving on that very brig that brought Murray to his shores. Murray told him that was impossible. He would leave as soon as the winds change and, anyway, he was no longer a minister. But Potter persisted. Murray to appease the old man, agreed to preach on the next Sabbath if the winds hadn't changed by then. Potter replied, "The wind will never change, sir, until you have delivered to us, in that meeting-house a message from God."

I cannot imagine a story such as this arising out of the reasonable Unitarian perspective. There are many humble stories of common folk in the history of Universalism, and I offer it as one primary difference between Universalism and Unitarianism. Universalism evolved from common, working class people. Many Universalists had been Methodists or Baptists before they became Universalists. On the other hand, Unitarianism was embedded in a more refined, educated and prosperous group. They came out of the Puritan church that was made up of the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. When it expanded beyond Massachusetts, it included such intellectuals as Thomas Jefferson, while in England it included Newton, Carlyle, and Joseph Priestley who discovered oxygen. Priestley fled from England after a mob burned his home. He came to America and established the first church in America to be named "Unitarian". Such people, I am sure, would take no comfort in such a story describing Murray's arrival in America.

I spent seventeen years of my ministry serving an established church in Framingham, Massachusetts, some twenty miles outside Boston. It was organized in 1701. It became Unitarian in 1832. It was located in the very center of the historic part of town, at the head of the town common. The fourth Meeting House burned down on Easter Sunday in 1919. It was replaced by a beautiful Georgian colonial building. Its steeple contains the old Paul Revere bell that was purchased for the 3rd Meeting House in 1801.

The First Parish in Framingham, as it is called, is located in the section of Framingham where higher income families live. Many of the older members graduated from Harvard, and some are related to old Boston families: a Cabot, a Howes, Greeleys and Bowditch. Once I was told by one older member who grew up in the Brahman Boston society that she had no problems with the Irish when they were moving into Boston. "Why," she said, "they made good servants." It is the established church, and while it is different now than it was once in colonial times, certain tendencies remain.

I wish I had more time to tell you about John Murray, this founder of American Universalism. Suffice it to say that the winds did not change, so Murray preached his first sermon in America in New Jersey. It was about universal salvation, and Potter so embraced him that Murray decided to return to his ministry, but this time as a Universalist. He went on become an itinerant preacher and evangelist for Universalism. He settled for a while in Gloucester, Massachusetts where, under the patronage of Winthrop Sargent, a prosperous ship captain who had read and taken an interest in Relly. Sargent helped form the Universalist Church in Gloucester, recognized as the mother church to Universalists. His ministry there was often taken up in legal struggles against the prevailing orthodox opinion and the established church, which a few years later would be identified as Unitarian. In 1783 he filed suit with the Supreme Judicial Court challenging the law that required every resident to pay taxes to the established church. The court ruled in his favor. This decision ended the Puritan church-state control that Puritans had since Boston was first settled. He also broke through the barrier where only ministers of established churches could serve as chaplains in the Revolutionary Army. Murray later moved to Boston, serving a new church that was founded for him.

Murray believed in the form of Universalism that is called Restorationism. Restorationism simply means that people will be punished for their sins after death, but at some inevitable time, their souls would be saved. No one is condemned to a hell that lasts forever.

The next generation of Universalists, lead by, Hosea Ballou, believed that everyone at the moment of death is saved. They claimed that the consequences of sin manifested themselves in this life only. Death removed temptation and sin as possible courses of action. The two theories were debated for some fifty years. Indeed, at one time Hosea Ballou preached at Murray's church when Murray was out-of-town. Following his sermon, Murray's wife had the usher announce that the doctrine presented this day is not the doctrine recognized by the congregation.

Despite the differences, when the denomination was formed, a freedom clause was written to assure that no one who claimed to be a Universalist would be ostracized from the faith.

In 1805 Hosea Ballou published "The Treatise on Atonement". In it he rejected the doctrine of the trinity as unscriptural and irrational. What makes this book significant is the fact that Ballou openly rejected the Trinity some fourteen years before the Unitarians did. To be sure, there were many closet Unitarians in New England at this time. But it was not until 1819 that the Unitarian, William Ellery Channing, publically identified himself and others as Unitarians. Channing is known as the Father of Unitarianism in America, and that famous Baltimore sermon entitled, "Unitarian Christianity" began the split between Unitarians and the more Orthodox Christians in New England.

It is remarkable that Channing is remembered far more for promoting Unitarianism than Ballou is. But, of course, Channing, was someone who counted. He represented the established church; the church attended by professional, educated, upper social classes of people. Channing had graduated from Harvard, after all. Ballou was not formally educated. He came off the farm to become a preacher. Universalists were often known for their rural, back-woods nature. They were less educated, further down on the social ladder. They approached truth by using common sense, rather than academic learning. In the early days, a number of Universalists were sailors who traveled around the world. They knew that Muslims and Hindus were not evil people. They had met and experienced them living in their own cultures. This experience convinced them that God would not condemn these people to hell simply because they hadn't heard of Jesus Christ.

In the next century, Universalism evolved beyond concepts of heaven and hell. It embraced a larger vision that included the idea of one world, one humanity, an empathy for all the world religions, the unity of all nature, as well as the solar system, the common ground including all the prophets and teachers of humanity who serve as our resources for religious insight and wisdom. These were radical ideas in the last Century. They still are.

It took over one hundred and fifty years for Unitarians and Universalists to feel comfortable enough with each other to form a single religious association. An example of what had to be overcome is illustrated by how one Universalist in the 1800s described Unitarians:

The Unitarians are nothing more than a fashionable kind of deists, believing, perhaps, more in "The God of the statute," than in any other God destined from nature...

Unitarians felt as suspicious. One recorded incident describes how a Unitarian minister in Boston, on seeing a Universalist minister approach him from down the street, crossed to the other side, in order to avoid having to greet him. In an article in The Christian Register magazine a Unitarian described Universalists this way:

We will not disguise our belief that the multitude who embrace these doctrines embrace them because they are so congenial with the debased and perverted feelings of their corrupted and depraved hearts; because being a religion without sanctions, it lays no restraint on their vicious propensities and passions, and their impure and depraved habits...

I leave it to you to formulate your own opinions. However, as a Universalist, I have often experienced these differences in the way people are welcomed into the coffee and other social hours of the congregation. I have visited over a hundred UU churches and in only a few have I met working class people who did not attend college. I am reminded of one woman who when told that a new members was a house painter, replied, "Oh, I don't know what I could possibly say to him at coffee hour."

Here at West Valley, it appears that you receive people who uphold different life styles, come from different social classes, and come at truth from different perspectives. I celebrate you for that. By and large, Unitarian Universalist congregations do not reflect America, either by race or class.

It saddens me to say how I remember Universalist churches of forty years ago in which the members represented a far wider cross-section of America than most of our Unitarian Universalist congregations today. In many ways our primary challenge as a religious group is not about sexism, racism, or homophobia, as many tell us it is, but rather classism.

There is one other difference between Unitarians and Universalists that I want to mention. When Hosea Ballou was a young minister, there were only a dozen or two Universalist preachers. By 1838 there were five Universalist churches in Boston alone, and a generation later, some forty-nine Universalist churches were located in Boston. By 1840 Universalists groups were found in every state and territory in the nation; some 700 societies and 311 preachers. Then during the next twelve years, the number doubled again, so that by the time Ballou died, it is estimated that there were 800,000 Universalists in America. That's about six time larger than the present Unitarian Universalist Association, and in a population ten times smaller.

Universalists were evangelists who were persuaded that their understanding of faith could radically transform the lives of people and the world. They were not ashamed to convert others to their way of thinking. Unitarians, on the other hand, were not so passionately inclined to proselytize. Many Unitarians were known in the literary and political circles of nineteenth century America, so they felt as if they had already arrived. What did it matter that so many others - those without status or education - were not represented in their churches. They had the power, glory and resources to influence society. History, however, is ironic. Today we are quite unknown. We convince ourselves that we should not ever tell anyone else what to believe, leading us to invariably tell no one what we believe.

Universalists do claim a few famous people. If you want an early American patriot, take Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and founder of the first hospital for the mentally ill in America. He is known as the Father of American Psychiatry. He was a Universalist. If you're looking for a colorful personality, think of P.T. Barnum, who once said "There's a sucker born every minute". He was a Universalist. He once proposed that his famous elephant, Jumbo, carry a banner inscribed with the words, "I am a Universalist" on its side. Now, that's evangelism. Others talked him out of it. Then there was Horace Greeley, whose newspaper was at that time the most influential one in America and who ran as a candidate for President. He was a Universalist. Some even claim that Abraham Lincoln was a Universalist - although he never joined a church; but neither did the Unitarian, Thomas Jefferson.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of Universalism is seen in its own demise. The population exodus from rural America, where Universalism was most prominent, only partly explains its rapid decline in membership in the past Century. Far more important was the fact that other Protestant denominations adopted the Universalist message. Go to many churches in Glendale and you can hear the Universalist message of a loving God preached from the pulpit. Indeed, American religious diversity affirms the idea that you can find God in every church (and temple, too), and what matters is not where you worship, but the kind of life you live: that's Universalism.

Oh, of course, there are still conservative and fundamentalist churches where hell and damnation are preached. But, in most churches, universalism is generally accepted. This was not the case two hundred or even one hundred years ago.

Today, I find that the basic difference between a Unitarian and a Universalist, even though we use the same name, comes from what is called epistemology. Epistemology is theory of knowing. So the difference between whether or not you are a Unitarian or a Universalist is reflected in how you come at or discover truth. Unitarians tend to be rationalists. Universalists tend to be impressionists. Unitarians tend to be deductive in their coming to truth. Universalists tend to be inductive in their understanding of life. Unitarians seek to educate people to high moral ends, believing that if people know the truth, they will do it. Universalists primarily look to the environment and relationships for high moral ends, believing that if the environment is healthy, people will do what's good for them. Today both identities form our denomination. But for me, I shall always be a Universalist.

So it is that I celebrate what Carl Seaburg once wrote about Universalism today.

...the Universalism of today says we must surrender all our old partialisms - those of nation and race and sex and creed which have kept us divided and estranged.

The Universalism of today says there are no special nations, only the one world in which we all live.
The Universalism of today says that there are no special races, only the one humanity of which we are a part.
The Universalism of today says that there are no special affections, only the one love we all share.
The Universalism of today says that there are no special creeds, only the one religion we all experience.
This is the affirming message Universalism has for people in today's world: one united world, one cooperating human race, one enriching love, one common religious impulse.

In my conversation with children, I mentioned the Universalist, Edwin Markham's poem in which he spoke of "love's winning wit".

For me Universalism is love's winning wit. It draws wide circles that move beyond whatever divides people and nations, separates humans from other forms of life and the earth from the solar system. I offer it to you this morning as an option in your search for a faith that makes a difference. Yes, you may call it Unitarianism - or Unitarian Universalism. And I, too, will draw a circle that takes everyone in. Still in my nostalgia, I'll whisper and call it Universalism. There I am. I can be no other.

God, if I worship thee in fear of hell,
Burn me in hell.
And if I worship thee in hope of Paradise,
Exclude me from paradise;
But if I worship Thee for Thine own sake,
withhold not Thine Everlasting Beauty,
whereever it is encompassed,
or however it shines forth.
Rabiah