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Fortunately, there was a shift in the Unitarian mindset which pushed
our forebears from the mere intellectual, from the theoretical and
cognitive to the therapeutic and practical. This shift would assist
the American slave in years to come!
Nonetheless, as we move from the late 18th century to the 19th
century, you find that a post Revolutionary war mentality has taken
hold across America. The cry for freedom extended from the religious
toward the political and social. England was sent packing and this
new America, this Jeffersonian America, was free to express her
ideals. Yet, as Jefferson was conflicted so was the country. The
American slave was still not free. Many slaves were allowed to fight
in the Revolutionary War, and then had to go back to being enslaved.
Fortunately, there was a shift in the Unitarian mindset which pushed
our forebears from the mere intellectual, from the theoretical and
cognitive to the therapeutic and practical. This shift would assist
the American slave in years to come!
It happened in Boston (in the first quarter of the 1800's) where a
few select, educated folk who began to have deeper spiritual
insights emerged. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the pioneer of this group
and he began to see that there was something transcendent, something
beyond the form and fashion of traditional literal Christianity and
traditional literal Unitarian Christianity. He had studied Eastern
religion. He had spent time with nature and concluded that truth was
not found in dogma but found in the heart intuitively. By intuitive,
I mean with the senses. You find your truth naturally; not with
reason or biblical criticism, justifying this or that, rather you
have a sort of immediate understanding that transcends reason. It is
a very idealistic concept and very close to Buddhism's idea of
enlightenment or Taoism's explanation of the 'Way' or the pantheists
concept of God in all. Hear the words of Emerson: "We will walk on
our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own
minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each
believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all
men."
Transcendentalism comes to life. And there are others who impacted
this movement, particularly, Theodore Parker who wrote the
"Transient and Permanent in Christianity". Here, he argues that that
there are eternal, lasting truth's or 'permanents' in the faith,
like the 'Golden Rule', but there are also transients or temporary
things like creeds and affirmations of faith that pass away and must
be discarded over time as they are not needed. Parker, a
transcendentalist, would say he knows this right because he KNOWS it
is right. And if it is right to him, in his world of created ideas,
it is just because it came to him intuitively. This naturalism or
romanticism was taking the north by storm and it was guided by the
religious, political and social environment in America during the
years after the Revolutionary War and leading up the Civil War in
America.
So this Transcendentalism came in three parts and challenged early
Bostonians and others in the north in three ways. There were three
stories being played out. First, be free from the literal exegesis
of scripture. Second, be free as an American to express your
individuality. And third, we are free from England, we are free as
Transcendentalists from the religious dogma, therefore we are now
compelled by our freedom, to make all people free whether they are
in mental or physical bondage. This is what I call the
transcendental trilogy.
Regarding the first point that we are free from the literalism,
Emerson and Parker and Henry David Thoreau, William Ellery Channing
(all graduates of Harvard Divinity) and there were others, who began
to see that God was beyond 'The Book'. God transcended the
scriptures and was found within and in all things. Jefferson had
created the Jeffersonian Bible where he pulled out the miracles, the
supernatural and looked at the works of Jesus only seeing him as the
great ethical teacher and moral example for humanity. The
transcendentalists went even further: truth is beyond the literal!
This became a threat to established Unitarianism and Protestantism
as you can probably tell, and is historically known as the Unitarian
Controversy.
Emerson's thoughts have prevailed today when we look at our faith
which is a conglomeration of many religious traditions. I would say
that we are neo-transcendentalists today. Nonetheless, this was the
first story being played out in Unitarian circles in America. So
part one: YOU ARE FREE FROM RELIGIOUS DOGMA AND LITERALISM.
Part two is closely related and I have alluded to it. If we find God
and truth not through reason and critique but naturally, that is,
the Oversoul, as Emerson would say, is over all and we are a part of
it. We are IT, in fact. Therefore, to know truth and goodness we
need only to look within ourselves. This is a radical statement of
individuality. Hear the words of Emerson again: "Let us learn the
revelation of all nature and thought; that the Highest dwells within
us; that the sources of nature are in our own minds. Within us is
the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal beauty, to
which every part and particle is equally related and the eternal
One." And today the Kantian and Emersonian ideology follows what we
call principle number four "A free and responsible search for truth
and meaning." Part two says YOU ARE FREE TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL AND TO
FIND TRUTH AND GOODNESS FOR YOURSELF.
Part three, you have raised your level of consciousness therefore
the higher aims of serving humanity call you forth. I talked about
slavery a few minutes ago. Well, in the 18th and 19th century
Unitarians worked tirelessly to free Blacks and women in America. We
know the stories of Theodore Parker who, although he had a negative
view of the American slaves' mental faculties, was a strong
proponent for their freedom. Parker believed that free will was
important and that a person, enslaved, a person in chains, in
physical bondage, could not be free to choose their own way and find
their truth. And morally, Parker felt that slavery, although
protected by many laws, was immoral to his worldview. He believed
this with such conviction that he kept a gun in his office and home
while harboring fugitive slaves. Parker was also a part of the
'Secret Six' who financially supported John Brown's raid at Harpers
Ferry, in West Virginia. An idea that would lead to the eventual
abolition of slavery!
This idea of self-reliance and self-development also moved many
female Unitarian Transcendentalists like Julia Ward Howe, who wrote
the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' to be one of the leaders of the
Women's Suffrage movement. Margaret Fuller, Susan B. Anthony and
others, worked tirelessly for the Rights of Women. They showed many
in that time how women had been oppressed historically and they
advocated equal status for women in all facets of society. Indeed,
transcendentalism in that day, gave rise to this bold individuality
in a women, in a very patriarchal time. And so, part three of the
trilogy is: WITH GREAT FREEDOM COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY
.
And so, there it is the, 'Transcendental Trilogy' which has its
roots in Greece and Europe and early America. One: YOU ARE FREE
FROM RELIGIOUS DOGMA. Two: YOU ARE FREE TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL AND TO
FIND YOUR TRUTH. Three: WITH GREAT FREEDOM COMES GREAT
RESPONSIBILITY.
I know this has been a bit of a lecture and a lot of information,
but if you haven't fallen asleep during my history lesson, you will
see that we are in a good place here in this church. The message
learned from our history is a message to all of us. That we are free
to, as Walt Whitman says, "look through our own eyes" that's what
our history reveals. It also tells us that we have a charge to keep.
We have a freedom to share. We have a legacy to follow. I don't know
about you, but I am convicted by what I know. I cannot sit idly by
today and let religions make exclusive about morality or mortality
without saying a word or two. I cannot sit on the sideline when
individual freedoms are jeopardized by public and private entities;
I cannot be silent when there are still so many in our world who are
not free to express their individuality. And so this story is a call
to you. It is a call to action; a call to be cognizant of the
sacrifice made by so many who came before us. And it is a call to be
thankful and responsible for the freedom we have as a Unitarian
Universalists and as human beings, as children of the universe. John
F. Kennedy said it well, "Freedom is indivisible, and when one
person is enslaved, all are not free!" But I think Viktor Frankel
said it better as I close:
"…everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of
human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of
circumstances -to choose one's own way."
Might we have the right attitude and choose the path that our heart
calls us to; the path that pushes us to work toward the religious,
political and social freedom for all on earth.
Thank you for you time this morning.
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