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WHY I AM A UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST
by John T. Crestwell, Jr.
Oct. 3, 2004

“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost but now am found, blind but now I see.”

These very telling words were written by an Englishmen named John Newton in 1748.  Newton was in the shipping business and was a part of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  On May 10, 1748, his boat came upon a major storm and Newton, in fear, began to pray.  As the story goes, he began to feel calmer and assured, and by the time the storm subsided, Newton realized that his god helped him make it through to the end.  Later, Newton realized that not only was his spirit moved by the event but his consciousness was pricked. He was changed forever.  He eventually left the slave trading business and became a preacher…  A good story…

If you’ve read Newton’s words you feel the passion, you know the writer was moved by something.  You know, the author of the now famous hymn, was reborn in 1748.

I can relate to Newton, but in a different way.   I was reborn eight years ago and just three years ago, I found a place that accepted what I thought were strange beliefs.   I am not referring to a visit from a deity that told me what I am to do.  I’m not speaking about feeling like a wretch or some bad person needing a priest.  But I am referring to finding myself and finding the religion called Unitarian Universalism.  I had a great awakening.  I was asleep but I woke up and freshly rested, my eyes were able to focus on a faith that gave credence to my new religious philosophies…  I’ll get back to that, but I think it is important for us to remember that when we are physically born into a family, the mores and folklores of the family and culture are instilled into us.  And we don’t normally question, right away, the social and religious customs we get from them.   Most don’t.  Most of us just follow the conveyor-belt of life.  Your mom and dad did it you have to do it too.  This is the cookie-cutter version of life.  We all come into life, as John Locke put it “tabula rosa” –a blank slate, and our families and environments and our experiences fill us with ideas about God, nature and reality.  And then we live.  As we live and experience different things our awareness changes.  We find love.  We experience the pain of loss.  We win, we lose.  We experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  In that process, our innocence and naiveté, over time, are lost.  And I call this our first GREAT AWAKENING, when we see that life is not easy, that life is not cookie-cutter, and that many things we were told were flat out not true and done to protect our young fragile psyches.  You know, like Santa Clause…  I’m still upset about that one…  And from that day onward, we are not the same.  We are reborn in a sense, and must look forward not back as Betrand Russell suggested in the reading this morning.  It is the “happening” that changes us.     Something significant pricks our consciousness and we begin to question the things planted in us years before.  This is when we start moving to (what I always refer to as) that existential edge of life.  We begin to question our existence.  “Why am I here?”  “What is my purpose?”   It’s Rev. Don’s experience growing up in a school just integrated seeing his African American best friend killed (changed his worldview); it’s Dr. Chris Bell’s tours in Asia in the military (he realizes The Great Spirit has to be bigger than one religion’s exclusive claims);  it’s Emerson’s realization the God is beyond the dual and must be experienced naturally, intuitively, and not dogmatically or empirically; it’s John Wesley’s experience at Aldersgate where his heart was strangely warmed and he realized his religion was real to him; it’s Betrand Russell’s frustration with the English aristocracy and religion in general; and it was my frustration with a Christianity of my youth that more and more did not fit who I was becoming in my young adult years…  Yes, something pricks our awareness of life and we begin the search for answers to our quite complex questions.  The questions only lead to more questions but it is not the destination but the journey that calls us.  And as a seeker and a free spirit my thirst needed to be quenched.

In a real sense, we all start out philosophically and theologically lost and can sing in agreement with John Newton when he says, “I once was lost.”  But being “found” is something else.  Being found means you have moved beyond the adolescent ignorance of believing everything you hear, to a new reality where you are true to your own search for your personal truths and you are honest with yourself.  It means when we talk particularly about religion, you do not believe in something because someone told you it’s true but because it is what YOU really believe.  It means you are not religious because you are afraid of life, rather you are pious because it is heart-felt.  There is a difference.  That’s what Walt Whitman revealed to us in the reading for new members today.  He said in essence that you don’t have to look through mommy or daddy’s eyes; you don’t take my word for it either.  Your truth must be found by you.  You are the “master of your fate the captain of your soul.” “You shall listen to all sides,” Whitman says, “and filter them for yourself.”  Being found is not a destination but a journey.  The song Amazing Grace is poetry to me describing an inner peace that is discovered when we realize we are looking at things through our own eyes and being true to ourselves.

The ancient Gnostics said that there were three levels of interpreting life.  The first is literal.  What you see is what you get.  What you read in the Bible or Koran or Hindu Gita or Upanishads is what it is.  The second is allegorical or metaphorical.  Look for the moral of the story.   Look for the themes and symbols that convey a deeper message.  Look well beyond the literal for the heart of the message.  Then, third, when you GET IT; when you see beyond the prose and the poetry, you reach another level and the words live within you.  The final stage transcends the first two: you don’t need the Bible or any religious book any longer.  You live what you’ve read for now you have it and it has you and you are absorbed by it all.  This is the highest level of actualization for the Gnostics. And so, the Gnostics confirm what Whitman said because now you are “filtering for yourself.” 

I think this is why I like Bertrand Russell.  We heard from him this morning… Sinatra has a song, “I did it my way.”  Betrand Russell is a man who lived HIS WAY! Russell won the Noble prize for Literature in 1950.  He was a renowned philosopher, mathematician, essayist, and social critic.  He was an eclectic and broad thinker.  He died in 1970 but today he is very well respected as one of the great minds in English history.  But during his lifetime, as he did things “his way”, he was ridiculed quite often for his very bold stances and ambiguous theories.  He was an Agnostic who was anti-war, anti-nuclear and atomic weapons, and anti-Christianity.  One of his more popular books is Why I Am Not a Christian written in 1927.  Now, Russell also promoted the idea of polyamory (we’ve heard this before in small UU circles); that in an urban setting with large populations, committed relationships weren’t needed, and more conducive in rural environments.  Of course he had been married three times and had countless affairs so I’m sure this shaped his philosophy greatly.  And I have been told that in the 60’s in America many used his thoughts on relationships to promote the “Free Love” movement.  Some of you probably know what I’m talking about… But I digress don’t I… Anyhow, as a result of his convictions, particularly around war and disarmament, Russell was dismissed from jobs, jailed for his anti-war stances and banned from various religions institutions.  Here was a brilliant man and scholar, whose consciousness was pricked early on and he did it his way.  I like Betrand Russell because he was true to himself but above all else, he was a thinker and believed in the power of using one’s intelligence and not tribal instincts to solve problems.  I like what he said, “We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face and not be subdued by the terror that comes from it.”  And he argues that religion uses fear and becomes the “Opiate of the people” as Marx says.  But when you look through your own eyes and you don’t take things second or third hand, and you filter for yourself, you don’t live with that fear anymore.  You don’t preach hell, but hope and courage.  And you develop as Russell put it, “A fearless outlook and a free intelligence.”

Well here I am.  I shared with you that I was reborn eight years ago.  Most of you know what I am about to say but I say this for the new comers and visitors today…  I was a Christian fundamentalist from age 16 to 26.  From about age 27 onward, something began to fester and grow in me and I could not accept what I was learning religiously.  My mind was wrestling with all sorts of things.  I had studied Christianity in the Methodist church I was reared in.  I had done Bible studies with Jehovah’s Witnesses. But ultimately I thought my call was to be a Methodist minister, just like my eventual Father-in-law. In fact, in my first two years of college my nickname was Reverend.  Basically, I would give sermons in my Public Speaking class.  I got an “A” because I kept the students saying “Amen preacher.”

Slowly, as I began to wake up wiping the sleet from my eyes, metaphorically speaking, I began to ask lots and lots of questions.  The more I experienced, the hungrier I got for answers to my questions.   I began to see that my religion was not for me.  This became glaring for me in seminary.  The crazy part is I wanted to be a preacher but did not know where I could be one and still be true to myself.   I had moved from reading religious books literally to reading them symbolically and I began to understand the power of myth in culture.  What religion was there for me?  I began wondering if I was a theist, that is, was God personal to me any longer?  What religion was there that could allow me time to grow and the space to question?   I became more Agnostic believing in a Higher Power but not knowing what it does in life.  I began enjoying the Asian religions with their images of a universal deity for the many not an exclusive patriarchal deity for the few.  What religion could I participate in and be a minister too?  Am I insane?  We all want somewhere to be recognized and accepted and nurtured and loved.  We all need fellowship.  But where was I to go.  I didn’t go anywhere.  I went inward and began writing and spending a lot of time reading about varying philosophies.

It all came together for me when I was looking at a book by Leo Rosten, Religions in America.  My wife and I were taking turns reading up on various religions (Sharon evolved with me strangely enough).  She came downstairs (I was in my home office) and said, “This religion sounds like what you wrote about in your book…”  I read the seven principles of this faith and I could not believe what I was seeing.  I said, “THAT IS WHO I AM.  I THINK I’M LIKE THESE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS!”  I found this church and I haven’t been the same since.  The rest is history…

If you have your order of service, please turn it over.  Can we read each principle together?

Inherent worth and dignity…

1. We recognize that every person on the face of the earth has worth and value.  No matter your race or ethnicity, no matter your station in life.  You are a child of the universe and have the right to be respected.

Justice equity and compassion…

1. Yes, we believe that you must treat people as you wish to be treated.

Acceptance of one another and enc…

1. We believe that we are all seekers, all on a journey and we must be given space to grow and develop spiritually.

A free and responsible search…

1. Yes we are not all like-minded but we respect your place where you are because we know you are seeking, and “looking through your own eyes.”

Use of democratic process…

1. We believe that democracy in principle is brilliant, flawed in praxis, but when it operates at the highest level allows for the greater good to flourish.

The goal of world community…

1. We believe in Dr. King’s dream of the Beloved Community where all are not judged by their color or income but by their love and compassion for the spirit of humanity.

Respect for the interdependent web…

1. Lastly, we are all a part of the circle of life.  Humans are not master of the earth but the earth is our master and we have to respect the circle.  We are not separate from nature we are nature and must live in harmony.

 You see, this is why I am a Unitarian Universalist.  I found this place and found 7-principles which reflect the best of the American ideal.  I found seven-principles that held up the best of every religion.  Seven-principles that cut the fat off of religion; seven principles that got beyond creeds, and primitive out-dated rituals; it got pass those affirmations of faith and got right to the meat of what is important in the human experience, and for me, this is a very spiritual thing.  Seven-principles that allowed me to look at life not as wretched and flawed, but as a beautiful polyphony of sight, sound, color, motion and emotion; seven-principles that were not exclusive—“My way or the highway,” rather they embraced the whole humanity with all of its virtues and vices.  Seven principles that confirmed to me—I am a Unitarian Universalist and proud of it.

What about you?  If your heart has been strangely warmed by my message or if your consciousness has been pricked in some small or great way, you too are a Unitarian Universalist.  Thank you for your time this morning.

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